i think i can

I had a breakthrough swimming on Wednesday when at one point I felt my chest tightening and my body straining and I simply told myself to relax. In the space of a single stroke I felt my stamina and speed increase. Whether we send out the mental message of, "This is impossible. I can't do this, This is dangerous. I need to be afraid," or "I can do this. I'm safe. This is fun." is a choice we make. We choose our perspective. Our perspective, where we look from, is an internal aspect having to do with where our minds are, not where our bodies are.

And changing that perspective makes an incredible difference. Swimming against the water is hard enough. Swimming against my body makes it unnecessarily even harder. Fortunately, our bodies respond to our thoughts. When faced with challenges in life we can actually make them easier simply by thinking them so.

This doesn't mean there aren't dangerous situations in life beyond our control, or that we aren't sometimes truly faced with insurmountable challenges. But sometimes the difference between impossible and possible is simply subtracting the negative factor of our own mental and bodily resistance.