I'm reading this book for my business called Conversations with...The Greatest Networker in The World by John Milton Fogg. Its basically a set of conversations that are supposed to help network marketers through the ups and downs of the business and help the understand what they are doing and how to do it. But what really caught my that I feel is relevant to my last post is this little experiment in the first chapter. First you must think of something distressing or some upsetting thought that always gets you rallied up, something that makes you doubt yourself or others or even an unpleasant situation at work. Once you have gotten that thought in your head, you ... drum roll please... Smile. Go ahead just smile. How do you feel? Much happier eh? That's because the muscles that you use automatically send a signal to your brain, producing a chemical that fools your brain into thinking that you are actually happy. You see... and this is fascinating... your brain can hold both negative and positive thoughts at the same time. Neat eh? So I Tried this little experiment this morning and here is how it went. I woke up really early today even though yesterday I went to bed late which means already I was naturally grumpy. On top of that I couldn't go back to bed because the contractor that is doing the renovations had to be let in at 830 this morning and there was no one home except me. Boohoo I know. I put on sweats and a sweatshirt over my pjs and waited so that once hes here, I can shower in peace without worrying that I might miss him. 830 passes and there is no sign of him. Then its 9, 930, 10, 1030, and tada hes here. My mood by this point has just hit the ceiling, I was ready to pound the pretty new wall. And then just before I opened the door, I caught my reflection in the mirror, I looked beat and hostile. There was soo much icky anger that I didn't know what to do with it and then I remembered the experiment and just smiled. Boom. My emotion just skyrocketed and I felt like the rest of the day was no biggy. When I discovered that the ceiling that was painted white had huge yellow spots all over it and I started to worry that the contractor would have to re-do it and that it was I who was going to tell him, which meant not only was he going to get upset but my move in date would have to be postponed from today to Saturday. The feeling of dread started to resurface especially because I am a big chicken when it comes to telling Big men what to do. You know what I did? I just smiled. That dreaded feeling dulled down enough for me to muster the courage to tell the guy that he still has tonnes of work left and he better start with the ceiling but instead of using the dreaded angry feeling inside of me, I used the smiling one I acquired. I figured if my smile can calm me down and make me work, will it work on others? The verdict came down to Yes it can!!! I also used the same smile when dealing with the Bell technician. Instead of wallowing how the phone has been on and off, how it keeps trying to dial 911 and then hang up so much that we have police knocking on our door, how the Bells customer service guys are soo unhelpful and rude, how they hang up because they understand that they are rude and would not give their names or id numbers so they could be reported, instead of thinking all that or letting me continue further, I put on my 1000 watt smile and suddenly felt better. My smile also brought on a genuine response form the technician that was late. He apologised a billion times and called his supervisors just so that they could make an investigation, and on top of that he rewired everything and called another specialist to take a look at the ground wires tomorrow. All the while telling me that he was sorry and telling me that if there ever was a problem again that we should contact him through bell and he gave me his id number. Isn't that nice. One little smile and problems seem to fix themselves. So all that happy feeling let me see the day just a bit more lovelier and I started noticing the spider that has made itself a home between the grill and the flowers in less than an hour. I took a picture of the giant bumblebee, and I did my chores with a little more pep in my step so much that when hanging my laundry outside I had the bright idea of documenting it with my camera. I loved the way my gold princess drapes flowed in the wind. I decided that if I can use my new found technique on everyday dreaded things is it possible to use it to over come fear? Say a fear of baking? Now I confess, I chickened out in baking brownies yesterday! I had a bad experience when I was younger. The apple pie turned out just pure salt and the yule log rum cake was just a charred mess which my family still ate. Watching their faces was horrific. And on top of that I almost burned the kitchen down with my baking wax paper that supposedly you're not suppose to put in the oven. Go figure. It said baking! Arg! After that I never baked anything sweet again. So as you can see my fears are superficial but still fears. But I have decided to over come them. Tomorrow after learning how to fix my car, I hope to apply the same smile to my baking brownies and hopefully just as responsive as the two workers and my thoughts have been, my brownies will sense my smile and turn out to be normal, tasty morsels of food. Fingers crossed! I hope I will one day be able to fill the kitchen with sweet smells of baked goods. And now I feel it is only fitting to leave you with a cooking quote...
“ When we decode a cookbook, every one of us is a practicing chemist. Cooking is really the oldest, most basic application of physical and chemical forces to natural materials" - Arthur E. Grosser
