There’s a wonderful cartoon by Gary Larson depicting two mosquitos on the skin of a human and one of the mosquitos has her sucker in her victim's arm and her body is swollen up like a balloon that’s ready to pop. The other mosquito says, “Pull out! Betty! Pull out!!! You’ve hit an artery!”
Most of us know that learning lessons from illness is a must if we want to grow spiritually.
During my illness, which turned out to be a virus that had to run its course, I really learned a valuable tool for mind control. I noticed that when I’d start to entertain scary thoughts (mainly of dying) it was like dipping my toe into a stream of thought that if I allowed myself to go there, I’d get swept away in fear.
That’s when the image of Gary’s mosquito cartoon came to me. So whenever I’d start to think a negative thought that could go into a rushing stream of more negative thoughts, I’d say to myself, “Pull out! Betty! Pull out!!!”
So far it has stopped me every time and made me giggle! It was great to put such humor to my situation and I know it aided in my healing. I love the name Betty for a mosquito and I love Gary for his incredible humor.
The interesting thing is that I’ve used Betty the mosquito for all manner of negative thought now that I'm well! When I start to get mad, sad, worried or any other such negative emotion, I immediately say, “Pull out! Betty! Pull out!!! Then I poke my sucker into an artery of joy, excitement, peace, or whatever positive artery I chose. It's amazing how much power we have to change our minds.
If we can practice pulling out before we get into deep doo doo, we can just sit back and watch our circumstances change in a good way as we stand guard at that doorway of our thinking.
I discovered that being ill is a great time to de-clutter even more than the regular surface de-cluttering we do every day. When you look at your stuff with "sick" eyes you really can question why you're holding onto anything you don't use regularly. I took a very serious look at the bookshelves in my office and I decided if I haven't looked in a book on my shelf in the last year, it's time for it to go. I did the same with CDs and DVDs.
I've always said there are some things in the home that reproduce when you're not looking, referring to jars, plastic shopping bags, twist ties, business pens and such, but I hadn't considered cassette tapes, CDs and DVDs. When those suckers had babies when I wasn't looking I realized that because of technology I'd left those babies in their little box nurseries unattended for years, when they could have been given to adoptive parents who could take care of them and use them.
Terry and I get all of our entertainment on the internet and our mass collection of DVDs of movies just sits, alphabetized on the shelves of our in home theater. Shameful. It took getting sick to realize what we were doing.
If you've got the flu, use some of the rest time to de-clutter what you are not using. You'll be serving yourself and those who can use what you aren't.
Here are some great ideas for de-cluttering your children's room. Just click on the House Fairy.
To really get a handle on getting organized be sure to get The Joy of Being Disorganizedand make 2017 the year you really do it!