I recently began reading a book about how to better help your child’s brain develop. I’ve only finished the first chapter, but I wanted to relay a concept that very much applies to Define My Day and how you may be using it.
The River of Well-being
The river of well-being is a concept that when a person is healthy, they are traveling down a calm river. Naturally, on each side is a bank. One riverbank is the bank of chaos. Get too close and you risk upending your boat. It’s a place of turbulent water and dangerous rocks. This bank represents emotional upheaval, rage, and a lack of self-control.
On the other side, is the cold, dead bank of rigidity. Get too close to this bank and you risk getting stuck in a mess of rotting branches or mud. This bank represents being inflexible, trying to control too much and manage what is unmanageable.
Neither bank is a safe place. Very often we can bounce between banks, never able to travel down the river in a healthy way.
The goal is to travel down the river of well-being each day. There are times we may begin to approach one, or both, of the banks. But the sooner we identify the turbulent waters of chaos, or the stinky dead waters of rigidity, the better we are able to navigate the river safely.
How This Applies to Define My Day
I look at Define My Day as book that fulfills three …….
- A checklist to ensure we are prepared for today’s journey.
- A guidebook to help us stay on the path.
- A log to document our travels and help us understand success and struggle.
When we use Define My Day, we prepare for the day so that we can bring our most healthy selves to any situation and prepare for potential dangers.
We map out our journey so we steer clear of the chaos that pulls us in every direction.
We learn to avoid wasting our time on tasks that lead us in the wrong direction or tangle us up in the muck, preventing us from moving at all.
Finally, we look back on our progress to learn from our experience so that we can better navigate the river tomorrow.
DO NOT try to use Define My Day as a map of the bank of rigidity! Being rigid, stiff, and unbending is not living.
Do use Define My Day to navigate the river so that you stay as close to the middle as possible. Able to notice when you get too close to chaos or rigidity so that you can paddle back to center to continue your journey down the river of well-being.
