Most of my life, I assumed I was locked into a certain personality – stressed, anxious, worried – but hey, I could not help it. That’s just who I was. Besides, my Type A personality kept me busy, productive and successful. I would surely be a wreck of a human being if I gave up my anxiety.

Then again, maybe not.

After I was diagnosed with postpartum depression, I tried cognitive behavioral therapy with a psychologist. We did not just eliminate my PPD symptoms. We kept working, even after I had recovered from PPD, and helped me become a much less anxious person.

Now I know that I am not locked into a high-strung, anxious personality. I can train my brain to become the person I want to be.

Lately, I’ve been working on the following areas of Brain Training:

• Gratitude. I try to practice gratitude daily. It always makes me feel good and warm inside.
• Abundance. Love is abundant. Success is abundant. There is enough magic and wonder to spread around for everyone.
• Embracing uncertainty as something good and magical.
• Being flexible with setbacks.
• Realizing nothing is automatically good or bad. Something that immediately seems like a setback may actually be a blessing in disguise.
• Compassion for others and myself.
• Breathe. Remember to breathe. How is it I have been alive for nearly forty years and paid almost zero attention to my breath?
• Mindfulness. Which is tricky to reduce to a bullet point. It’s one of those slippery words that can mean different thing at different times. I think. Maybe not. I’m learning!
• Acceptance of human limits, especially my own. Like right now, I’m tired, so I have to accept that my body needs a little rest.
• Discomfort is part of life. If I spend all my days trying to eliminate discomfort, then I’ll miss out on the magic of life.

I think I’ll try to use these bullet points to write some more detailed blog posts over the next several weeks.