Wherein Lies the POWER?

It occurs to me that it would be AMAZING if people actually recognized how much power they have to affect their own lives. You might wonder what brought that thought on. I think I'll let you in on it. So I was having a conversation with someone today (yes, I have conversations with people) and the person was telling me how horrible their day had been. Of course, being the incredibly supportive person that I am, I inquired, "Oh?" My conversational partner replied, "Yes! Absolutely awful!" Looking at this person, their facial expression, their body language, everything about them exuded awful and horrible. Of course you would think, seeing this, that something awful and horrible really had happened to them. As it turns out, this person had plans to go and see a movie this evening with a friend and had to change the time that they were going because of a conflict. I asked the person if the conflict resulted in them not having an opportunity to see a movie with their friend. The reply was,  "No, we'll still see the movie, but we're gonna have to see it later than I planned. It's just so annoying! I know this is just going to ruin the whole night!" My insightful and supportive response… "Hmm". 

So what occurred to me was if a person is saying such things to themselves as "this is awful, this is horrible, this is that than which nothing worse can be conceived!" (said in a very melodramatic voice), can we really be surprised that they start to feel like things are horrible, awful, or terrible? I wonder what would happen if we said different things to ourselves. I wonder what would happen if instead of filling our heads with this catastrophizing way of looking at events that occur in our lives, if we might feel differently.  If we might even feel better! So this brings me to the question, wherein lies the power? I contend that the power lies within ourselves. The way that we talk to ourselves goes a long way in determining how we feel and how we experience the world. We do such an amazing job of convincing ourselves that all these external events can determine how we feel. But I am convinced that those external events have no power to make us feel. We make ourselves feel in the way that we react to them.  I know, I know. That is an incredibly bold statement. So what. I'm standing by it.