Take Control of Your Thoughts

Mitch Arnold • January 5, 2025

Driving to the gym the other day, I caught myself thinking about a former client who inexplicably quit returning my calls. That led me to thinking about a former employee who started a competing business, which led me to thinking about an ex-girlfriend who broke my heart more than 30 years ago. In just a couple of minutes, my mind was swirling with negative thoughts about people who have let me down.


Why?!? What good was any of that doing for me? One small, negative thought had sparked an inferno which threatened to obliterate any positivity lurking in my mind. I had a choice to make – change what I was thinking about or risk ruining my day, or at least part of it. That was obviously a pretty easy choice, but there was a time when it wouldn’t have been. I would have ceded my day to whatever thoughts crossed my mind. That was before I learned about the power of mindfulness.


At its most basic, mindfulness is simply being aware of what you are thinking about in the moment. Mindfulness becomes more advanced when it’s used as part of a mental process to evaluate those thoughts and control them for psychological benefit. It is particularly useful when your mind grabs hold of negative thoughts and refuses to let go.


In my experience, negative thoughts are insidious, opportunistic, and often more aggressive than positive thoughts. They will catch you in a moment of weakness, and quickly amplify before you are even aware of what they are doing. Whereas positive thoughts seem fleeting and easily lost, negative thoughts can be direct, intense and sometimes difficult to shake.


If left uncontrolled, negative thoughts seem to multiply and intensify, like a relentless virus. They will squash your inner peace, kill your enthusiasm and sap your energy.


That’s where mindfulness comes in. You can’t control negative thinking until you become aware of its presence in your mind, and we’re often unaware of it. We might just feel depressed or irritable, and point the finger at external circumstances, when our thoughts are really to blame. When we catch ourselves feeling that way, we should take a minute to consider what’s on our minds and if those thoughts merit the energy we’re devoting to them.


In my case, with the unresponsive client, I had already examined the possible causes of the lack of responsiveness, and had come to peace with the reality that I’ll probably never know the reason. I had also reassured myself that I had done nothing wrong, so why devote any more energy to the situation? The thoughts about the former employee and ex-girlfriend were similar; I had already given them enough of my energy, and thinking about them was going to bring me nothing but negativity.


Now aware that negative thoughts were flooding my mind, I focused on getting rid of them and replacing them with positive thoughts. I looked through my windshield at the unseasonably warm winter weather, and was purposefully grateful for the opportunity to be on my way to the gym for the exercise my body needed. I thought of the good things in my life, like my family and experiences with friends. As I did so, I felt tension that I had been unaware of leave my body. All because of mindfulness.


Consider using mindfulness the next time you feel negativity taking over your mind. Take the time to consider what you are thinking, and, if needed, change it to optimize your day. You will be glad you did.


“Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.” ― Lao Tzu

Growing Through Difficult Times

By Mitch Arnold • October 19, 2025
A couple of Saturdays ago, I found myself smiling and nodding, as my eyes welled up with tears of sadness. I was among friends I hadn’t seen for a long time, and I had a beer and a Philly cheesesteak in front of me, yet I was engrossed in stories of incomprehensible agony and triumph. It was a powerful juxtaposition, the kind you don’t easily forget. Lynda and I were at a charity event that we attend almost every year. The event is called Glow Gold, and its intent is to raise money for childhood cancer research. It’s one of many events held by Sammy’s Superheroes, an organization founded by one of my former students whose son Sammy is the namesake. For most of the event, the mood was joyful, with music playing and children running around in bounce houses and having their faces painted, while adults enjoyed conversation, music, and good food and drink. The vibes were so casual that it was easy to forget the purpose behind the event, until the speakers took the stage. These brave souls are typically parents, and they are there to share their stories of going through a cancer battle with their children. As a parent, and now grandparent, I don’t even want to think about childhood cancer and what these families have experienced. I imagine that the speakers felt the same way, and would rather be sitting in the crowd with me, and not reliving their pain in front of strangers. Yet, there they were. The first speaker was a young father with several children who only briefly attended the event, as he was busy with his children’s activities that night. He reminded me of myself several years ago, when I was busy with my own young children, except that I didn’t have a four-year-old in a fight for his life, a fight that had already cost him one of his legs. Next on stage was a mother who had struggled to have children, only to have her two-year-old die in her arms as she sat outside with him on a sunny summer morning. Her description of the experience was so vivid that it was easy to imagine – too easy for an empath like me. While both stories were sad and incredibly heart-wrenching, they were also oddly uplifting. Both parents spoke of how their children inspired them to become better people. They shared how their experiences, though they wished that they hadn’t had them, enhanced their appreciation of life, love and family. They no longer take time for granted, and they’ve learned that the trivial things that challenge us really aren’t that important. They have managed to grow, despite suffering from trauma that few of us will ever experience. These families are prime examples of something I have recently begun studying, Post-Traumatic Growth. Post Traumatic Growth (PTG) is a theory, developed by psychologists Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun, that suggests that not all reactions to trauma are negative. In fact, they conclude that mild to moderate trauma often leads to positive psychological changes, such as stronger resilience, heightened empathy, renewed appreciation for life and more meaningful relationships. PTG epitomizes the human spirit, and seeing that in these parents had me smiling and nodding. No one wants to experience trauma, yet despite our best efforts to avoid it, trauma can still find us and impart devastating effects, some of which we may never recover from. Still, like these parents who have experienced the unthinkable, we can come out on the other side as better people. PTG gives us hope that this is possible.  Focused on the social aspect of the event, I hadn’t readied myself for the emotional labyrinth that my mind was suddenly navigating while listening to speakers that Saturday night. The smiles and nodding happened, when my thoughts finally caught up with my emotions. Even through the most trying times, we can grow and improve, if we’re receptive to the learning that challenges can provide.

It's Been Years

By Mitch Arnold • July 27, 2025
When I was a kid growing up in Loup City, I went to Ord at least once per month to visit my grandparents and other relatives, and it wasn’t a trip that I was always eager to make. It wasn’t that I disliked seeing my relatives, but there were other things that I would have rather been doing. I sure couldn’t imagine making that trip on my own volition, but that’s exactly what I did a couple of Saturdays ago. My grandfather has been gone for more than 40 years now, and grandmother, more than 20. I can still remember them vividly, as well as their house and the heaping bowls of fudge and caramel covered ice cream I enjoyed in their kitchen as I listened to Grandpa tell stories between drags on his unfiltered Pall Mall cigarettes. Though I resisted those trips as a kid, if given the chance now, I would love to make one more visit, but time has moved on, and all I have are the memories. I’m a grandpa myself now, and that has given me a new perspective on the fleeting moments that we enjoy with loved ones. Years pass quickly these days, and with each new calendar we pin to the wall, we lose touch with people and places from our past. New people and places come into our lives, and we push aside the past to make room for them. While some of that is necessary and a part of life, I think that it’s also important to stay in touch with our roots. “How long has it been since you’ve seen your uncles?” my wife asked as we began the three-hour trip from Omaha to Ord. “It’s been years,” I replied. We don’t have the family reunions like we used to, and because travel becomes difficult or impossible for older people, we don’t have the opportunities we once had to cross paths with them. If we’re going to see the people and places from our past, we have to make an effort to do so. That’s what I was doing on that Saturday morning. My hometown of Loup City is only a 30-minute drive from Ord and just slightly off the route between Omaha and Ord, so I also took the opportunity to tour the town I hadn’t seen in more than a year. I drove the sleepy streets I once roamed on my bike. I went past the church I attended through childhood, as well as the home I grew up in and the home where my maternal grandparents lived. I stopped at my grandfather's grave and symbolically shared a beer with him. After lunch at the marina at the lake just outside of town, where I spent many summer afternoons boating with my family, I headed to Ord, driving past my aunt and uncle’s farm that I hadn’t seen in more than a decade. The Ord visit with my uncles was brief, but more rewarding than I had imagined. The laughter, smiles and stories were so familiar that it was hard to believe that it had been years since we had seen each other. I even bumped into three cousins that I hadn’t seen in years. As we headed back to Omaha, I thought about those childhood visits that I once resisted and began to appreciate why my parents insisted that we make them. Time is fleeting and waits for no one, but we can’t get so caught up in the present that we forget the past and the people and places that helped shape us into the people we are. If you have been thinking about the people and places from your past, take that as a sign that you need to visit them. Don’t just wait for the next opportunity, make that opportunity happen. You will be glad that you did.