Thrive – What does that mean to you? Here’s what I found online:If someone or something thrives, they do well and are successful, healthy, or strong. He appears to be thriving. Today her company continues to thrive. Synonyms: prosper, do well, flourish. Is honesty important to you? When I was a teenager, I started thinking a lot about honesty. I realized it’s complex. As a younger person, I thought honesty was black and white. You were either an honest person or you weren’t. I thought you were either telling the truth, or you were lying. Then I started rethinking the whole honesty thing, and began to see that it’s not cut and dried the way I had previously thought. For one thing, if you don’t have a concept of right and wrong, is honesty even a concept you can understand? I would say no to that question. I’d look at my dog and think, Sadie lives in the moment, she doesn’t judge, she doesn’t lie, she doesn’t tell the truth, she doesn’t worry about being honest, because honesty isn’t a concept that an animal could understand. Well, humans have different concepts of honesty too. What about children? A young child is operating in a completely different sphere compared to that of an adult. Their brain isn’t developed and concepts like honesty, being dependable, emotional maturity, those are all going to be developed later as the child gets older. For true honesty, we need to look inward. Are we being honest with ourselves? Am I just kidding myself when I say I’m going to read that book today, and then the day ends, and I haven’t read anything? Keeping promises to yourself is a great way to build your own credibility. The promise can be as simple as, “I’m going to pay a bill today” or “I will go for a walk around the block today”.   Listen & Subscribe on: iTunes / Stitcher / Podbean / Overcast / Spotify I Respect You Once you keep your promise, you’re saying to yourself, “I respect you, I believe in you enough to keep my promises”. Keeping promises to yourself can help your mental health too. It can help keep you mentally fit and strong. Have you experienced your emotion when you didn’t keep a promise to yourself? If you’re like me, it felt like energy leaving my body, like a sinking feeling. A little like being sucked into quicksand. That’s because if you don’t keep one promise to yourself, your subconscious mind will wonder if you can be trusted at all. It starts to question everything you think, everything you decide you want to do. There’s now a big question mark there.   Cementing That Pattern Back, almost a month ago, on June 20th, I published an episode called, Attachment Theory and Mindfulness. In that episode I talked about keeping promises to yourself and I said that it’s important to keep your promises to yourself. If you heard that episode, you’ll remember that I explained, ‘this is why a lot of people can’t lose weight, quit smoking, or give up alcohol.’ If broken promises are a pattern in your life, then every day, every week, every month you’re cementing that pattern and making it reality. The same problems, the same broken promises, and the same discouraging let downs keep happening over and over. Broken Promises When we start struggling with broken promises like this, the battle is between the conscious and subconscious mind. This is a common struggle for a lot of us, and sometimes we don’t realize that’s what’s holding us back. I talked about the challenge I call MindMode73. It’s 73 days of keeping a promise to yourself. How are you doing? Did you jump on-board and make a challenge to yourself that you’re working on for 73 days? I’ve received emails from some of you, Mindful Tribe, telling me that you took the challenge and you’re headed toward day 73. I mentioned that you can easily find your goal date by typing into Google, “what is the date 73 days from now?” Running In The Rain I didn’t tell you that my goal date was July 15, but that was it, just two days ago, so I’ve reached my goal on this cu