It’s the middle of the week.

No fires to put out at work, bills paid on time for a change, plus - you and your sweet thing are on solid ground.

But then why…

Why are you panicking?

Why can't you just settle into this warm bubble bath of a week, play with your rubber ducky and enjoy Tub Life?

You wonder if there’s something seriously wrong with you.

But Here's the Thing

If you’re being honest, this shouldn’t come as a surprise.

As far back as you can remember, you’ve existed on the corner of Chaos and Crisis.

Your default setting is braced for impact with peace feeling more like an alarm than relief.

GIVE PEACE A CHANCE 

As frustrating as this is, you’re not alone. 

When you've lived on high-alert long enough like many dyslexics, your nervous system treats peace like a threat.

It’s called hypervigilance; this constant scanning for danger even when there isn't any.

It:

• Floods your system with stress hormones

• Keeps your heart rate elevated

• Tenses your muscles up

• Disrupts your sleep

A HISTORY OF VIGILANCE

In dyslexics, this pattern started early.

What others call simple can be a minefield for some.

• Being called on to read aloud 

• Transposing numbers on a form

• Mixing up left and right, again

The thing about our bodies is that they keep score. 

Yours learned that tasks go sideways, so you developed a survival strategy.

You trained yourself to always be on guard because getting things wrong is unacceptable.

You scan for problems before they show up, even if they never do.

In every situation, you never expect things to work out on the first try.

While this made sense navigating school, work, social situations where things genuinely did go wrong more often than not.

Your hypervigilance wasn't paranoia, it was self-protection.

But somewhere along the way, that self-protection morphed into something that looks a lot like paranoia. 

Your default hypervigilance, constantly expecting things to go wrong, has been driving your behavior.

THE PEACE TRAP

Your nervous system has been trained to believe chaos equals normal, calm feels like danger and peace becomes a puzzle. 

This is why people unconsciously create problems when life gets too peaceful. 

When there's no fire to fight, they strike a match. When there's no problem to solve, they make one up.

This response isn’t your fault or some flaw.

It’s your nervous system doing its job: Keeping you safe through years of genuine unpredictability.

It worked. You survived right?

But now you're stuck in survival mode when you deserve to be L-I-V-I-N! 

PARA VS PRO 

For every action there's a reaction.

Historically, you've always done X in most situations.

Your default hypervigilance, a form of paranoia, has driven your behavior.

But what about the opposite?

What if you focused on the cool side of the pillow for a change?

Because there's another force in the universe you can tap into.

It offsets the exhausting push and pull.

And it's free.

Although it will cost you the power of thought.

It's called Pronoia.

Pronoia (pronounced pro-NOY-uh):
The suspicion that the universe is conspiring in your favor.

It's the opposite of paranoia.

Instead of assuming everything will go wrong, you assume things might actually work out.

Instead of scanning for threats, you scan for opportunities.

Instead of waiting for the shoe to drop, you trust that maybe - just maybe, both shoes will stay exactly where they belong.

SWAP AND TICKLE

What if you could swap your PARA for your PRO?

Instead of the hypervigilant catastrophizing panic that assumes disaster is always around the corner, you practiced pronoia; the gentle suspicion that things might actually work in your favor?

Not toxic positivity.

Or pretending problems don't exist.

What if you gave the universe a fighting chance to surprise you?

If it worked 5% of the time…

Would it be worth it? 

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