Benefit of the Doubt

What if we could retrain our brains to assume the positive before we assumed the negative?

Boy, I could have used that advice this weekend. After receiving the second covid vaccine shot, I was dealt some serious side effects. Some I am still dealing with but none of them I won't survive. Still, the entire time I was sick, I focused on the negative.

The body aches, the fever, the shooting pains. The nurse must have messed up the dosage. The headache must have been tied to a bad batch of the vaccine.

None of that was true, but that was my irrational response in my state of uncomfortableness. Someone messed up how I was feeling even though I signed up for the vaccine all by myself and drove myself to the appointment.

Not once over a period of 48 hours do I think I even tried to find the positive. But, I could have.

The side effects are explained to be evidence that my body was building up its immunity to the vaccine. That's an amazing THING! A gift, really. Think about all of the other people would want a vaccine and can't get one yet. There is nothing about me that deserves my getting one before any other human being but I took that all for granted. Never, ever stopped to think about that until I was back to work trying to get into the swing of things again.

Is assuming the negative a form of protection or is it a response we've developed based on past experiences of similar situations? I suspect my recovery may have looked differently if I began from a place of empathy and one free from doubt.

I don't think it would have cured the physical reactions any sooner but I can sure the emotional ones would have fared better.

Don't Give Up On Me - Andy Grammer

"Cause I'm not givin' up

I'm not givin' up, givin' up, no, not yet

Even when I'm down to my last breath

Even when they say there's nothin' left

So don't give up on

I'm not givin' up

I'm not givin' up, givin' up, no, not me

Even when nobody else believes

I'm not goin' down that easily

So don't give up on me"

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