The First FLIP IT! Story
Just FLIP IT!
My mate and I were on our way home from a trip to the Southwest, when I realized I needed a prescription that I had left at home. I was upset with myself for having forgotten the medication in the first place and I didn’t want to waste our vacation time to stop and get it. It was a Sunday morning in St. George, Utah, and I was in the only grocery store pharmacy that we could find that was open. The pharmacy clerk was cranky because I‘d inadvertently given him the wrong address for my pharmacy back home. “Oh no,” I thought, “This guy is going to charge me an arm and a leg! And he’ll probably want extra for all the phone calls to the drugstore back home.”
My mind raced, thinking about all the negative possibilities. “What if he makes me wait for an hour? We still have a long way to go and we needed to get on the road. What if he overcharges me? My cash was running low and I felt guilty about asking my mate to cover any more expenses than he already had. ” Knowing that this cranky clerk was going to ruin my day, I started spiraling down emotionally with all the negative possibilities that I could just FEEL were going to take place. I started feeling really anxious and angry at the clerk for being so….rude to me! The thought of having a bad rest of the day made me feel horrible.
Suddenly, I remembered a process I had just learned about from Abraham, a spiritual teacher whose guidance I had started following. Instead of continuing down that negative spiral of thinking and expecting the worst, I said to myself, “Wait! What is it I do want?”
Then I began to FLIP IT!
After recognizing my own negative thoughts and acknowledging the ‘rant’ that had been going on in my head, I realized I had been “awfulizing” about this poor pharmacist – after just a brief encounter. I knew I needed to focus my thoughts differently.
What were the facts and what was right about the situation? What did I have control of in the situation? As in most cases, the thing I had the most control of was my own thought process.
“It’s a beautiful Sunday morning.” I said to myself. “I really appreciate this pharmacist. Isn’t it great that he’s here filling my prescription? I’d like this prescription to cost me what I usually pay at home, or less, and I’d like to be charged a minimum for the phone calls. This whole trip has been a delight. We’ve really been in the flow. Why should I think it’s going to change now?” I continued in this vein for a few more minutes, feeling better, appreciating and being grateful for everyone and everything around me.
Within five minutes, the pharmacist beckoned to me and said, in a very pleasant tone, how much the prescription would cost, which was less than I paid at home. “Can I pay you for the phone calls?” I offered. “Oh, don’t worry about that”, he answered. How nice of him! I took my prescription and we were on our merry way once again.
This was my first conscious attempt at ‘flipping’ my energy. It was fun to do in a relatively safe environment and to see it be so successful was very encouraging. That was over 13 years ago. Flipping has become a way of life for me now.
To read about the FLIP IT! process click here