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I hope you all enjoy my efforts here!

Aug 29, 2008

Memories

I've grown to have a new appreciation of memories this week. I saw "Mama Mia" a 2nd time this week with a friend of mine. I had just a good time I was practically dancing in my seat. For me it was even better the 2nd time around cause I was relishing sharing a great movie with someone who was loving it every bit as much as I thought she would. After the movie, I downloaded the soundtrack onto my iPhone.

The next day, I listened to the music as I drove. As different songs came on, my memories of particular scenes associated with that song would be flashing through my memories. I found myself reacting with as much joy to the memories, as I did to the actual movie. Wow, what a concept, great memories can continue to bring joy over and over if you appreciate them enough.

I also had downloaded Randy Pausch's book "The Last Lecture". I talked about his lecture in one of my blogs within the last couple of months. In the book, he talked about memories and how important they were for him to build for his children. The children are so young that the youngest most likely won't have any memories of him when she grows up. The oldest would have the most, but he was still too young to have many, and the middle child would have fewer. He thought about the memories he had crystallized from childhood and the experiences that made them memorable, things like the trip to Disney world and others that stayed with him. He was endeavoring to create many experiences in whatever life he had left that would be the kind to stay with them and crystallizes like some of his from similar early ages. It really made me realize how important it was to live life with joy, fully engaged to create the memories that children can treasure as they get older.

In recent evenings at home, I'd been focused on trying to work and finish some projects, as the kids played around me. They enjoy hanging with me or else missed me enough (I've rarely been home in recent weeks) to hang out and play in my part of the house, even though I was not even engaging with them. I determined I was going to go home and be fully engaged and joyful, interacting in ways to build positive memories. I had bought two $10 shirts that day, I wanted to try them on when I got home. Dalia tried one on while I tried on the other, then we swapped shirts. I actually snapped a picture of her in my yellow shirt, then after we snapped that picture, we swapped shirts and we decided to take a picture of both of us wearing the shirts. I've included them here!
Don't we looked like we were having lots of fun and thoroughly enjoying ourselves. Who knows, maybe even building a memory. The evening wasn't over. Dalia LOVES Mama Mia and has seen it twice herself. Mackie and Dalia listen to the soundtrack in the car with their mom. I pulled out my iPhone instead of watching one of my shows, we all three were huddled together, laughing, singing and enjoying the soundtrack. Rather than being focused on myself and my needs, I focused on building some delightful memories. Hopefully some day a few of the memories might survive to their adulthood and they will remember me fondly, whether I'm here in person and they get to reminisce, or whether I have passed on.

Another thing I discovered is that we have the power to control how we remember things that happen that are not great things to remember, maybe even negative. Yesterday I had some things happen that were upsetting in one way or another. One event was putting some papers on my car, in the middle of transferring things from the state vehicle to my personal vehicle. These papers were separated out from everything else, because they were my most important papers, that I wanted to put in an easily accessible place. Long story short, I forgot I put them up there, and drove off. They blew out of the binder they were in about 5 blocks away. I didn't realize at first where the papers flying around behind me were coming from. I was sick inside when I realized what was happening and figured I couldn't possibly retrieve them. I was going to Just drive home, sick inside and worried about not only my missing information but the papers blowing around that would violate many students' privacy. Instead, due to so many of the changes I've undergone in my personal renovation, I was willing to go back, try to figure where they started blowing and try to retrieve them. I walked two long blocks, retrieving some papers from the middle of the street when there was a break in traffic, some from gutters, and some from lanes during traffic breaks and some from lawns and etc. I was so proud of myself for being willing to be proactive and try to limit the damage. The upshot, so far, it seems that there are only two papers from that pile that are missing. I retrieved the rest. Even the tire damaged ones were readable where they needed to be. At the time I wrote my gratitude log last night, I didn't yet know how much I'd recovered and how much I hadn't. However I wrote about how grateful I was for the change in me that allowed me to be proactive and try to limit damage, rather than just slinking off and driving away, really sick inside about students personal information flying around the streets, and all the missing information. Today, when I thought about what happened, my memory that flashed through was a positive one, and it was all about my personal growth and how I handled it, not about what happened, or damaged papers.

I also had an upsetting phone call about an erroneous bill with a customer service representative that was misinformed and created a lot of conflict. After the call I found some documentation that will help me in my case and it helped me to realize the customer service operator was wrong and that I had proof of it. I even found something to be grateful about in that situation. I was grateful for the documentation I found. Even though the situation isn't over, and there will be more long calls and possible aggravation ahead, I documented the part I was grateful about. My memory today? Not the extremely aggravated and emotionally upset one from the phone call, but rather the gratefulness at what I found. My attempts to be grateful, to find something to have gratitude for, no matter how difficult, is shaping my memories making them good, where otherwise they would have been upsetting, aggravating or unsettling.

My summary of what I've learned about memories this week.
  • If we relish and enjoy the moments, being grateful for awesome experiences as we live them, we can relive the joy when the memories are activated.
  • Endeavor to live life more fully engaged and in an effort to build wonderful memories for the people you care about in your life, so that whether it's while you're alive, or after you pass on, you can still bring joy. The joy will be in the memories of those you love when they think of you and fondly, perhaps if we're lucky lovingly reminisce.
  • Find a way to be grateful for or to find a way to be positive about your negative experiences. To do so appears to cause them to lose some of their negative power to some degree. Rather, the positive things you attempt to create become a big part of what flashes through your mind when your memory of the event is activated.

Go out and live the memories that you want to have in your tomorrows!

Aug 26, 2008

Back By Popular Demand!

Ok, ok, my title is really my attempt to be funny! I've been extremely busy since starting my school year, and almost at the same time, having my social life take a jump, on top practically every committee I'm on scheduling meetings! I haven't had time to be "insightful" about anything! I like to try to do insightful entries on occasions, showing my "renovation journey". Tonight, I decided to try and do a statistics entry to answer question posed by one dear reader who wanted to know "Where are thou?" :)

  • #of days I have worked without a day off: 11
  • # of days until my next day off: 5
  • # of days off at that future date: 1
  • # of teachers emailed in last 2 weeks: >150
  • # of meals out in 2 weeks: 8
  • # of pounds gained in 2 weeks: 7
  • # of evenings I got to spend at home in 2 weeks: approx: 4-5
  • average time of arrival home on evenings NOT spent at home: 9:00 p.m.
  • # of miles I drive on average, per day: 110
  • # of school buildings I've visited in 4 days on the road: 14
  • # of works days I spent without a desk to work at due to office move: 5
  • # of days my office has been unpacked: 0
  • # of days until my office gets unpacked: 30??? 60???
  • # of students I will visit with tomorrow: 14
  • # of schools I will travel to visit above students: 8
  • # of hours i will commute tomorrow: 3
  • # of days I didn't write down 5 things to be grateful for: 0

I may be having just a little difficulty adjust from working 2 days a week, to this schedule now that summer is over and I'm back teaching. However, I'm sure in a jiffy I will get used to my schedule and maybe it will even calm down a little. I'm still keeping positive and I'm trying to get back on track with the Jenny Craig stuff. I WILL lose the weight I gained from all the dining out!

I do keep a gratitude log daily, as you noticed from my last statistic above. I have actually been keeping the gratitude log in a personal gratitude blog, that is separate from this blog and is password protected. It is more private. I've decided that in the interest of time, I will no longer include my 5 daily gratitudes in this blog. It's too much duplication to repeat them twice.

I'm firmly convinced in the importance of keeping my gratitude blog. It keeps my mind looking for positives each and every day. I find I can not be focused on negatives or obsessed with them, if I'm focusing on looking for things to be grateful for. On hard days, it's a struggle to find the 5 things to be grateful for, but those are the days it's the most important days to do it. It's a form of "counting your blessings" and a way to keep adjusting and re-adjusting the attitude towards the positive. When I analyze a day, if I'm so busy looking hard for 5 things to be grateful for, I can't look at the day in a negative light. If I look at the day in a negative light, I can't find 5 things to be grateful for at all. Another discovery: If I'm able to live my day so that I am looking for the things to be grateful for in the moments, as they are happening, I find my day becomes a joyful exercise in appreciating life while it's being lived. That is a higher level that I want to be able to sustain on a daily basis, and is a goal for me.

Aug 17, 2008

Who's your best friend?

Now that sounds like a real obvious question, that I asked in the title. It's not. Mainly because I'm going to build an argument for someone that you might not have considered. I think at some point in our adult lives, all of us realize that there's only one person we can really count on. One person that will never leave us. One person who truly cares about our welfare. No, not your parents, your sibling, your spouse, your children. None of these people people, despite how much you love each other is the person I think should come to mind. I'm going to propose that we need to be our own best friend.

Think of the best friend you've had. Do you have fun with them? Were they positive people who made you feel good about yourself? Would you ever do anything but try to make them feel good about themselves? Were you kind to each other and helpful? Think of the qualities that makes someone a best friend. Helpful, thoughtful, listens to you, compassionate, fun, and etc. Do you shun at looking at yourself in the mirror, and when you see yourself, immediately criticize your appearance? Would you do that to your best friend? When you see your best friend, you're never noticing the wrinkles, the messy hair, or anything else. You're usually noticing the smile, the good humor, and all the things you like about them. We need to do the same to ourselves.

I've gone from criticizing myself in the mirror to seeing the face of a friend! It can happen. Every time I see myself in the mirror, I give myself a big smile! I notice the nice things about myself. It's taken time and years to work on self-esteem, to work on being positive about myself, and to dismiss the negative judgements that others make about me. The negative opinions of some in my life regarding me or my character doesn't matter. The only person who's opinion matters is mine! I've gotten so much better at handling the judgements thrown my way, because I truly know who I am and who I am working to be. I also take care of myself and my emotional well being instead of being hard on myself.

One of the common things I've heard people do, is to "break a diet" and then tear themselves apart for their lapse. Of course I don't believe in diets, or in labeling food as good food and bad food, then judging ourselves if we ate bad food. However, I've seen people do this and put themselves in a tail spin over that. Would you tell your friend that the food they just ate was bad for them, they ruined their diet, and they have no will power? Never, not if you're a good best friend. I always eat what I want, no judgements ever, and then work it into my program, in whatever way I can. I'm not a bad person if I ate the home made cookie that my niece made, or the cinnamon roll in the bakery or whatever it was that is not in my program. I'm not lacking will power because I ate that. No, I just wanted a cookie, cinnamon roll or what not. No judgements needed. Instead of wasting time and energy with a "broken diet negativity " (which I've never done since by my definition, I'm not on a diet), I just make adjustment to my program and figure out how to either make room for it that day, or to continue to stick with the program with the next meal or snack. This is one way of treating yourself just as compassonately as you would your best friend.

I have another example from about 20 years ago. I wasn't as far along in terms of a positive self-esteem as I am now, but here and there I did an awesome job of being my own best friend. One day I was really upset about something that happened as a result of my deafness. This was pre-cochlear implants, so I really had many more struggles then. I was left out, lost, confused and really hurt by the isolation that was happening to me in a social situation. It was not a single situation that made me cry and feel broken-hearted, but rather, just the straw that broke the camel's back. That day, when I went home, I stood in front of the mirror and talked to myself for about an hour. Seeing myself in the mirror made me see me as a person to be treasured, rather than as someone to be upset with or be negative about. I can still see myself as I looked then. I started trying to find a positive spin what was upsetting to me, to counsel the person bawling in the mirror, the same way I do when someone (best friend, student or family member) is upset. I listened to my problems, then I tried to find a positive way to look at the situation and not tear myself apart.

As a result, I ended up giving myself one of the greatest pep talks I ever had. By the time the hour had gone by, instead of a bawling, falling apart mess, I was laughing. My skin still splotchy and swollen from the crying jag that preceded it, but the laughter, the smile and etc. breaking through. While looking at myself in the mirror, I saw so many positive things about me that I never would have seen if I hadn't been looking in the mirror and seen a person that needed my help and compassion. I even complimented myself on how good that I looked that day, even crying and all! I never forgot about that.

I didn't remember that and follow that example for much of my life. Had I worked to always take care of myself, seen myself as a valuable person in the mirror, like I did that day; I might have avoided some pretty depressing years. I might have not needed to renovate my life, like I am now. There is no blame there though. I've obviously been on a journey through life, and need to learn and to grow. I'm on the path now to something great, it doesn't matter how long it's taking me to get there or how many times I've fallen down on the way. All of it is making me who I am today. I'm grateful for who I am today.

Today after I got off work, I needed something. I was hankering for a best friend to go to dinner with, go to the movies or the mall and hang out with. I wanted something fun to end my weekend that is never really fun, since I work the entire weekend and the entire week. I have lots of good friends and people I would have loved to be with. However, just about every one of them has a family, spouses and other responsibilities. It's not like my early 20's when all my friends were single and unattached, and at the spur of the moment, we could get together and do things. Now, doing things have to be planned in advance, and there are times even those plans fall apart because of responsibilities going on in my friend's lives. So instead of being melancholy about the fact that I'm still single and unattached and wanting some companionship, where there was none avaiilable at the spur of the moment, I decided to be my own best friend tonight.

I took myself out to dinner. I hung around with myself while I tried to find things that I wanted to do. Unfortunately, not everything worked out, but I did try a few things. I tried the mall, but it was closing up. I wanted to find a new park to go walking in, but instead, found the place the map on my iPhone was leading me to was a building that was a recreational center, run by the city Park's department! :) I ended up near a theater and and almost took myself to the movies, but decided at the last minute, that there wasn't anything I wanted to see that was showing there before 10:00 p.m. That would be much too late for my schedule. However, just trying to hang with myself, find something fun to do, just helped my mood, and made me feel I was important, even if most things didn't pan out. I also resolved in the future to find more things going on in the world around me to do, and do them. It doesn't matter if I do everything alone. I always will have my best friend with me!

Most of the weekends, when I'm doing 7 day work weeks, I have tended to try to give myself some "me" time by closing the door to my apartment after I get off work and spending time alone. However, I realized how much I missed the kids now that I'm working and gone more. I know at least one of the kids (yep Dalia) wants to be down here with me much of the time when I'm home, which isn't much now. However, because I'd taken care of trying to meet my needs, failed attempts and all; my emotional equilibrium was much more balanced when I finally came home. I was ready to greet the little kids that were waiting when I got home, and spend any time with them that they wanted and to want it too! Dalia was at the door when I came home, as excited to see me as I was to see her, and wanting to come downstairs with me. Since I was "balanced" (due to my best friend trying to take care of me) I was able to be enthused and excited to be with her and to hang with her downstairs, instead of thinking I needed "me" time.

We can be our own best friend, and in doing so bring out our best selves. When we have people around to share in our lives, we can enjoy every moment with them. However, if there's no one else there, we still have a great and valuable friend around, if we just learn to be kind to ourselves and to value ourselves. When we love ourselves, our reservoir is filled. When it's filled we are able to give of ourselves unselfishly, treasure and truly love others.

Gratitude log:
  1. I'm grateful for little Dalia. I truly had a wonderful time in the hour or so I spent with her between getting home and bedtime.
  2. I'm also grateful for little Mackie. He came down wearing his sister's dress and giving me a good laugh. He is so cute, no matter what he wears or doesn't wear!
  3. I'm grateful for the journey I'm on. It's awesome to no longer feel my life is stagnating and falling apart, but rather that it's a joyous and wondrous jouorney to a future I'm eagerly anticipating.
  4. I'm grateful for the end of my post office work week. It's always nice when it's over and I have 5 days off before I go back again.
  5. I'm grateful for my best friend, me! As you can tell, she's really been and awesome friend lately and I appreciate that. I may sound schizophrenic, but I really am grateful. She's a pretty cool lady! :)

Aug 13, 2008

Visual Gratitude Log

Today I got a bright idea and did something different. I actually took picures of the things I was grateful for. Hope you enjoy!


1. I'm grateful for lakes. I enjoy them whether they're resevoirs or lakes. I had lunch today as I looked at Echo Reservoir (top). Then on the way to Kamas from Coalville, I drove past Mirror Lake (bottom). They are fun to see, to relax by and to recreate in.

2. I'm grateful for Fruit n' Yorgurt parfaits at McDonalds. I can always look forward to this afternoon snack at the McDonalds by the Park City exit on the freeway, just before I head for home.
3. I'm grateful for captioned TV in public places! I love it everytime I find a TV with captions in a public place, so I can enjoy it too. I got to enjoy my McDonald's snack while I watched CNN captioned!
4. I'm grateful for public trash cans! Yes! When you travel all day in your car, garbage easily piles up. It's nice to be able to dump all my water bottles, pop cans, lunch packagaing, snack packaging piling on the seat next to me, when I see one of those right by me.

5. I'm grateful for the feeling of the sun on my face. I couldn't quite take a picture of the sun shining on me. Taking a picture of what I could see in the sky above me seemed like the next best thing!

Whew! Getting this all set up in the blog was hard, but it was a fun day! I wasn't happy with my gratitude log yesterday. I felt like I was just looking back at the day, trying to find something to be grateful for, rather than living gratefully. Today, I made sure I was looking hard for things to be grateful for and documenting it. The result? I felt my day was so much fuller of joy and bliss. Looking hard for things to be grateful for and making sure I acknowledged them right then and there had an impact on me. Today was so good, that I decided to duplicate my gratitude log here on my regular blog, not write about anything else today.

Aug 9, 2008

Future Jenny Craig Coommercial?

Camera focuses briefly on words, or narrator says: Based on true story. (Because this really happened this week!)

Scene: Car with a mom driving a car, 3 year old in their car seat in the back, with Ann sitting next to mom in the front.

3 year old: Mom, I'm hungry.

Mom: We're going home right now and I will make you some lunch. What do you want for lunch?


3 year old: I like Ann's food!

Camera focuses on Ann's before and after picture, then fades! :)

Simple commercial but get's the message how delicious the food is, and how easy the program is if a 3 year old prefers their food over anything else! :) What do you think?

Want a New Body?

I'm a little hyper and overexcited today! It's another awesome day! Of course I started out the day perfectly, with a present of a 4.2 lb loss this week!!!!!!! YAY!!! Last week I was so thrilled to be just under 20 lbs from goal. This week I all of a sudden found myself at 15.5 lbs from goal! For the running tally, it's now 214.6 lbs loss. I'm so excited, I need to find some time to go try on my pants that have been very tight on me and see if there is any more give and they are any looser! First, I'll finish my blog! It's 1:00 in the morning, I have a meeting to be to at 8:30 in the morning, but I'm ready to go run in and try on clothes! Dear me!

Today I went into the office to do some moving. We've been moving our office this summer. Up until today, they hadn't not put our carousels together, so we had no desks and were unable to do a thing. They finally built "most" of the desk, except mine....even though I'm the first one to start back to schools, as my school districts start the earliest. I return to work for the year on Monday.

That however isn't what I want to write about. I want to write about the moving. When I showed up, there was a lot needing to be done. There were two people there. They had been working for a while, but there were still a ton of boxes piled in the center of the room. We decided to take the boxes and put them by the desk of the person they were labeled as belonging to, as a way to get the mess in the center of the room. One of the two people there is a YOUNG girl, 20 something. She is our aide, and just graduated from college this spring. She hasn't quit yet. Now when I tell you that her new profession is a "professional trainer", you can imagine what kind of shape and condition she is in.

Well, guess what, this 50 year old woman, and this young 20 something personal trainer were doing the "heavy" work! ME!!! The woman who couldn't move a thing on her own, except her oxygen tank, in a move 2 1/2 years ago!! Guess who can now squat properly, to use appropriate technique for using the thighs to lift and not the back, when a box is on the floor! Now I have to be humble enough to admit that I was still nowhere as good as the personal trainer was. Of the two of us, she was the "muscles" doing the heaviest part when we moved the file cabinets, armoirie type furniture and etc. I didn't compare to her. However, ladies and gentlemen.....I was NO slouch!I was just so amazed at what I could do today! Where did this new body come from? How could I do all this! How could it not be killing me? How could I still have all this energy and enthusiasm tonight after the hard work? How could I be dancing around as I listen to my music on my iPhone? How, how, how? I feel like the bionic woman! I feel like someone just came and took that old awful, terrible body away from me.

That body was the one that couldn't walk 10 feet without getting blue lips, even while breathing oxygen from my oxygen tank! That body belongs to the woman who couldn't stand for more than 1 minute or two (that was stretching it when I said two), without my feet hurting and having to sit down. That body belongs to a woman who STILL has MULTIPLE health problems. The person in that body fell to the couch the minute she got home from work (after sitting all day), and didn't move again, except for bathroom breaks, until time to go to work the next morning. I'm NOT kidding! I got so I slept in my chair 99% of the time. I got so that I changed clothes once a day, after waking up in the morning in yesterday's clothes! Doesn't that sound like someone living a nightmare? It was life as I knew it then, but sounds like a nightmare to me now.

How did I get this body? I can work out at the gym and not seem to break a sweat. I used to sweat if I was on my feet more than a minute. I can stand for a whole long time now. I can walk quite a distance to boot! I can dance around, do almost anything I need to do. I feel like a walking miracle today.

Another thought popped in my head just as I was thinking and writing the above paragraph. I am partly bionic anyway, when you think about it, I hear with "two artificial ears". My cochlear implants are today's miracle. I live in a delightful world of sound, beautiful sound. I hear the sweet voice of the toddlers I live with. I hear the music on the iPhone, the short story on my podcast, the current events on the radio! That in itself is a miracle, but I got that by surgery.

This new body, has had no other surgery of any type! No gastric bypass! I probably will never have any plastic surgery . Believe me I can now love my body, flabby skin and all. I won't need to do plastic surgery. Five years ago I was living in the depths of depression. I was hopeless. I NEVER wanted to be 50. I felt life was "OVER" for me.

Today, I'm so happy I make myself sick!!! I probably make other people sick too! :) I'm 15 1/2 lbs from my goal weight. I'm able to stand, walk, lift carry and do all the other things that once seemed to be too much for me. Ain't life grand folks? It all started with first, the power of example (Dick), then the power of the mind as I took the journey I've been on. If I can do this, what can YOU do, if you put your mind to it? Think about it! Your power is your mind. I didn't do it alone (thank heavens for Jenny Craig and for the people in my life). Whatever your dream, put your mind to it and find the tools that you need to find a new life. I now remain firmly convinced that we can always reinvent/renovate ourselves and find our miracles.



Gratitude Log
  1. I'm grateful I had a good week weight loss wise. I had my slowest quarter since joining Jenny Craig, losing 13 lbs in 12 weeks. Then I finally get reinvigorated again, create some strategies to deal with today's challenges, and I have a week where I lost 4 1/2 lbs! Awesome!

  2. I'm grateful for the new body I have! It's like a dream come true.

  3. I'm grateful for raspberries. No, not the fruit! The kind that you blow when playing with little kids. They are fun to give and feel great to give. I'd blow a raspberry on Dalia's arm, then another arm, as she would dissolve into giggles after each one. I found they are sure pleasurable and would giggle myself as she would blow them on me. We had fun experimenting with where we could blow raspberries. They don't work on chins and foreheads. Must use arms, legs, cheeks, and tummies!

  4. I'm grateful my post office shift for tomorrow got picked up. I have a 4 or 5 hour board meeting (it's a very important meeting to be scheduled for that long) tomorrow morning. I was really worried about someone picking up my shift, as the work volume has increased and not many people are wanting to pick up extra shifts. However, I went in tonight and found that while many shifts on the trade sheet for tomorrow were not picked up, mine was! Yay.

  5. I'm grateful for my brother. I only have one and he is very special to me. I feel lucky to have grown up with him. Tonight I was looking at pictures and videos my sister sent, from our trip to Idaho. I loved looking at the pictures of my brother, and especially us together. You can see on my face how clearly overjoyed I am to see him, and I think he looks happy to be with Sallie and I.

Aug 6, 2008

Sharing Pictures

I felt like I had a lot to be grateful for today. Amongst them, the two little ones falling asleep (finally) in the chair next to me, and being able to snap their pictures. Aren't they precious?




Then this sweet little girl begging me to not close my door for the night while she was gone with her daddy. She wanted to come home and spend time to me when she got home. (Doesn't that just melt your heart?). Below is a picture of her when she first got home and came running to be with me. The 2nd picture is her clowning around for the camera.

Such a sweet face, don't you think?


These little ones make my day special so many times. Not least of all, today! I had a ball. I'm grateful for them!

Aug 3, 2008

Self Perception

I've been thinking a lot about how I perceive myself. I had thought that I had learned to be positive about myself. Most of my conscious thoughts about myself are very positive. However, I caught myself thinking a thought about what a truly terrible person I really am. I was shocked to realize that thought was even there. I spent some time analyzing why did I even think that? Where did this negative self-perception come from? How did I not realize that in my unconscious that thought was hiding there.

I was ready to blame others, including family, who've said negative things about my character in the past, thinking that I believed them, just because we always believe our family members are the ones who tell us the truth that no one else will. I figured something had stayed there and I'd never done anything but just believe the negative. However, as I analyzed the things that I remember being said to me in the past, I realized that was NOT where the blame lay. I am more skilled these days at not believing other's perceptions of me, whether from long ago, or more recent times. I'm more able to realize that what others are saying is only about their perceptions, not about the truth.

However, the more I thought about it, I realized that it was unfair to lay any blame at their feet. I couldn't think of anything that would lead to the thought I found hiding in my subconscious. What was the real truth? I finally realized that I was the person responsible. I was judging me. I knew every thought that goes through my mind, I knew how I perceived things. I knew the wrongs I'd done or thought in the past. With that knowledge, I judged me! I was the one that attacked myself and this led to the core belief about myself that was hiding in my subconscious much to my shock and dismay. I realized that I had more work to do. I needed to analyze the things that caused the negativity, and then to forgive what needed to be forgiven. I needed to be understanding and tolerant of things internally and lead myself to positivity in those areas. That's what I've been thinking about and working on this weekend. Truly learning how to make sure the positivity I've built about myself, is more than skin deep, and goes to the core beliefs that I hold internally.

In reading today I came across this statement.
  • "In attacking others, we attack ourselves. In forgiving others, we forgive ourselves."

It's ringing a bell for me. I'm not sure yet all of the ramifications of this, as I need to think about it more. However, probably the thoughts I've had that are uncharitable and unkind (which I never would say), were attacks. I did attack myself, because I let myself down in allowing myself to judging and think harshly. I need to make sure that I forgive wrongs, because holding the grudges and the feelings, doesn't allow me to forgive myself for that which I need to forgive.

I've made lots of progress in working on my thinking and positivity in general during the last year. I also think that in general, I'm kind and charitable in my thoughts, about the people in my life. However, there are times that isn't true. This is what I need to work on now. The fallout from attacking others in my thoughts, only attacks me. The refusal to truly forgive some things, is causing me to not forgive myself. I've got my work cut out for me. I now know what my next area of learning and growth needs to be in.

Gratitude Log

  1. I'm grateful for the warmth from the sun. Today at lunch, I went outside and read. It was wonderful to feel the warmth of the sun, as I remember so many days in the winter and during stormy times I miss this.
  2. I'm grateful for the beauty of the mountains. I was looking at them today from the window at work. It's something I take for granted, living in a valley. They are truly majestic.
  3. I'm grateful for stories to read and get engrossed in. I'm reading the 4th book of a series and loving every minute of it.
  4. I'm grateful for the opportunity to learn and to grow. I look back at the changes in my life over the past few years, and am so glad that I started this journey, took my first steps to change, and that I can continue to do so.
  5. I'm grateful for my gratitude logs. I now keep them every day. I'm starting to see a few things happen where I can see my perception changing and more positivity and enjoyment coming because I work so hard to find 5 things every single day to be grateful about, no matter how hard the day was. It's nice to see my gratitude and enjoyment of life grow through them.