My "Do Over"

Each Season is New
"Spring"

From the archives of May 2010...

Each year consists of 365 days, each day holds the same 1,440 minutes. I got tired of year after year being the same, feeling the same hopelessness for anything more than the chronic emotional anguish that I had lived in for years. Helpless to believe that I had any power to change this. I was just surviving but not really living.

Some time ago I started looking at each day as another 1,440 opportunities to stop whatever wasn't working and start over, begin making new choices, creating the life I want today in spite of what my yesterday looked like.

If today isn't what I want it to be - I have 1,440 chances to turn it into the life I want by choosing differently...by being aware of the thoughts that drive my dependence on other people, places and things that really have no bearing on how my day plays out. Then choosing to come back to the understanding that while I can't always choose what is going on in my life at any given moment - I can always choose how I let it affect me and what my response will be to any given situation or circumstance.
Every moment of every day is a chance to have that "do over" that I'd always wanted.
~

This Became My Truth

This was my "aha" moment 2.5 years ago...."If "mental" is thought. And "illness" is sick. That means that I can choose to learn how to recognize the thoughts that are making me feel sick...and change.

This was the turning point for me.

This became my truth.

For fifteen years I had believed that I "felt bad" because I had some hidden, mysterious "disease" or "illness" that was causing the emotional instability, the physical exhaustion and numerous complaints like chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, severe anxiety to the point of getting a new label - "agoraphobic".

But even though the sun was shining, my kids were doing well, I had no life drama going on outside of me - I still felt like hell.

I sat there in my car because I was so full of anxiety that I couldn't go anywhere near people and tried to think through this situation rationally.

I had a new therapist who had set a clear boundary with me and had said very directly that as much as she wished she could "fix" me....that she couldn't.

It was up to me to make my life what I wanted it to be.

Shit.

Yet awesome.

For the first time in my career as a "consumer" of mental health services someone was telling me there was a solution besides more "meds".

That I held the key to the life I wanted.

Within myself.

And this was the moment I stood at the top of that mountain, tears streaming down my face, my body trembling in fear...

And leaned forward into the wind

and knew

that something would be there for me to stand on or that I would

Fly.

Q: What is your truth? Where does your power come from? What is it that you hang your hope on for a better tomorrow?

Thought for today...fear only to stand still

Each day I receive quotes like this from this website Life Abundance. And it's not that getting inspirational quotes each day is going to change my life suddenly, but every once in awhile I find a nugget that gives me something to think about like this one...

"Do not fear going forward slowly; fear only to stand still." - Chinese Proverb

At different times in this journey I have thought I wasn't "getting it" fast enough. I wanted to be "better" and I wanted to be better now. On days like this I found myself feeling "stuck", unable to move forward. I was "standing still".

I would find myself thinking about and dwelling on the things I had not yet accomplished in my life, the past and past hurts and resentments, the list of "to do's" that seemed to get longer day by day with my inaction.

If someone offered me a suggestion or possible solution to whatever it was that I was focussed on I was full of "yeah, BUTs" (yeabut is a language of its own :) )....It was just easier to focus on situations, circumstances and people than it was to face my own fears, feelings and anxieties in order to take control of my life.

Sometimes I would get lost in wanting a "quick fix" or for someone to "tell me what to do" or to "take care of me" instead of pulling on my own internal strength and resources and acknowledge that I could, that I do - have the power to change my circumstances.

So today I am going continue to celebrate that I am moving forward and am at the right place at the right time - for me. Today I will not fear moving forward however slowly and I will celebrate that I am simply moving forward.

Do you sometimes focus more on what you don't have or have not yet accomplished (standing still) vs. trusting that you are where you are supposed to be today and where you are going? (moving forward slowly)

Today - what can you celebrate about where you are right now?

Is the glass half empty...or half full?

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." – William Shakespeare

Is the glass half full or half empty? Is the responsibility a privilege or a duty? Is the help we've been asked to give an opportunity or an obligation? Do we "get" to do it or do we "have" to do it?

Attitude is everything. And luckily for us, our attitudes are a matter of choice. We can pick the attitudes we want much as we pick our clothes or hairstyles. Nothing or no one in the past or present can dictate our attitudes. No one else deserves credit or blame for how we choose to process reality. For better or worse, our attitudes are ours alone.

We all have the same world to respond to. What we practice, we become. If we practice looking at each day as a new adventure, so it will be.

I will develop an attitude of gratitude each day, giving thanks for my many blessings."

- From "Days of Healing, Days of Joy: Daily Meditations for Adult Children" By Earnie Larsen & Carol Larsen Hegarty