When I began writing this blog last month, I had no
expectations or real goals, other than to write what was in my heart. Over the last month I’ve watched this
little blog grow and the encouraging feedback has been wonderful. I have readers all over the US, Canada,
France, Germany, Israel, India, Saudi Arabia and more. I am truly honored that hundreds of people are possibly
making more positive choices in their lives after reading something I’ve
written. What is more beautiful
than that?
One of my friends commented to me that she had a hard time
reading my blog every week because I’m just so “happy!!!” and she isn’t always
in the mood to be so positive.
Sometimes being positive comes easily to us; sometimes it is
challenging. I understand
that. We all have different life
curves thrown our way – overwhelming schedules, family drama, frustrations at
work. How we choose to process
them is what is important. Once
something negative crosses our path, it is easy to fall down the rabbit hole
and star in our own pity party. Determining
the root cause of our feelings is important. When something is dragging you
down or feels like an obstacle, ask yourself Why. Then ask it again.
Ask yourself 5 times. If
you can ask “why” five times, going backwards five levels, you can usually
figure out what the catalyst is.
Once you know the catalyst, there is opportunity for change.
This weekend I was in the car with Hubby on our way to
dinner and I wasn’t in a particularly good mood. He asked me what was up and I wasn’t really sure. Then I asked myself WHY. 1. I wasn’t
feeling particularly well and didn’t want to be out running around. 2. So WHY was I in the car? Because I didn’t want to let my husband
down as he’d really wanted to go out. I was feeling a little resentful that I
put his needs above mine. 3. So WHY did he want to go out? Because he had a long week and needed
to have some fun. 4. WHY did that bother me? Because I did not feel well and needed
to take care of myself before meeting his needs. 5. WHY didn’t I
feel well? Because I didn’t get
much sleep the night before. Okay,
so end result? I compartmentalized
my feelings and realized I wasn’t in a bad mood at all – I was just tired – so we
compromised and ate at a restaurant closer to home so I wouldn’t be out too
late. I shifted my focus from
being grumpy to enjoying my time with my husband.
The beautiful thing about feeling positive is that it is a
choice that is always available to us. We have 86,400 seconds in every day to change our patterns. If you are in a bad mood, or having a bad day, you can tell yourself
that tomorrow will be better. But
what if you decided Tonight would be better? Or in an hour?
Or in a minute? I saw a
quote that I just loved by an unknown author. “You are under no obligation to be the same person you were
five minutes ago.” Every minute of our lives is an opportunity for change. I am “simply positive” that every
minute of our lives is an opportunity to set the intention for positivity. It may not always come easily, but the
reward is worth the effort.
Your homework this week is to stop a path of negativity in its' track. Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed? Did you get cut off in traffic setting you into a rage? Just stop for a second and change your way of thinking? You can stay in bed a few minutes longer and reset. You can slow down your rage and get perspective on what's truly important and realize there is nothing helpful in that behavior. Put on some calming music and move along. You get the point. Give it a try!
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