narrow view

I am capable of reliving a hundred of my verbal blunders in merely minutes of time. Getting a note thanking me for inspiring her to face a fear planted the awareness that when only viewing my blunders, I am only observing a narrow view of myself.

Come on, it does make sense.. of all of our behavior .. our mistakes are a small part of us.. if what we focus on expands wouldn't it be smarter to focus on our
good parts.

story-telling

Making the laugh supreme, leads me to tell stories with me as the punchline. The plot-lines are frequently about rudeness being directed towards me. My friends were
finding the stories less and less amusing.. greeting the stories with silence.. some
even told me to stop telling the stories.

Their reactions brought me to the emotional place where I could take in the clarity
to realize that I was indirectly putting myself down and was indirectly giving the listener permission to violate certain boundaries. I have begun to limit the story telling.


Pause, reflect, act

choices

Holding my phone, hearing silence where disrespect was heard only seconds before, I tell myself I do not want to do this anymore... like it is a job, an unpleasant duty..

I wake myself up by reminding myself that friendships are a choice. I must practice
moving on faster... to invest less when the return is a negative dividend

emotional stretching

Going to the gym grumpy was the only way I could go to the gym. The gym felt like a Starbucks with weights and I resented both the chattiness and gleeful attitudes of the trainers.

Well I was unable to attend the gym for a week and I felt so sad. I truly missed it. Going to the gym are my best moments of my week.

Returning to the gym, my negative emotional curtain.. and that curtain was a heavy velvet.. parted
and I took in everything good about the atmosphere of the gym and gave the prayer of thank you

Invisible

I go about my daily, weekly routines not expecting to make an impression on the people I encounter. Using my computer,at Starbucks, a green aproned angel evaluated my exterior phone calls as thoughtful behavior. Feeling less invisible reinforced the powers of positive observations.

words matter.. your complement maybe the only one the receiver gets that day

Green-Aproned Angel

Clutching my fruit bowl while nearly frozen in grief over my day being minus a rice krispie
treat. A favored green-aproned angel asked how I was and my tongue transformed into a launching pad and words of my crushed emotional demeanor were the missile. He magically offered to deliver a hidden remaining rice krispie treat to my table. I insisted on waiting at the counter ... I mean why wait the minutes while he walks the length of the Starbucks...when I can wait and have it in seconds.

maybe

The instability of the last decade is being displayed in my speech. I use the words maybe and perhaps in my everyday conversations. I was just informed by "my daily
call" that I end our multiple daily conversations with "perhaps we will talk again"

The conversational change is maybe a subliminal affect of finding a close relative on the
floor in reaction to a bursting of a brain aneurysm. I see the picture of him on the floor
when my head hits the pillow at night.

We do not always know how life's randoms events will affect us. I honestly did not know I was ending
my phone calls this way until my "daily call" told me.

greatest gift

I informed my friend's mother that her son was an extremely thoughtful listener after my mother's death. She gushed that I should express that to him, I responded by telling her that I always feel the greatest gift I can give your son is to ignore him.

This theory is confirmed whenever I tell him that I will not be calling him ...
he thanks me

rice krispie treat

I often feel that living a sugar free existence is within my grasp and then days like today happen. A rice krispie treat was the only thing that could lure me out of my ghetto pad. Entering my Starbucks, armed with desire, my eyes immediately focused on the glass case. My eyes discovered that there was only one choc. chip cookie and rice krispie treat standing alone displayed under the glass. Talk about an emotional tight rope.. Standing fourth in line, holding my breath while holding my eyes on the rice
krispie treat. My choice of baked treats remained and victory was mine .. until tomorrow

wasted time

There are times when I visualize how my present behavior could negatively impact my future. This visualization is not the best use of the my focus and concentration. I must jerk myself awake by asking myself, "am I doing everything I can for myself to succeed today"? I must mold my thoughts on what I can control because the rest is wasted time.

listening

I used to visit a close relative in a residential center. We would sit in a living room with old movies playing on the T.V and surrounded by other sitting residents. Her cottage
mates would address me with beseeching eyes and news of lost belongings or of an uncomfortable fabric. My response was consistently "thank you for telling me that" or "I am glad you told me that". I would see their body and area around their mouth relax and their verbal expressions would cease.. Could it be that whatever state of mind we are in.. with our marbles or without our marbles.. we want to feel people are listening.

serenity

I am starting to be able to take in when people attack me it is not about me. I am starting to be able to pause and realize that what is being directed at me may have nothing to do with me and start a process of release. Whenever,in the past, I would try to practice this concept I would be going through the motions. Hey if a seriously ingrained obsessive thinker,me,can reinforce this belief then you can do it too..and how

Life is a daily process

not angry

I have continued to spend time with people that mistreated me because I did not want to be angry.
A childhood teaching was that when a person holds on to anger, it hurts the holder of the negative feelings. Because I misread this teaching, I would reinforce bad friendship patterns and
communications. I am now choosing to reinforce this practice from a distance as in I wish you well from a distance and not from routine contact.

dog days of summer

I am having a tough summer. A theory for my emotional unrest is that I am more focused on outer approval then inner approval. Seeking approval from the outer world can be very distracting. Pausing, reflecting and reinforcing what is good about myself,behavior or performance prior to taking in an outer evaluation will enable me to be more rooted in my private self then my public
self.

trigger place

Does this happen to you? Do you act your worst with people that you need to be a better version of yourself. I do that for a comedy show producer and I always leave feeling horrible after my encounters with him. He will inform me of upcoming shows and a snide remark will eject from my mouth. And I actually like the guy and I am sober during these exchanges. A theory is that I put him on a pedestal.. if true I would hate to know how I
would treat him if I did not like him.

20 minutes

My personal trainer paired my work-out session with the negative side-affects of excessive
drinking. I agreed with him by informing him that I was in a sober phase. He praised me and asked me the length of my sobriety. Only twenty minutes,I replied, but it has been a strong twenty minutes.

singing to ouselves

I was sitting in the car, looking through the window and listening to love songs from the 1970s. While I was listening to the songs, I thought instead of singing the song to a desired lover, sing it to myself. The key lyrics for this exercise
are: "I love you more today, then yesterday but not as much as tomorrow"

We must love ourselves first.

desire

Standing in the middle of the cinema lobby holding my phone. Wanting to shut out the world and shake up my daily communication I lost my phone that night, no phone, no phone numbers.... Was the universe listening?

j.lo

Jennifer Lopez is quoted, in reaction, to her divorce: I loved myself enough to walk away:

Let's love ourselves enough to walk away from everyone that does not reinforce our inner and outer beauty. Let's love ourselves enough to walk away from people that mock,ridicule and abuses us. Let's love ourselves enough to walk away from people that do not treat us like the king and queen that we are.. Let's love ourselves enough to walk away from people that do not make us feel good about ourselves. Let's love ourselves enough to walk away from people that are not interested enough to return our calls or reach out to us

It is time to put on our running shoes

complimenting ourselves

We must praise ourselves each day, starting with one complement and increase the complements over time . It is to easy to tread water in a sea of negativity and if we do not root for ourselves who will?