Thankful For My Struggle

 

I am thankful for my struggle because without it, I wouldn’t have stumbled upon my strength.

Alex Elle

As I have done research for my food blog, sweet treats have consumed my thoughts.  I wrote about it for my home page and it made me realize something positive that came out of feeling negative.

My struggle has been the promise I made to myself to go sugar free after receiving really bad reports on my blood tests.  It really scared me after my follow up meeting with my doctor a few months ago.  One of the things I did immediately was to work on getting rid of my Pepsi addiction.  I accomplished that and have stuck to it a few months or so.  The elimination of sweet treats that I love was part it too.  I have been so proud of myself.

Well, with sweet treats that have consumed my thoughts I broke down and bought donuts yesterday.  Since then I have beat myself up and started getting thoughts of being a failure.

Somewhere between cheating on my quest and now, I have realized that I actually conquered the struggle.  It took me stumbling through the struggle that I have realized my strength.  And I feel like I go back to positive thoughts of progress instead of failure.

And I am grateful for the struggle!

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Positive anything and everything

 

Positive anything is better than negative nothing.

Elbert Hubbard

The world around you looks so much better when you think positively.  Recently my life changed drastically because of the way I have changed my way of thinking.The saying "don't worry about what you can't change" describes another change I've made in my thinking.  Of course that is within reason.  There are reasonable things we will always worry about.There have been times in my life when I was thinking that everything was negative which led to a great deal of unhappiness.  In general, my negativity changed nothing and I could have thought positively and experience happiness.  It is all a mindset. We may not be able to control outcomes, but we can somewhat control how we feel.My grief has entered a new phase.  Good and happy memories are what I think about and it brings on smiles instead of tears.Negativity causes pain and I choose not to go there.

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It feels better to be optimistic

 

"Choose to be optimistic, it feels better."

Dali Lama

For the first time, since The Captain passed away and my sweet Kiki had to be put to sleep, I can honestly say I am starting to feel joy.  My struggle has been to stay positive about life in general.  It was all the losses, including friends and family who turned their back on me, mainly about politics, how The Captain liked to fight back and how they didn't like it.  

After all this time, some now want to act like nothing happened.  But it did.  I may not like to confront anyone, but I also have had it with people hurting me.  Now I don't care.

Anyway, that explains my struggle with being optimistic.  But I have been fighting that struggle and am finally breaking through.  I have written about how I am dealing with grief and the negativity.  The point is I am finally experiencing positive results.

Being optimistic does feel better!

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Positive Thoughts

 

One small positive thought can change your whole day.

Zig Ziglar
When you are down and out, one of the hardest things to do is talk yourself into a positive mood.  Most of the time I could not do it until I started trying little tricks to fool myself.1.  Turn off the television unless it is something that will make you laugh.  If you are like me when you are in that negative mood, hardly anything will make you laugh.  Don't even watch the news, stay away from it like poison!!2.  Turn on music that you love or relaxes you.  In my case, it is high energy dance music like old disco music.  It doesn't relax me, but it brings me to a happier place and time.  It is the most positive inspiring thing I can do for myself.3.  Write about how you feel.  Usually I write in my blog, but sometimes it is just too personal and I write somewhere else.  Ask yourself questions, like "why am I upset" like a therapist would do.  As a matter of fact, I learned this one trick from my therapist a long time ago.  It has really helped me understand myself and get through many situations.4.  I'll ask myself to do one tiny thing and not think about a whole bunch of stuff that needs to be done.  It could be that doing the one little thing will result in doing something else.  5.  Don't overwhelm yourself, if possible.  I'm retired and alone, so it is easy for me to do exactly what I want to do when I want to do it.6.  Talk to yourself positively.  Your thoughts are instrumental in how you feel.These are some of my coping mechanisms that I see as being positive and so important in my life.  Sometimes it takes tiny baby steps, but any step is a step forward.  Coping with life circumstances is taking one second at a time and learning how to sit down, relax and take a deep breath, telling yourself "you can do this."  Otherwise I'll just stay in bed and watch television which is negative and so bad for me. 

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