Change the way you think, please and thank you. :)

This post was first published on my Facebook page on February 8, 2010

I don't know why I had not published it here sooner but here it is. Let me know what you think!




Let me just start off by saying: If you think someone is going to fail you, chances are they're going to fail you. I found myself looking back through previous notes and one (which was literally written at some ungodly hour where I was literally in a pit of existential dispair) caught my eye. I was saying something similar to: why is it that even when we know someone's going to let us down, we trust them and then they let us down just as we figured. I'm not copying and pasting but....you get the picture. 

It got me thinking, what if I had not been thinking this person is going to let me down, would they have let me down? The way I think about things now made the answer to this question very clear: NO THEY WOULDN'T HAVE! I set them up for failure by thinking they would fail me. The truth is I failed myself by thinking this way... 

Too often I would post on facebook: Feeling like the EPIC FAIL. I never realized that by giving in to that negativity that I was setting myself up for problems with my parents, how I felt about my life professionally, how I interacted with my son, and any other relationships. I kept letting negativity creep in and as a result my insecurities and ugly parts of my character began to shine through. 

I even set myself up to get my heart broken by thinking everything else failed in my life so why not this. This certainly feels like I am about to fail at it so I guess I am about to fail. As a result I did some foolish and rash things that hurt myself and hurt someone else. I followed this pattern for a long time until I changed the way I thought about my life, myself, and all that went on around me. 

So I started doing a lot of reading, a lot of looking at myself from the inside out. I sat down and started writing and examined what it was about ME that was making ME so unhappy. Then it hit me: No one is making Me unhappy but ME. So I decided to change the way I think. 

Now I take the time to think of at least one thing I love about me and I write it down. I do things that help me smile like singing karaoke again or dancing around my living room with my kid. I post on Facebook what I am grateful for during my day, no matter how small or silly. For instance, saying my new lip gloss smells like foot loops and it does, kinda makes me want to go get some right now haha, but I digress. 

I started to notice more of the good and less of the bad and then my days, weeks, whatever, started to get better. All of a sudden people started treating me better, because I treated me better. Even when I noticed the recent huge crack in my windshield (and trust it is big, it spans the bottom of the windshield) I sat there, squinted to make sure what I was seeing wasn't false and then laughed about it. I mean it was kinda funny, not sure how to explain it but I had just been sledding with the people that saved my life and the one person that matters most: Aidan. I was euphoric if you will. 

Once I changed the way I think, I felt like I felt when I was 13 sitting in church feeling the spirit. Instead of feelling like the EPIC FAIL I now felt like the EPIC SUCCESS. I just wish I had noticed this about myself sooner, could have saved myself a lot of energy, time, emotions, tears, kleenex, etc but...clarity like everything else in this life happens precisely when its supposed to. 

So I am asking for those of you that actually take the time to read this, to change the way you think about a situation. Instead of: I know this couldn't possibly get worse. Think this: Things are only getting better, they're getting better everyday. Why do you think I sat down to make the Bucket list: Yes life has an ending, but what do you do with yourself for the time being? I say experience everything life has to offer. 

Change the way you think, trust people like no one has ever broken your trust, love like you've never had your heart broken, be thankful for everyday that you wake up in the morning because worse case scenario: You could be dead.