New Year Resolutions

New Year Resolutions. A lot of people make them. I’ve not been one of those people. I seem to have trouble with long term commitments to self-improvement ideas. This would explain why I am still complaining about the same things I have been complaining about for a couple of years now.

So, time to quit whining and do something. There are many areas in my life that I am rather stuck and cannot see a way out. However, there are some areas that I do have control over and can improve and maybe by improving those areas, the others might just fall into place. 

There is, of course, the typical get-my-butt-in-shape resolution. Which, by the way, I was trying on pants the other day and that resolution took on a literal meaning. Things are a little flat back there. I put away the Christmas tree today, and my daughter will pull my treadmill back in tomorrow. Monday morning I’m back on it. That should help lift more than just my mood.

I have also wanted to learn a new language. I’ve dabbled in Spanish and French off and on for a few years. Through my work, I have that fancy language program for French. When I get off the treadmill each morning, I will do a lesson of French. This will cut into my Facebook time, but that is probably a good thing.

My favorite things to work on this year are photography and drawing. I used to draw a lot when I was younger. I lost that somewhere along the way of becoming a stressed out adult. My youngest daughter, who is an artist, is putting together a curriculum to get me back to drawing. 

I love to take pictures. I was without a camera for many years. A year and a half ago, my oldest daughter bought me a little camera for Mother’s Day. It is a point-and-shoot but with manual capabilities. My goal this year is to learn all I can about this camera and photography. I am pinning tutorials to a board in my Pinterest. The idea is to learn one skill each weekend and work on that all week. If I stay consistent, that will be 52 new things I will learn by this time next year.

Hopefully, by adding these fun things into my life, I’ll whine less and maybe rediscover me.

WORDS

“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” This is a lie. Words do hurt. Words spoke to others and words spoke inside one’s head can have life altering consequences.

My blog today will focus on the words we speak to ourselves either in our head or out loud. Words such as, “I can’t”. Negative words. Negative thinking.  There was a time in my life that I would say “I can’t” a lot. Whether it was I can’t get out of bed, or I can’t stop myself from eating this whole candy bar (or two), or I can’t do fill-in-the-blank. This is basically a victim mentality.  “I can’t” puts other things or people in control. “I can’t” keeps me from taking responsibility for my thoughts and behaviors. Most of the time “I can’t” really means “I don’t want to”.  It has taken me a long time to get to this point in my life. I do still occasionally say, “I can’t”, but catch myself and change the wording to “I don’t want to.”

Another negative pattern that I recently caught myself doing was going back to a time period and continually listing all the bad things that happened. I used this as an excuse for not moving forward.  For example, last September my basement flooded. Actually, on the Sunday evening before, I received an emotionally upsetting email. Woke up Monday to a flooded basement. The following Monday I started school. The next week my dog had to be taken to UGA veterinarian hospital. There are several more things that happened even after that. Yes, that was a very rough time. However, six or seven months later I was still listing those things as a oh poor me.  A victim mentality of look at all the bad surrounding me. I can’t do this because of all this….etc.

A conversation I have had many times with my children is you can control your thoughts and you can control your behaviors. No one else can control what you do and think. Negative thinking will lead to depression. I know. I know how one little bad thought can snowball into obsessive worry and fear. I know how words like “I can’t” and “I am so overwhelmed” and “I don’t have time” can paralyze me from doing things. I also know that if something is really important enough to me, I will find a way to get it done. When I become uncomfortable enough with the way things are, I will change it.

Complaining is negative thinking out loud. Sometimes I just want to complain about everything. The weather, my finances, my animals, my hair. I have discovered that complaining can have that same snowball effect as I mentioned before. It is kinda like when I am cleaning my house (rare occasions) and I take something into another room and I see something that needs to be done there, too. Suddenly, the whole house (in my mind) is totally filthy, disorganized, and somehow it is my kids’ or the animals’ fault. No one ever does anything around here! I have to do everything and I don’t have time and I can’t…..see what happens? Negativity. So, I take a deep breath, or ten, and re-focus.

Only I can control what is going on inside my head. Until I grasp that concept, I will let negative thoughts control me. I will let circumstances and other people control me. I will continue to use negative thoughts to relieve me from any responsibility of doing the hard work of growing mentally and emotionally healthy.

I will end this with one of my favorite Scriptures from the book of Philippians, chapter 4 verse 8: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable---if anything is excellent or praiseworthy---think about such things.” (italics mine)