NO MORE COMPLAINING
I don't know that I complain, well, not any more. I've given up the idea of control and along with it the need to express dissatisfaction when things don't go the way I'd prefer. I have done my very best to come back from drowning in the depths of an exhausting, negative and narcissistic experience. What that relationship did do was force me to take another, more resilient and kinder, point of view.
The assignment: How can you start to change your thinking from negative to positive?
On my journey to mindfulness, I learned a neat trick. I learned to turn shit into sunshine. The benefit of being around someone who is always negative, or living in the past, or in a constant state of scarcity and want, you simply have to say, do and be the complete opposite. All. The. Time.
On my own it was harder, I had no one to repel me into the opposite direction. It was pretty scary and hard to find my own path, an easier way. When my thoughts stray toward "I can't" or "I'm not (good) enough" or general questioning of my own ability to accomplish things and focus on my lack of confidence, I am aware and pull on the rubber band around my wrist and snap it. It smarts! It is a physical reminder to change my train of thought.
At that point I consider the great many things for which I am grateful. Those things are abundant and the list just keeps growing and growing.
Like most people, my moods tend to go in cycles. I don't have my rubberband on my wrist all the time. When my energy is low and I find it easy to slip down that slope to negativity, I remember to grab the rubberband off my bathroom vanity and wear it for a couple of days. It doesn't take long to bring my thoughts back to the positive. It is my preferred place to dwell.
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Like Bree Hester, I believe you choose to be happy. Sure there are bad (out of your control) things that happen, but how you handle them is completely up to you. Your choices are your responsibility - there is no blame, no shame, no nothing but accountability. Your attitude is your decision. I choose to be happy. Happy within the context of not wearing the proverbial rose-coloured glasses or any expectation that those who populate my life have made the same choice :) Last October, Bree put together 31 DAYS TO A HAPPIER YOU and, armed with her PDF, I'm using March - that dreary time between winter and spring that seems to drag on forever - to make the conscious choice to be happy every day this month!
