Must-Read Blog Posts - These Posts Made Me Smile, Cry or Laugh.

With not much sleep and a TON on my brain right now, I'm having trouble sorting out my thoughts to type out in an orderly fashion. So, I don't think it's a great idea for me to publish anything I've drafted so far until I have a little more clarity on it. I decided I needed to be a READER today. Hit up bloglovin' and see what everyone else has to say. So glad I did. A zillion clicks later, many blogs read, tears shed and I bring you...

Holy Makeover - Girl Power! 

on essential thing devotions.

O God, thy sea is so great and my boat is so small… 

on Hope in the Healing

Becoming Mrs. Right 

on Bless Your Heart and Home

Falling In Love... with myself.

Self-esteem and confidence have always been a struggle for me. I was the quintessential funny fat girl all my life. Still am. I was always okay with settling for that but over the last year, as my life has changed drastically, I have yearned for more. More love, more respect, more sincerity... more out of life.
So, while I'm thinking about that two song lyrics pop into my head. "If you're gonna start somewhere why not here? If you're gonna start sometime why not now?" and "Unapologetically... I wanna leave a legacy..." and here I am, sitting on this computer typing away unexpectedly.

I think it might do me some good to make a list of why I should love myself. A list of my positive attributes, my favorite things about myself and what makes me an awesome chick-a-dee.

1. I want to grow and learn, always.
2. I take interest in what the people I care about are interested in.
3. I'm a good mommy. I've got this beautiful, healthy, brilliant daughter that rarely gets in trouble, brings home excellent grades, loves and trusts with all of her heart and has more wisdom than many adults do. I must have done *something* right in my years of parenting her.
4. God loves me, duh. That should be reason enough to love me.
5. I admit when I was wrong about something, apologize when I've wronged someone and am open about my flaws. Transparency deserves respect!

That list really should be longer, ya know? Maybe in time it will grow.

What I do know is that it's enough for me to stop the cycle of self-sabotage and settling now and start living more courageously and loving myself.

The Tornado Within : Self Sabotage

A #transparenttuesday post.

I was halfway through writing a completely different post this afternoon about self-love and well, it's been tabled. Just couldn't complete it. Hey, it's Transparent Tuesday, right?! Might as well go with being real, huh? Real for me today is low, feeling like a complete idiot, a downright mess. So, that's what you're getting.
Fortunately, in some of my research for this post I found some "light at the end of the tunnel" stuffs so maybe I'll feel better and learn as I write. ;)

From Psychology Today: "Behavior is said to be self-sabotaging when it creates problems and interferes with long-standing goals. The most common self-sabotaging behaviors are procrastination, self-medication with drugs or alcohol, comfort eating in the face of weight concerns, and self-injury such as cutting. These acts may seem helpful in the moment, but ultimately undermine us, especially when we engage in them repeatedly."

Basically, in so many words, you can be your own worst enemy. Yes, yes I can.

From Psych Alive: "The critical inner voice doesn’t represent a positive sense of self that you can entrust in. Rather, it epitomizes a cruel “anti-self,” a part inside us that is turned against us. It casts doubt on our abilities, undermines our desires, and convinces us to be paranoid and suspicious toward ourselves and those close to us. This anti-self fills our mind with critical self-analysis and self-sabotaging thoughts that lead us to hold back or steer away from our true goals."

Boom. Wow.

Yeah, but how do you from understanding and knowing that to stopping it? That's kind of where I have been stuck at for quite some time. Okay, I see this happening, I see the patterns forming but what do I do? So, here's some of the ideas I'm gathering (and I hope that they will help you if you are stuck in this rut also, and I do ask for prayers as I start trying to work these out).

1. Identify Triggers. Retrace steps, find the root of the very first negative thought. You can't solve a problem without getting to the very deep beginning core of it.

2. Swap It Out. Decide on a positive thought you can immediately counter-act any doubts with.

3. Partner Up. Pick a person that you trust not to judge you or condemn you when you have moments of weakness or slip ups but will instead gently remind you of what you SHOULD be thinking about.

4. Stay Focused. Idle minds, ya know. ;)

5. Don't Throw The Baby Out With The Bathwater. Don't throw it all away over a mistake or two. Clean the situation up, pull the weeds, strain the water, but do NOT give up.