you're fired!

I've been thinking about firing my inner critic.  You know... the one who pipes in while I am innocently getting ready for the day by making rude comments about me.  To my knowledge, this critic has been there my whole life.  Some say it's name is Self Esteem.  Others might say self regard or self respect.  Most people that I know have this inner voice that says "well you look decent but those wrinkles are showing up more every day" or "what made you say that... that was a stupid thing to say" and "you are not seriously considering putting a bathing suit on are you?"  And sometimes you dwell on these silly things, or I do at least, and let them get me down and worry.  It is not a healthy self worth cycle to be on.  That's why I am firing my inner critic.  Not listening anymore.  I'm done.

 


As a matter of fact, this type thing came into play yesterday during my yoga class.  My wonderful instructor, Tracy, gives words of wisdom and thoughts to carry with us until our next session each class.  After our hour long practice, when we were all relaxed, with hearts open and hands centered, she said " I want you to thank your body for three things... three things about your body that you are thankful for".  My first one was my skin, which is a hard thing for me to be thankful for because of the way it looks and feels with my issues.  It actually made me tear up in a way I could hardly control.  I've never "thanked" my body for anything that I can recall.  I felt like my inner critic should be hollering "BUT WHAT ABOUT... BUT THIS... BUT THAT", but my critic was silent during this time and I simply expressed my great-fullness silently.  It felt good to appreciate myself and was as easy as saying "thank you".

This is a practice that I intend to carry with me, being thankful to my body for who and what it is, what is is capable of and does for me every day.  Hush up inner critic!   Nobody wants to hear your trashy bashing of my body and mind any more!

what do you feed yourself?

When I ask you "what do you feed yourself?", I'm not just talking about food.  Sometimes, when we feel rotten, wore down and unhealthy, it is majority of what we are putting in that is giving us the bad outcome.  Not just what we eat, but what we watch, talk about, listen to, and even read.  I am sure, by society standards, that we feed ourselves plenty of bad things like news stories of violence and sickos, fast food, soft drinks, gossip, alcohol, processed foods, porn, or self-criticism.  If we keep putting bad in to our minds and bodies surely the outcome is not going to be good and stressing over things that we can't control will also run us down.

Why not make an effort to purposely feed ourselves with only what makes us feel good, be it healthy food, a favorite song on cd instead of the morning news, a glass of water instead of diet mountain dew, a walk around the block after a long day at work, yoga or a good stretch?  I feel like if we turned  off all the bad and turned on the good for a full week we would each begin to see a huge difference in our individual worlds.  It could actually change the way we eat, sleep and treat others.

Before all my diet changes, I had never really felt like I fed my body foods that made it feel good and refreshed.  Stopping to get a biscuit and an energy drink on the way to work was just the way it was.   But now I can truly tell a difference in the way that I feel.  Now if I can just make myself exercise!

Why not try it for one week?  Make a small list of just a few that make you feel "not-so-good" and replace them with something better, something that has a more positive twist on things.

What I Saw

From shame to pride I came to a different level of dealing last weekend and I have struggled with sharing this post all week because I really get afraid to let people in.  One of my favorite hobbies is this blog and I want it to be a positive outlet for me, not somewhere that I sit and complain about anything, but I also feel it is important to let the people who love me and read my hobby to know me because if you think everything is good then I am fooling you.  On one hand everything is good because I have a positive outlook and a wonderful blessed life on the other I am a human who has issues like everybody else and the tug to share this is too strong, silly or not, complaining or not, moving this hobby where I don't want it to go because i am afraid or not.  Here it is.

Today has been a lucky day.  After many months of in and out of slight depression and beating myself up as an aftershock at thirty nine years old being told I would never be a mother, I saw myself differently.  I was at home this Saturday by myself and in the midst of redecorating our mantel, which has looked the same since the Christmas decorations were taken down the year before last, and listening to an old country radio station out of Springfield I had found on the AM stations when I heard someone coming up the front steps of our house.  I was in the living room already and I turned and flung open the door thinking it was Shaun and that maybe I had been too preoccupied to hear his truck drive up.  I had a true and large refreshing smile on my face as I had been surprised that he was home early.  When the door opened I saw a boy about twelve years old, and his mother was walking up the yard, turning out to be our neighbors from across the street and down a couple of houses.  They came wanting to buy some top soil from our pile behind the trailer at the front of our property.  I was still happy to see them and by this point slightly laughing at myself for suspecting it was Shaun and hadn’t looked first nor had I let the guest even knock therefore surprising him as well.  She wanted to leave her number for the dirt and I turned in the door way to grab a pen and paper.  As I did I imagined what I looked like at that point to my guests.  My scarf wisping around behind me as I turned, and music playing in the background and I apologized for the mess on the floor, as if following the artist interrupted from a sculpture and I thought… this is who I am.  I am this woman, this thirty nine year old woman.  I am proud of her.  She is interesting, not a cliché.  She is artistic.  She can be whoever she wants to be and not what she ever expected she would be.  Nothing like I ever imagined my life would become but better.  She reminds me, at this moment, of the character Ariel in the movie Grumpy Old Men.  She talks to her plants, is artistic, crafty, classy and has a taste of her own and never disappointed in the hand that has been dealt her.  I have grieved for the life I know I will not have but for once I am excited about the woman I have the opportunity to be.  I don’t have to hold back or dream or prepare to “be” anymore.  I am her.  It is all here I just have to grow in to it.  Fuck being sad and disappointed. 

Do you really know who you are?  Not just who you are married to or whose mother or sister you are.  Do you know you?  Do you know who you are to others and what kind of person they think you are?  It is beautiful and for once a wonderful thing to realize and how quickly it came in when I opened the door in my long jeans, green boots, black long-sleeved tee and black and white wispy scarf draped down my back with my hair straightened and pulled back out of my face.  I saw what I looked like to myself through their eyes and I saw me, in my world.  Today I was lucky, I saw who I am and through my disappointments to who I will be, an Ariel, and I like her.  I am the one who needs to understand this, to know who I am, to inspire myself who needs to be happy and comfortable in this spotted skin that I live in.

 

 

Coming to Terms

I have always had a wish.  One particular wish that I have felt would take me places.  That wish would be to have that one thing that I am really good at.  Something I could make a living from.  A profession, a title.  Never certain of what that one thing could be because of not having a degree from college, of which I did not go.  Or a certain art like pottery or painting.  One where I could choose to devote my energy towards and either draw an income or make a name for myself.  Maybe that one thing is "dreamer!"

I have been self employed since May of 2012.  I have tried to find different ways of making money since a paycheck is not coming from one place anymore.  This venture has not been a desperate attempt.  It is purely putting my all in many directions.  I have the day care here on our farm (which needs a couple more kids).  But I also sell items online and bake pies and cakes for Perry's Smokin Pig.  I am using multiple talents in three areas at one time to derive an income.  This is the result of a talent in multi-tasking!  I have many irons on the fire.  Even when I am not at work, I am working.  My grocery list is larger and so is my heart.

I am "Coming to Terms" with that prayer and wish of finding that one thing and letting it go.  I am realizing that I have talents in many areas that are needed to make me who I am and who I am going to grow up to be.  So maybe all I can say is, the one thing I need to be good at is being myself.

The Dirty Dirty - Part Four

I am clearly a person who ignores organization.  Over time a clean and uncluttered room can be completely destroyed by my lack of discipline in simply putting things back where they go.  And also taking the time to find a proper home for incoming traffic.  In the case of The Dirty Dirty - Part Four, the room of great concern is unfortunately at the day care.  It is the smallest room that I call my own.  It is my office slash craft supply room.  A place that has a small gate at the doorway to let everyone know "this is  my space."  Although the more I have used the desk in the center of the room as a landing strip and used the closet and shelves as a disorganized place to store crafts made long ago the more I don't go in there for anything other than to toss new arriving supplies. 

I mentally made the resolution to "put things back" where they go in my life.  If I remove it from a drawer then that's where it goes back when I am finished using it.  This new found form of self control can be a tough one.  Mainly because it involves getting organized in the first place.  So one day during nap time I tore in to this room.  I didn't buy any fancy Martha containers, I simply used what I had.  I threw some things away and have a couple of bags to take to Goodwill.  I also moved my desk out from the center of the room to avoid using it in the wrong way.  The main thing is that it feels better.  When I walk in there I know exactly where the glues are and where all my tissue paper is and fake crafty flowers live.  And I know they are there because the last time I used them I put them back there.  Aha!  There's the key to staying this way.  I have done well in the other rooms involved in this Dirty Dirty adventure.  Unfortunately, the task is not over. 

Before

 oof

And After

Thank you for loving me through my faults of un-organization.