This week I found beauty everywhere. I found the beauty in the crazy behavior of my darling children, the feel of my feet hitting the ground, the movement of my body in the water, the sun in my face, the sounds of girls singing karaoke, the laugh of my son, the pain of my blistered toe, the rushing river flooding the bike path with melted snow, the children waiting for the bus, the school with a zero reject policy, and the love for teaching children.
When I look at myself in the mirror, instead of always finding fault, instead of letting the negative tape play, I successfully silenced it, and spoke over it. I often spoke out loud when I was alone in my home, or just mouthing the words in the mirror at the rec center while in my competition style bathing suit. I found kind words to replace the cruel derision and harsh criticsm that I normally spout in my head quietly. That negative self-tape, it doesn’t have a voice, it is a silent recording built from years of emotional abuse inflicted by others and myself; silencing it is a simple matter of talking over it.
Now we all know positive self-talk looks silly, remember Stuart Smalley on SNL? But guess what? It works. Every time I went to spout a negative thought about myself whether in a mirror, or an email, or a text, or even just thinking to myself, I replaced it with a positive one whenever I was conscious of what I was doing. The outcome was even better than I expected; I found myself able to eat bites of trigger type foods without bingeing; I found myself exercising moderation, which is an important goal of mine even though it violates the OA and 12 step rules. Since food addiction is so complicated and true abstention is not possible, and since I can gain pleasure from any type of foods, not just the trigger ones, I believe, from a psychological perspective that it is more important that I heal what causes me to seek the food than worry about exposure to the food.
I had a great week training and discovered I have tons of issues in the water greater than my asthma that my instructor/coach started to help me with Friday with lessons. I completed all of my runs this week on schedule and swam three times despite having a severe cold. Mucinex D is awesome for preventing death by asthma when sick. 🙂 I’m back up to 8 miles and my shoes are too small…..explains possibly every problem I’ve had since I bought them in September, I figured it out by bringing my old shoes back into play and testing the differences. Always trust your instincts even when blaming the shoes seems illogical….they change the brands yearly and “experts” don’t know everything.
Strong people are attracted to self-confidence; weak people are fearful of it. Be strong, be proud, but be humble. Ego is also repellent. Beauty inside is what counts, and sadness inside doesn’t project beauty outward. Love yourself, be happy and you will smile more often. Smiles are contagious! Mission for the week: Smile when you feel bad or sad or discouraged, you might pass it to someone who needs it!
Kerniec-Teacher, Mom and ? 