Battling Negative Messages

I recently had the opportunity to attend a single adult activity with a man that I had some interest in. He was someone easy to talk to and we had a lot in common. I was excited for this chance to spend some time with him as well as getting to know other single adults in the area.

When we got to the activity, something I was not prepared for emotionally took place. Another woman became very friendly and attentive to the man I was with! We were not there on a date so I just tried to back off and see what would happen and ended up spending a lot of the day watching this woman finding any excuse she could to make physical contact with the man. This created a lot of strange emotions and thoughts within me. Many of which centered around my self-worth and attractiveness.

Over the next few days as I reflected on the experience, many thoughts and negative messages ran through my mind that made me question my worth as a woman in the dating world. Maybe if I wore make-up I would have been more appealing. Maybe if I wore more trendy clothes or had my hair fixed nice he would have noticed me more. Maybe if I was more bubbly, less independent, or was more helpless then I would be more datable. Messages from when I was a late teen and in my early twenty’s came back to my mind. The main two being, “You are just too weird,” and, “Amy, you are the kind of girl a guy wants to marry, not the kind of girl a guy likes to date.” Yes, I was told those things.

I also had the negative messages from my marriage replay in my mind. I was not allowed to cut my hair during my marriage. One time I was sick of my hair so I cut it to shoulder length. I was told that my long hair had been the only thing that was helping my ex-husband see past my weight. I was only about a hundred and fifty-five pounds at the time. He assured me after several days of cooling down that even though I was hideous to look at that he still was willing to have sex with me. Lucky me… Thoughts about my weight and my need to have long hair in order to be attractive came back to me because of that experience at the single adult activity.

As the negative messages from the world and my past play in my mind, I have a choice. Continue to feed these messages by believing them and giving them power, or tell myself, “These words do not define me! These words are not who I am!” And then give myself some positive messages instead.

Yesterday when I got out of the shower I saw myself in the mirror. An interesting sequence of thoughts passed through my mind that, I felt, showed a positive change in dealing with negative messages and body image. When I saw myself I thought, “Wow, Amy! You look good!” Immediately following that was the thought, “Oh, man, Amy, you are fat!” Here is the thought that followed that caused me to feel like I have made progress, “I may be fat, but at least I look good fat!” I know that it still holds negative energy about how I feel about myself, but it showed me that I am on my way to accepting myself. Baby steps. ;)

As I sit here today, I have come to realize that no matter what situation I am in, no matter who I am around or who I want to impress, I will never walk away happy if I compromise who I am. I need to be myself no matter what. I have tried wearing make-up and don’t feel comfortable when I do, so I need to accept that about myself. Sometimes I like my hair long, sometimes I like it short. I shouldn’t feel like it has to be a certain way in order to have a man attracted to me. I am independent and really don’t “need” a man in my life. That is a wonderful thing in my mind. I don’t want a man who needs me to need him. I can be strong in who I am and hopefully one day I will be able to have a man who can be a companion in life. As far as my weight is concerned, I am a great person with a fun personality no matter what my size. When I am happy, I really am a very attractive person. :)

I am very grateful for the chance to learn about myself. Though at the time there were many awkward and uncomfortable feelings, I am glad to have reevaluated how I feel about myself and am ready to move forward with being more clear about who and what I am.

Completion of July Goal

Today is the end of the month which means I have reached the end of my July daily postings of my opinions and self-discoveries. When I first decided last year to do a month of self-discoveries I had no idea how much it would change me and how I look at life. This year has been much more challenging to complete. I can see a lot of growth in myself and can honestly say that I am not the same person I was a month ago. I desire to continue to learn and grow each day, even if I don't post about it everyday.

The trick to self-discovery isn’t to go out and read a lot of books or take a lot of classes, although those things can be good tools. The trick is to go about each day with the thought in mind, “What can I learn about myself today? What can I learn about myself in this situation?” Just a simple, conscious mindset can change the way you look at life and what you get out of each day.

I am grateful for the support I have received from so many people as I have gone through the last few years. Life can be so confusing and difficult, at times seemingly unbearable, but with love and support from the right people it is possible to get through anything. I am grateful today for my God who has never left me alone. I can look back and see His hand throughout every step of my life. I know that life’s challenges will never go away. I also know that no matter what happens, I have the freedom to choose how I will respond. I also know that I have support and help available at any moment.

What are you learning about yourself today?

Relationships

I have been contemplating relationships today. Relationships with children, parents, siblings, significant others, friends. I wonder why some relationships are easy and others are so much more difficult. Growing up I had only a few problems with relationships. There were only a couple of people that I struggled with. I wasn’t one of those people who had love/hate relationships with friends. I got along with most everybody.

Since my divorce, my relationships with people has changed drastically. As things got nasty throughout the divorce I pulled away from most people that I had known while being married. I had people who had once been friendly to me turn their backs on me. I think most of that was because people just simply didn’t know how to respond. I found myself inwardly questioning every person that was in my life. What was their purpose in my life? Could they be trusted? Did I need to be superficial or could I share how I truly was doing? For the most part, other than my sister that lives nearby, I pulled away from everyone in my life.

Now that I am in the process of trying to be more engaged in life and have relationships again, I feel very nervous about the whole process. How do I set boundaries? How do I know how much of myself to reveal? How do I know who to trust? How do I stay true to myself and who I want to be no matter what? What is it I really want from friendships and relationships?

I think that the number one thing that I need in the relationships I have is respect. I need to know that the people around me respect who I am and that I have an opinion. I don’t need everyone to agree with me, I just need people to not try to change who I am to match what they want me to be. In my marriage I would be asked for my opinion and, if I would give one, would be lectured on why my opinion was wrong and that I really should think a different way. I really don’t want anyone in my life who feels that they need to change or control me. I only want God to tell me how I should change and who I should be.

I am not totally sure how to implement this in my life. I think the biggest thing is to make sure I continue to learn about myself and stay strong in who I am. I cannot allow a friend or a significant other to influence me to give up my true self. In my marriage I gave up my will to my husband. I gave up my identity to become what he shaped me to be. The true Amy not only got lost, but began to die. That is not something I am willing to experience again. I would rather be alone and friendless than do that. Luckily, I have some really amazing friends right now that would never treat me that way. Hopefully, as I continue to learn and grow, my friendships will only strengthen and my relationships will be beneficial to all involved.

Are you staying true to yourself in your relationships?

Creating My Day

This morning, after a very interrupted night’s sleep, I woke up with a very different question running through my mind. I thought, “What am I going to create today?” Usually when I wake up my thoughts center around what I need to do to get everyone out the door on time, what my schedule is, where each child needs to go, and many other things related to my day so this question took me by surprise. So much so that I had to contemplate for a bit before getting out of bed what this might mean.

For a long time I have been consciously working on choosing how I act rather than reacting. This has been a very challenging goal that I have a lot of work to do before I feel that I will be good at it. I think that the thought this morning goes right in line with this concept. Instead of letting life happen and reacting to it, I can choose what I want to create.

Today I wanted to create some order in the chaos of my home. Instead of just wishing things were organized or that my children would pick up things, I told my son we were going to work on cleaning and organizing his room. I went in and started moving things around. He became excited about getting things organized and got really involved in what I was doing. Instead of waiting for things to happen I created what I wanted.

I know that I will not always be capable of creating exactly what I want, but the more I am consciously creating my life, the more likely life will look the way I want it to. I feel that the greatest challenge is finding a way to align myself with God’s will so that I am creating my life the way God desires me to. The more I align myself to God, the happier I will be and the more peace I will be able to find each day.

What are you creating in your life?

Spending Time With the Kids

One of my struggles in life is taking time to spend with my kids. I can find so many things to do instead of spend time with them. Tonight I chose to leave the house a mess and jump in the pool with them for an hour before bed. It was so nice to have all four of them doing something together and having fun. It didn’t take a lot of effort, no extra money, and we were able to create good memories and build relationships with each other. It wasn’t argument free but overall we all enjoyed the time together.

So how do I find balance between doing what needs to get done and spending time with the kids? If I had patience I could involve them more in the work. ;) The real answer, I think, is to be more conscientious of what I am doing, make plans, schedule my time rather than fly by the seat of my pants. If I tell myself that I have an hour every night from 6:30 to 7:30 to do something with the kids and make that a priority, then I think all of us would be happier.

Being a single parent is probably one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do. Having to make all the decisions without another adult to help, having to be on duty twenty-four hours a day for nightmares, sickness, loneliness, for the kids to tell jokes to, play with, report how school went, and the many, many other things that need to happen each day. There are times I wonder how I can continue to get up each morning and do it all by myself one more time. But as I pray, I find strength that I never knew I had. As I keep getting up and doing what needs to get done I feel support from a power greater than myself. And at the end of the day when I lay with my kids as they go to sleep, I feel their unspoken love and gratitude for me and that makes every bit of the struggle worthwhile.

What activities bring you closer to your family?

Out With the Old, In With the New

Tonight I was using visualization to help identify and release things in my body, mind, and spirit that are keeping me from reaching my highest potential. After doing some deep breathing and allowing myself to get in a relaxed state, I picked different things I wanted to release. I looked for anger, stubbornness, pride, bitterness, and any other things that popped into my head. I tried to imagine any place in my body that I might be hiding those things then I imagined pulling it completely out of my body and sending it to God’s light to be cleansed, purified, and recycled. I then imagined the pure light of Christ filling in all the spaces left behind in my being.

It was amazing how with each thing I released, I became lighter and it became easier to breath. I learned a lot about myself and where I store negative emotions. I learned that I have a lot of things to work on in myself. I also learned that I have a lot of control over my own growth and healing. When I remove the things holding me back and replace them with the light of Christ, I feel more capable and feel closer to God. It was a great experience!

It is so easy to go through each day thinking about all that needs to get done and forget to take time to improve myself. When I let too much time pass without self evaluation and processing emotions I get bogged down and begin to get depressed. I am grateful today that I had a little bit of time to do this exercise. I feel relaxed and renewed.

What emotions are holding you back from progressing?

Finding Wonder

I love to teach. I have the opportunity to teach the women’s organization in our church once a month. I always learn so much, both from studying for the lesson and from the comments of those who are in the class. There is something so magical about coming together with a group of like-minded people and sharing in a focused discussion.

Today one of the things we talked about was finding wonder in the gospel of Jesus Christ and how to keep that wonder and amazement alive. When we have something wonderful in front of us for a long period of time we start to lose that sense of amazement. It becomes commonplace. We forget the value of what we have.

I think that this principle applies to all aspects of life. When was the last time you laid on the grass and stared in amazement at the shapes of the clouds in the sky? Or when did you last stop and appreciate the beauty of a flower? Or when can you remember watching your child playing and wonder at the way they think and play? When have you fully appreciated all that your body can do? I forget to appreciate the different wonders of this life.

So how can we keep our wonder and amazement alive? I think one key thing is to be grateful for all that we have. The more gratitude I express, the more amazement I feel. Another thing is to take time to stop and really see the things all around. Instead of being so focused on what needs to get done, take a moment to take a deep breath and look around. This is such an amazing world, so full of beauty and life everywhere you look. Be like a little child seeing things for the first time.

What things bring a sense of awe and amazement to you?