I am Powerful, I am in Control

Negative thoughts swirl through everything I do lately.  The last few years have been extremely tough and it's been very hard to keep a positive attitude.  I'm feeling it from all sides; marriage, work, kids, friends, family, the whole nine yards.  There's so many, "I should be doing things this way" thoughts floating through my head at all times.  So much guilt and self-doubt, it's hard to climb out of the emotional hole I've dug myself.

It's so out of character for me to be stuck this long.  Normally, I realize I'm doing it and start filling in the holes and rounding out my attitude.  This time, it seems that everything I try fails, even changing my outlook.  I think my unscheduled summer has had a lot to do with it and I'm hoping now that school has started, the schedule will help.  I start doing what I need to and then something comes along that's more important.  Sometimes, that thing is just going fishing with the boys or playing Minecraft with Zakk.  And those are normally really good things, they're great interruptions for getting things back on track.  But it seems that after they occur, I'm stagnant.

Fishing on the Savannah River with the boys

So going to put down a plan here and make some goals.  Because goals are my thing, I must always have a goal to work towards.  Obviously, my current goals need to be tweaked.  I'm a firm believer in positive attitude, positive life and that you are who you make yourself.  I love TED talks, they're absolutely amazing and help you reaffirm your value and self-worth.  Even if the talk is about helping to bring water into third-world countries.  They help you see that one tiny little person in this huge scope of countless universes can actually make a difference.

So one of my recent favorite TED talks is by Cesar Kuriyama, creator of the 1 Second Every Day app.  You can watch his TED talk here: One Second Every Day, but the gist of it is taking time out of every day to really appreciate where you are at that moment.  So the beginning of August, I downloaded his app, after using a free generic one for a few days to make sure it was something that would mesh with me.  It was seriously worth the paltry $4.99.   So it's been helping me enjoy at least times in my day.

But a second a day, or actually the two minutes it takes to get that second, isn't going to do it on it's own.  So I need to also take time just for my attitude.  I was doing yoga daily, then I had became involved in a huge project which took over my life for a little bit.  Yoga starts again tonight!  I love the quiet time to myself.  Most people take advantage of the mornings to prepare for the day, but I love the nights,  The kids are sleeping after their busy days and I like to take that time to "evaluate" my day and figure out how to improve it tomorrow.

Two blogs that I'm following at the moment really will help with taking back my positivity.  Elaina, from Life Before 30 (even though I may be a little past that), has some great content on finding your purpose.  Although sometimes her steps are a little big for my little world.  8 Tips to Help Create a Positive Mental Attitude from Tiny Buddha, is what I'm concentrating on right now.  "Don’t go through life expecting things to change. Life becomes hard and unfair when we decide to complain about things rather than trying to change them ourselves. Wake up to the truth that life is not a practice-run."  

All in all, I think the most important thing I need to remember right now is: