Good, Bad or Ugly? I Decide!

“If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought.” ~Peace Pilgrim

For a long time I let others opinions of me determine my own thoughts about myself.  I had  the worst self-esteem when I was growing up,  I was a misfit in grade school, serious  material for the Island Of Misfit Toys in Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer.  In addition to being weird, I was homely to say the least, seriously so.  The former prince would tell  you that too, I am not making  this stuff up.  I was the oddball, always had to be different but that  was just me, I hear a different drummer and while it was miserable to do so at times, I had to be true to myself,  I couldn’t help but follow my own beat.

My self-esteem started to improve as I grew up and became  comfortable with myself, and in time I did see that I wasn’t  homely anymore, and I also learned to not  really care what others think of me.  I accept that I am an attractive woman, but I don’t let it go to my head.  After all, outer beauty is fine, but truly enhanced by inner beauty.  The outer will fade, the inner should continue to blossom and shine brighter over time.  It was that inner beauty that I started to focus on,  finding out who I was, growing ME, that is what makes me who I am today.  If I were disfigured in a car accident tomorrow, I’m still a beautiful person because of  who I AM, not because of the vessel I’ve been assigned in which  to travel this life.

We believe our own self  talk, we will live up to, or beneath, the standard we set for ourselves.  I found that if I focused on negative thoughts about myself, I started to believe that.  But when I focus  on the positive things about myself and reinforce those with good thoughts about me, I start to rise to that standard.  It doesn’t mean that sometimes someone cannot knock my pedestal out from under me, like when the  prince focused on the negatives about me.  Sure, I have faults (don’t we all?), but it doesn’t mean I have to let those dominate my thought life and control who I become.  I just put that pedestal back up right and climb back up on it, fostering and nurturing the good in me, focusing on my positive traits so that those once again surface and remain the constant.

Thoughts are also very powerful in how we see our life.  If we are a glass half full type, optimistic, then we will lock in on the positives in our lives and tend to be happier over all.  My glass of life is 95%  full, I cannot accept seeing it any other way.  I can find the good in any situation.  I don’t have the greatest paying job right now, as far as money, but I have the BEST job ever!  Watching little ones, singing and dancing with them, working from home so I can do so many things around the house, including write, makes this an awesome job!

Same with relationships with others, how I ‘think’ of a person will impact how I treat them and what value is placed on the individual.  Love isn’t always a warm fuzzy feeling, sometimes it is a choice.  When I got married it was a warm and fuzzy feeling, I cried after making love my wedding  night, I was SO happy.  But those vows kick in in no time and it is the sticking to the promises made that determine the strength of those words.  There were many days throughout the 22 years that my former prince was anything but lovable, but I made a mental  choice to stick to my word and that is what kept me there and faithful to him.  In my mind he was my hero, and the more I  told  myself that, the more my heart followed the lead of my thoughts.  I knew so many women that, when with the girls, tore their men down.  “He doesn’t…he isn’t…he won’t…” and so on.  First of all that is just flat out disrespectful!  I have zero respect for someone that will trash their  significant other to the guys at the office or the girls in their bridge club.  That is just wrong!  I didn’t trash my man, I always followed the Thumper Rule (from Bambi – if you don’t have something nice to say it isn’t necessary to say anything at all).  Was the prince perfect? FAR from it!  But he has some amazing positive traits and I would talk about those.  I was the envy of every  woman around me because they thought he walked on water, I had his back and respected him to others.  And I really loved him with all my heart.  I accepted his good and bad, the prince and the pauper.  And when I marry again, it will be the same way.  How else could someone still have butterflies in their stomach when their husband got home, after 22 years of marriage?  He was the center of my world, my fantasies, everything in one wonderful package.  So why are we divorced? Well, he  didn’t control his thoughts and self talk the  same way.  He chose to nurture the negatives  and in time his heart  grew cold and hard toward me.  The power of his thoughts  drove a stake into the heart of our marriage.

Choosing to think positive thoughts doesn’t mean that we are seeing things through rose colored glasses, we  know that everything is not peaches and cream.  But  our thoughts are very powerful  influences  in how we see things, how we will act and react to circumstances  and relationships with others, how we FEEL about everything. I hold the power, right  here in my quirky, awesome, powerful brain!