A new resolve...

I've had a thought formulating for a few months now, and it has become louder and louder in my head. I'm at the point now, that I want to take notice and do something about it.

I've come to the conclusion that I'm too negative. Not necessarily in a "bad" way. I think I'm relatively "normal" and I don't believe that my friends consider me a really negative person, but maybe I'm just in denial. But I have been thinking about the people that I admire the most in my life and the one characteristic that I've noticed they all possess is the ability to be so positive and upbeat all the time. And I'm not talking a bouncy, giggly, cheerleader type happy... just a content, glass-half-full, I'm-on-the-green-side type happy.

A greeting with a friend might go such as this....

Me: Hi! How are you?
Friend: Great, and you?
Me: Oh, ok. Tired.
Friend: Oh, that's too bad, why?
Me: Oh, my kids were up a lot last night...I had a ton to do, blah blah blah blah.

Not that I think it's a bad thing to be able to vent and share my frustrations and trials in life. Not at all. I'm just beginning to think that I do it too often. I find that I talk about my frustrations in life a LOT, whereas the women I admire most do it very little. I don't hear of them discussing all the things they need to do, frustrating run ins with people, etc. Sometimes they do, but it's rare. I think that it's quite common with me. I don't want to be a negative person. I don't want to even be a mediocre person. I'm not trying to compare myself with these women, but I do want to try to emulate some of the qualities I find important. I want to be a person that people feel good to be around. I want to be someone that people feel comfortable with, uplifted when they're around me and happy.

In order to do this, I'm not going to be able to just tell myself to stop feeling that way. That would kill me! I'd be suffering in silence. I'd feel lonely and unsupported and unvalidated. That's certainly not going to help me be an uplifting person to be around. In order to do this, I'm going to need to make a concentrated effort to look on the bright side a little more often. I think I'll stop to smell the roses and make sure that I remark on their beauty out loud to my friends, so that I get in the habit of sharing THOSE happenings in my life as well. I want to spend less time thinking about what I have to get done, and more time thinking about the blessings I have in my life. I'll spend less time thinking about the monsters that I call my children, and more time thinking about the beautiful spirits the Lord allows me to call my children. I'll spend less time complaining about how men operate, and more time thinking and remarking on the man who supports me, regardless of how emotionally unstable, cranky or demanding I am.

Yes, I'll start there. And I'm going to force myself to say those things out loud. I think that I think verbally (did you follow that?). I think better when I talk things out (or write things out). I can sit in a room and be quiet and mull over the same topic forever and not get anywhere. But the minute I begin to talk it out, the thoughts come together, they evolve and progress. I think that will actually be the key to changing my thought process. I need to change what I TALK about first, which will require me to take notice of those things so that I can talk about them, and I truly believe that my thought process will naturally follow. See....even as I wrote this my ideas of how to do this have evolved.

That's my theory anyway, I'll let you know if it works!