Tag Archives: life change

Eating your problems?

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When women are depressed, they eat or go shopping. Men invade another country. It’s a whole different way of thinking.

Elayne Boosler

I eat my problems.

I never had this problem when I was younger, or maybe I didn’t notice, but as I get older I can clearly ‘see’ that I do this.

Okay, what do I mean by this you may, or may not, ask?

I eat when I’m depressed. I swallow my words too. I stuff down my emotions. I ingest the pain I’m in and hold it all inside and then I have a sundae. It then appears on my hips. Voila! Just like magic; but not.

I never knew this about myself because it never showed up on the outside until lately.

Friggin’ 50!

So, is the answer to go to the gym more or is it to tell everyone to fuck off? Make myself happy instead of making myself ice cream? Take a break from making everyone else feel good and regurgitate all this negativity; shed the burdens; lose the weight of everyone else and have a salad instead?

Definitely time for a change.

Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign something is eating us.

Peter De Vries

Take that chance…go ahead, I dare you!

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Necessity is the mother of taking chances.

Mark Twain

It’s true. You can’t go home again. I tried and it didn’t work. I am not the same person and the house didn’t fit me anymore. I actually wonder what contortions of personality I had subjected myself to in order to make it fit the first time. Well, I obviously didn’t like it or I wouldn’t have left in the first place, right? 

Have you ever romanticized your past? Thought longingly that, given the chance, you’d do it all so differently. You’d be kinder, patient, more appreciative with the known and familiar.

Think again, my friends. The unknown, as scary as it might seem, is ripe with possibility. The past, while comfortable, lacks potential. That well-worn path leads you in the same direction each time you follow it.

To the house that didn’t fit, that you discarded, or that discarded you.

Forge a new path. Build a new home. Be brave. Take a chance.

Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.

Mary Tyler Moore

 

Attitude and the 100th Post!

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When does one problem take precedence over another? Whose sorrows or worries are more important than another’s and at what point is okay to just roll over and say you can’t take it anymore? My guess is that is never the answer. Once you roll over there is that daunting task of getting back up again. So, many of us just keep going whether we want to or not.  Quietly, or not, going about the business of life. 

It’s the priorities of the world with which I struggle. I can’t be the only person absolutely appalled by the amount of time and effort put into saving the Twinkie?  I understand that jobs hang in the balance but this is obviously a ploy by management to force a settlement that will insure large salaried corporate jobs with cuts to those that can afford it least. Another thing I’m having trouble listening to is the scandal of some repulsive looking little man and his botoxed, silicone enhanced, gaggle that give intelligent woman a bad name. All this while we all but ignore the people dying in their homes across the world from mine in the Middle East and others who are still homeless due to a hurricane in my own backyard. 

I have been unusually quiet over the last few months due to a combination of alternately mourning (friends, family, my past life…pick one) and trying to make several new ventures come together at once. It’s been one of those times where my life resembles a puzzle for which I’ve lost the box.  There is no picture to work off of and I have no idea what it’s going to look like when I’m done. I work better off the picture, but I have a feeling that life is bigger and better when you stop trying to engineer the outcome.  So instead of whining (in public, anyhow) I’ve gotten very quiet, put my head down and gotten to work. Sometimes I look up and like what I see and other times I want to hide in the corner. 

I suppose the key is to measure the good and the bad and possibly remind yourself that we have the choice to focus on what we choose to give attention and the power to make a difference, whether it is a world issue or a personal one. Of course, there are those times when the only thing we have any control over is our attitude and those are the times that we trudge on, keep our fingers crossed, and try to discern what is important and what is just taking up too much space in out world.   

Have a thoughtful and happy Thanksgiving everyone.  Focus on something positive and thank you for following, caring, and reading this, my 100th post! 

Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

Viktor E. Frankl

 

 

 

Wanderlust or travel as therapy?

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I’ve been away from home for a little over a month. It has been wonderful and mind clearing. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking abut what I wanted the life I live every day to look like in places I’ve never been to before and may never see again. For me, that is when I do my best thinking. In my own home I see the past, the things I should be doing, and all the future events on the horizon. In another space all of the good, the bad, and the ugly is cleared away and I can focus on decisions and directions. So, the first thing I learned is that I know myself.  I feel much clearer and my priorities are in order. I have a plan and I’m a person that loves a plan. I’m never happier than when I know where I want to go and I have mapped out my options and am on the brink of starting something new. In June I was overwhelmed and confused. In August I’m a force to be reckoned with. Travel as therapy. Do you think I could get my insurance carrier to pay for that?

“It’s a funny thing about comin’ home.  Looks the same, smells the same, feels the same.  You’ll realize what’s changed is you.”

-The Curious Case of Benjamin Button-

Aspirations

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Never mind searching for who you are.  Search for the person you aspire to be.  ~Robert Brault

So, here is an update from the road along the way to becoming who I am. This weekend I am incorporating Magnolia Beginnings as an official 501(c) 3 corporation. I will have also signed the marketing agreements for the business that will fund the nonprofit and next week I will sign the agreements with the auto dealers who I will provide administration of their warranty and insurance products. This time next week I’ll be in business. Deep breathe! This time next month I expect to have the seed money accumulating for the nonprofit micro-lending program. Huge deep breathe!!

So far, the incorporation of the core business and the nonprofit alone will have cost in excess of $1000, and I have experience doing this so I did it all myself including the legal work. My goal is when a single mother has a viable idea for starting a business that will support her family Magnolia Beginnings will be able to fund the start up costs and provide the necessary advice and guidance to get her going.

Remember when you first started riding a bike and you had to look around and make sure someone else saw it too, because you just couldn’t believe it? I’m starting to feel just like that! Woohoo no hands next ; ). 

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“Often people attempt to live their lives backwards. They try to have more of what they want so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You first must be who you are, then love what you do, in order to have what you want.”
– Margaret Young

Just about through step one and moving forward in to step two….

“Often people attempt t…

Positive thoughts

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“The thought manifests as the word; The word manifests as the deed; The deed develops into habit; And habit hardens into character. So watch the thought and its ways with care, And let it spring from love born out of concern for all beings.” 

— Buddha

Today I am going to focus on my thoughts. Lately,

I’ve felt that I am so focused on the future that I am allowing myself become very unhappy in my present work situation. I suppose that the true test of who you really are is how you think and behave in the circumstances that are difficult. So, today I’m going to concentrate on loving, postive thoughts. Join me?