You are what you tell yourself

It's been close to 11 months since my last entry so I guess after today you won't be hearing from me for close to a year, lol. I promise to try very hard to stay on topic and not go down too many rabbit trails. I love doing that for whatever reason. Let's get to it.

So the title is 'You Are What You Tell Yourself' and I used to think that sayings like that were silly and untrue. But today, and like most days lately, I have noticed a lot of negative thinking in response to thoughts I am having in regards to things I want to start doing or change in my life. Thoughts like "you're too old to start something new" or "you are going to fail at this so why bother?" or "you're no good at anything" or "you're not going to lose this 30 pounds that you want to lose". You get the drift. I am sure that you have the same problem in that your mind is speaking lies disguised at truths that you are buying into.

This is a problem because if we leave this unchecked and ignore it and think it will go away it will just build up steam and power in our thought life. Before you know it that one week that you noticed this problem will have turned into a few months and then maybe years. Surely your good intentions to fix this will have suffered erosion or completely been buried by this never ending cycle. For me the cycle looks like this: I notice the problems I want to change. I start working on them and then in a matter of days, maybe a week, the doubt and negative self talk start to creep in. So I give up or stop investing so much time to fix these things. Then I get down on myself for giving up. Then I feel hopeless. Then the anxiety takes over and I am paralyzed.

This is what it looks like for me. I am trying to navigate through this process and find a way to break the cycle. I'm not there yet but I wanted to share this with everyone. I'm not looking for anyone to try and build me up by telling me how great they think I am or that I'm not all that bad because honestly I would find a way to not believe it. Which is odd because I know if I was the one reading this I would want to comfort the person sharing this struggle and look for ways to affirm them and lend support. As a Christian I know that my identity is in Jesus and not in my personal accomplishments. Jesus is unchanging and therefore his love and acceptance of me is not based on what I have done or how good I am measuring up. If that were so eventually I would fail and therefore have to earn back the acceptance I had before. How tiring!!!! Rather it is based on what he has done for me. I could spend paragraphs talking about this because it is vital to the change in my own mind that I am seeking. I want to be honest here. I don't always believe it. I don't always believe that he is all I need and will ever need. I think I need to earn it and I will never be able to do that. This is an area I need redemption and renewal in. It looks different for everyone but at the core of all of our faults is a disbelief in the Gospel message.

I just wanted to share my struggles and for me this is a big one that seems to tarnish a lot of areas of my mind because it seems to kill my motivation at it's root. Thanks for reading guys. Have a great weekend!

Dealing with negativity and pessimism.

Before I start let me just say that I really did have the best intentions to contributing to this blog on a more consistent basis but I obviously didn't do that. So here we are, a little over 3 and a half years since my initial entry.

I would like to address something that I am sure a lot of people experience to some degree or another. That would be negativity and pessimism. I have the tendency to be negative in regards to other people and their motives. Especially when they have wronged me. I have a pessimistic attitude about my life and potential chapters of my life. As some of you know I recently applied to a few law enforcement agencies. I was excited about it until the day I went to take the test. A voice in my head told me, "why are you going through with this? You won't make it. You have tried this 4 other times and failed each time. Why are you wasting your time?" This wasn't an isolated incident. I remember last month participating in a karaoke contest. The day of the contest I felt sick to my stomach and anxious about the contest. I almost talked myself out of going and for some of the same reasons. Telling myself that I won't win and that I would perform badly. Things like that. This type of thinking reveals itself in other areas too. When I fail to be who I should be in relationships, in my marriage, as a Christian, etc. etc. I tend to be overly critical and negative about my performance or lack thereof. I become extremely angry towards myself. Often when this is happening I tend to make it 'about me'. For instance someone could approach me and share a frustration that they have with me or something I do. At some point I will offer an apology, in passing, just so I can go on and talk about how hard it is for me to change, or how bad I feel about it. I will make the situation about me rather than address how my behavior has affected the other party. The emphasis is on me, rather than them.

So where did this all start? I was telling someone earlier today about how I believe that somewhere down the line as a child that I adopted a false view of myself. I didn't really have close friends as a kid. I felt sad or dissatisfied with certain things in my life that I am sure were probably pretty normal for every kid but the problem was I didn't feel like I had anyone to talk to. I could have always talked to my parents about these things but I felt embarrassed, shameful, and silly for thinking and feeling these things and even more so just entertaining the thought of talking with someone about them. So I did the worst thing I could do and that was keep it all inside. Because I chose to keep these things to myself I never had anyone to challenge me on these things. No one to correct me and help me to see things objectively. Well, I had people there to listen I just shut them out I guess.

So where do I go from here? I honestly don't know. Even as I type this I am fighting the negative thinking and emotions, and even some anger. I do know that I can start doing what I didn't do back then and that is talk about it. I can be honest about it. I can let people in to see this ugly part of myself that I know to be wrong. I can take steps to correct it so that in another 20 years I am not looking back on the me that is writing this and wishing I would've acted and taken some steps to right this imbalance. I just wanted to get it out there and I don't know, maybe some of you will relate to this and maybe it will help you to see that you aren't alone. A lot of times I feel like I am alone in this even though I know I am not. You also are not alone. Maybe you have done the things I did and put a wall up and you know what? You have paid for it, just like I have. Shame does funny things to people and it has definitely blinded me to the truth. But it's not too late to change. It's never too late to change. It may be more difficult to do so but it's never too late.

adversity shows you who your real friends are

My recent divorce has been the most challenging event I have faced in my 34 years of existence. I have never felt so shaken in every aspect of my being. Physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally. I think the hardest thing about this has been trying to find myself again. Trying to regain some sense of normalcy. It hasn't been easy at all. As a result of the disarray I have been in it has affected some of my decisions I have made in regards to the divorce and the commitments I made to my ex. I have made mistakes and I admit that. I have received a lot of support and a lot of prayers from people. I have seen some of my relationships healed in the midst of this season of my life and I wasn't expecting that. I truly am grateful. Unfortunately I have had some friends take a step back from me during this time. Their decision to do is understandable though I disagree. People will make mistakes especially when they have been rattled. In those cases unconditional support should be given to those experiencing traumatic events in their life like a divorce. I don't say this because I just so happen to be going through a divorce. I say it because someone I know went through a divorce a few years ago and I was treating them like some of my friends are treating me now. I wrote them off. I stepped back from them. I didn't offer the unconditional support I should've. I abandoned them. Until I went through my divorce I thought I was justified in how I handled that situation back then. I thought it was very black and white. I was wrong. There are gray areas and when you are in the midst of a divorce or the loss of any kind of relationship  your heart is being pulled in so many directions. I should've been supportive back then and I have learned a lesson. A hard one. It is unfortunate that those friends chose to abandon me. It's sad and pretty shocking but I'm not responsible for what other people do or how they react. I am only responsible for what I do and how I react to what others do to me. I am choosing to not be angry or spiteful and just move on.

Well I made it but I'm not out of the woods yet

June 23rd, 2012 shortly before noon marked a turning point in my life. I had just finished checking out a friend's new gym they just opened and I received a text from my wife (at the time) that said 'we need to talk'. I knew what that meant. There was no doubt in my mind what this text message was referring to. Divorce was on the horizon. I knew it. Sure enough when I got home we had a long talk and my suspicions were confirmed. That first day I was numb emotionally however I knew the inevitable series of emotional earthquakes would eventually hit me and hit me hard. It was just a matter of time. I experienced a lot of anger, sadness, hopelessness, depression, guilt, regret. It's funny how glaringly obvious your faults and mistakes become when something like divorce happens. I was mad at myself (mostly), I was mad at God even though I knew in my head that he had nothing to do with it. That it was my fault but my heart felt so differently about it. I looked at all my past mistakes and chances I had to better myself and I saw how I never made any lasting changes during those times. I saw how I remained self absorbed and assumed that there would be no repercussions. I saw my selfishness more than I ever have before and the toll it took on my marriage. I know now that looking in the past doesn't change anything but I was trying to desperately to piece things together and make sense of it all. I thought I would never love again, never get a second chance at it. That all hope was lost. People told me that I would eventually be ok and that I would have hope again. I didn't believe a word of it.

Well, it's been almost 4 months and I realize that I have made it. That I survived what I thought I couldn't. My emotions and thought process have returned to normal and I am realizing that it wasn't all my fault. That I wasn't the only one who made mistakes. I have accepted this new chapter in my life and that the old one is in the past now and nothing can be done to change it. I have also realized that time doesn't heal all wounds. That is a lie. It's what you do with the time that determines if your wounds heal or not. When the divorce happened I noticed something different about myself on the inside. Something felt broken and honestly it still feels broken. I don't feel the same and I don't know if I will ever be the same but I am excited to see how I respond to this new process. I learned that I have a ways to go but I have a lot of support that I took for granted and it took this happening for me to realize that.

So there it is. We will all lose things in our lives and will feel like when we do that we won't be able to go on. I think that's normal to feel like that but it all determines what you believe you are here for. Why you are alive and if it all really matters in the end. Of course these are questions that most of us, if not all of us, are scared to ask and think about.

I have wanted to do a blog for a long time now. However, I am also a practicing procrastinator and that has stopped me from doing this. So now I am getting into the game and doing this blog thing. My aim in doing this is was initially to find an outlet to vent or whatever so I could feel better about any particular situation.

Now I still want that but I also want others to make a connection to the things I talk about and share because I firmly believe that no matter what people believe, or how they live, or how different we say we are from each other we have more in common than we think. We all feel lonely at times, feel defeated in life, get down/depressed, go through trials that shake our foundations and throw into question everything we have ever believed about ourselves and the world we live in. This is all of us and no one should ever have to go through this life carrying these things alone. I am going to attempt to be as honest and vulnerable as I can be because I have learned that I don't know as much as I think I do and I am, to an extent, still naive and ignorant to certain realities of life.

Well this was my intro and it is my hope to contribute something to this blog over the weekend. Hope everyone is having a good day and thanks for taking the time to read this!