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| Photo by Kalen Emsley on Unsplash PEACE |
This week has been quite stressful and I thought I was handling it all pretty well, and then bedtime came around again last night, and suddenly I felt a lot of stress myself. I felt it in the pit of my stomach. I started feeling like I'd messed up somehow to my family's detriment.
I start going into "What if" mode. What if I were more inspired or determined? What if I had said...? What if I had done...? What if I had played with my kids more, or handled my own emotions better when they were little, then would they have been able to avoid some of the hard things they deal with now? I then start assigning thoughts to other people. Derek probably thinks .... The kids probably think....
Inspiration came from remembering a thought I had read this week. The truth is, when we assign thoughts to other people, we are usually projecting our own thoughts onto them. I was the one thinking that if only I were better my family members wouldn't be having such a hard time. (What power that assumes I have!) I was the one assigning thoughts to those around me. Those were my thoughts and even if those thoughts were true, I couldn't really know it. I don't read minds!
Then I realized something else. I can choose to believe that I have done the best I can. It is true. I would never intentionally harm anyone! I can even choose to believe that their lives are, and have been, better with me in it. I can choose to create my day not on the imagined thoughts of others, or even on my own negative thoughts, but on what I want to be and do.
After I realized those things the weight lifted. I still didn't sleep all that much, but I felt peaceful. I can't live to please everyone else, or to solve other people's problems. I can't go back and change anything. I can't make anyone think what I want them to. I can live to create the most loving version of myself possible with the clear realization that I, and everyone else, are "perfectly human" and so we are going to mess up. We each get to choose how we show up for ourselves and with other people. We get to choose how we react to our challenges and the challenges of others.
Today I am choosing to focus on the good and to be thankful for how my family takes care of each other. I have chosen to create the best day I can, and to do my best to let go of what doesn't work just how I wish it would. I am the creator of my story, and being a creator is a powerful way to live.
