Day 4 and I am really off to amazing first few days of my journey and my self imposed challenge. I didn’t do everything on schedule last night or today, but I am ok with that. It’s the weekend so we should relax and not be so stuck on a schedule. I really have felt amazing today though. I noticed while driving back home alone, after dropping 2 off for her person’s birthday party, that my head was quiet. It was peaceful. No racing thoughts, no worry or anxiety, no negative self talk, no listing off what I needed to do or accomplish. I was clear headed. I don’t remember the last time I felt so incredibly calm and relaxed. It was an amazing feeling. One that I hope to have often. I’m not even sure how to describe it. As someone with ADD, anxiety, depression and C-PTSD, a quiet mind is a gift that seemingly doesn’t come around often. If I can give myself that gift it would be life-changing and extraordinary.
Working on the vision board!
Last night I went to bed between 12:30-1. I woke up about 2am. I broke my rules and got up and went to the bathroom and got ice cream and went outside. I went back to bed though. I slept until 7ish got up but decided no, I’m going back to bed. I slept until about 10:15am. All and all probably 6.5 hours of sleep. I’ll take it! I wasn’t exactly motivated this morning to do my routine. I even contemplated having Sunday as an “off day” or a mini routine day. Once I got started though I was in it and completed all of my routine and felt great.
It’s been an easy day. A good day. I swept and mopped the kitchen, did some weeding in the flower beds with 3. I’ve stayed positive and energetic. I’ve just been overall calm and relaxed today. I didn’t let myself get overwhelmed by a to do list or fall prey to some worry about tomorrow or next week. I’ve just allowed myself to be present and take everything as it comes. I’ve been really proud of myself these past few days and am looking forward to how this journey continues. I’m sure I will have struggles like day 1 or stress out or some other obstacle to overcome, but I’m learning that half the battle is my attitude towards it.
The night concluded with 3 and I getting ice cream and sweets for 4th of July, Watching fireworks. Pizza and snuggles with the PPP. 2 is spending the night with her person, the first night away from me since getting out of the hospital. 1 is out with her boyfriend at a family cookout. Im trying to make the most of my night by spending time with the PPP and 3. Fireworks got a little triggering for 1 when she got home as it seemed the whole neighborhood was celebrating the 4th with fireworks. Meds, earphones, video games, and kitty snuggles seemed to get her more balanced.
Accomplishments and Gratitude List Day 4
Completed meditation
Completed weekly goals
Scripted my day
Positive affirmations completed
Reviewed goals
Listened to multiple motivational videos
Journaled
Today I am grateful for peace and calm
Today I am grateful for relaxation
Today I am grateful for quality time
Today I am grateful for my PPP, my love
Today I am grateful for my threefold
Today I am grateful for independence
Today I am grateful for having everything I want and everything I need
Today I am grateful for my journey
Today I am grateful for a place to write, this blog, and my journal.
Hello lovely people! I hope you had an amazing day full of love, positivity, and fulfillment! I am awesome. Day three is a complete success. I am rocking this journey and completed committed to surrendering to the process of being positive. Yes, I know it all sounds so cheesy and so incredibly cringy. It is. I am accepting that part of being a perky positivity peddler is that I have to be perky AND positive. Part of being those things is accepting the cheesy and sometimes cringy mantras that set me up for a successful journey. It’s a process!
Today has been just as I scripted it to be with only a few little hurdles. Scripting is the process of laying out exactly what you want each day and how you envision your day, your life, anything and everything to go. It’s setting your intentions for the day. You can speak them or write them. Of course, writing them is the most helpful and effective for me (go figure) but then I also read them aloud when I am finished writing. Scripting has helped me to manifest my day and allowed me to start the day off with the best intentions. It gives me a fresh perspective on what I plan to accomplish, how I feel, and my interactions with the people in my life.
This was my actual scripting from this morning from my personal journal. #personalmusings
Just so I am accountable I did get off the phone by 11:15pm last night. I was in bed by 12:00am. I stayed in bed. I slept for eight (EIGHT) hours. I did wake up several times but not fully, more of the toss and turn. I woke up feeling refreshed and with only a hint of anxiety and negativity in my head. Of course I didn’t give in to it. I simply brushed off the sleepy haze and started my morning as I had intended to do. I have noticed that I am far more anxious in the morning and more prone to having negative thoughts. I’m not sure why other than I have not been a “morning” person as long as I can remember. I’m the type of person that needs to time to fully wake up and begin my day, get my caffeine levels back up and mentally get sorted out before speaking to other people. I am going find some tip or trick to improve this. I woke up about 8:00am with the PPP telling me goodbye as he was leaving for work. With a kiss goodbye and some grumblings about him not sleeping well I began feeling like he might be starting his day off in a not so positive way. I could feel myself ready to match the energy. I decided it would be best to encourage him. In PPP fashion after a few texts that reminded him of how capable he was of overcoming lack of sleep, power outages at work, bad traffic, and just a case of the blahs he began to agree he was not going to let anything keep him down. I patted myself on the back for being encouraging and supportive in a positive way. I know that could’ve gone differently for both of us.
No work for me today! Its Saturday! Ahhh! Yes! The day of rest! A day I can spend some quality time with myself. As much much as I love my threefold and the PPP, I have grown to enjoy having time to myself. Saturday is a day of family, focus, and fun! Not having to meet a deadline or have time restrictions inherits me the opportunity to begin my day with as much work on my journey as I feel warranted. So this morning I spent about 2 hours focusing on my mindset and setting myself up for a positive and wonderful day. I did my make up, made myself cute, and took some pictures to remind myself I am beautiful. I like looking good it makes me feel confident. I took my threefold to the store and I had quite a bit of anxiety. Public places have been known to get me worked up especially when I have the whole crew with me. I fell into it. I could feel my mood shifting and myself allowing the anxiety and negativity settle in. My muscles became tense. My face I’m sure looked like I was mad. I got quiet. My threefold wanted to go into another store. I said they could but decided I needed to skip the next one. I went and sat in the car out front of the store. I turned on a “quick calm” meditation and sat back in my seat and closed my eyes. The crew came back to the car and I turned the music up and sang the whole way home. It helped. When I got home I snuggled up next to the PPP and relaxed for a few minutes. Then I began working on collecting what I wanted to include on my vision board. That improved my mood and vibe quite a bit! I was glad to have found my way out of that funk I was headed for. I had a few moments here and there where I caught myself thinking in a more negative way. Each time I tried to remember that those feelings weren’t serving anyone especially me and I would shake them off an move forward. For this I was proud of myself.
Accomplishments and Gratitude List: Day 3
I woke up at 8(ish) ✅
I meditated successfully. ✅ I’ve found breaking up the meditation into smaller chunks helps me to focus and stay more present. Over time I will be able to increase my time. It’s about quality not quantity!
I journaled my intentions for the day and scripted what I wanted to manifest for the day. ✅
I completed my positive affirmations ✅
I watched a few motivational videos today. ✅
I looked over my goals for the month and the remainder of the year ✅
I blogged today. ✅
I began thinking about and researching some new things to try. ✅
After my not so great start, day 2 was EXACTLY what I thought this journey would be about! I am much more positive and I am not nearly as drained as I thought I would be at the end of the day. It was overall exactly the day I needed to keep my motivation alive and myself from drowning in failure. I am ready for the days ahead. I am ready for this challenge!
I SLEPT 6 hours straight! No up and down. No interruptions. It was miraculous and restorative. I woke up at 6:30 and didn’t hit the snooze button! (This has been a struggle for me daily for years) Granted I set a 6am alarm that I hit snooze on. That was my way of tricking my mind into thinking I got 30 minutes extra sleep when I didn’t. I spent an hour on setting myself up for success and going through my goals and checking them off one by one. By 7:40 I had already completed most of my daily tasks. I was off to a running start and feeling confident.
I went to work and was ON TIME! I accepted help with getting 2 from treatment. I accepted help from 2 by letting her help me catch up on some of the tasks I don’t do as often as I should. I was able to get completely caught up today on all of my work. Nothing was left for me to do by 5:30 except close up. I was focused. I kept a great attitude and didn’t let anything bother me. I had to make myself relax a few times, but other than that all was good. I was having fun and laughing. I was smiling and helpful. It was amazing! I didn’t even have to shift my thoughts to positive. I stayed there. ALL DAY.
Usually by the time work is finished I have been drained. I actually still had energy to spare today. I was so pumped by my good day that I purchased supplies for the whole family to work on our vision boards. We got posters, magazines, glitter, glue, construction paper, markers, letters, and colored pens. 3 dyed our shower blue with the hair dye that she used today. Even as I was cleaning the shower and the PPP announced that the whole shower needed to be scrubbed thoroughly because of the amount of hair dye on my white tile floor and on the walls I caught myself saying “well we needed to clean the shower anyway!” Yesterday I have no doubt I would’ve had a yelling match with 3 and had her in there scrubbing and I would’ve been b!tching about it the whole time. I would’ve fussed when the 9yo didn’t get it all clean and that I had to clean up her mess. I realized today though that would’ve only led to me becoming more frustrated and negative and made 3 feel pretty bad about herself. I cleaned it and went about the night like nothing had ever happened. It was true after all, I did need to clean that shower. It’s been a hot minute! Hopefully, I continue making conscious effort in my positive actions, reactions, and words. I caught myself getting frustrated with 1. I was frustrated that they were upset about something that didn’t make sense to me. I had to remind myself that they are allowed to have feelings and as the PPP tells me often just because someone feels a certain way doesn’t mean the feeling is based in truth. We have to acknowledge their feelings before we can try to change their perception. Validation is key. I caught myself becoming defensive and quickly stopped myself. There is a reason I keep the PPP around. He is amazingly insightful, positive, and right about many things (don’t tell him I said that!) I am excited to be the one to spread some positivity to the fam. I am an example to them too, and I want it to be a positive example I am setting!
One thing that is a large part of our daily routine is that we sit down and have dinner together. We always sit around the dinner table laugh and joke. We have always done “positives and negatives”. This has been my way of getting everyone (including myself) to see the positive things that happened in our day and also let others know where we may need to improve, what our struggles are, and how we see different things. I’ve grown to love this and I believe it is a great way to get defcon four talking and listening. We cheer for each other and support one another. Tonight we did something a little different we created a “family mission statement”. This was a tool to get us all to participate in recognizing our strengths and weaknesses as a family and setting goals on how to improve and what changes we can make as a whole as well as what we enjoy doing together and what goals we have for the future. 2 was the one that suggested we sit and discuss this as this was an assignment from her therapist. I really think it helped us all see what we expected, liked, disliked, and what we want as a family. Everyone was included and everyone had a say. I highly recommend doing this with your own family, especially if you have kids. I can see how this could be beneficial in all relationships and possibly might want to do one with the PPP as well that is personal and exclusive to us.
I am very proud of my progress today and even as the phone shut down is approaching I am still keeping a positive mindset. I am excited to discuss some goals and plans I have for the coming weeks with the PPP. I am hoping he will be on board or have some ideas of his own to help me be more positive, productive, and to help us as a couple as well as a family. I am super excited to keep this journey going. Thank you blog for keeping me accountable!
Accomplishments and Gratitude List Day 2
Woke up at 6:30am ✅
Completed 15 minutes of morning meditation SUCCESSFULLY ✅
Journaled my vision for the day ✅
Listened to multiple motivational videos today ✅
Completed positive affirmations ✅
Scripted how my day would go ✅
Reviewed my monthly and yearly goals✅
Blogged my journey✅
Unfollowed some of my trauma groups as these can be triggering and keep me focused on the past. ✅
Purchased supplies to work on vision boards ✅
Today I am grateful for my family
Today I am grateful for the PPP, my partner, my soulmate, my love.
Today I am grateful for this journey.
Today I am grateful for the day.
Today I am grateful for all that I have
Today I am grateful for the motivation to continue
Today I am grateful for my career
Today I am grateful for this blog
Today I am grateful for my ability to help my family
Today I am grateful for the therapists who work and support my threefold and help me understand them better
Today I am grateful for our family mission statement
Today I am grateful for family dinner
Today I am grateful for having help
Today I am grateful for my ability to choose to live in positivity.
I could lie, but I’m just going to be straight up and honest. My day 1 was mostly a bust. My head is still spinning and my thoughts are racing. Day 1 should be where all the motivation is. It’s the beginning, I should be the most excited on day 1. I’m not. I’m disappointed in myself. I let the negativity win today. I wasn’t mentally or physically prepared for jumping into and meeting such high expectations of myself. It sucks. However, I do know all the places I went wrong.
I went to bed about 4:30am (ish), heavy on the ish. Not the best start considering I was supposed to be at work at 6:30am. I shouldn’t have even gone to sleep, but I wanted to rest for a minute even it was just relaxing. The exhaustion won and I guess i just shut down. I don’t remember turning off my alarm at 5:30am, but I did. At 7:00am I woke up and realized there wasn’t much point in trying to go in early. I tried to go ahead with the plan. I did a 10 minute meditation, but I was unable to focus on it. I couldn’t get my mind to clear. I journaled my intentions for the day. That wasn’t a difficult task. I did listen to the motivational speakers on the way to take 2 to treatment and on my drive in to work. Stumbling in a couple of hours past schedule, with only a couple of hours of sleep was enough to put me in a uphill battle against my own motivation.
I was fading and unfocused. I was lagging, I was taking too long to do stuff I knew how to do. By noon, I had a coffee, a coke and a 5 hour trying to try to keep me in the zone and focused on the tasks at hand. I managed to sell, complete my work, update customers, but I was definitely having a harder time keeping up and taking far longer than normal to complete the tasks I needed to. I pulled it off, and come 3pm I was headed to pick up 2. I did positive affirmations with a focus on ridding myself of anxiety and negativity on the way there and listened to a Ted talk on my way back to the office. I finished out my day and managed to not go off on anyone, get snappy, or jack anything up. So those are positives!
Once I left work I could feel the exhaustion settling in. I was becoming more irritable. I was definitely anxious and unfocused. My least favorite thing is to feel like I have 100% to strangers at work and that I was unable to give that same effort to my family. Work can drain me though because it feels like I have to plaster on the smile and amp up my positivity to do my job. By the time I get home I’m done with the fake and ready to settle in my feelings and decompress. Unfortunately that decompression is where I lose my “fake happy” and the true feelings show up. The frustration, the anxiety, the irritation, and the overall mood shift just makes me quiet and introspective. I really need to figure out the balance. I hate feeling like this and I know everyone is picking up on this energy. That’s why I’m doing this! That’s my motivation to feel better and to not pass on the disease of negativity to everyone around me.
It really is hard to get out of my own way and get out of my own head. I just didn’t have the energy today. I will try again tomorrow. I will do better tomorrow. I will be successful tomorrow. I am worth my own effort. I am worthy of my own time. I am not a prisoner to my past or to my future. I am free from my mistakes. I am working hard to change my life. I am healing. I am present. And so it is.
Accomplishments and Gratitude List for Day 1:
I REALLY wanted to call in to work. I went anyway and got a lot accomplished.
I am in the top 10 in the company this week for sales as of today.
I attempted meditation.
I completed 26 minutes straight of positive affirmations.
I listened to 30 minutes of motivational videos today.
I journaled my intentions for the day.
I completed my goals for July 2021
I completed my goals for the remainder of 2021. I scripted and am manifesting where I am going to be in my journey by January 1, 2022
I did another 30 minutes of positive ‘I am’ affirmations.
I danced it out and sang (badly) until I couldn’t hear my head over my music and my own voice.
I cooked dinner for the family (it was bussin’ or so I hear!)
I was able to smile and enjoy the family during dinner.
I gave myself a break from being perfect.
I am being honest about my struggles.
I never gave up and said the c word (can’t) when I knew everything wouldn’t be completed today. I still worked towards meeting the goals I knew I still could achieve today.
I am reframing my mind set to say tomorrow is an opportunity to do better than today. I am giving myself grace.
I am thankful for my family.
I am thankful for my work.
I am thankful for the chance to try again.
I am thankful for this blog and my ability to express myself freely here.
I’ve decided to take on the advice of my fearless “live laugh love leader” (aka my therapist) to complete some daily tasks, in hopes of making them into a routine. As an experienced a$$ kisser, I have taken it a step further and decided I needed to challenge myself to focus everyday on my journey to wellness. Congrats! I’ve chosen you to be my accountability team! Get excited! Join in and keep me posted on your progress. It would be awesome to see some other people out there interested in doing this too. I’ve been lackadaisical about doing my “homework” assignments my therapist gives me in the past. I figured, if I wrote it and shared this challenge, I would actually be more likely to complete it, because I am not a fan of public humiliation (or am I?) or failure.
If you’ve read some of my previous posts you’ve seen I struggle with C-PTSD, ADD, anxiety, and depression. I have a REALLY difficult time staying positive and not letting my mind completely take over. It has been extremely draining for me mentally and emotionally because I have to actively make myself be positive and not go to the worst case scenario. It effects my personal feelings and outlook as well as all of the relationships in my life. I would never want to be seen as using my multiple diagnoses as an excuse to behave badly, or use it as a crutch. It’s definitely a hurdle. One that I think many people don’t fully understand or one they choose not to recognize. I also think there are more people than I realize that struggle with keeping positive outlooks for one reason or another. I recognize that I am healing and working to be the best version of me. That’s what I want this journey to be about, not a particular diagnosis, but a way to help me better manage the symptoms of my diagnoses and be the best me I can be!
What does MY wellness challenge look like? Well I am a firm believer in that any repeated behavior or action becomes a habit. Whether good or bad, a repeated behavior is something that we end up continuing almost ritualistically. Whether it’s that you ALWAYS get up and exercise before starting your day or if it’s that you bite your nails when you are nervous. These things become habitual and engrained into our lives and routines. It would be hard to stop those things if you did them regularly. I am hoping this will be true with my little wellness challenge. I am also hoping it has a positive influence and impact on my threefold. We shall see!
This will be a 21-day challenge for July. On 7/22/21 I will see where I am in my journey, how my life has changed, and if come 7/23/21 if I feel this is something that should be continued as more of an everyday routine. I will be asking myself What worked? What didn’t? What was modified? How was my anxiety? What was my mood like? Did I have more motivation at the beginning and start slacking towards the end or did I follow through? What pieces are important to carry into my day to day routine?
Why 21 days? I chose 21 days because it’s scientifically proven that it takes 21 days to develop a new habit or to break an old one. I am also not so great at the follow through. I want big things but I don’t always put in the effort to get them. There is no fairy god mother, it’s time for me to grow up and get up by putting in the work.
The 21 Day Positivity Challenge:
The following are the actions I plan to take in the next 21 days to become a more positive person. Beginning 7/1 Ending 7/22:
Wake up at morning at 6:30 am M-F and by 9:00 am on the weekends.
PRO: This will allow me time to mentally prepare for my day and accomplish the remainder of my goals for the day.
CON: I have a hard time falling asleep at night, but once asleep I LOVE to sleep. I usually set multiple alarms and get out of bed in just enough time to throw on my clothes and put a brush through my hair.
Begin each morning and end each night with 5-15 minutes of meditation. 20 minutes total or more each day.
PRO: This sets me in a mind frame of letting go of anything weighing on my mind and allows me to focus on the present moment. Clearing my mind of my to do list.
CON: ADD makes this practice extremely difficult for me. Sometimes it is counterproductive as instead of clearing my mind it allows the anxiety to creep in and overtake the session.
Journal how I see my day playing out including how I will feel, how I will respond, who I will interact with, and what I will be doing.
PRO: mentally prepared me for the day and gives me expectations to meet.
CON: could be a potential set up for failure. (surely my more positive outlook will help me to see the bright side!)
Watch 1 motivational video or listen to a motivational speaker once per day.
Do positive affirmations 3 times per day
Script once per day. Scripting is writing in the present that all of your dreams have come to fruition and scripting out your day as if you are living in that reality currently.
Get in and STAY in bed from midnight to morning M-F (unless I have to pee or a kid needs me) Weekends no later than 2 am and only if being actively productive. No up and down. No late night extravaganza. No blogging until 3am.
Turn my phone on do not disturb after 11:00 pm M-F to allow for time for my brain to relax.
Week 1: Make a list of goals for the month, week and year. Look at it often to stay motivated.
Week 1: Make a vision board of all my life dreams and aspirations. Include inspirations and dream BIG!
Pay attention to physical health. Drink more water and do something active for 30 minutes each day in addition to work.
Try something new. Anything at least twice. Find something to do and do it.
Make a date with myself and keep it. 1 hour minimum. That’s it. Do something solo. Not a trip to the grocery store. Do something nice for myself and not feel guilty about it.
Make time for blogging daily achievements and failures.
Remove negativity from my life as much as possible including people, places and things. Unfriend or unfollow any person or group that feeds into negative self talk or triggers anxiety on social media.
Plan a family outing and follow through.
Family dinner five nights per week or more.
Create a budget and stick to it. Save money and don’t spend it.
Dance it out at least once per week.
Make a date with my man and follow through a night for just us without DEFCON 4.
Keep my room straight and orderly. Peaceful. A place to relax.
This is a pretty hefty list and I definitely want to accomplish all of these things so I am going to do my best. It’s not about perfection, it’s about progress, it’s about trying something different. It’s about seeing what I love and has the ability to help me. Also, what maybe works for others but doesn’t work necessarily for me and my life. I hope anyone who wants to join in does! If not that’s ok, read along, laugh and see if I can be promoted to a perky positivity peddler or at least accept a part time position in the peddling of positivity. Feel free to tell me if you do something that works amazing for you that I need throw in or if I missed something you feel is an important factor to consider. Also if you join in do what works for you! This isn’t some copy and paste, tried and true way of becoming a more positive person or better version of yourself. This is just me as a busy mom with too much overthinking and a lot of bad habits of going to the dark side that is just trying to make some changes. I’m NOT an expert! I’m not qualified to give advice, hell I didn’t even take psychology in high school let alone college! I took creative writing though! I’m just an imperfect person in search of a better me and finding a path to more positivity! And so it begins…
