For years I started each day with overwhelming sense of disappointment that I woke up…again.
I never looked forward to the chase, but I’m not sure that anyone really does.
My overall attitude had developed into knowing that today would be just like yesterday:
‘Same shit, different day’ and it was just the way I mentally prepared myself for how much the day was going to suck even before it really had a chance to begin.
When the chains that were squeezing the life out of me snapped, this kind of thinking was one of the first things to go.
Obviously, I didn’t develop a new life philosophy or overall attitude toward life overnight, but I did not think about not waking up.
I began to wake up focused on that sliver of hope that I had found, that I could actually do something better with my life. Over time, I adopted a different attitude and a new line of thinking.
I try to remind myself every single morning that each day is new.
Every single morning I am further away from my old life.
I am one more day away from that struggle that I can so vividly remember,
but that I am so intently living opposite of and these are things to be grateful for.
Science tells us that positive emotions broaden our sense of possibilities and can open our mind.
This allows us to build new skills and resources that can benefit all areas of our lives.
Positive thinking produces feelings that cause you to feel happy & expectant of more good to come.
Negative thoughts lead us and drive us too.
They can drive us right back into isolation, and they will continue to dominate our mind until we are intent on combating them.
We can begin to believe that our options are limited and our outlooks will become more narrow.
We can start to feel weighed down and moving forward or making progress can feel too difficult.
It is a nasty trap to fall into and a hard place to get out of.
Anyone who knows me wouldn’t describe me as a morning person.
I have been trying to force myself to turn into one for a few years now, but it really hasn’t worked well. I can’t force myself to wake up and work out before everyone else is awake, and I don’t typically speak to other humans until I have had at least a sip or two of coffee.
Despite the fact that I am not a chipper morning person, I still know how important my thoughts are, especially at the beginning of a new day.
I know that nothing good comes out of dragging all of yesterdays stuff into today or assuming before the day has a chance to begin that it is not going to be decent one, at the very least.
Of course I have days that are more rough than other days, and some days I can feel life smacking me in the face, but like they say my worst sober day has nothing on my best day when I was living my life chasing something that I could never catch.
So every day I try to start by reminding myself of all of the things that I am blessed to have.
I remind myself that I have choices.
I am an imperfect person with an imperfect, but full, sober life.
I love myself and I love the people who are doing this thing called life with me, and I am alive. 🙂
His compassion never ends.
It is only the Lord’s mercies that have kept us from complete destruction.
Great is his faithfulness; his loving-kindness begins fresh each day.
LAMENTATIONS 3:22-23