6.12.20

“Building the best life does not require fealty to feelings in the name of authenticity , but rather relenting to negative impulses and acting right even when we don’t feel like it ,” says Arthur C. Brooks author of Gross National Happiness, in a column in the New York Times.

Having gratitude literally changes your brain. When you count your blessings, you become happier and less depressed. Instead of saying "I have to", say, "I get the opportunity to". It takes practice, and just a few years ago I had no idea how to do this when my life was in shambles. When a drug counselor would force me to do this, name something I am grateful for, I could only come up with Mary (which is a huge one). Then slowly with a lot of trouble, I came up with more things I was grateful for. I stemmed off of Mary, like a thought bubble. I was grateful Mary was being well taken care of at the time. Grateful she was alive and uninjured. Grateful I had the opportunity to have visits with her, that I was alive to continue to fight for her. Grateful for my DCF workers and the professionals that believed in me, and were helping me grow so I could get her back home.

The list continued to grow over months and now years. I can say positive things about myself for the first time ever. Now, I can flip any negative situation into a positive, when before all I could do was see the bad in things, the negative in everything, every single day. I would envy the positive people, asking myself why I could not be like that. I made negative situations into positives with both my children. I live a great life with them, provide for them and they are very happy and well adjusted ! There are no negative influences in their lives, they have a ton of great friends, and they are healthy (and stunningly adorable) ! We could have been left in an awful situation, it could have gone many horribly different ways, but I am so thankful every day I did not get what I thought I wanted. There was a better plan for us, and this is it (who knew the plan came with a white picket fence too! 😉)

Everything happens for a reason. There is always a positive to a negative, you just have to work to find it sometimes, and it is worth it 😁 Thank you for reading!