Complaining Confessionals
My negative thoughts make me want to hide. And I complain about the fact that I’ve harbored them, allowed them passage to dock. I could make excuses about how the stealth of boats on water allowed them safe passage; but that’d be a lie. I wasn’t focused. Plain and simple, I wasn’t resisting my negative thoughts nor was I choosing new ones. I simply allowed them to dock. I switch my Warrior bracelet and also feel the shame in doing so. It all makes me want to burrow myself deep somewhere, undisclosed, hibernate until the feeling of shame goes away because in my mind’s eye I can’t be someone who inspires or ignites the spark of change in others if I too am struggling, if I too am making mistakes.
The boats that I allowed safe passage entered after yesterday’s class, a class that I was less than proud of, a class where every mistake I made-big and small-weighed heavily on my mind. I was so consumed with my mistakes, of having to have everyone jog it out and start all over, that my “boats” had not only docked but their crew had gotten out and was having the best of the mainland. Negative thoughts are like that. They start out small and quiet and if we aren’t too proactive in our awareness to catch them, out them and turn it around, we oblige them safe harbor. What’s worse is allowing them to stay long after they docked. The longer they stay, the bigger they grow. The bigger the fears surrounding them grow. The bigger the doubts about yourself grow. The bigger all the negative thoughts grow until the crew has marched onto land and is now infiltrating your entire belief system.
I knew this process all too well. I’ve been there before. Ships. Captains. Crew. A whole lot of them in my mind. Running the show for me. When I was willing to shut the door on the worst of my eating disorder habits over a year and a half ago, I threw them out. Like anything in life, the longer they stay the harder it is to get them gone. I knew how much work that was then to rid myself of those beliefs and to train my mind. I also know how much work it is now to continually keep working on being done with my ED and the last of its remnants. So the minute I saw them setting up camp, I knew I had to stop playing the role of victim and take action. I emailed my life coach and outted how I was feeling. I slept A LOT as I know the more physically tired I get, the more mentally tired I am and the more likely I am to give in to negative thoughts. I AM emailing all of YOU not only to get it out but to let you know, I’m there too. And that’s OK. Yes…it’s OK.
We’re human. We make mistakes. We complain. We have negative thoughts. It’s not about not doing any of those things, but owning our story in the process. If you own the story, you get to write the ending. If we choose to bury the story, hide, shame ourselves, we forever stay the subject of the story instead of the author. BE the author of YOUR life. Narrate your ending. You are not what has happened to you. You are who and what you choose to BEcome. And, I am telling myself those same things today. I am reminding myself to own my story as I tell the captains to gather their crew. I am reminding myself to BE the author of MY life as I tell the crew to leave the shore. I am reminding myself it’s OK to make mistakes as I send each and every last ship off into the vast ocean of infinite possibility, knowing that an ocean of infinite possibility means that anything is possible so why settle for ships sailing on the ocean when I can be the ocean myself?
May each of you guard the harbor of your mind from unwelcomed ships and may you know that you are infinitely more than a ship sailing on the ocean….you are the ocean itself.