How to have a morning that energizes you all day long

Powerful     Productive    Positive

These are the 3 P's that I am adding to my morning routine. I have the most energy in the morning even though I am the most sore and stiff. Since my physical energy has limits I want to feel energy from within. I am a very creative when I allow myself to be. I hope to fill up my morning so that when I am running on empty I do not slip into self pity and depression. I do not expect this to be easy. I know it will be a lot of work. I am used to hard work. I worked hard in school but I still lagged behind. I worked hard to be liked until I got that and felt nothing. I worked hard on my LDS mission until I came home and slept for several days straight. Life is hard work and it seems like it is always ready to knock you down again. Well I have been knocked down so many times but I get up again and that is what matters. It is hard to get back up. It is hard to fight the negative thoughts. I am ready for some more hard work. Are you?

I am ready to fill my life with as much positive energy as I can. I want to feel like a good Mom. I want to feel like a good person. I am teaching myself and my kids how to have a good self esteem. I am teaching myself to stop treating myself so bad and to flow down the river of life without worrying I will drown or hit bumps in the road. I am rediscovering what makes me tick and what keeps me fighting. I am not wanting to get back to who I used to be. I am not a fan of her or the current me. So I guess that means I pick a spot and start there? Every day I have to be around myself and everything that tempts me to fall back into the darkness.

Why are we waging war on ourselves? Why are we struggling when it is easier to trust in the almighty God who is also our rescuer? I am on a journey from fear to peace. I am overcoming negative thoughts everyday. Where in your life are you losing positive energy? Where are you causing the most self sabotage?

So what is this hard work I am talking about? First of all getting up is hard when I have told myself that there is nothing to get up for so long. You learn to protect yourself when you feel so much pain, even if it is self inflicted, or not. All I did in protecting myself was erase myself. So I am going to get out of bed and pray to be a powerful Mother and Wife. I am going to pray to be productive, even if it just a little. I am going to pray to be positive and to fight those negative thoughts with all the energy heaven will give me. I am going to say my positive affirmations. I am going to get outside and soak up the sun and then I am going to feast on the words of the scriptures.

The productive part is a little bit more of a struggle. What most people can do in a day I can only do 1/4 of it. I have to or I run myself into the ground. I am not okay with this mediocrity or that my energy can be used up so fast but it my reality. At night I write down all the things I think I can do in an hour. In the morning I review it and get to work. After working for 15 minutes I take a break and then do another 15 minutes. What would take an hour with breaks actually takes me all morning. By afternoon my energy is just gone as if it went down a drain or something.

My last and most powerful part of my morning lately is visualizing how my day is going to go.  I stumbled on a powerful visual that I have been using everyday. I visualize myself floating down a river. I keep going down the river and if I hit a rock or strong current I see myself not struggling or trying to swim against the current. This visual helps me stay present and not go into my past or worry about the future.If something happens during the day I think to myself. Am I fighting the current or moving with the flow and letting things happen the way they do?

So how do you get going in the morning? What tricks do you use to stay productive and energized? Where are you fighting the natural flow of life?



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Its my life and I am taking a stand

I feel like I should just write. Anything. Everything. Just write until it all makes sense............

  I am not sure if I have ever been sure of who I am. It is embarrassing to admit that so many times in my life I have felt insecure and had a low self esteem. I am still that little girl struggling to fit in and desperately looking for something. But what? I have the gospel and Christ in my life. But I am fighting for my life. I am fighting to keep standing. I think what I have been looking for are things that make me feel validated. Some people would call that needy but I would say that I was never taught how to challenge negative thoughts and so they kept coming. I kept looking for worth when I was accepted by others. First theses thoughts were like a fog rolling in and out in stressful times of my life. Then they became a dark cloud that hung over my head most days. Soon it was a raging storm within like a tsunami. How do you stand in the rain when you are getting pelted by so many thoughts or just completely knocked over by them? Pretty soon I couldn't stand anymore and I gave into the darkness of Depression. I was silent and isolated but screaming inside to be free.

5 years ago I thought I was free from Depressions clutches but it is still there and waiting to pounce when I am the most vulnerable. I am attacked by these negative thoughts everyday but I am sick of it! I do not want to be a victim anymore! But I have no idea how to be truly free from this demon. It is not just a bad day. It is a heavy weight crushing you! I want to stare it in the face and tell it that it has no power over me. I wish to but I am scared. I have seen and felt its power even over the last two weeks. I am winning more battles then I have before but the war itself rages on inside of me.

A friend of mine told me that when I feel overwhelmed I need to take a break from my deep thoughts. I may be surrounded by them like the deep sea but I do not have to look at them all the time. She said it is like I am in a submarine. I can use the periscope and look anytime I want but then I can close it up and not look anymore. Then when I am ready I can look again. I tend to want to look at the whole picture and by so doing, I overwhelm myself. I drown in my fears, insecurities and failures.

I thought that I had a good self care routine in place to take care of myself, but I really don't. It took me this long to realize that I am not nice to myself. I thought reading self help books and working on myself was what I should be doing. Instead it became and obsession. I worried and obsessed to make myself and my family better. I was really feeding a monster known as perfectionism. I am no where near where I thought I was and it shocked me. I really thought I was doing better but I was unprotected from myself and any attack. My fortifications were weak and not very effective. This realization blew me away! I keep getting annihilated by the enemy. My self worth has been destroyed and I didn't even know it. My life has been screaming that I have low self esteem and I missed it! I think that all of us at times in our lives don't see some of the warning signs. I have always been hard on myself but I thought that was good because it made me challenge myself to be better. Take a look at your habits and your thoughts. What are they telling you? If you find yourself like a deer in headlights with this realization too, don't worry , I think that means things will get better. At least I am hoping so! There is always hope!

With this hope I am going to do a few things this week  to find out who I am. Make a list of things you might want to do or borrow some of mine. As we open ourselves to changes we can make it is like we are standing for the first time. I think I have been crawling or limping my way through my life just dealing with the pain. My sense of self is completely gone. So here is what I am going to do to take a stand and say I am not going to take it anymore! I am stronger than that and so are you! Let us be kind to ourselves and find the right ways to motivate ourselves to change. Down below I made a mind map of self esteem and all the areas that are linked to it.  It was a good way for me to get a sense of the whole picture and where I am hurting myself the most.

1. Make a self care plan
2. Write a list of my strengths and what I am good at
3. Write a list of all my past accomplishments
4. Find ways to motivate myself