These past few weeks have been so trying. I find myself getting snippy and short for no reason in particular. That being said, I haven't done much in trying to control it, I just react. It finally hit me though how much that needs to change. There are so many times I start feeling gloomy, stressed and down that ideas spring to mind that I know will either snap me out of my mood or at least help me cope, yet I ignore them choosing to sulk. I don't know why I do this, I suppose its easier to sit there in despair than actually do something about my life. Much like losing weight or quitting a bad habit. I think though that I have finally hit that point in my life, that point where I realize, nothing is going to get better until I choose to make it better. Why does it take so long to get there? Sometimes I think we are too distracted in this crazy, social media cluttered life we lead. A new notification pushes any thoughts we may have onto the back burner of our minds. It is an artificial happiness that keeps us from discovering true happiness or rather a distraction from reaching our goals that make us feel fulfilled.
I made a few efforts to change that recently. I decided to change. It sounds so simple and it really is, what isn't simple is realizing that only you can make things change.
Part of deciding to change means ridding ourselves of the things that get in our way, the things we know are in our way but we are too lazy to do anything about it.
For me, one of the biggest is my use of social media. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. You know. All of those things are fine, but can also be time wasters. Life wasters really because they get in the way of my long term goals. Another one is just being lazy. Laziness is something that gets in the way. Obviously, but really, those moments where I could get up and make myself a wholesome breakfast but end up eating whatever is within reach, leftover cookies, brownies...bread? Even though I know that I aspire to eating wholesome and healthy. Even though it would only take me 10 minutes(if even that) to get a good breakfast for myself. The same for exercising. There have been several times where I think "I could get up and do my 20 minute workout, right now" I reason with myself "You'll feel better if you do" and I know I will, yet I continue sitting and making excuses.
Like I said, there just comes a time to finally realize, my life isn't going to get any better unless I make it better.
I want to live! I want to be in the moment. I want to learn to laugh off my troubles and make the best of them. I want to teach my children to do the same. Instead of taking my frustrations out on my family, I want to turn to them for comfort and I want them to do the same. I want Marc to come to me when he needs to cry. I want my children to as well. I want to shake off my funks. I want to look at the world through childlike eyes, to feel wonder again. To do all this I must be present, I must be aware. I must CHOOSE to live this way. Everyday is a choice and I have to choose over and over again. Every moment is a choice and I will choose joy over and over again. No one else is responsible for my happiness. My happiness is my choice.
Some things I am going to change:
- no excuses for my bad behavior, it is my fault if I behave or react badly.
- patience. I will be patient with others, especially my little family.
- exercising. It is now a part of my life. It will be a daily habit. I will exercise daily from now on.
- whole eating. I feel better when I am not eating crap, therefore I am going to make the effort everyday because I know how much better it makes me and my family feel to eat whole foods.
- less social media. I have reduced my daily social media to instagram and twitter. I like twitter because it is simple and minimal. Instagram too. Facebook I check maybe 2x a day. I am considering deleting Facebook too. I will work to cut my computer time down daily.
- schedule. I am going to get on a consistent schedule that will help me be more mindful and aware of my time.
- quiet. I need my quiet. In my schedule there will be blocks of quiet time assigned so that we can just be. It is important to me to have those moments where my mind can rest.
- sleep. I need more than I get. I get little sleep because I plan and use my time poorly and try to catch up on everything at night which is, again, poor planning. This will be corrected in my schedule.
I am choosing in this moment to change. They may only be baby steps but every little step gets us closer than we were before.
I love this sign and plan on ordering it ASAP to keep up to remind me of what I really want to do with my life: LIVE!
So that being said, what are things you want to change? Are you going to do it?
p.s sorry again, if this is all over the place. on my mind is literally just a free flow of my thoughts and sometimes I can't even make sense of them until I have them all typed up. I hope you can catch the gist. xo
Good for you. I can relate on so many levels. Everyday I struggle to workout, to eat healthy and to be nice; but everyday I am thankful I did.
ReplyDeleteI love your scattered posts! I feel as if I often too have a long trail of thoughts that sort of go together, but not really, and you just have to get them out or you'll go crazy. I'm with you on the time wasting social media. I'm so much happier when I shut things down, and slow things down a bit. You've encouraged me to shut down the computer and go make myself a healthy snack!
ReplyDeleteI felt like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders when I deleted the facebook and twitter app from my phone. Twitter from my kindle, for some ungodly reason they decided to make facebook a non deletable app on the kindle. :(
ReplyDeleteI don't feel the urge to check it if it isn't there and it makes it so much easier to be present because I don't like sitting on the computer when my kids need my attention. I would so love to delete my facebook entirely, but too many of my family use it to see pictures of my children because we live so far away from everyone.
i deleted my facebook account at the beginning of the year. at first it felt totally crazy, and i would randomly find my finger making it's way to the 'f' key without even thinking about it. but after about a week that went away, and i never looked back. i still keep up with those people i want to keep up with. i don't have 1839 friends in real life, so why do i need them on facebook?
ReplyDeleteI am so with you on all of this! esp. being online all the time. am going to make an effort to be more present in my life. "life wasters" is the perfect description!!
ReplyDeleteGet it girl :) I know I could use to do so many of these things too, but right now these aren't the most meaningful to my life. In time I'll get there. Just making this list is bringing you a long way. You've thought it out, written it down, and made yourself accountable for it. The universe is ready for you to take the reigns.
ReplyDeleteSo with you on this. Even now, I really need to study while my bubba naps, but instead I'm reading blogs!
ReplyDeleteGood for you! Reading this is so refreshing and I've been thinking about writing a post on the things I want to work on too. A lot of the things I struggle with are the same things you do, so I feel more human, and like "Hey, if you can do it so can I!" So good luck to you, and thanks for the inspiration. :)
ReplyDeleteGood luck making positive changes! It is so good for you to reevaluate these things. I've severely limited my intake from what it used to be, and I am successfully loving life even more. It is a process, because these things are so addictive when we don't realize it!
ReplyDeletegirl. did you just read my mind?
ReplyDeletefacebook.
exercise.
brownies & bread...
ah.
yes.
S O inspired, encouraged & challenged by this post. thanks for being brave and sharing it with us. seriously, best post i've read in a WHILE. <3
So I congratulate you for such a raw post that met of us would be afraid to write.
ReplyDeleteThis is life and we all get in a rut, but no one writes about it.
You are a beautiful soul. The hard part of the battle is knowing what you what to change. You are already there with awareness.
Thanks for the honesty.
I spent the entire day feeling this way. So much I need to change and so many things I need to be mindful of. I need to practice compassion and patience. I need to drink more water and eat more wholesome foods. Exercise would be a great idea (daily) and I definitely need to manage my time better. It really is nice to know I'm not the only one feeling so scattered sometimes (naively I start to feel as though I am the only with a life that gets away from me at times).
ReplyDeleteThank you, once again, for an honest post. I really love this 'on my mind' series. I can relate to this. Extended periods of social media have a way of making me feel 'bogged down' and regretful of how I have spent my time. It is so easy to get sucked into screen world and miss out on the real world. I want to set a good example for my son, too. Thanks for the reminder of a fresh start!
ReplyDeleteBekah, I love you! And am in such a similar place right now. So strange, I really wonder if these sorts of themes exist in many many peoples lives - as in a collective conscious. I wrote a similar post (posts?) over the last few days. I deleted Twitter and although it is weird - because I do not have an audience to broadcast every random thought to anymore - it is quiet - and it is possible to exist without it ... My Facebook went out the window years ago, but then I guess I replaced it with Twitter and just got so caught up in things. Unreal things. Distractions. Anyways, I too am attempting to implement many of the above. Nice to know I am not alone in feeling the crazy of our current day and age. xo
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I was in your shoes in March and feeling like total garbage. I had nothing to look forward to but watching TV, eating junk, and sitting around. Talking about mindless living. I didn't enjoy anything at all. I thought that this was living, but without a doubt, it was the furthest thing from living. What snapped me out of this zombie life of mine was blogging. I stumble upon a blog I fell in love with it and that lead to another and another. All of these blogs have helped me in different ways (including yours!). We have gotten rid of cable, are now vegetarian and vegan, I read to the kids daily (we make bi-weekly trips to the public library for books), and cook dinner every night for my family, I even get up at 5 to hit the gym before work. I know you want to stop using social media, and that is great! In my case social media helped me. p.s-I am the only person in the world without a Facebook! haha lol (OK, I have one that I created in 2006 that I never used other than setting it up. I even deleted it and then needed an email, which caused it to reactivate. Bummer! But to me it's dead)
ReplyDeleteCheck out my blog if you every get a chance. I just started it so don't expect greatness.
DoingItDezyStyle.blogspot.com
a scattered post is honest, genuine and raw...and, personally, i like to know that we ALL go through ups and downs. you show us you are a real person, and this makes a blog that much more special.
ReplyDeletei agree with you, we can choose to be happier, we can choose to change how we live, we can choose to make different decisions...
that said, be gentle with yourself. it's ok to ease back into that structure you crave...we all go through these ups and downs...my mom always said if you didn't have the difficult downs you would never really feel the true joy of the ups. the contrast is so very important in life.
take good care of yourself!!!! and give yourself credit for all the good you do.
Amy <3
Bekah, thank you for writing this and for being so transparent!!! Keep on writing these free flowing posts :) !! I think sometimes we over think so much when we write instead of allowing the thought to come alive and just be. By the way I think you are an awesome mama and even though I don't have children you make the idea of being a mom much less frightening (Confession:I am afraid of being too selfish to be a good mom) and you look like you are having so much fun doing it, that it kind of makes one curious and think that maybe it would be possible one day for me :).
ReplyDeleteThis post resonates with me as it mirrors exactly almost down to a tee what I have been feeling for the past couple of years but have just recently come out of the haze and been made aware of it the last 6 months or so as I have have begun feeling a unexplained feeling of restlessness, dissatisfaction with the manner in which I am living, and sense of urgency for change but unsure of where and how to start. I think this feeling has been there for awhile but I silenced it by filling it with business of living a what I deemed a "busy" life running here and there on auto pilot mode not living in the present but for tomorrow(as in tomorrow I will do,be,or start: x )cause surely everything would auto correct itself and tomorrow I would be more motivated. But then some life waster (facebook,email, some tv series I just have to watch,ext.) comes along and all my good intentions are for not.
This past week I have been trying to focus on one thing to change:eating more healthy and being more mindful and savoring what I eat but it is hard as it is so easy to justify eating something not (or as) healthy by saying I will save the 5-10 min. to make x to do something else and more often than not that time I "saved" I wasted later. I am with you on wanting and starting to implement the change in ourselves today right now where ever we find ourselves and starting to find the quiet time to really listen to what we need.
Some of my goals:
Be more: kind,patience,forgiving of myself and others, read more, exercise, healthier eating habits, sleep 6+ hours, spending more meaningful time with family and friends, enjoying the present, worrying less about tomorrow (kind of hard thing for me not to do).
I am currently reading Laird Hamilton's book: Forces of Nature, where he says "we are each our own greatest inhibitors" and "the irony is that if you just get out of your own way,you'll do really well". So hopefully I can get out of my own way and on track :).
I wish you the best and here is to replacing our bad habits with better ones and mindful living!!
Claire
I am really thankful for posts like this. Reminders that no one is perfect, and life isn't perfect. And that we all have bad days. I can completely relate to this. It's inspiring to know you've realized what needs to be done and that you WANT to change it. I need to start doing the same as well. Hopefully this new move will be a new, fresh chapter for you. :) You're amazing, lady!!
ReplyDeletexoxo ~ Lisha
awesome post. this is exactly what i'm feeling at this moment in my life, too... :) thanks!
ReplyDeleteThis is such a beautiful and open post. You thank your readers for listening, but thank you for being so open and inspiring! :)
ReplyDeleteI need to work on minimalising and stop being so materialistic. They are just books, they are just x,y and z. I need to refocus my attention on what is important, rather than being so precious about everything. There will be more things around if they get broken/damaged, etc. There is only one me - my happiness is more important than any object. It is only just occuring to me how much happier I could be if I stopped worrying about the material, and stop letting it get in my way.
Thanks for the great reminder. :)
once again a very inspiring list ;) I relate and honestly I almost feel like I'm choosing to suffer instead of live out my purpose...Our lives are very similar in that we both, to the outside world, have everything needed to be happy and content. 2 gorgeous kids, a husband with great ambition, a HOUSE! It is extremely hard to be unhappy when you know it's a silent social taboo for you to have real negative thoughts or sadness. I really would like to make a decision to let go of the anger or negativity etc..that has caused me to suffer. But now it is a permanent very real part of me, but absolutely not all of me! You're doing great :)
ReplyDelete