Today's babystep is to add an inspirational page to your control journal. I like this. As you know, I've done many of these things before; I already have a control journal. But I never added this page. I'm not sure why-I guess it seemed sort of silly to me and I didn't want to waste my time.
About 6 months ago, I decided I wanted to try to change my habit of negative thinking. I felt I was heading into a depression of sorts. I'd just had my 5th baby in 7 years and I was struggling. Greatly.
I had come to believe that negative thinking is something that a person can actually become addicted to just as much as an addiction to any other drug/food/chemical. Watch this edited clip from the movie What The Bleep Do We Know. It's fascinating and will show you what I mean.
Watch it to the very end. The most powerful statement is the very last one. "If you can't control your emotional state, you must be addicted to it."
If my negative thoughts are an addiction, then I've got to break the cycle as I would another addiction. So, I started to formulate a plan.
I remembered listening to a Flylady & Friends show on BlogTalkRadio in which Marla was describing how she helped Kelly to quit smoking cigarettes. She told her to write down some mini-missions (2 minutes or less) on little pieces of paper and put them in a jar. When she felt a strong urge for a cigarette, she was to take out an assignment and do it.
What that would accomplish is to divert her mind onto something productive, something good during the time of her desire for the negative thing. If she could get past the 2 minutes, the urge would be lessened.
I figured that something like this should work for my negative thoughts. So I started a Happy Thoughts Box. I went out and got a very cheerfully decorated box, some cutsey happy but small paper, and a girly fun pen (purple with glitter!) and started writing inspirational phrases or mini missions on each paper. I planned to put them in the box, and whenever I felt myself getting into a funk I'd pull one out and do it. I thought it sounded like a good plan.
I still think it sounds like a good plan, and though I never continued on with it (it seems like just starting the project plus a little more alone/bible time was all I needed to get me back on track) I think that I should do it now.
This inspirational page in the Control Journal is the same thing. I'm going to spend 15 minutes today writing down more thoughts for my box and start a page in my notebook. Maybe if I have something positive in there I'll look at it more!
What are some of your inspirational quotes? What do you do to get yourself out of a funk?
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