Changing Things!

With the change of season, I started thinking about how much I've changed over the last 6 months.  Change is good!  It is, even though most of the time I change because I have to, not necessarily because I want to!

I love it when our world changes from winter to spring, but I'm not very excited when it goes from summer to winter!  Now I know fall comes after summer and before winter.  I like the fall, I guess.  At least I like it much better than winter!  I like how fresh the air feels.  I like the crispness in the morning and I like the decrease in humidity.  But winter!  I do not like being cold!  I don't!  I don't like having to wear long pants and socks and closed in shoes!  I like flip flops.  No, I take that back, I LOVE FLIP FLOPS!  Don't even get me started about having to wear a

hat, coat and gloves!  I don't like that my car is cold inside!  I don't like those few minutes when I start my car and I'm waiting for my seat heater to warm up my seat!  Ok, so I know all my friends up north are laughing hysterically right now.  They are saying, "Really.  You live in Florida!"

What about me has changed over the last six months?  I decided to pick one thing about myself that I didn't like.  I'm not talking about physical attributes.  I'm talking about something on the inside that I just didn't like.  There are several things I wanted to work on, but God showed me that I have to start with only one.  More than one thing at a time was just too overwhelming.  I think that's where I always made my mistake.  I tried to change too many things at once and I could never reach my goals.

The first thing I chose was how much I disliked being alone with myself.  I didn't want to spend time with me.  I was very discontented and bored with myself.  I couldn't see what I had to offer myself.  Then things started to change!  How you ask?  I asked God to show me how to be content with myself!  I needed to learn how to be content with being all by myself, all day and night.  Instead of telling myself how bored or lonely I was, I decided to try telling myself the opposite.  What I've found is that I like my own company.  I like being with me.  Of course, I think I'd like being with me even more if it wasn't cold or rainy and I could go for a walk or bike ride or I could lay out in the sunshine!  I do love the sunshine!

Now that I've mastered being alone and liking it, my next conquest will be to have power over the thoughts in my head.  I've been working on this one for so very long.  At my age, I've dealt with an awful lot of stuff.  That stuff, mostly bad, likes to play over and over inside my head on a moment by moment basis.  I've decided that my brain loves to live in the past.  I can have a pity party all by myself, all day long if I want to.  The thing is, I don't want to anymore.  I've found that it is easier said than done.  I have tried many different techniques to try to elevate the need to replay the past over and over.  I'm still a work in progress but I'm proud of the progress I've made!

What I've learned is that change is very, very hard.  It's so much easier to stay the way you are.  If you don't like who you are, which I didn't, then understand that the work is tough, progress is slow, but the results are so worth it!  I just hope that I can move much faster at change than I have been.  I want it now!  I want the new and improved me today!  Reality sinks in again and I realize that no matter how bad I want the new me, it is a process.  Just like bad health, I didn't become the me I am overnight and I can't become the new me overnight!

I Am Changing Daily and I Love It!