Takin Control Of Your Thoughts

I am tired. That is an understatement. I am worn out. My spirit has been broken and I am on the cusp of just resigning myself to the darkened abyss. This battle rages on inside me. Never won nor lost. Thoughts manifest in tiny moments of my life. Some are good and I glory in their light. Some are sad, so sad, I wallow in their pain.  ~Tonya

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The culmination of our experiences rules our thoughts. Which rule our emotions. Which in turn rules our actions.  We often times define ourselves by what others say or what has happened to us in life. Because of this, we lose sight of our own aspirations. We begin to doubt our values and beliefs. We cast aside our visions of what we want in our future and we let those seeds of doubt grow like weeds and spread like wildfire within our heads, hearts, and souls.

Once this happens, the battle begins. We never feel good enough, funny enough, smart enough, sexy enough, or any of the ‘other’ enough’s. So now I pose this question: When is enough, enough?

At some point in our lives (and we each go through this) we end up giving more value to the opinions of others than our own. As children, it is our parents, grandparents and other adults surrounding us that mold us and tell us how to feel, what is right and wrong and how to act. As teenagers, our friends, classmates, and teachers are added to this list. As adults, boyfriends or girlfriends, husbands or wives, friends, coworkers, and bosses take the lead. So when do we listen to ourselves?

I am not saying it is bad to listen to the viewpoints of others. In fact, it does benefit us greatly. It gives us some valuable knowledge to listen to other people’s inputs. It creates a caring environment, allows others to know we value their thoughts and feelings. It strengthens our relationships and creates bonds.

However, after listening to others, we need to learn to listen to ourselves. Our own gut instinct, our dreams, vision for ourselves, our values, morals, and opinions are or should be placed higher on the value scale than anything else or anyone else. At the end of the day, no one else lives in our skin. We do! So why beat ourselves up for going against what another person says is right or wrong. Those people can only speak to what is right or wrong for themselves. What they would do in any given situation. They cannot possibly know for sure without any doubts what is right or wrong for you.

We live in a cruel world where we feel like we are getting judged around every corner. This affects us in negative ways. Our entire thought process becomes skewed. We lose self-esteem and confidence in our own ability to make the correct choices. We become detached from our surroundings and our lives. We then start living as if in a fog, going about daily tasks but losing track of little moments in time. Wondering what we did at any given moment and not taking notice of our actions.

We become co-dependent on other people. Never able to make decisions on our own then getting upset if others fail to give us their time. We take it personally if we are left to our own devices. We start putting higher expectations on others because of this co-dependency. Then live in a constant state of turmoil, stress, and disappointment when others fail to live up to those expectations.  It is a vicious cycle we cannot seem to free ourselves from.

So the question above about when is enough, enough becomes one we should all ask ourselves. This is the first step to gaining back control of our own lives. To building self-esteem and confidence from within. It is a process that will not happen over night, but one that with the right tools at our disposal, we can achieve.

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I started out this post by stating that I am tired and worn out. That I feel broken and a battle rages inside of me. I then moved into a generalization about our thought process as humans and how I think it affects us physically and emotionally. I did this and linked these things together because this explanation of thought process is what I myself have battled for 90% of my life. I have allowed statements, viewpoints, opinions, and actions of others rule how I think, what I feel, and what I do. It became a way of life for me.

I realized this a while ago and started making efforts and taking actions to change. I would not say I am 100% healthy mentally yet. I am not sure I ever will be. I do let certain people get to me still. I have moments where depression seems to overtake my thoughts, which becomes overwhelming. What is important here though, is that I now live in a state of mindfulness. I am fully aware of the situations I am in and my surroundings. I am able to own my feelings and allow them to run their course.

Pain is a part of life. It cannot be avoided. We do not need to run from it or hide the fact that something or someone hurts us. Instead, we need to own that emotion just like we would in a joyful moment. We need to process pain in a constructive manner not by lashing out or becoming angry.  But by allowing ourselves time to actually feel it in whatever way necessary. Then we need to make a choice for ourselves if we want to allow that pain to overtake our actions on a long term basis or if we want to pick ourselves up and move past it.

We need to ultimately do what is right for ourselves regardless of what other people say, of what society says. Once we can place our own value higher on that scale, we will truly start to live the way we want. We will achieve true happiness and joy. We will achieve confidence and self-esteem. We will start believing in ourselves and stop giving credit to the negative comments and doubt of others.

I wish this for every person on this earth…

• to believe in themselves
• feel good about who they are as a person
• to have confidence
• to have self-esteem
• to live for themselves
• make their own choices
• to know that THEY MATTER