10.26.2006

thought stream

Please indulge me while I type out my thoughts.

I know that how I think about things affects how I feel. So when I feel negatively, I want to know what I am thinking. I have been feeling negatively for a few days. I have been feeling very angry at the smallest things. My thoughts at home and at work are focused on how other people let me down all the time. Someone broke my $40 fan at work and didn’t have the decency to leave me a note. So now I get to ask my co-workers who broke my fan and, ultimately, who will replace it. It was very disappointing to see my fan in pieces with no “sorry” note or anything. But perhaps it fell over and broke on its own?

At home, I feel like I am getting zero help around the house. There’s giant piles of dishes in the sink every day. Clothes are on the floor throughout the house. When I look at these things, I think to myself that no one cares enough about me to bother picking up their own shit. And sometimes I just leave it there, but it only reminds me of my “taken for granted” thoughts every time I look at it. So, I end up picking the item up or putting the item away for my own peace of mind. Then, when my family comes home and asks something of me, I immediately think, “What have you done for me lately?”

This is not how I want to feel. This is not how I want to live. I am tired of asking people to pick this up or put that away, because they’ll do it for a couple of hours and then stop anyway. I can’t control others, but I can control myself. I need an attitude adjustment.

I can’t see myself enjoying picking up after other people, but maybe I can at least look at it differently. I can be grateful that my body is healthy enough to be able to pick up things. I can be grateful that I have a family to pick up after. I can be glad that I am able to do things that will (even if subconsciously) make my husband and daughter feel happy. Sure, I may not have anyone bothering to try to please me, but I can please myself, and that makes the actions or inactions of others irrelevant.

for a good article about self-care, click here.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm right there with ya, Sister. If you figure out how to get past the resentment for lack of appreciation, let me know!

StaceyG said...

Where I am right now with it is trying to take other people out of the equation. If I appreciate myself and do things that make ME happy, then I won't need anything from anyone else. And better yet, I won't expect anything from anyone else.

Anonymous said...

Tigger, I came over here from Mark's site, and I couldn't believe the timing of me dropping in here tonight and what you wrote in your post... which mirrors what I've been feeling the past few days. Angelq said "resentment for lack of appreciation" and that sums it up. How DO we get past this? How do we stop letting external things influence how we feel about ourselves? Because right now, I feel hopeless, and I don't know how to change it... I no longer know how to make myself happy. I just know I'm getting heartily sick of trying to make everyone else happy.

I NEVER have pity parties, especially not on strangers' blogs, but here I am.

StaceyG said...

Terry, I have come to realize that I have to take "other people" out of my equation. Do whatever it takes to make YOU happy. And yes, that may involve picking up other people's things (if a neat room makes you happy). But it also involves using your time for yourself, not making sure everyone around you stays happy.

My family has gotten a little bent out of shape because I am not there at their beck and call anymore. If they lose something, I tell them to find it. If they need something, I tell them I'll get to it eventually, or they can get it themselves if it is an emergency. I'm not being mean, but I am also no longer going out of my way to make the lives of others move smoother than my own. I find that if I am happy, then I feel like helping out more often.

Anonymous said...

Thank you, Tigger, and also, thanks for the Daily Om in your sidebar. I read just the first opening paragraphs and started to breathe. Magical! A reminder to trust the universe.