POSITIVITY CHALLENGE

Many of you may have seen my recent retort to a post entitled, "SAHMs Shut the Eff Up".  It rubbed me the wrong way because the author singled out SAHMs as whiney and unappreciative.  Sure, she didn't mean all SAHMs, just the one's who complained about their role despite being among the "luckiest species" in the world (which could be any SAHM on any given day, right?).

While I disagreed with MOST of what the author had to say (actually, I really just think I disagreed with how she said it), I will agree that, perhaps, I could be a bit more positive and that maybe I have fallen into the negative conversation icebreaker of an eye roll and a "can you believe what he did" comment.  But it's not because I am a SAHM...

Maybe, everyone- moms, dads, humanity... could benefit from a little more positivity.

I have been pretty negative lately (and by lately, I mean, "huh, I think I may have always had a negative subtext").  Despite this, I am a firm believer in the power of positive thought (major breakthrough here while doing Intensati- check it out).

So what I am going to challenge myself to do this week (and beyond, but let's not get ahead of ourselves!), is to totally weed out the negative.  Negative thoughts. Negative comments.

The obvious truth here is that when I am negative, I am, in some way, projecting a feeling I have about myself.

I sometimes am really uncertain about how I am doing in the mom department.  Sure, my kids know they are loved, but on a daily basis I am always asking myself questions like, "should I have been more firm?  Was I too firm?  Should I have given more options? Did he deserve that timeout?  Am I sending mixed signals by not having given him a timeout?  Is the little guy too young for timeouts?  Should I have started timeouts with the little guy long ago?"

There are plenty of articles out there about trying to be more positive, but here are my actionable steps towards positivity:

1. Wake up in the morning and say one positive thing about myself as a mother and as an individual- I really am my own worst critic.  And sometimes my negative thoughts about myself will play on repeat and totally interrupt positive interactions with great people
2. When I am getting frustrated about a situation and/or with a person, remind myself of something positive about that situation/person (and this "person" can include me, myself, and I).
3. Don't say a single negative thing about a person to another person.  I hate this and whenever I find myself in a situation where I am venting about someone, I always feel weaker and more insecure because of it moments later.  And the items I am criticizing are usually comments or interpretations that I take way too personally.  I am practicing what I plan to preach to my children- if I don't have anything nice to say, I won't say anything at all.  
4. And I will respond to every question of "How's it going?" or "How are you today?" with something positive.  After reading this piece, it really has put things into perspective and I really AM so lucky.

So...who's with me?