affirmations – Life Uncalculated

C Finds Her Mantra

I don’t write about my daughter here very often. I usually sort of casually mention her existence but don’t go into details.

There’s been something happening lately that’s been really amazing to watch, though.

She was a pretty confident little girl.

However, when she got to be about 13, doubt started creeping in, as it often does in our society when girls hit puberty.

For a few years, we dealt with I-don’t-know-how-many-nights of tears and anger and frustration. She would cry and rock back and forth and say, “I’m so stupid!” over relatively minor issues or social hiccups.

Her sophomore year in high school was probably the worst. She had been given a position of authority in an after-school activity, but had no back up from the adult in charge. In fact, rather than backing up C’s decisions, the adult in charge completely undermined them and supported a different student.

This was so frustrating to watch and try to help her deal with.

It affected her grades, it affected her relationships with friends. It affected her primary extra-curricular activity.

She questioned EVERYTHING about herself.

No amount of telling her that she was beautiful and smart and talented and good at something helped anything, because of course, it was her (biased) mother saying so.

But over the last year, things have changed, and it’s really been clear for the last couple of months.

It started with her grades. In 7th-10th grade, I had to constantly ride her about homework. In 11th grade, I just had to check in every now and then. But her senior year? I didn’t even have to pay attention. She was totally on everything. Now, maybe she could have gotten a couple more As, but she was balancing things really well socially and with her extra-curriculars, so a couple of Bs weren’t that big a deal, especially in Honors and/or AP classes. A few reminders here and there about college apps, but she was totally on about taking her placement exams and everything. I barely had to pay attention.

In taekwondo, when she first started teaching, she HATED it. She hated being grouped with the little kids to teach them, she hated being in front of people and talking even if it was a small class.

Over the last year, she’s come home talking about “her kids” and brimming with confidence over the classes that she teaches, as well as her own secretarial skills running the office.

And in the last couple of months, she come home practically screaming her new mantra:

I’m fucking AWESOME!

Negative comments from adults will now piss her off instead of making her internalize the comments and beat herself up. She knows she’s good at what she does and she knows she’s smart and learns quickly.

There is no particular single point where this happened; it happened slowly over the last year.

This is the thing I am most proud of with her. Somehow, she’s finally internalized what those of us who love her have been saying all along: She IS fucking awesome!

That Gratitude Thing (Again)

This is only my 4th post on the 7th day of the blogging challenge.

It’s difficult to come up with something to write every day. 😛

I have been thinking about gratitude again this last week, as I spent almost a week crashing at other people’s homes while there was a heatwave going on and my a/c was broken (again? still? WTF?).

I have realized that I often talk about negative things. It seems that I want to write more when I’m trying to work through something negative than I do when I’m feeling good.

I guess when I’m feeling good or happy or content (or somewhat manic, even) I am DOING things rather than writing about them.

From Pixabay

But I know that expressing gratitude and good emotions is also important to keep on an even keel.

So, today, I am most grateful for my BFF and the fact that even though we haven’t hung out together as much in the last 3 years or so (and sometimes things have been strained), that she is still there for me, and she let me use her place while she was out of town for the last 4 nights.

I’m also grateful for another friend that put me up for a couple of nights last week.

From Pixabay

I’m grateful for internet service (especially since I may be losing it soon. . . .). Being able to connect on the internet is a really big deal for me. There have been points in the past where I was unable to speak to people in real life or to pick up a phone, but I was able to communicate online. Sometimes it was through using libraries/free services and sometimes from my home, but the ability to communicate instantly in writing has been critical to me at various points. There are so many internet communities and mini-communities that have become important, no VITAL, to me.

I am grateful that I have an apartment. The period from Sept 2006-March 2008 was not a comfortable one. I complain about this place a lot, but it is so much better than sleeping on a friend’s floor and/or renting a room in someone else’s house.

I am grateful that my daughter has grown up to be a fantastic person despite having me as a mom.

I am grateful for my resilience.

What are you grateful for right now?

Self-love: 4 Songs That Make Me Smile

Sometimes it’s difficult to remember good things in your life.

Through my last depression, I realized something. When I’m on the way down or depressed, I don’t listen to music as much. I will put NPR on the radio in the car, watch TV shows at home, but rarely turn the radio to a music station or Pandora on the computer.

When I’m feeling better is the time when I go back to music, which means I tend to like upbeat stuff.

I almost titled this: 4 songs to make you smile. But, I don’t know if they’ll make you smile. I can only say that they make ME happy. I do believe that music can help shape our emotions, give us focus, make us feel better (or worse – there are songs that evoke anger and pain, too).

I’m often scared to talk about what I like in music. My tastes are usually a bit behind the times, and all over the musical map. I tend to like quite a bit pop stuff, which used to mean some of my friends would make fun of me when they were into alternative and underground. I eventually developed a taste for a lot of alternative stuff, but usually 3-5 years behind my friends.

Now, I tend to not care too much what others think, but I still sometimes feel like I have to justify my tastes. I know, intellectually, that is ridiculous, but sometimes old feelings creep up on me.

1. Pop – Pink – Try

When I first started to hear this song on the radio, I would turn it off almost immediately, because the music sounded sad.

A couple months ago, C forced me to watch this video of Pink’s performance at the AMAs.

First of all, totally love Pink. She’s unapologetically strong and individualistic, but also compassionate and kind: everything I love in a female role model.

Watching her do this modern dance interpretation of her song was amazing. I was blown away by her strength and grace and for the first time actually listened to the song.

The chorus really speaks to me.

Where there is desire,
There is gonna be a flame.
Where there is a flame,
Someone’s bound to get burned.
But just because it burns,
Doesn’t mean you’re gonna die.
You’ve gotta get up and try, try, try.

For a long time now, I’ve been able to keep getting up when it has to do with survival needs. But I have pushed a lot of people away.

Lately, a particular person has been reminding me that I need to do this with relationships, too: open myself up again, allow the possibility of being hurt. The song says that even if you are hurt, it won’t be fatal, and then you can try again. And something about the flame mentioned here is reminiscent of a time long ago. 🙂

2. Electronica/goth-rock – The Cruxshadows – Indivisible

Itunes calls this band “electronica” and Pandora classifies it as “goth-rock”. I don’t really care. 🙂 I was looking for new music and someone on FB suggested this band. This was the first song that jumped out at me. My itunes tells me this is the most listened to song on my computer and iPod at the moment. (Their song Valkyrie from the same album is almost as played).

And call it courage, overcoming the fear
to conquer first the demons inside.
That when the madness descends on our dreams
we have the strength to keep them alive
The purpose of one becomes the purpose of all
A phalanx made from what we believe.
A ghost or an angel, a wish or a prayer,
Just open your eyes, your heart, your mind
and BREATHE.

3. Pop? – Gotye – I Feel Better

Gotye hit the charts this past summer with “Somebody That I used to Know“. I like the song, even though it was way overplayed for a few months. But it is a break up song, with a lot of sadness and bitter-sweetness in it.

But this song, from the same album is even better. It reminds me of some upbeat 70s/early 80s stuff.

I’m having a hard time picking just a snippet of this one; I like almost every lyric, so I’ll just put the first part here; but listen to the whole thing. Something about it kind of reminds me of “I can see clearly now“.

There was a time I was down, down
I didn’t know what to do.
I was just stumbling around, around
Thinking things could not improve.
I couldn’t look on the bright side
Of anything at all.
That’s when you gave me a call!
And I feel better, better, better than before!
I feel better, better!
Now I’m not down anymore!

That sounds like someone who has been depressed and found a way out of it. In some ways I don’t like that it takes another person to get him out of it. But there’s nothing in the song that says this was definitely a romantic attachment that made everything better. It could be a good friend, an old friend, or an estranged family member that helped him find his way back.

4. Chant – Om Gam Ganapatye Namaha

I like chants, all kinds of chants. Somewhere I have a CD of Gregorian chants. I have some tapes and CDs of Pagan chants. And Buddhist and Hindu Chants have always fascinated me.

There’s something . . . soothing about repeating syllables in a musical manner. C, on the other hand, can’t stand them. She’s been very frustrated when I listen to 20-30 minutes of “Om Mani Padme Hum”. 🙂

My friend Trudy reminded me of this one earlier this week.

It calls upon the God Ganesh (or Ganesha).

Ganesh had his head cut off and replaced with an elephant head.

He is known as one who removes obstacles (because an elephant can move anything out of his/her way!), facilitates success (you’ll often see small altars to him in businesses), and is also very playful.

In the brass sculpture here, he is dancing on top of a small mouse – his usual ride! And if the image of a fat guy with an elephant head riding a mouse doesn’t make you smile, I don’t know what would. 🙂

From Vishal International

From the website Humanity Healing (click on the link for more info on Ganesh).

Om gam ganapataye namaha!
A very loose translation might be:
Om = Salutations! Everyone wake up!
Gam = The secret power sound of Ganesh. It is his “seed syllable” or bija mantra.
Ganapataye = Another name of Ganesh, the breaker of obstacles.
Namaha = Yo! Ganesh! You da God!

What about you?

What songs never fail to make you smile? What songs speak to what you’re going through right now? I’d love for you to share in the comments or on the Facebook page.

Spring – new growth.

First of all, I know there’s still snow in a lot of North America, but where I live, spring has well and truly sprung. Trees are blooming (which is why I’m awake at 3:30 a.m. – allergies!).

I don’t know what kind of tree the ones with the white flowers are, but the pink are from cherry trees, and the purplish flowers with spiky stems are from a rosemary bush.

Ever since we moved here (in 2001! I can’t believe I’ve lived in one place so long!), every spring I’ve said, “I need to get some pics of the cherry trees, because they’re so pretty!”

And I never actually get outside to take the pics before the blooms are gone. But this year, I actually did it! Woo hoo!

I have several partially written posts, but nothing complete enough to post.

I have been doing a lot of things behind the scenes, journaling, getting ready to start with Invincible Summer., and processing stuff I’ve learned through the Succulent, Savvy, Soulful Business Revolution.

Last week, I took a break from all things blog and business while sketching out something I’m working on.

In the meantime, I have been working on some internal stuff.

I have listened to Jeneth Blackert’s talk on SSBR three times now.

There was so much in her almost 2-hour talk that resonates strongly with me.

In particular, she calls herself a “Change Agent” and says she won’t give people “answers”, she helps them ask questions. And just asking the questions helps people change their energy.

Some of the questions she asks are things like,

“What is it that you know that you’re refusing to know and that if you stopped refusing it now would change everything?”

Think about that one for a minute. You don’t have to have an answer to the question. Just think about the question, and see how asking it makes you feel. A little uncomfortable? A bit excited?

What dream have you given up long ago where if you chose it now would make your life a total joy?

Today on Facebook, she asked,

What is the most phenomenal thing that could happen now?

And again, you don’t HAVE to answer the questions. Just ask them and see how you feel when asking them. That last one – for me, fear is the first thing that comes up. Why is that a scary thing? To think about something great that could happen? To picture something good happening? Why is that so terrifying? Because I’m not used to it? Because I don’t know how to handle it when good things happen? Why do I limit myself so much?

On Friday last week, Erika Watson talked about partnerships. Listening to her talk reinforced the idea that joining the Wild Sisterhood was a good idea, and so was creating the small mastermind group I’ve been working with. (Check out Esscentual Alchemy – the owner is one of my mastermind peeps!)

But I am still on information overload. There are several talks I haven’t even listened to yet. I’ve barely had time to process the ones I’ve listened to a couple of times and taken notes on. There’s several others I’ve listened to but not taken notes on, and mean to go back and listen to again. I’ve only just scratched the surface of the workbooks and bonus material. It’s so overwhelming.

But I also feel things shifting. Things inside me, things in my life.

It’s strange, because unless something drastic happens soon, next month is going to bring a lot of financial pressure and problems.

And yet, I’m not nearly as nervous about it as I think I should be.

The bills are paid for this month, and for now, that’s all I can do.

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Gratitude

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.

I remember a few years back gratitude journals were thee big self-help/spirituality fad. Oprah talked about it, even, and it became fairly mainstream.

I’ve been listening to a bunch of interviews with successful people (free content, here and here and here). And the feeling of gratitude is strong, especially in the woman-centered spiritual groups, but really, in most of them. Even in the Amos Winbush interview I referenced yesterday, part of his daily affirmation is “Thank you, LIFE!” and he used it even in his darkest times.

I’ve tried, in thee last few years, I’ve really tried to find things to be grateful for. There was a point, even, where I hand-wrote and sent “Thank you” cards to various people in my life in one of my darkest times.

R, who has been my friend since 6th grade, once sent me a postcard saying, “You suck for never writing to me!” because, well, in our whole friendship, I’ve probably written to her less than a handful of times, even when in the military or separated on summer vacations. When she got hers, she called me to make sure I was ok, since it was so unusual for me to actually mail something.

I tried keeping a gratitude journal, but I’m sporadic about journaling to begin with and it quickly went by the wayside.

This fall, there were a lot of people on Facebook and blogs and stuff doing “30 days of thankfulness” for the entire month of November. I just couldn’t come up with anything to write about.

I can always say that I’m grateful for my daughter, and for N for sticking by me even when I’m a totally selfish shit, and my imaginary intermaweb friends. . .

And that was it.

I couldn’t come up with anything else.

An indication of my depression, maybe?

Suddenly, today, I’m bursting with gratitude for the strangest things. . .

I hated my job at [small company]. I mean enough to make myself a nervous wreck and physically ill at times.

But that job helped me go from renting a room in a toxic person’s house to being in my own place again. It introduced me to the person I bought my car from, which was a very serendipitous event. It introduced me to the woman who helped me come up with a name and logo for my tutoring business. I managed to maintain a good relationship with the company and even got a glowing letter of recommendation from them (and how often does that happen these days?). They sometimes didn’t want to but still ended up being flexible around my school schedule.

And I still have a business relationship with them. It’s not much, but in the last 6 months, the small checks from them have really made a difference. It showed me how much the owner’s attitude and force of will can shape and set the tone for a company.

And it modeled for me some things I would never want to do if I owned my own company – and that, too, is a blessing.

I’m still so, so grateful to R and N for always being there even when I push everyone away.

Modern forms of communication. . . and even the ability to look up someone from long ago. I’m even grateful to J for looking me up last spring, because it was a huge push I needed to finally stop wallowing in a particular pile of shit and become open for what could happen next.

My imaginary intermaweb friends, who are always so encouraging and protective and helpful, delivering hugs and a kick in the ass as needed. You know, even the grumpy old uncle and the guy living in Pleasantville – as annoying as they can be – have their place in that community [the people who need to know, know]. 🙂 When I was completely unable to connect and communicate in the real world, you guys were there.

And now, my comfort level with electronic communication has me researching all kinds of crazy things.

No idea where it’s going to lead, but I’ve ignored my intuition for a long time, and maybe it’s time to stop doing that. So, I’m riding this thing out and taking copious notes.

Pitfalls of affirmations

I was going through some old draft posts, where I started but never finished a post where I put a link to remind myself to respond to something later, and I came across a link to Creative Affirmations blog to an article called The Top 5 Affirmation Pitfalls.

Since I’ve been talking about affirmations lately, I thought this might be something good to talk about.

The “pitfalls” the author gives are:

Affirming with words that do not promote feelings.
Your affirmations are in future tense.
Not saying affirmations.
Not taking action.
Doubt.

Some people claim that affirmations are magical, but there is a real psychological action to them.

Affirmations are a way of focusing your thoughts. It’s a way of helping to reprogram your subconscious thoughts.

I went looking for some research on affirmations, because so many people believe they help so many things, and I was surprised at what I found.

I did find a 2009 study that indicates affirmations are helpful in combating depression and anxiety, but I also found a more recent study that indicates that the psychology of affirmations is more complicated than most believe.

If someone is a positive person with healthy self-esteem, the affirmations worked a little bit. But for people with low self esteem, some affirmations made them feel worse.

While I believe affirmations can have a positive effect, I can also see this point.

When I was in my deepest depressions, nothing helped. I read Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life about 10 years ago, and I threw it across the room more than once. I don’t remember a lot of specifics, but it felt like “fake it till you make it” to me, and there was no way that was going to work for me at that point.

And I’m someone that believes in this stuff.

So, while affirmations may not help people who are clinically depressed or naturally negative thinkers, if you are trying to become more positive about things in your head, give them a try.

If they make you feel worse – by all means stop and get some real medical help.

But if they do help you feel better and help you focus on your goals, then make sure you use positive emotional words, keep them in the present tense, and work to make them come about.

Changing thought patterns

I’ve been working on this for years, how to change the negative tapes in my head that say:

I’ll never amount to anything.
If you’re so smart, why aren’t you more ___________
What the fuck are you doing with your life?
I can’t do anything right.
I’m too disorganized to do anything the “right” way.
No one likes me.

And on and on and on and on.

I know that these thought patterns are destructive, and they only feed depression.

I know the origin of most of them; they have the same voice in my head.

I used to think it was completely programming I had as a child, but now I’m not so sure. Because C grew up with a LOT of positive reinforcement. I never said those things to her. And yet, somewhere around age 14/15, these started coming out of her mouth – her own internal programming brought these same words up, including body/beauty image issues.

Maybe there is a biological component to these thinking patterns.

But can we change them?

M recently accused me of being an optimist, which is pretty funny if you’ve only known me in the last ten years, but he knew me long ago, when I was very optimistic about everything.

I did ask my friend sync if he thought I was an optimist. His response:

You are more so than you think.

You generally do think you can accomplish various things, although when push comes to shove you often need to be pushed and shoved.

You can make it RIGHT UP to an important point, then you kinda freak out about it and try to talk yourself into thinking you can’t do it.

Hmm.

I’ve been running that around in my mind for the last week or so, since the conversation. And he’s right.

I still can’t believe that I totally choked on the finish line of my credential.

I blurred out my name, but there it is, framed and hung on the wall.

After taking 7 years to finish my B.A., after an intense year of working and tutoring while taking grad school classes, after a horrendous semester of student teaching, including surgery in the middle of it (and only missing 4 days of teaching for it), I choked on the finish line. The list of what I had to do to complete the process was ONE freaking paper (and I had until June to do it), two of these stupid things called Teaching Performance Assessments (and the groundwork is all done), a CPR class (I used to teach it, for fuck’s sake).

That’s it.

Everything else was done.

I was only doing about 5 hours of contract work a week, and a little tutoring between January and June.

I had time to work on it.

But I didn’t.

Self-sabotage at its best. I seem to be an expert in that.

I could have been actually teaching this year, instead of worried about how I’m going to pay the bills now that unemployment has run its course.

But I have been making a conscious effort to work on changing thought patterns ever since J called last May.

Another imaginary intermaweb friend, Monday’s Child, posted on my recent happiness post about her step-mother’s philosophy:

Happiness is a decision.
She taught me that happiness isn’t something that is *caused* by anything. It’s a deliberate decision you make, moment by moment if necessary.

Which falls right in line with a wallpaper image I got from Goddess Leonie (yeah, I know I’m talking about her a lot – I get fixated on things, ok?)

At first, this was the only one I downloaded, but now I have all of them, plus a few pictures I thought were beautiful, and a couple of random things, like this mandala I colored a long time ago. They rotate as my desktop background every 15 minutes.

Last year at this time, if the computer was on, I would have always had a browser open and would not even see my wallpaper. But the longer the “Joy is an Option” poster was up, the more I closed the browser and just left the computer on. I usually set the laptop up on a shelf right across from my comfy chair [“nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!”] and I now leave it open so when I glance over I see an inspiring message or just a pretty picture.

I really think that the Joy poster is at least partly responsible for finally flipping my mood around.

So, I am really getting into the affirmations this year. And I’ve even decided to go ahead and do a Vision Board. I’ve never actually done one before. I understand the psychology of it – it’s not really magick, per se, but it keeps certain things happening in your head to help you recognize and bring about your goals. I guess I just thought I was . . . above? needing something like that.

I bought this pretty (and cheap) poster board with clouds on it, and I’m ready to get started. . .

As an aside – What sparked this post was a conversation on Facebook. I wanted to talk about how another of my internet friends today reposted one of my “inspirational” reposts on Facebook. When one of his friends said, “I did not expect this from you,” his response was that he was trying to make changes in his life, to wit, to become “less of a dick.” He also said, “I cannot explain how much better my attitude is about everything after just a few months of reprogramming.” If RJ can change his attitude about things, with a little “reprogramming,” maybe I can, too?

Returning to my true self?

I stepped away from being a Priestess/spiritual teacher many years ago because my life was messed up, and I didn’t feel like I had any business telling others how to heal their spiritual selves when mine was so broken.

But what if. . .

What if it took me so long to heal because i stepped away?

What if walking away from my inner truth kept me from healing?

I know my archetype is Teacher.

This was confirmed for me when i began tutoring. That began to help me connect with my inner self, and began to turn my financial situation around. It also gave me the confidence to find work again, and helped me break the worst of the depression.

I don’t know if it was the aspect of helping someone else, or if it was the hanging out with teens that have energy to spare that helped me find energy to do what i needed to do at the time, after so long of being completely idle, withdrawn and depressed. But it did help me turn it around.

In 2012, C had expressed an interest in priestess training. But she isn’t really ready yet. I was willing, but she’s not putting in the work. She doesn’t yet understand that it takes work, time alone to reflect, intense discussion and practice. Of course, maybe I’m not supposed to be her teacher. Buddha’s wisdom says that when the student is ready the teacher will appear, and I have found that to be true throughout my life.

But beginning again. . . Reconnecting with my Priestess-self, my spiritual-self. . . .seems to have me returning to a different state of being. In part because of C and in part because of actually connecting with Goddess Leonie’s stuff instead of just ignoring it in my inbox.

I’ve mentioned that my spiritual roots are pretty fluffy-bunny-new-agey. I was one of those wanna be hippies that talked about love and light and everything being an opportunity to learn and healing and intuition guiding my every move. I believed in the ability to manifest things into my life with my will.

And I was able to.

For example: I got the military assignments that I wanted, when I wanted them.

Seriously, do you know how hard it is to get the Navy to move someone from Europe to the west coast? The assignment coordinator said it Could Not Be Done. He told me I would probably have to spend a couple years in Virginia before i could go back to San Diego. I said, “We’ll see, I will talk to you tomorrow,” and went to fill in my wish list.

When I went back, he looked through the assignments available to me and almost had kittens.

There was an assignment in San Diego, only one. It required part of my skill set, a month’s worth of training in Virginia and reupping for a couple years, but it was there. One assignment on his list. It was exactly what I needed/wanted. He was stunned. That kind of thing happened more than once. I was able to manifest exactly what i needed usually right when I needed it.

And then I lost my faith (which I may or may not talk about at some point – I can pretty much pinpoint when it was) in myself, in the ability to manifest, in, well, everything, and I was no longer able to bring such miracles into my life.

Not being able to bring what I needed into my life reinforced the negative thought patterns, deepened the depression and pushed the ability to manifest further away.

I became cynical, sarcastic, even more withdrawn, judgmental, angry, more depressed, isolated and completely self-flagellating.

Reconnecting with Teacher through tutoring helped start me back onto the right emotional track, but I had still built up a lot of negativity in my Lost Decade.

It’s not gone, and it will likely always be there now, but I’m being called back to be Priestess and/or spiritual teacher again.

There is a part of the spiritual journey that is about confronting and integrating your shadow-self into your being. Maybe I’m finally coming out the other side of that.

While I still don’t feel like I have any business telling people how to run their lives, maybe sharing my experiences can help someone.

There is no light without dark, a witch that cannot hex, cannot heal, and one cannot ignore the dark or push it away, it must be acknowledged and walked through, each in their own time.

The Incredible Year workbook – Part 1 – Affirmations

I’ve talked about Goddess Leonie’s Incredible Year Workbook before. I’m still not done working through it, but I thought I’d do a couple of posts about what I’m doing, how I’m incorporating it. (And it’s not to late to start now!)

Before I even start, I have to say a lot of this is touchy-feely-fluffy-bunny-new-agey. But my spiritual roots are touch-feely-fluffy-bunny-new-agey, and I feel I’ve strayed away from that. I think I’m looking at this as drawing me back in.

I have a document holder like the one pictured to the left where I’ve put the relevant goal sheets and calendar pages that I need to see and access often (I did not print the whole workbook, only the parts I need). I’ve also got a spiral notebook for the To Do lists.

First off, I like affirmations. At different times in my life, I’ve used them to varying degrees of success. I’ve put them on my mirror or refrigerator or front door do I could see them often. I’ve written them in the evenings to concentrate on a goal.

So, I really like that Goddess Leonie incorporates affirmations in a couple of different ways in this workbook.

There is a page with colorful, odd shaped bubbles to create your own affirmation You’re supposed to write them and then cut them out and put them where you’ll see them: in your purse, around the home, wherever. I have taped some to the report cover and the spiral notebook. I also intend to buy some stuff to laminate them so I can put them in other places. She starts you off with:

You Are RADIANT

To that I’ve added:

My life is full of miracles

I accept people as they are

I am loved

I am creative

I am organized and disciplined

I am creating miracles of love, peace and prosperity everyday

I deserve to be happy

I am Love, I am Abundance, I am Joy

Ok, looking at that from a jaded point of view (or what some would call realistic), it all seems a little lofty, dreamy, escapist thinking. But wouldn’t it be wonderful if that were all true? Even better, wouldn’t it be fantastic if I could make it all true?

Later on in the book, she has another page called “My Magnificent Mottos”. To me, these also feel like affirmations. They are the “mottos” for the year, that you focus on to keep you going. She gives examples of ones she’s used and then you create your own. I’ve got:

Embrace Possibilities

Be Strong

Cultivate Kindness

Dreams can come true!

Practice being loving

She has a calendar, too, and I like her pages that give you a focus for the month. However, I don’t like her actual calendar pages. I’m using something else for the calendars, a page I got from a “plan your blog” site (but I don’t remember which one).

I’ve only got 72 things on the 100 Things To Do in 2013 list, but completing the list is on the list, so at some point, I’ve got to think of more things.

More about this fantastic workbook in the next few days.

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1. Pop – Pink – Try

2. Electronica/goth-rock – The Cruxshadows – Indivisible

3. Pop? – Gotye – I Feel Better

4. Chant – Om Gam Ganapatye Namaha

What about you?

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