The Power of the Mind (part 1)

A wall decal in my house

A guy I know recently told me not to 'let anyone dim my sparkle'. It got me to thinking, do I let others dim my sparkle or do I dim my own sparkle? Yes, people can do or say things that make you feel crappy but what you choose to do with that feeling is up to you. I know this and it is the advice I give to others, but not listening to my own advice is definitely up there as one of my biggest flaws! My problem is that I have and have always had an over active imagination. This means that I can take the smallest comments or actions and embellish them into something that makes me doubt every move I make. I spend very little time telling myself I'm good enough and a lot of time pointing out all of my flaws to myself.

I mentioned in my introduction/about me that I have two different personas, my work life me and my personal life me. It is true, in my work life I'm very confident. I make important decisions everyday and I'm good at what I do. For some reason, I'm a very different person in my personal life! I don't think I've always been that way, or maybe just a little, but in the last year I have become way worse.

I realised it was bad a couple of months ago when I went out with one of my friends and her friends. Because I was surrounded by people I didn't know, I had to talk to strangers and answer a lot of questions about myself and all I wanted to do was crawl under the table and hide! My other moment was when one of my friends wanted to set me up with a guy. She made it better by coming with me with her husband but I went into total shut down mode! I became mute! I couldn't think of one single redeemable quality about myself and didn't want to speak at all!

My biggest moment however, was just a couple of weeks ago when I was going out with friends and I was sitting on my couch trying to figure out conversation starters and things to talk about! Seriously! Trying to figure out the me I needed to be with my good friends. This was a moment! A moment that made me sit back and take notice (the next day). Take notice that I had finally let my mind completely take over!

Since then I have been doing some serious thinking. Growing up, I had a strong family life, I knew I was loved and I had no drama that would make me question myself. I was just a regular kid and teenager who loved life!!

3 year old me!

As I got older however, I did entertain the thoughts that people were smarter than me, better than me, more interesting than me, more attractive than me etc. etc. But I never let it affect who I was as a person, and definitely not in public! I kind of just accepted it. It is only now as I'm analysing myself that I realise it actually did affect me. I really have become my own worst enemy! This blog is really about my own self discovery and it may seem odd to some to make these discoveries public and write about it but I am also a creative and I love writing. Writing makes me happy and is kind of cathartic to me. It may seem kind of self indulgent to some to write a blog, but what better time to try and stop worrying about what other people think!

Isn't it funny how our minds work? I have all kinds of 'feel good' quotes around my house, I have candles, plants and everything that is designed for well being. The other day as I was getting ready for work I looked up at my bathroom mirror and saw what I had written on it!

Bathroom Mirror

It suddenly occurred to me, 'man I'm hard on myself'! Even though I COULD do with losing some weight, do I really need to see it in big, bold, red writing every day?! What kind of negative message am I sending to myself at the start of every day?! I would never criticise anyone the way I criticise myself. I would never tell someone they are too fat or look horrible or are saying something stupid. I only ever want people to feel good about themselves, so why am I so hard on myself? That is really the point of this blog. My self discovery journey has begun and was subtly (or maybe not so subtly) nudged by a good friend and two of my sisters, but it was appreciated and required! They may not have expected me to go down the whole blog route but I know they know I have always done things a little differently. This journey is all about me (for the first time in my life I'm concentrating on me) but maybe someone will relate, who knows, maybe it will even help someone else, I mean hey, it has already helped me. It is a new journey, and this is just the beginning....

DM x