Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Good advice

Ever since having Joshua, which threw us for a loop in terms of schedule of big life events (meaning that we'd planned for Nathan to finish school and me to work for another year or two before we started having children), I've had a lot of clarifying moments... Times like when I realized that life would never be the same, would never go back to "normal," that this was normal now, or when I've had to change my attitude to be more grateful or just times when someone puts things in perspective for me. Those kind of times. I've been doing ok at sorting out my thoughts in my journal sometimes, which does help, but not enough.

Sooo, I came up with an idea that seems to have been incredibly helpful to me. Instead of musing about what's going on...or summarizing or describing, or whatever, I tried something else. I gave myself advice, like as though I was someone else. Maybe it seems silly, but I was literally like, "Ok, Amanda - here's what you need to do," and then lectured myself in writing. It was great! All I had to do was think of it in terms of what I would say if someone else had just been telling me about where they're at. I love giving advice...well most of the time...and it is a lot easier to give advice about other people's lives than actually to get your own stuff together, you know? So I gave myself some good concrete advice and I've followed through with it.

Very psychological, I guess...cuz really I do know that it's just me telling me stuff, but it made a big difference and I highly recommend it.

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