I’m Changing My Thoughts and Choosing to Be Happy


I am tired of choosing to be miserable by choosing to feed negative thoughts. I’m tired of looking at complete strangers, who have scowls on their faces, and thinking their expressions are about me. I’m tired of wasting my time wanting things I can’t have, like being younger, being better looking, being perfect or not being alone. In other words, I’m tired of fighting reality and losing. I’m exhausted by years of negative, self-deprecating thoughts that make me emotionally miserable. So no more negativity. I’m going rogue. I’m becoming an optimist!

I didn’t choose to be raised in an alcoholic household. I didn’t choose to become an addict. But I did choose— at a very young age— to adopt the negative, fearful thinking that consumed my mother and hastened her premature death. I will always be a recovering codependent. I can’t change that. Once we develop addictive personalities, we can’t eliminate them, but we can learn to have power over them. A big part of changing them involves changing our thinking patterns.

I have no intentions of dying prematurely under an avalanche of fear and worry like my mother did. Everyday now, I’m actively choosing to abandon negative thoughts about myself and life. I’m CHOOSING to be positive, in thought and action. I’m choosing to have positive power over my own life by feeding myself with positive thoughts, learning from mistakes, letting go of the need to be perfect and to control other people so that they will “make” me happy. No one can make me happy but me, with the help of my Higher Power.

Today, and everyday forward, I choose to ACCEPT myself, my day, my life and the world around me. I choose to let go of old wants and perceived needs that don’t serve my well-being. I choose to love my life as it is by choosing to get out of my negative thinking, stay in the present moment and by choosing to see the good in every moment, even the difficult ones. I choose to own my power over my life and to be “reasonably happy” in this life and “supremely happy” in the next life!

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