The real you

It's 2009.

Time for you to start believing the truth about yourself.

That doesn't mean magical thinking. For instance, I'm not trying to convince myself that I'm actually a dynamic and joyful cleaner.

It does mean looking at those lies you've been telling yourself, and figuring out what the truth really is, and then acting on that.

Your past is gone, stuck in 2008. So here's the present and future.

I'll start: I'm a strong, smart, capable, powerful woman who makes good decisions and does whatever she decides to do.

Your turn.

Comments

[Clemetine]

Here's mine: What I am and what I have is worth celebrating.

Happy New Year to all!

[Kate]

I am capable of forming and maintaining healthy habits. And I deserve to have a healthy life.

[Julie]

I want to see myself as the adult that I am and not a 37 year old daughter who feels she needs her parents’ approval for every major life/financial decision she wants to make with her husband. I want to start recognizing that THIS is my family now, not the other one, and that my obligations fall here instead of over there, and start living my life accordingly. I want to recognize that we might do things differently from them, but we’re both smart people and we’re not going to drive this bus into a ditch.

[Fiona]

I will finish this book before summer. It will be good, no matter what Dr. Snarky says. I will not care what he thinks.

Also, I'll mop more than once this year.

[Di]

Happy birthday to me! (getting that off my chest...)

I'm worth the best, I deserve everything I think I do.

Happy New Year!

[Shannon]

I have two:

1. I have control over my mental health. I didn't ask to be afflicted with depression or anxiety, but that doesn't mean I'm powerless against them. I can pull myself out of a mood or just ride it out.

2. Motherhood is hard. It is hard for everybody. Every mom gets tired. Nobody likes the drudgery. Giving of yourself physically and emotionally all the time for one or more children is beyond tough. Given that, it makes no sense to beat myself up for finding it tough or not loving every minute of it.

[Cobblestone]

@Di - Happy birthday to you, may your new year be filled with laughter and may you find a $10 bill in your pocket that you forgot was there!

As for me -
1. I am not pregnant anymore so I will take the stairs.
2. I will have chosen my new degree and will be ready to enter grad school in Jan '10 {take that current 4 month sleep regression you b#$*Y&*d!!!!}
3. I can find a way to compromise with Mister that doesn't mean me giving up what I need.
4. If Mister doesn't want to have fun with me it does not take away my ability to have fun.
5. I will laugh every day in front of JC and I will show him joy.

[Amanda]

Oops, if I had payed attention yesterday I would have realized we weren't sharing our replacement beliefs until today. But I've had time to expand on mine so here they are.

1. I have a lot to be grateful for and I will take every opportunity to recognize that. My default response will be appreciation.

2. I am lucky to have a body that is young(ish) and strong and capable. Exercise is not a chore but a privilege that can be enjoyed and I will treat it that way.

Happy New Year, all!

[Mooka]

I am able to follow through and complete projects despite my fear of failure.

I will finish and publish my novel (once I get some sleep)!

[Dawn]

Being joyful will NOT cause my world to immediately fall apart. :)

[Cobblestone]

oh yeah,

6. The idea I have for a book is good and valuable and doable. So do it!

[paola]

I'm an interesting and fun person (despite this not always translating perfectly into Italian) and people will see this if only I make more of an effort to show it.

[lucy]

I am a strong, creative, loving woman, partner and mother. I am also a very talented artist and I have an enormous contribution to make to the world, to my partner, to my theatre company, to my son, to my family and to the world.
I can get stuff done.

[lucy]

I also can say what I want and not feel bad if I actually get it!

[Karen]

My mistakes have shaped me, but they do not define me and I am not destined to repeat them. They do not make me a bad person, wife, daughter or mother.

[Alanna]

I will love the body God gave me (ignoring media "standards"/b.s.) and treat it better.

I am the best mum for M. He is happy and loves me so I'm obviously doing something right.

[Katie]

I am capable and I deserve to be where I am in my career and I am good at my job.

[eccentriclibertarian]

@Kate: I'm stealing yours as it perfectly states one of my changes!

1. I'm capable - and deserving - of making and maintaining healthy habits.

2. I can just let go of resentment over receiving bad parenting and deeply flawed parents, accept my mother for who she is, and choose what level of involvement she will have in my life - not be guilted into more than that.

3. I can meet my needs AND my baby's, and give him all the love and care he needs while caring for myself (and my husband & marriage, and house, and friends - because all of these form an interlacing of care and support for me)

[Lisa F.]

I am smart, creative and strong. I deserve to take care of myself, especially through more sleep & exercise. I am kind, to myself, my husband and my child. I am open to helpers, friends, prosperity, and synchronicity.

[Lauren]

I am creative, nurturing, and capapble. I care deeply about my family and myself and do not let the clutter in my house hold me back!

[m]

I am determined and successful. I make things happen.

[hush]

I take life as it comes, and always look for the joy. ;)

[shannon]

I will take care of myself better physically and mentally. Get wisdom teeth removed and blood work done to establish a baseline for cholesterol, etc. I will eat more whole foods and less processed foods & sugar. I will walk or find a mode of exercise that I truly enjoy. Oh and not think that every twinge, creak or blotch on my skin is a sign that I'm going to die. Hypochondria is NOT my friend!

Not everthing is my fault. I don't have to be perfect. I'm not a bad person. I won't turn into my mother. I will never be able to make my mother happy and I just need to accept the limits of our relationship and not fear creating the same relationship with my children that she has with my brother and I.

I am very thankful and fortunate in many ways and acknowledging the good things won't make them dissappear.

Enjoy just being with my husband and children and not manically cleaning, organizing, "improving" my parenting by reading books and articles that just get me feeling terrible about my skills.

Maybe have the courage to start my own Blog and begin writing as I wished I have most of my adult life?

[Christi]

I am brave and I show up for life, completely.

[Katie B.]

I am a competent adult, and the things I do every day are not "faking it", they are life, and a life I love.

[carmie]

The real me is assertive enough to ask for what she wants. The real me holds up her end in improving her finances, marriage, and parenting skills. The real me is capable of following WHO's recommendation of no more than 10% of caloric intake coming from foods with added sugars, and as a result, will have no more cavities in '09 :)

[Moonblossom]

I am smart, capable, and strong. I let things go and let life happen. The work I do at home is invaluable. I am positive and kind. I know how to communicate.

[eep]

I will stop being my own harshest critic and start being my own supporter. Remember that when I put myself down it produces nothing positive. No change, no progress. My child is 18 months old and is beginning to understand a lot of what I say. I want to model confidence and humor for him. I do not want to show him a broken sense of self-worth.

[ada]

@kate - I'm borrowing yours too! its perfect.

I *am* capable of forming and maintaining healthy habits. And I deserve to feel good about myself.

I got up this morning and did TTapp. And not because its Jan 1. But because I realized I can't use this pregnancy (9 weeks along now) as an excuse to sit on my butt anymore. And I feel SOOOOO good. I also threw away a bunch of Xmas candy that I don't like but still eat, just because its there. That felt good too.

[noodlemama]

1) If there is another baby waiting to be birthed through me, it will come in 2009. And if not, it won't and either way we will be done with this process. And I will still be grateful every minute for the family I have.

2) I am not a procrastinator. I just pick up and do the task sitting at the tips of my fingers without obsessing about whether I should be doing a different task instead. Because I already know that if only I start I finish, and whatever I do I do well enough or better, and just crossing things off the list gives me the mental space to get beyond this block. So just do!

[Ari]

I will take time to live in the moment, and will not always be thinking 5 minutes ahead. I will take time to tell those dear to me how much I love and appreciate them.

[mo]

My successes have not been a result of just luck - there was hard work and inteligence on my part. That means other companies would be lucky to have me and I need to remember that when I'm interviewing (or stalling on starting to find a new job because of fear people will "see through me").

[violingirl]

I don't have to be perfect to be a good mother and wife.

[Charisse]

with great trepidation, I'm seconding Dawn's.

Also: even when I'm not writing right this minute or right this month, I'm still a poet; my muse is with me because she believes in me, not as a harsh mistress demanding inhuman discipline.

[Shelley]

I am a fine mother, a complete mother, with one child. My family is small, but no less worthy or wonderful of a family because of that.

I have a great resume and an interesting career, and am very accomplished professionally.

I am capable of overcoming inertia and getting things done, large and small. I have the power to do that in all areas of my life.

(Yee-haw! That felt sooooo good to type.)

[woodenmask]

The day or so after he died, NPR broadcast a commencement speach that Fred Rogers gave to thousands of adoring grads. He said something like he was living proof that you don't have to be exciting to be loved. In that spirit, my painful truth:

I will never be famous or great or awe-inspiring. If I change the world, it will be little by little, unspectacularly, one 8th grader at a time, one smile on my Boy's face at a time and one well-written sentence at a time.

It was good enough for Fred. It can be enough for me.

[finnsmom]

I am an intelligent, creative, capable being who can do or not do as she pleases.

I use my creativity to enrich my life and the lives of my loved ones.

I am happier when I live in the moment.

I consider the needs of others.

[taggie]

I will stop hating myself for things I did or failed to do in the past.

I will learn to love, cherish, and appreciate what I have.

I will learn to decifer what and who is NOT good for me, try to make changes, and if change is not possible, put it out of my life and move on.

[Sarah]

I am a good mother. I will enjoy each of my three children. I can manage my spending habits and not waste money. I will be brave enough to network and market myself for freelance work. I will value my body and work exercise into my life. I will enjoy the present.

[sudru]

It's taken me some time to come to grips with how to be a person and a mother at the same time. For 2009, I will figure out that dance with grace and dignity!

[kelly]

I am strong, smart, kind, and fun. I am a good person. I am a good Mom. It's okay to not be perfect.

I will enjoy my life's many blessings.

[J]

It's not my crap, it's theirs. I will stop explaining myself and just state what I've chosen. If they want to question it, so be it. I'm done defending.

[ramy]

I missed yesterday so my belief to leave behind echoes someone else's --> "I can't."

I can dammit. I've survived grad school , witchdoctors and tropical fevers (actually more bowel diseases, I get lucky around the fevers). I've made it through 23 years of Ohio and 6 years in the african wilds. I'm not sure which was stranger. we'll survive this recession and i'm fairly certain I'll survive motherhood. The kids probably will too!

my word of the year is Practice. Its going to be a hard year for me and I know I'll never be a superstar academic. But when I fall off the path of what needs done for home and life and work (like now for instance), I will pick myself up and start again. My current thinking is that parenting and teaching and writing and research is about practice. Its starting over again when the day before didn't go so well. The satisfaction has to come through doing a little bit every day and finding the joy in it. its the living you do on the way since the destination is unknown.

or so I try to tell myself.

and I want to smile more.

[Jeanette]

I have everything I need to be happy.

[Beth]

The real me I already love? I care. I ponder. I smile. I find the positive and celebrate it joyously. I love to think. I am warm. I laugh easily. I live in the moment.

The me I want to nurture and grow? The me that takes action instead of wallowing in a think-worry-avoid-distract-deny-freak-out-think-worry-avoid-distract-deny-freak-out cycle.

In 2009 I want to act more and react less.

[Jen]

I missed yesterday, but I have one anyway:

I can change my life. And I deserve to be happy.

And, I am not responsible for anyone's happiness except my own (and to some extent, ok, my kids. But no other adults but me.)

It's a good place to start.

[anon]

I am made in God's image and love. I dont debase myself with hurtful and negative activities and thoughts. I do not shoplift. I do not waste time. I do not gossip.

[Jenny]

I have time for what I need and love to do. I have time to read and stretch and breathe and eat real food. I have time to organize so I can think. I have time to speak politely and kindly to my family. If I have time to surf the Internet, I have time for these things.

I am a really good scholarly writer. I have time to do that, too.

This is a world where a lot of shit goes wrong. I'm infinitely blessed to be so happy. But that doesn't mean I don't deserve to ask for things to go a little more right where they are going a little wrong.

Happy new year, everyone.

[enu]

I am so not a wuss.

I swam in the Atlantic yesterday, in Maine, in 9 degree weather (4 below windchill; 39 degree water.) I've faced cancer. I've almost raised two fine daughters. I've started a great career.

What's next, I have absolutely no idea....

[Mom2Boys]

I am already a great mom and I have the skills, desire and humility to continue to be one as the kids and I grow older. I will remain true to my set of priorities - no matter what other people think they should be.