Being a mom of 7 amazing children, I have lots of opinions to hear out. Sometimes, I really don’t feel like sorting through all of those opinions. I hear things like:
“Mom, will you tell her not to say that.”
“Mom, she won’t stop singing, tell her not to please!”
“Mom, she doesn’t want to play what I want to play, can you make her play it with me?”
“Can we have burritos for lunch?” “I don’t like burritos, can we have quesadillas?” “I don’t feel like eating quesadillas, can we have tuna sandwiches?” “YUCK, I hate tuna!”…..blah, blah, blah. You get the idea!
Opinions.
Lots of them!
The truth is, because we have this many people in our family, we will never be able to please everyone. It’s a fact of life. I will not always get my way and either will my children. Obviously, it’s a great lesson to learn for life. We wouldn’t want all of our children coming to adulthood thinking they had to have everything THEIR way now would we? Talk about miserable, hard to get along with adults!
I’m 10 weeks out from giving birth to my baby girl. I’m likely to still be a little hormonal, so I realize this is likely not my permanent status. But, I have been very overwhelmed with everything I need to get done, including communicating with all of these opinion makers. It doesn’t help that I also have a fussy baby who needs to nurse many, many hours of the day, thus I’m chained to my chair.
I find that any arguing, tattling and just differing opinions annoy me. I don’t want to referee their disputes. I want them to be quiet and be good. Of course, I know that expecting them to do this without training them how, is a little far fetched. Yelling at them isn’t likely to change anything either.
Instead, I decided to start journaling every night before bed. I had read about this being a great exercise to get your creative juices flowing as a blogger, but I didn’t realize how it would help my outlook on life.
What do I journal about?
I tell about what happened in my day. I tell about what we did and what frustrated me. I tell about the joys in life, too. Then, I make a list of all of the negative things of that day and I write out ways to turn them into positives! It may be quotes that I use to counteract that negative, but it’s really helped me.
For example: I wrote how frustrated I am when I can’t get more house work accomplished in a day.
My negative focus was frustration.
Then I turned it around and said: “Try making a list of everything little thing you do in a day and be amazed! Be sure to include changing diapers, getting drinks and more. You are an amazing person who accomplishes much!”
That is my positive. I really do a lot during the day even if it doesn’t feel like it. We moms really don’t need to sabotage ourselves!
One day, I had a list of about 10 negatives and 2 positives. Not good! I was able to turn those around and change my stinking thinking! What a difference it’s made!
What about you? Have you tried journaling in this way? What have you done to help you change your bad attitudes?
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