I had a long talk with my husband today about my hate for my yelling and crankiness. I look at others around me and see them not yelling or being generally cranky, even amid really, really difficult times. While I acknowledge that just isn't how I handle life, I also know I want to find a better way to handle things so that I can show my little boy that it's possible to still treat others (especially family) kindly amid trials.
My personality is such that I focus on the negative instead of the positive. If someone were to sit down and tell me 4 great things about myself, and one thing that could use a little work, no matter how minor that last thing might be, that will be all I focus on. And that leads me to feeling poorly about myself, which then leads me to being grumpy, and that leads me to treating my husband and son poorly, because I'm distracted and focusing on a negative thing. Too much energy in the negative zone. My boys deserve better than that.
As I talked with my husband about this, we decided a few things.
1. I'm following Orange Rhino and attempting at least 30 days without yelling. I need to admit right now that it will likely take longer than 30 days to meet that goal. But I want to start somewhere with changing my attitude and my behavior. I want my child (and hopefully future children) to grow up in a home where yelling is NOT commonplace, and is not the behavior that they think is appropriate for being annoyed or frustrated.
2. I also plan on writing on this blog once a day for at least the next 90 days. The goal is to take time to review my day every day and write the happy things that happened that day. I did something like this once a couple of years ago, where I made a gratitude jar, and any time I started feeling down, I wrote at least 5 things I was grateful for.
3. That will be my third thing. While the things that are happy every day might also be things I'm grateful for, I want to write at least 5 things every day for which I'm grateful. So, every day, my post will contain the happy things from the day and 5 things for which I'm grateful.
4. And last, as my husband catches me focusing on negatives in conversations we have, letting them outweigh the positives, we established a code phrase: Princess Balls. Random, I know, but if he says that, or any variation on that, it means I'm focusing on negatives instead of positives.
So, tomorrow's post will kick off my 90 days of happy and grateful. And tomorrow will be day 1 of 30 days of not yelling. Here goes!
My personality is such that I focus on the negative instead of the positive. If someone were to sit down and tell me 4 great things about myself, and one thing that could use a little work, no matter how minor that last thing might be, that will be all I focus on. And that leads me to feeling poorly about myself, which then leads me to being grumpy, and that leads me to treating my husband and son poorly, because I'm distracted and focusing on a negative thing. Too much energy in the negative zone. My boys deserve better than that.
As I talked with my husband about this, we decided a few things.
1. I'm following Orange Rhino and attempting at least 30 days without yelling. I need to admit right now that it will likely take longer than 30 days to meet that goal. But I want to start somewhere with changing my attitude and my behavior. I want my child (and hopefully future children) to grow up in a home where yelling is NOT commonplace, and is not the behavior that they think is appropriate for being annoyed or frustrated.
2. I also plan on writing on this blog once a day for at least the next 90 days. The goal is to take time to review my day every day and write the happy things that happened that day. I did something like this once a couple of years ago, where I made a gratitude jar, and any time I started feeling down, I wrote at least 5 things I was grateful for.
3. That will be my third thing. While the things that are happy every day might also be things I'm grateful for, I want to write at least 5 things every day for which I'm grateful. So, every day, my post will contain the happy things from the day and 5 things for which I'm grateful.
4. And last, as my husband catches me focusing on negatives in conversations we have, letting them outweigh the positives, we established a code phrase: Princess Balls. Random, I know, but if he says that, or any variation on that, it means I'm focusing on negatives instead of positives.
So, tomorrow's post will kick off my 90 days of happy and grateful. And tomorrow will be day 1 of 30 days of not yelling. Here goes!
No comments:
Post a Comment