November 10 2015

November 10 215 Greetings My Friend As a young mother I learned about keeping a journal. I did it for an English class and I have journaled on and off ever since. My parents were always on me because I was a nail biter and I was still biting my nails when my youngest was born. I decided I needed to give up this habit and I set the goal in the pages of my journal. I had made a decision and then I wrote that decision down. I found it hard to ignore the habit because I had “spoken” through writing that it was time to quit. Through the years I have set other goals and journaled them. With each written and spoken goal setting I find myself living up to the goal setting. I often write the goal and then I find myself speaking the goal out loud to others. For some reason this works and I found a job after being out of work due to child rearing. I wrote, I spoke and one day I was applying for a job and soon I had a job. I worked through a lot of my forgiving on paper first. Writing out the hurt that was done to me soon led to speaking and then I was able to forgive. It was a long slow process but it was evolving. One of my first counselor’s told me that what was done to me was not all that bad. I felt angry and unheard. A few years later I repeated my hurt to a new counselor. This counselor did not dismiss my pain but acknowledged it. When I felt heard I started working at letting go of anger, hurt and fear. Journaling gave me the ear I needed to “hear” of my hurt and then it encouraged me to let it go. The process was long and hard but I was learning that my pain was real and I was able to let it go. Years later I found myself talking to God about my pain and much to my surprise He “heard” me. I felt hugged and slowly I felt God dusting off the hurt and giving me a pat of encouragement to enter the day. I still go through this process although I don’t always have a journal going. Facebook for me is a way to goal set. A lot of times I will write what I am having for lunch or dinner. As I keep putting it out there I see that I am making less and less processed food, I am eating more fruits and vegetables. One day I realize I haven’t wrote what I was eating in a long time. My niece and nephew showed me how to use “MyFitnessPal” and I now log in the food I eat each day, the amount of water I drink and how much time I walk or do housework. The consistent keeping track has helped me to lose about 20 pounds and I am keeping the weight off. I learned portion sizes as well. By logging my activity I saw my energy begin to return..I learned that in my older years exercise is not what it was in my younger years. I might have worked out for a half hour a day along with housework. Today doing housework I find takes me longer to do but at the end of the day I am moving about a lot more all day. I can’t get the house in order any more in a half an hour but I can work at it all day and the house is as clean as it was in my younger years. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet