Personal Victory #1

So I tried to go out tonight and I don't think I enjoyed it, like yeah I had fun being able to be out with some old friends but I think I just felt really out of place, I don't know. And then being around all of the drinking and what not was just kind of like what is the point. It's funny I always use to drink at every party, I couldn't wait til the next one so I could drink. I don't have the desire to drink anymore and get drunk, for what. My freshman and sophomore year it was just drink to drink, no real purpose. Around my sophomore year I started drinking as a means to release tension, or anxiety, or just bad feelings all together. If I was upset I would drink. I quickly had to get out of that, that is the first signs of alcoholism. When me and my current boyfriend started talking and he expressed to me how he felt about me drinking I had it in my mind that I would not drink as much and would more so make it a social thing when I was out with friends and just have one. He wanted me not to drink altogether, none, and I told him I would. And yet I know that I had slipped up more than once and drank but I never got drunk. I have always had the best intentions when it came to drinking and being with him, I knew how he felt so I didn't want to do it to upset him and to make him happy. Now that we are where we are, I still feel like I don't need to drink. I know that he does sometimes but it is never a getting drunk thing. Tonight was just very long and I definitely felt like it was way past my bed time. I have church in the morning. I don't know but maybe this is a new side of me. That whole going out to the club and every party is old and tired and I don't need to be seen in it anymore, it never validated me and showed who I truly was. I like being M.I.A where when people do see you me they ask "where have you been, I haven't seen you in so long". I am getting my life together I want to say, if only people knew what I was going through when they see me. However, I just tell them that I have been working on graduating, which I have, but with all the resent developments in my life I have been working on that and some other things. I feel proud of myself, I feel like I am growing up and maturing, slowly but surely. This whole recovery thing is not that bad I feel good about myself and all of the situations that I am in. I can sit and say I am positive about all of the negative things in my life, Iknow it has only been a couple of days since but I feel good. I know that of course sometimes I may fall short and may feel bad about some things sometimes, but I think it is normal as long as I am able to bounce back and reflect on the positive again. I feel the change in me and though some may not be able to see it I will work extra hard to show it and show how I am feeling. Nothing is going to change in a day, and I know that, and yeah I know that I am not all that I can be yet but I am getting there. Change is always happening, it is an evolving activity. I will forever be changing and growing and learning about myself and the world. I will constantly be learning how to manage my emotions and how to deal with change. Loving myself is going to be constantly changing as I get older and things change, but it is learning to love myself through all of it is what makes the difference.

Expectations and Chapter 3

Expectations, they are a funny thing. I have lived my whole life on expectations and have constantly lived in disappointment. I always expect something or expect for things to be a certain way in my life and in the situations in my life, and when things don't go that way I am always upset, mad, and disappointed. I believe a lot of people do this and it is a driving force in a lot of people having problems. I am really bad with this I always expect something and when it doesn't happen I always get mad and show out. That is just how I have been, things don't go my way and I get mad. If someone does not give me the answer that I want I am pissed, when someone does not do something that I want or expected them to do I am upset. Working on controlling my anger and emotions I have come to realize this part of myself and how I always let my expectations run my emotions is unhealthy. Someone once told me that you can expect anything from anyone but yourself. I am slowly getting that through my head as the days go by. The past couple of days have been what they have been because of my expectations that I placed on the situations I was in. On Thursday I went to a Christmas Ball hosted by a sorority at my school, it was really nice and me and "friend"/boyfriend/ex (whatever) looked really nice and ended up having a really nice time. I was a little upset at the beginning of the night cause he left me to go and greet people and I didn't expect for him to just leave me like that. It kind of put me in a rut an a bad mood but I got out of it and had fun. Then as we were leaving I made a smart somewhat mean comment to him, like we have always done with each other, totally disregarding that the night before I had told him that I wanted him to stop being mean to me and we agreed to watch what we say to one another. So he was pissed at me and called me a hypocrite, which in a way I was, and I had become upset cause I didn't expect for us to end the night like that. Because my expectations were deterred I grew even more upset with the situation that was taking place at the present time. Learning how to not expect things and not place expectations on things in my life is where I am right now. When you set yourself up for expectations you set yourself up for non-realistic thoughts and rather disappointing outcomes.
I believe that I have made some good progress in understanding me and the way that I am currently and how to change the way that I am. In the book that I am reading it tells you to take a look at yourself and the roles you play in life and a couple of goals of those roles and decide whether you are happy with what you come up with. The chapter I just completed is called begin with the end in mind. The chapter starts out first by discussing visualizing your funeral and what people would have to say about you. From the visualization you are then suppose to determine if you are happy with what people would say about you and what you would want people to say about you. I am not to fond of the idea of death and so therefore I was not to excited with exercise itself, but I still did it. I would want people to say that I was a good person who really cared about people and worked everyday to make someone else's life better. I would want them to say that I was a good motivator, great mother, good friend, good listener, and someone to look up to. Right now in my life I have to figure out how to get there. The whole principle of "beginning with the end in mind" is based on personal leadership. The book discusses how we need to use our imagination and conscience to work on our personal leadership. This chapter discussed a lot about visualizing situations and seeing how we would react to the situations. It stated that if we can work on how we handle different situations in our life before they occur we can be highly effective in making changes in our lives along with being a more successful person. It talked about using visualization and affirmation as an exercise of making changes in our lives. Also it talked about writing a personal mission statement including our life roles and goals and what we want to accomplish like what our values are. All of that kind of goes back to the beginning exercise with the funeral with establishing what your values are and what you want to accomplish with your life, you can only do that once you know what your values are.
My Affirmation: It is fulfilling and pleasing that I respond with love and self control when I am upset with people.
My Life Roles and Their Goals: Christian, as a Christian I will continue to grow closer to God by being a service to God and his Kingdom and the people around me, nourishing them with the love of God. Student, as a student I will graduated with a 3.0 accumulative GPA by being on time and working as hard as I can (never giving up or just being mediocre), and controlling my actions in the classroom. I will also learn all that I can learn and take advantage of all learning experiences and opportunities. Friend, as a friend I want to be a supportive, good listener who loves them throughout all of the drama.
One day things will be good and I will be a more effective person in society and my relationships with people. I am growing happy with the more that I discover about myself and the things in my life that I now know that I can change and knowing how to change them. I received some heartbreaking news on Friday, and yes I cried in fact I boohooed, I cried so hard, but I stopped and I took in to account that I need to look at my other options and seek out some other opportunities. Yeah having the support of my friend and having him to talk me through it was helpful but I really could not stop crying until I realized that I did have other options. I guess I am making progress, I was able to get up and not be depressed about the news I realized that all I can do is to wait til Monday. I am learning to be more positive and to look at things more positively, I know that I sometimes I fall back on to old habits but I really do see a change in the new ones that I have been making in my life. I love it!!!!!

Searching and Finding!!!

As each day goes on I grow happier and happier with my situation. I have really taken a desire to bettering myself and becoming a more effective person in society. I have really been able to take a look at myself and the things that I go through and look at why I go through them. I am in charge of my destiny and I always knew that but I never understood it, not like I do now. I control what happens to me and the decisions I make are reflections of my character. As I continue to read the book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" I continually learn new things about myself. I am a highly reactive person, meaning that I am always blaming the situations in my life on the conditioning or the conditions surrounding me. I am the kind of person who has a bad day when the weather is bad. The first step the book discusses is about being proactive, meaning taking the initiative and being responsible for my actions and behaviors. The weather is a good example, reactive people let the weather affect them whereas proactive people make their own weather, they understand they are in charge of their emotions and their feelings. I have always let my feelings and my emotions run my life, I have been highly dependent upon them. I now see that in letting my emotions run my life I am not truly living life but rather being lived by life. I have no true identity with myself and can only relate to myself through my emotions and not by who I am as a person. The book discusses how reactive people use the word "have" a lot in the since of "If I only had this in my life then everything would be better". Yeah granted I can sit here and say that if I only had a job things would be better, but would they. The only thing that would be solved is a partial part of my financial woes, I would still be unhappy and would also be settling for something, allowing my environment to run my life and allowing my financial situation to run my life. I won't do that! Proactive people use the word "be". I can be more patient and diligent in finding a job instead of focusing on the negative of not having a job. To really break it down basically it address being positive in negative situations. The book says that how we react to the situations we face in life is what causes us the most problems. It says that people can't hurt us yeah they can hurt us physically but they can't control us unless we let them. I have been known to have some over the top reactions to things. For along time I accepted my craziness and when me and my current boyfriend started dating a year ago that all changed. The way I viewed myself changed because of him, I saw how he was displeased with my image and what people thought of me and it bothered me. I didn't understand it then but I understand it now. I had been living a lie masking the true problem with myself not realizing that I was living off of my emotions and feelings I was creating this false me that was not living life at all but rather being lived. I had been doing it for so long I didn't even realize it was happening. I was putting on a front, he always tells me that I always try to act all hard like I am all big and bad, but inside I am just a big softy. He knew me better than I knew myself, he saw things in me I didn't see for myself. I always use to tell him that the Lord placed us together for a reason, and now I think I know what that reason is, well at least part of the reason. I had to find myself and become a better person. I would have never had realized it on my own, but if it had not been for him I would have never wanted to make this change in my life or realized that a changed needed to be made. I am so appreciative of our relationship and feel so blessed to have him everyday in my life. The book also discussed love and how reactive people look at love as if it is an emotion a thing that we feel, when technically love is a verb, an action something that is shown. I believe that him and I show that we love each other everyday and have been doing it for at least a year now and I am so happy to be loved and to be able to love.