Can't See The Wood For The Trees

That is where I have realised my life is right now. How sad is that? I always pride myself on being a glass is 'half full' person and actually I think that is just the image I want to portray and the feelings I would like to have but the reality must be that my glass is 'half empty'.

I seem to be stuck in the rut of spotting all the tiny negative things in life and not appreciating the bigger picture. The big picture is that I am a very lucky lady - I believe in a God who loves, provides and forgives, I have a fab husband who loves me and the kids, 3 healthy and energetic kids, OK paid job with excellent hours that suit my family life, wonderful family, great friends, nice house that we are on the way to owning, a garage conversion being done so we have more space, good Church yada yada yada....

What do I possibly have to get me down? Not a lot, but often I just find myself getting caught up in the small stuff. Have you ever read any of the books by Richard Carlson 'Don't sweat the small stuff'? He is excellent, his books make so much sense. I need to get my copies out and re-read them. They are the kind of positive life books that really inspire me to be grateful and to live my life to the fullest. What is it that they say - Yesterday has gone, tomorrow is unknown, today is a treasure that is why it is the called the Present!

Here is an example of the crap small stuff that I allow to drag me down. Below is a picture of my car (ignore the funny sun and shade spots in the photo). What do you see when you look at it? An OK car? dodgy pink sun screens on the back windows? rubbish parking? What ever it is, I expect it is not the same as me. I see scratches and a small dent in the drivers door that JJ did about a year ago. We do not have the money to get it fixed or to buy a new car and looking at this photo I can see that it really is not a problem anyway. I just need to get over myself.



So here I am yet again laying my flaws out in the open and baring myself. I find writing so therapeutic and sharing stuff means that it is out there and I have to deal with it. My commitment to myself is that I will not sweat the small stuff anymore, well not for today at least!

Anyone else like me? Do you allow yourself to get drawn into things that really your logic tells you there is no need to worry about but your heart/ emotions just draw you in? Bare all here and make a commitment that by putting it down on paper it will have no power over you any longer and you too will not sweat the small stuff.

Scary Stuff!

I find this blogging lark very enjoyable and definitely therapeutic. It has been a really good outlet for me to rant and let off steam. In recent months more and more people that I know have started to read and this feels quiet difficult. On the one hand I would really like a good readership and would love some comments, on the other I am very conscious that my blog is completely self-absorbed and was aimed at being for my benefit so actually it might be really quite rubbish for others to read.

Quite a few months back I found out a really good friend of mine in NZ was reading it regularly and I had to block this knowledge out as every time I whinged or wrote something revealing I just felt stupid, exposed and embarrassed. I managed to overcome that. Then mentally a couple of months ago I gave my Mum my blog URL and now she and may Dad read it and again I feel quite exposed. I often want to explain to her that just because I write a 'feeling down' post, it does not mean I am ready to slit my wrists. It is just a one moment feeling and it passes but it helped me to write about it.

Now I have started to read loads more peoples blogs (although where some of these fab Mummy bloggers get the time to comment on 101 blogs I have no idea!) and leaving comments allows people to link to my blog and I had not consciously recognised that at first. So I expect there are people popping in here that I do not even know about, or maybe not as I am not really getting any comments. I wish I knew if my blog was OK but I am too scared to ask. I have joined British Mummy Bloggers if the hope of getting some good advice. I could just ask people there to pop in and look but not sure I am ready yet.

So I am in that position of 'do I want people to follow my blog, read it and comment on it?' or is that just too scary and I want to be left alone to whinge to the world! I suppose like everything I should just give it up to God and not try to orchestrate things and see how it goes.