Food For Thought, Part I

Shame on me for not posting this week.

I have been a little under the weather, and trying to get it together.

(Hey, that rhymes. Drop an Oldschool beat behind that.)

I'm not feeling very smurfy this week. But I want to post something. So I thought I would go ahead and eek out a post, LOL. So over the next 3 days, I will post some "food for thought." Just a little sumthin' from my personal journals...

This Sunday, I met with my Journal Writing Sisters. I REALLY love this group, and I look forward to hanging out with them once a month. It's a place I can be totally free about how I feel without judgement. I am a bit more quiet than most, but heck, I am just happy to be there. I soak up so much, I learn SO much from these phenomenal ladies. And it always amazes me that many of us are going through the same feelings about a lot of different things that are going on in our lives... It helps to know that I am not alone in my hurt, pain, or even my joy.

Now, I keep several journals. I have a "Morning Pages" Journal. I write out three full pages in that one every morning (which can be excruciating at times... This oldgirl has hidden isshas). I have my journal writing group journal, where I journal out answers to journal writing group assignments. I also use that one to write out mix CD lists, book reading lists, and to document a few other things. Then I have a Finance Journal and a Prayer Journal, and I also have journals for story ideas.

Yeah... I have a lot of journals laying around, LOL.

Now, for the JW group, we have exercises that we do during the month, and I thought that I would post some of the answers to this month assignment. Some of which I am still thinking about, long after journaling. I also will throw in a couple of affirmations/quotes from my "Morning Pages", i.e., some food for thought, that I have come across that have me... thinking.

Sometimes I feel ____________________________.

Sometimes I feel like I did something wrong in life. Sometimes, although rarely because I honestly do enjoy my life at the moment, I think about what would have happened if I took another path in life some 10 or 20 years ago. What if I'd chosen a different career? What if I wasn't raised in a dysfunctional environment? What if I chose to marry this man instead of that man? Or what if I chose not to marry at all?

Sometimes I feel as though I spend too much time regretting many of my choices, but I realize my choices in life haven't been so bad, and they shape me into the person I am today.

You know, I had to take a step back and think about that for a moment. Although it was an answer right off the top of my head, I very rarely feel this way. I think I moreso felt that way in my teens and twenties. As I get older, I have seen those feelings burn away, and I think I am beginning to understand that everything happens for a reason. Everything. I simply cannot worry about the "What ifs?". There is a path for each of us. We each have our own portions.

And if I make the wrong choices here and there?

So be it. It'll just take me a little longer to get down my path.

And I remain mindful of the fact tthat I have made some good choices along the way, too.

Okay, some affirmations/quotes that I've come across while reading, etc.

I solved a cryptogram on the cryptogram weekly website a couple of weeks ago, and got this one:

"If we spend our time with regrets over yesterday, and worry over what might happen tomorrow, then we have no today in which to live. Regret is insight that comes a day too late."

That was an interesting quote, and it kind of ties into my journal writing assignment answer I gave above. Can't sit around regretting stuff, man. But I think it takes practice to get to the point of "Dang, I regret that I have done this" or "I shouldn't have done that."

And from the novel Ladies Night Out by Electa Rome Parks, p. 75.


"Mature Adults realize at some point that you have to stop worrying about what other people think of you and live for yourself. Life is too short."

That one right there is self explanatory...

Really though.

I was telling my journal writing sistas on Sunday that I have come to the realization that there are people out there who don't like other people for the simple fact that said people don't do what they WANT them to do, i.e., kiss up to them, stroke their ego, etc...

I also realized that if I have to worry about what YOU think of me? Then I won't be dealing with you. I will cross you off my list and won't have a second thought about it. And the reverse is also true...

If you are sitting around worrying about what I think of you?

Then you really don't need to be bothered with me.

Harsh, but it is what it is...

But we are suppose to be "Mature adults", right?

stay tuned for part II...