Shifting Focus

 

 

Self. 

It’s a tiny, loaded, powerful word.

For people whose natural inclination is to take care of others, using time and energy to care for themselves can be upsetting. Depending on the person, it varies from slightly uncomfortable to downright distressing.

When faced with the idea, there may be a freak-out: “What?! Myself? How will…? What can…? I can’t do that!”

You can. You really can.

Here’s a thing I’ve realized.

If you have a tendency to focus on others, it’s difficult to shift that focus. It may seem unlikely to happen. Impossible even. When you begin focusing on your Self, you’ll find a thought popping up often (the persistent little bugger):

“If I’m spending all that time taking care of myself, I won’t be able to take care of anyone else!”

Wrong.

“If I’m spending all that time taking care of myself, I won’t be able to take care of everyone else!”

That’s it, my friends.

 

Take that in. Accept it. Embrace it.

 

My random thoughts in 200 words or less.

You can’t do it all.

Don’t be that person. The harried, stressed, wreck who tries to help everyone and tries to do everything to the detriment of his or her Self, family, health, relationships…whatever.

Yes, this means you have to make decisions. When will you agree? When will you decline? Choose wisely. And ditch the guilt. (It can be done. I have faith in you.)

 

A lot has happened since I chose ‘Self” as my One Word for 2018. Some of it good. Some of it not so good. All of it eye-opening. Take care of yourselves, gentle readers.

 

My One Word for 2018 #OneWord2018

 

 

Well, I did a bang up job last year with my One Word for 2017: Accept. I didn’t. I raged, raged against the…everything. It was brutal choosing a focus for the year and I faltered. Failed. Time to move on.

As I’ve mentioned numerous times, I don’t do ‘resolutions’. However, I do believe (previous failure aside) a focus for the year is an excellent idea.

This is how I figured 2017 would work out. It did not. But, still, props for trying:

Choosing ONE word for the entire year? Not easy. I finally narrowed it down to three:

Present

Engage

Accept

I want to be more present in my life and I realized that, if I fully engage, I can be. And to engage, I need to accept some things. (This is how I worked it out, anyway.)

Therefore, my one word this year is:

Accept

 

I’m going to try again.

I’ve really had a time of it, this year, choosing a word. I even thought of cheating and picking two (or three). But, if I’m going to do this thing, I’m going to do it right. So I’ll work it out again.

I like the words I narrowed it down to:

Present

Mindful

 

I had passing thoughts of choosing something like Assertiveness, Determination, or Focus but they didn’t feel quite right. It’s just that I’ve been yammering on this past year about standing my ground, choosing me, sticking up for myself, keeping on target, saying “NO”, etc. so these seemed good, too.

It’s all about me, right? Sure. Why not? I went into this weird line of hyphenated “self” stuff:

Self-Esteem

Self-Motivation

Self-Care

Self-Awareness

Self-Kindness

Self… Er…

Self… Um…

Self-Centered

Self…ish

 

Crap. Never mind.

But I do need something “self”-like.

So, when continuing to narrow down my choice, I decided it must include me.

 

I’m sick of being stressed-out and overwhelmed, of not doing what I love, of doing things I’d really rather not be doing. I’m sick of ALL OF THE THINGS!

 

Every year around this time I say, “It’s going to be different.” Well, gentle readers, it’s not. It’s quite the same. Which is to say, I let myself get caught up in a shitstorm of stress and overwhelm by choosing others instead of myself, by over-committing, by working too hard on things that don’t bring fulfillment or happiness, by helping everyone but me.

Forget it! I’m done. Or, at least, my OneWord is done. And here it is:

Self

This is my favorite definition from Webster’s New Explorer College Dictionary:

 

self

combining form: to, with, for, or toward oneself

 

See? I’ll be kind to, gentle with, caring for, considerate toward…myself. Brilliant.

By choosing Self, I’ll be incorporating all sorts of other wonderful words I’ve been thinking of here: Awareness, Mindful, Focus, Kindness… How can I have Self in front of me and actively abuse or dismiss it? I cannot. It would be awkward. And weird. And mean.

As I said last year, this is not going to be easy. I’ve got to change my whole mindset to get to the point where Self is what I focus on first. I’m up for the challenge though.

I’m taking my Self out of here, wishing you a Happy New Year and hoping you all can find a perfect OneWord for 2018. ❤

 

 

Have you ever taken part in the One Word Challenge?

If you haven’t, why not try it? Or think on it a moment and leave one in the comments. What could your focus be this year? I’d love to hear what your One Word is for 2018.

 

My One Word for 2017 #OneWord2017

 

 

Choosing ONE word for the entire year? Not easy. I finally narrowed it down to three:

Present

Engage

Accept

I want to be more present in my life and I realized that, if I fully engage, I can be. And to engage, I need to accept some things. (This is how I worked it out, anyway.)

Therefore, my one word this year is:

Accept

I hear you sneering (or perhaps it’s me), “Accept?! You’re just going to accept whatever happens? That’s so…so…”

Crap, huh?

To accept something seems passive.

However, I am choosing this word as my focus for the entire year above all the other glorious words in the English language. I’ve thought a lot about this.

I lost count of how many times I’ve caught myself saying, “I can’t believe this happened.” Or “I can’t believe she did that.”

“I can’t believe…” Well, gentle readers, it’s about time I start believing some things, you know?

Accept.

The Webster’s New Explorer College Dictionary definition:

 

ac·cept

verb: to receive as true

 

Ah. Truth. Now we’re getting somewhere.

I do not mean “get over it”, “that’s the way it is”, or “give up”.

I’ve heard “accept” used in these ways my whole life so it has always had a negative connotation for me.

Now I’m going to flip this word on its ass and my attitude is going with it.

I will not accept that the roof is leaking in the sense that I’ll shrug and live with a leaky roof. I’ll accept that the roof is leaking in the sense that once I accept it, I will do something about it.

Accepting my life the way it is doesn’t mean I won’t keep fighting. It means I will receive it as true instead of raging about how it shouldn’t be this way. It is, dude. It really is that way.

I need to act.

But acceptance isn’t the act, it’s what precipitates the act.

Accepting something isn’t the end, it’s the beginning. “I accept this…now what am I going to do about it?”

This is not going to be easy for me. Eh. I accept that.

 

Have you ever taken part in the One Word Challenge?

If you haven’t, why not try it? Or think on it a moment and leave one in the comments. What could your focus be this year? I’d love to hear what your One Word is for 2017.

 

The Scrooge of New Year’s Day

 

 

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions.

For January 1st, I’ve never quit smoking, gone on a diet, bought a gym membership, or sworn to save money.

When this holiday rolls around, I don’t sit and reflect. I barely give a thought to the past year except to say, “Huh. That sucked. Hope next year is better.”

And it isn’t.

It carries over our current problems because they can’t be magically fixed overnight. It also delivers a whole host of new and different problems. So that’s exciting.

But that’s life, isn’t it?

We have our ups and downs. All of us. And some things are out of our control.

I will not set myself up to “fix” something I can’t fix or to “start” something I can’t start. If I make a resolution to lose weight or exercise when my health prohibits it at the moment, I’m setting myself up for failure and inevitable misery. Wonderful way to start the year.

The thing is, as I said in 2014, I feel pressured to look back over my year and write something meaningful. I simply don’t want to.

So I will do what I always do. Which is to say that I will be aware. Of my life, my actions, my reactions…everything. I will learn new things, set goals, better myself, and change what’s not working. I will try to make my life more positive. And I will do this throughout the year, not just the first few weeks in January.

I will ring in the New Year on December 31^st but I will check in with myself all year.

 

Happy New Year, gentle readers.

 

My Sunday thoughts in (a wee bit over) 200 words.

Do you make New Year’s resolutions? Do you stick to them? (Let’s be honest…are they even realistic?)

 

Something new I’m doing this year is choosing a word: One Word. Something to focus on for the upcoming year. Look for my choice in next week’s post. It’s a fantastic alternative to resolutions.

 

This post from last year (The Scrooge of New Year’s Eve) really sums up how I feel about this holiday. I planned to repost it verbatim but wound up editing it quite a bit. Perhaps a fun challenge could be to see how accurate this post is each year. ?

 

I Need to Get the Hell out of My Own Way

 

I walked away from writing.

 

 

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

But I ran back—characters shouting in my head and fingers itching for the keyboard.

I need to write.

Without it, I am incomplete. I am miserable.

So why am I not writing? To be fair, I’ve started flash fiction again. But I’ve stopped there.

I’m not taking a scene or idea and running with it. I’m not working on any of my novels. What’s going on?

Well, I’m busy. My health isn’t great. My to-do list is growing every day. I have deadlines, meetings, and appointments. Did I mention kids? Because. Kids. I have a lot going on in my life right now.

When it comes to writing, I always have an excuse ready. Except I call it a “reason” because I’m a word nerd and these small differences often wind up making a big difference.

Excuses are crap, my writer-self says.

Reasons are real, tangible things that get in my way, my writer-self says.

I hate to admit it but it’s true. Think about this. You MAKE excuses, you HAVE reasons. See? My writer-self is right. Also, she’s full of shit.

I need to get out of my own way.

 

My Sunday thoughts in 200 words or less.

 

Have you ever caused your writer’s block? Been your own problem? Are your “reasons” just excuses in disguise?