That Holiday Feeling

I have not been inspired to write lately. It's the holidays. They are so hard to manage happily. Everyone else seems happy. I get frustrated I can't achieve the same feeling. It is depressing. How do people achieve that? Smiles. Good wishes. Appreciating the blessings in their life. I am lucky if I get through a day without cursing bipolar most times.

I admit everything felt grand in my world last night as I watched my boys open their gift. And I got the most wonderful friendship ring from my best friend, but it ended there. I just want to feel the same belonging to life everyone else gets to enjoy at this time of year.

Then there is family gatherings. In a way, I am blessed. I attend nary a family function these days, so I miss the sneaky drama. Of my own choosing, and to protect myself, I chose to cut a family member from my life. But that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. Deeply. That person is the one that makes it their responsibility to gather as much family as possible during the holidays. And, I am most definitely no longer welcome. Their last act was to uninvite me to a family gathering after a wedding in 2014.

I come from a large family. Our parents instilled a strong sense of family in all of us. The ones that still accept me are not accessible. They live too far away or are gone this time of year. If they were here, they would go to the gathering to keep family peace. The feelings of being a lone outsider are intense.

So, I sit here today grateful this is all almost over and I can once again, til next year, begin the climb out of the holiday abyss. My wish is all of you are safe today, and managing the best you can if you, too, just want this all to just be over.

To balanced and productive days my friends,

Laura

A Personal Word About My Bipolar

As far as I can figure out, I have had at least depression since I can remember. I do know I thought I could suffocate myself with a pillow in third grade. I know all pictures of me when younger show tortured eyes and if I am smiling in them, I see no smile in my eyes. I have a picture of myself at four years old with black circles under my eyes and the look on my face sometimes makes me choke up. 

I didn't have very many friends. I felt different. I felt like an outsider. I felt like I belonged nowhere and didn't understand anyone. All I knew was feeling like I wasn't good enough and didn't deserve love. I have struggled with suicidal thoughts for as long as I can remember. This was me younger, and to an extent, me now.

I know that my heritage and my childhood played an important part in finally being diagnosed with bipolar 2 disorder in 2007. I am not really sure when depression became bipolar. I think everyday about the life that I had no choice but to accept. Sometimes I shrug my shoulders and sometimes I stew in the pot of regret and resentfulness.

When I decided to start this blog, I wasn't quite sure where to go with it. I was writing, but felt guilty because I thought I had to be this perfect example of managing bipolar (I am the poster girl for perfectionism). I don't exercise. I often don't eat healthily. I take my meds most days, but not at a specific time. I sleep well, but have one of my mood stabilizers to thank for that. When hypomanic, I purposely embrace it and live in it happily until the agitation becomes too much.

I tend to get irrational at times. I have panic attacks. There are days when I absolutely cannot face a shower, let alone working. Sometimes, the only words I can manage are, "I am tired", and I don't mean lack of sleep. I mean of breathing. I isolate and cut people off. When really down, I struggle with cutting. I can feel like a lost little girl and all I want is my mom and dad. I definitely feel driven to be perfect in everything. Although I have made great strides in improving my self esteem within the last 18 months, I still struggle sometimes. I rarely trust anyone and lose relationships because of it. I lose many relationships because of my bipolar alone. I can't blame people for leaving my life when I can't stand myself. I can be very unforgiving towards myself. Living with bipolar makes me so overwhelmingly tired of life sometimes.

So, yes, the struggle is real and the struggle is daily. I have been struggling more than usual for the last couple months. I plan to ask my psychiatrist if I have somehow transitioned to rapid cycling bipolar the next time I see her. I literally can feel my world bottom out and reset in the same day lately. Sometimes it is triggered and sometimes, it just happens.

With all of the above, I know I am grateful. I can work, so I don't have to worry about many of the things that those of us unable to work do. I have a strong support group that has my back. I have two wonderful children that are my rocks. They set me straight, but support me. They hold me, they hug me, and they let me cry when I need it. Of the few friends I have, they all are positive people that add dramatically to my life in a positive manner. I have a best friend that is amazing. Besides my children, it is the healthiest relationship I have ever had. At the urging of my children, I am learning to become more vulnerable and slowly open up to more people that I think may be trustworthy.

I have really strong feelings that I need to share all of this with you today. I may blog about managing bipolar to a satisfactory life, but I need you to know how closely I am standing shoulder to shoulder with you in trying to do that. Life with bipolar is hard. It is ugly. We are the only ones that truly understand. Everyone else can only try to imagine and any words we use do not do justice to describing depressive and manic/hypomanic episodes. Nobody else understands our daily struggle to breathe and survive. Nobody can truly understand us even though they may want to.

And yet, here we all are. Today's blog is a blog where I can tell you I feel proud to be a survivor. I feel proud to know I am strong, for the most part. Some of it has been my med set. Some of it has been my support group. Some of it has been my children and friends. But some of it has been me. Writing this blog helps me. I see myself in it. I see where I can make changes in my life and take my own advice.

Most of the topics I blog about are very personal to me. I do research, but a lot of it pours willingly from my heart. I know where I want this blog to go. I know what I want it to become. I'm not quite sure how to do it yet, but I will figure it out. I used to think if I could just touch and help one person, it would all be worth it. That doesn't cut it anymore. When I die, I want to feel like I have touched and helped every single person possible.

To balanced and productive days my friends,

Laura

Overcoming Perfectionism

Do you feel that you expect a lot from yourself and always want to achieve the goals you have or say the right thing? This can be good. It can motivate you to perform and try your best. However, it can also be a sign of perfectionism. You may not even realize you are a perfectionist. Today, we will focus on perfectionism, it's definition, causes, what it does to us, and how to overcome it.

WHAT IS PERFECTIONISM?
Perfectionism can be confused with healthy high standards for yourself. It is a rigid belief on how you should act, perform and behave. Comparing perfectionism to healthy high standards is like comparing apples to oranges. Being a perfectionist is destructive because perfection is absolutely impossible. Healthy high standards allows for mistakes and failure. Perfectionism never does, even if you are the only one that perceives your words or actions as wrong. As a perfectionist, you have excessively irrational high standards that do not allow for mistakes and failure. You fixate on what others think of your performance, attitude, words, actions, and beliefs. You become detrimentally self critical of everything you do and say. Where you think being perfect will protect you and gain you love and acceptance, you will actually find that you are the only one that sees yourself as unlovable and unacceptable. You can alienate people with perfectionism, causing you to try harder at being perfect, but never succeeding. It is a vicious cycle.

CAUSES OF PERFECTIONISM
There are several causes of someone becoming a perfectionist. If you had abusive parents that pushed you to always be perfect, you will learn to be a perfectionist. Parents are responsible for nurturing your self worth (a future blog will focus on our self worth and how to improve our beliefs about ourselves) and teaching you have to handle mistakes and failures. However, when they expect nothing less that perfect and/or is accompanied by abusive language, your development is stunted and your self worth will tell you that you are never good enough.

Today's society can cause perfectionism, especially television, movies and social media. Models are thin and beautiful. People tend to portray themselves as very successful on social media. Television and movies show relationships as unrealistic and perfect. You sense of reality soon becomes one of expecting this from your life as the only way to be successful and worthwhile.

Relationships with controlling partners are another way you could become a perfectionist. In a controlling relationship, you are not allowed to have your own thoughts. You bend to the will of your partner,  what they think of you and what they expect of you. Your partner will make you feel not good enough if you don't behave in the way they think is important and you will do anything to become accepted by them, even if they demand unrealistic behavior out of you. You will just try harder and harder to become something perfect to them to gain their approval.

Perfectionism can be self imposed and you won't accept anything less than perfect from yourself. This is also directly linked to your self worth. You will feel worthless with each mistake and failure, when in reality, you are worthwhile as a person simply because you are born. Self worth is not something you attain. It is something you are born with, but learn differently due to a host of experiences.

Believe it or not, too much praise from achievements as a child can cause perfectionism. This is especially true when you are made to feel bad about mistakes and failures. You will begin to think you are only acceptable when you succeed. You will think you have to perform to exceptional levels every time you do or say something.

WHAT DOES PERFECTION DO TO YOU?
Perfectionism causes low self esteem, depression and anxiety. It has also been linked to eating disorders and it feeds stress. You are never going to be perfect. It simply isn't possible. You are human like the rest of us. Life as a perfectionist is an endless judgement of your accomplishments, mistakes and failures. You feel like nothing you do is good enough. You will find a way to minimize your accomplishments and never be satisfied. You may feel good at first about something you did, but will eventually find something to find fault in.

Being a perfectionist will paralyze you at times because the task will seem so overwhelming since you expect yourself to complete it perfectly. You will put things off until the last minute. If you think you are procrastinating, it may be that you are exhibiting signs of perfectionism.

Perfectionism will cause you to lose friends. As a perfectionist, you have beliefs on how you should treat people. You have the tendency to try to always be there for them. You answer their phone calls, emails, text messages, etc. quickly. You put them before you regardless of your mental health. When you aren't treated the same way, the friendship will suffer. You will blame yourself for not being worthy of their time. Perfectionism will drain the relationship and cause a strain. Many times, you will eventually lose that friendship.

OVERCOMING PERFECTIONISM
Recognize yourself as a perfectionist. Do it without judgement. Instead, do it with self love. You are giving yourself a wonderful opportunity to improve your quality of life. Become realistic about your thoughts and goals. When you set a goal, try to look for where you may have trouble achieving it and plan for how you will handle the obstacle. If you look for the potential obstacles, you will have an easier time accepting mistakes and failures. If you feel paralyzed by the goal, recognize it as your perfectionism and adjust the goal to something simpler. Start by setting goals that are easily met. Build from there. And if you make a mistake or fail, remember you are imperfect and move on. Healthy high standards allow for mistakes and failure. A person with those kind of standards accepts mistakes and failure and learns from them so they can try again another time. A person with healthy high standards is flexible.

Accept accomplishments. Count it as a victory when you perform well and refuse to look for negatives. If you perform imperfectly, concentrate on where you did well. You will have to take your negative thoughts and work through them instead of believing you have just failed on a grand scale. Mistakes and failures can be a great teacher. To do this, look at what happened. Where could you have acted or approached it differently? Plan to include that the next time you take on a task like the one that you made a mistake or failed at. And, when you do that, celebrate another victory. You just beat perfectionism for once! Practice this and you will overcome perfectionism for the long haul. Some of the greatest achievers in history made many mistakes over and over. The difference between them and you is that they took those mistakes and failures and learned from them instead of beating themselves down over it.

Make it an effort to focus on the bigger picture. Don't get caught up in the small details. If you are critical of something you have said, look at what the overall thought was. Do not look at each word and analyze how it could have been said better. If it is a goal, categorize what are milestones towards the goal and what are small details that do not effect the desired end. This is where you will bog down and become paralyzed. So, focus on the bigger picture and the parts that are crucial to a goal's success.

Be kind to yourself. If someone you love comes to you and discusses their mistake or failure, do you think badly of them? Not likely. You probably are very supportive and think nothing more of what happened. Talk to yourself like you talk to other people. Be your own cheerleader!

To balanced and productive days my friends,

Laura

Identifying And Successflly Managing Triggers

The brain is designed to rationalize. It is responsible for taking a thought or situation and leading you to a rational reaction or behavior. It is an amazing organ. A diseased brain though, like one with bipolar, can sometimes have trouble processing and reacting to negative situations. One of the reasons is that events or people cause us to react differently than we normally do and upsets our balance. Triggers cause us to respond in an irrational reactive way, instead of a rational proactive way. They put us into a survival mode which we have needed in the past to cope with a situation.

WHAT IS A TRIGGER?
A trigger is where words or situations cause us to react negatively. It causes us to flashback to something traumatic in life. It can slide us right into a depressive state. And, it can also sometimes cause a manic/hypomanic state. When it happens, we are immediately thrown back to memories of the original event. Triggers are specific to your history and can happen due to something you see, smell, or hear too.

Triggers are deceptive. It is only with recognition, self assessment, practice and patience to learn about our triggers first so that we can then identify them and seek another course of reaction and behavior. When they happen and we are unaware we have been triggered, we justify our reaction and behavior even when it makes no sense or is irrational. We often do not recognize the root of the trigger unless we follow recognition, self assessment, practice and patience. Because a trigger is associated with a negative past event, we tend to blame everything on anything but our past. We once again become the victim of our trauma. I have been in a few verbally abusive relationships in the past. I didn't understand how traumatic those were to my balance and self esteem. I blamed everything else and not the trigger. What I really needed to do was understand what had happened to me, work through it, and make the choice to leave anything abusive.

IDENTIFYING TRIGGERS
Recognizing The Moment
This will be the most difficult portion of your journey to identifying and successfully managing your triggers. Look for instances when you suddenly become anxious, resentful or angry, retreat into your shell, hopeless, or feel a flight or fright reaction. You may also have trouble breathing, your heart may race, your muscles may tense, or you may feel your stomach knot up. At first, you will trigger for seemingly unknown reasons. You may go through the entire event before you recognize that you were triggered. I also went through a traumatic experience a couple of years ago during work and suddenly found myself becoming extremely anxious every time I was supposed to work. I was unable to work for over a year. It was only later that I finally realized that working triggered me because. Every time I tried to work, my body went into flight or fight mode.

By recognizing the moment, you may find that you know you can react differently to the trigger in the future. The amount of freedom you will find in that is amazing! It will be a positive growth experience and you should be really proud of yourself. If this doesn't happen, no sweat. You will grow just from recognizing the moment and following the below steps. Remember, you are in control. You are powerful. You are no longer the victim!

Self Assessment
Triggers are very personal as we all have different experiences. A detailed look at yourself will get you in touch with your feelings. Write down the situation as soon as you recognize you were triggered (a future blog will focus on the benefits of a journal in managing bipolar). What was the event? Was there anything that happened preceding the event that could be used in the future as a warning sign. What feelings did you experience in the moment? How did you react? What do you really need in the future? Needs are not bad. Do not judge your need. You have a right to expecting to be treated in a way that fulfills your basic needs (like respect). Is this a true need, or are you taking things too personally? Once you document it, write down your action plan to detail what you plan to do when it happens again. What are the consequences for a person that does not respect your needs?

Your plan will vary depending on the trigger. Can you simply walk away from the situation? Is it the type of relationship where you can discuss the trigger with the person and they will work to avoid what triggers you? Do you need to cut ties with a person to avoid triggers because they are not willing to work with you? Do not be afraid to do this. You are your own champion. You deserve family and friends that support your efforts to remain balanced. You do not deserve to be a victim of negative situations over and over again.

Be prepared to revisit your action plans. As you become better and better at successfully reacting to a trigger, your action plans may change. An example is your action plan may include giving a person another chance no matter what the trigger is and who the person triggering is. Confidence in yourself and the freeing effect of stopping the trigger will make you more confident in responding to the trigger and your action plan may change.

Practice And Patience
Yes, practice makes better. And you will have to practice identifying and successfully managing triggers your entire life. You have triggers now, and may identify new triggers on your journey of life. This is while you need to document your triggers and your action plans for them.

Set out on this task with the firm belief that you need to give yourself time to conquer your triggers. Be patient with yourself. When you document your triggers and plans, write the action plan with the statement, "I will.." Include reasons why you deserve to take action. Remember, you deserve the basic human right of being respected. And do not expect perfection on your part. Do not expect perfection on the other parties in your life either. If you trigger with words, you need to realize that the person is used to saying things to you and it may take them time to respond to your action plan. Remember, if they don't respond, you have the right to cut them out of your life.

Be picky with who you practice on. Pick an trigger and action plan with someone you feel positive will respond. Success will boost your confidence. When you trigger, the following should be first on your action plan:

• Breathe - Take a deep breath in though your nose. Count slowly to three. Release the breath slowly through your mouth. Repeat this until you can feel yourself beginning to calm down.
• Clear your mind - If your response is flight, or you feel nervous, engage yourself in positive thought and conversation. Tell yourself you can do this. You deserve this. You are powerful. You are in control. Judging yourself is not allowed. Mind reading is not allowed. You do not know how the person is going to react. That is why it is best picking someone you are positive will respond. If you have no one in your life like that, pick the person you feel is most likely to respond.
• Accept the challenge - You are now at the go part of ready, set go. Don't back out. Don't apologize. Don't justify yourself. Speak in a clear and firm voice. Be serious. When you are serious, your voice will naturally deepen. Their human brain will recognize that you are being serious. Tell them the trigger and follow it with what behavior you expect from them in the future. You owe them no more information than the trigger and the expected future behavior. Then, depending on the person, you may want to tell them the consequences of not responding to you the way you need.

To balanced and productive days my friends,

Laura

Setting And Living With Your Boundaries Successfully

Boundaries. What are they and what do they do for us? Why do we need them? The short answer is they are an unselfish form of self care that will protect our mental health. They are the guidelines or rules for how we treat ourselves and how we expect others to treat us. They are fair, appropriate, your right, not manipulative or controlling and may mean a compromise; they are give and take in a healthy relationship.

With bipolar, our mental health should always be paramount in our life. This involves self care and with boundaries, we can focus more time and energy to that. Unhealthy boundaries are based on fear and require more energy as we have to deal with situations that make us uncomfortable, resentful and/or angry.

TYPES OF BOUNDARIES
Internal
Internal boundaries are the rules we must follow ourselves as sometimes we can be our own worst enemy. Healthy internal boundaries require that we know ourselves, what we feel, and what our responsibility is towards our own body and mind. Low self esteem makes it harder to maintain our own internal boundaries. We have issues with believing we deserve things, like taking care of our body or mind. During a depressive state, we tend to ignore boundaries because we can only focus on the pain of depression. During a manic/hypomanic episode, we will ignore them all together thinking we know better or can slide by because we don't need them.

External
External boundaries are the rules we set for how we expect to be treated. More specifically, they are the rules to teach others how to treat us. Not only should we expect fair treatment, we need it to successfully manage our mental health. Healthy external boundaries is simply asking a person to treat you with respect. 

Low self esteem also plays a part in external boundaries. With low self esteem, we may not realize how we deserve to be treated. We also may not think we deserve to be treated with respect. During a depressive state, we need healthy boundaries and when they are followed, it helps our depressive state.

SETTING HEALTHY BOUNDARIES
Not only are healthy boundaries set to teach others how we want to interact with us, they are set for how we interact with people in return. Healthy boundaries allow respect towards both parties, yourself and others. Some boundaries are obvious. If you find yourself uncomfortable with a situation, resentful or angry with a person, you have an opportunity to set a boundary to alleviate that from happening.

Setting boundaries can be difficult with people that are already in our lives. They are accustomed to treating us in a certain way, and we have never expressed or been respected if we voice that their actions are unacceptable. Therefore, you may meet resistance and negativity to an external boundary at first.

To set a boundary, examine your life. What bothers you that people do? What compromises your self care? How do you wish to be treated? How should you treat yourself to take care of your mental health?

Then write it down. Decide what the boundaries are, how you will relate them, and what are the consequences of not respecting your boundary.

Now you are ready to set the boundary. You can choose to set the boundary before anything happens that makes you uncomfortable, resentful and/or angry; you can also decide to wait until it happens again. I personally prefer picking a time when both parties are in a comfortable situation. Emotions, especially ours, are heightened when something negative happens that effects our well being. The delivery of your boundary won't come out as well as you want nor will the reception be as well received. The consequences of not respecting your boundaries are up to you. It can be anything from the fact that you tell someone you can't interact with them until they respect your boundary to going as far as cutting them out of your life. It never means you give up and allow unhealthy behavior.

Loose Boundaries
Without realizing it, you have boundaries in your life already. The problem is, a loose boundary makes you a doormat and allows everyone to treat you how they want. Have you heard of the saying, "Give an inch, take a mile"? That describes a loose boundary. With a loose boundary, you may as well not have a boundary at all as you are not setting standards on how you are treated.

Soft Boundaries
A soft boundary is when you are confused as to what you let or not let happen in your life. It makes you a target for manipulation. If you can't take an honest look at yourself and allow yourself to love what and who you are, you will most likely set a soft boundary. Setting a boundary is not about keeping everyone else happy. It is about you respecting what you need, and your relationships respecting what you need also.

Conditional Boundaries
Once you have set boundaries, you must live them. You can't abide by them part time. Setting a rule and then only following it randomly, for whatever reason, will confuse individuals and will not teach them what you need and expect. If you don't set a rule and live by it, you cannot expect your boundaries to be respected. Conditional boundaries are also when you only maintain your boundaries with certain people. Just because a person holds a certain position in your life should not mean you can't expect them to respect your boundaries.

Rigid Boundaries
A rigid boundary creates a solid brick wall between you and the relationships you allow in your life. It prevents intimacy with people. It usually stems from bad experiences of abuse that have shaped you as a person and is the type of boundary that stems from fear the most. If you have been abused, you are more likely to realize you have loose boundaries and try to replace them with rigid boundaries.

A WORD ON HEALTHY BOUNDARIES
Healthy boundaries set the stage for how you allow yourself and others to treat you. They do not include negativity about yourself or others. A healthy boundary meets your needs without being unrealistically demanding. You have to decide what you need. Do off color jokes make you uncomfortable? You have the right to ask that they not be told around you. Do you have someone in your life that will press you to talk when you are trying to process something and you just can't talk about it? You have a right to processing time. Are you taking your medications sporadically. You can't manage bipolar without a set schedule to always take your medications. Does someone make negative and condescending remarks to or about you? Not only can you not allow that with bipolar, but you unequivocally deserve the basic right of respect. Does someone in your life guilt you into doing something you don't want to do. You have the right to say no and for that answer to be respected. Does someone in your life take their anger out on you? You deserve not to be used as a scapegoat.

LIVING SUCCESSFULLY WITH BOUNDARIES
Now that you have communicated your boundaries, you will need to know how to be successful with them. Being successful is made up of many parts. It is:

• self awareness
• honesty
• determination
• will
• assertiveness
• follow through
• patience

You have to know yourself and be honest with yourself about what you need. Love yourself and tell people in your life what your boundaries are. It will allow greater intimacy in your relationships because each of you will have a deeper respect for the other. It is only going to be determination and strong will that allows you to be assertive and follow through. What exactly does follow through entail though?

Each boundary should have a consequence, or a follow through, when not respected. Do you state the consequence once and follow through with enforcing that consequence with the first offense? Or, do you display patience and try to work with a person because you feel the person is trying to respect your boundaries? Only you can answer that and it may depend on what type of person and situation you are dealing with.

You will also need patience with yourself. Setting and living with boundaries is a learning process for you too. Don't feel like you have failed if you set a boundary and don't follow through. Believe me, that person will give you another opportunity to react to them pushing your boundaries. You also need to be forgiving of yourself if your boundaries become conditional and you aren't consistent. Setting and living boundaries is hard, but like most things, the more you practice, the better you become.

Be aware that your boundaries can change. You change every day. You may find more tolerance for some things and less tolerance for others, necessitating a change in boundaries. So do a self assessment every once in awhile.

To balanced and productive days my friends,

Laura

Turning The Silver Linings Of Bipolar To Your Advantage

About 2.6% of adults have 1 of the 5 or more types of bipolar disorder. If you ask many of them, "Describe some qualities of bipolar that you have.", the answers will generally be negative. But is that realistic? Are there instances when bipolar has meant or brought something positive to your life? Are we unaware of how bipolar has made us a better person and how it can be used to our advantage?

Dictionary.com defines a silver lining as such:

Silver Lining - 
a sign of hope in an unfortunate or gloomy situation; a bright prospect:
Every dark cloud has a silver lining.

The Silver Lining Playbook is a phenomenal movie. It taught me something important. Always look for a silver lining. And, there are more than a few silver linings we may not have thought of, even with bipolar. Once we realize a few of these, we can then find a way they can be used to our advantage to live a more positive life.

SILVER LININGS

Self Care
Upon diagnosis, we had to learn to be very concerned about how we manage our health. It is a life long learning process because bipolar, besides being fluid, changes and our self care is something we have to learn unique to ourselves. Medications stop working. Diet, sleep and exercise habits become crucial, and if you slack off, you exacerbate your individual bipolar symptoms. Negative influences also play a big part in our health as we do not process thought and actions the same way as most of those without bipolar. Getting rid of negatives is imperative to our health. That can be used to our advantage. During a stable state, the more closely you tend to your self care as mentioned above, the easier it becomes to manage during a manic/hypomanic or depressive episode. You won't be able to follow self care exactly the same as when stable, but keeping good habits will help you during these episodes from not dipping one way or the other so much.

Patience 
If we are realistic about ourselves, we have to learn patience with ourselves. Hallmark of bipolar is our tendency to shut people out during a depressive episode or simply to stop listening to advice during a manic/hypomanic episode. Use this patience when dealing with others. How many times have you stressed about something and found out later the entire situation situation was not as you thought? How many times have to ignored sage advice only to realize that not all of your plans are as brilliant as you thought? Others deal with the same thing, although not to the extreme we do at times. Look at the world from a realistic point of view and just as you need patience from others, offer patience. 

Change
Change is hard. Few people thrive on change. And even if we don't handle change in the best manner, we usually can see something positive from it if we try. Regardless, we adapt from that change in a better way than others eventually because we are forced to adapt and live with the changes that living with bipolar requires. Of course, it may take us longer to adapt, but we do eventually. To use this to our advantage, we need to assess a change first. What was the goal of the change? How much of the change was completed? What were the silver linings? How can we apply this to our life in a positive way? If you can't think of them right off the bat, you may be focusing on the not so positive. Make a pro and con list. Celebrate the positive. It will make accepting change in the future easier.


Wisdom And Perspective
Our perspective on life is different. We have to look at situations more closely and from a bigger point of view than others, seeing more options. We are wise by the fact that we can see the bigger picture and even use it as often as possible. Do you realize how valuable that is? You can offer this perspective to others in their time of need regarding things they may never think of. You can help people! That will make your life more fulfilling and positive. It will also improve your self esteem.

Empathy
Empathy is something many people lack. Yet, suffering with bipolar makes us empathetic from the standpoint that we need empathy at times. If we could actually express it during a depressive episode, we could educate people on exactly what we need. Since we are so aware of the empathy we truly need, we are more empathetic towards others. People will find solace in our words and actions.

Appreciation
When stable, we appreciate a lot more in life. Life is better. Use this to your advantage. Share your appreciation with the positive people in your life. Tell them what you appreciate and even consider going as far to tell them how that is different and what to expect during your episodes. You know yourself better than anyone else. Education can never go wrong with the right people.

Trust
Trust is not easy, especially living with a bipolar diagnosis. Use this to your advantage. Someone should earn your trust after careful consideration of their treatment of you regardless of your stability. So, be picky and choose lightly. And once you trust, you will have a more positive life from associating with the positive people supporting you. Additionally, their support will eventually lead you to learning a deeper type of trust.

Creativity
Researchers in Sweden studied 1.2 million psychiatric patients over a period of 40 years. They found a higher occurrence of dancers, artists, authors, photographers, researchers and scientists. Use this to your advantage! Take a class. Try to be creative. It improves your mood. Improved mood increases stability. And improved mood gives you extra time be productive!

Lived Experience
Nobody experiences bipolar the same way as you. You are the one filling the your bipolar shoes and you have probably walked a longer mile than some people, so you have lived experience. Share it, becoming a source of comfort to your friends that also suffer from mental illness. Both of you will benefit.

FINAL NOTES
Nothing about bipolar is easy. However, it is certainly possible to lead a satisfying life. Taking advantage of some of the ways we live life differently makes it a lot easier to be satisfied in stable times. A word of caution. Boundaries are important (a future blog will focus on setting boundaries). Don't overstep your boundaries for a person and don't allow anyone to overstep yours. Remain firm and keep your health the priority.

To balanced and productive days my friends,

Laura

Improve Your Low Self Esteem

Low self esteem is an issue when you have bipolar. That is not to say that only those suffering with bipolar have low self esteem. Everyone deals with self esteem. Role models play an important role in developing healthy self esteem, as well as factors such as environment, etc. And, as with so much else, bipolar has the capacity to make it all the more difficult to deal with because our brains process differently. Today, we are going to talk about improving self esteem during a stable state and tips for living through a depressive state. Low self esteem just isn't an issue when manic/hypomanic.

CAUSES

• Childhood history
• Abuse
• Neglect
• Bullying
• Loneliness
• School or work
• Allowing negativity in your life

SYMPTOMS

• Highly self critical
• Focusing on your mistakes
• Negative self talk
• Self hate
• Comparing your weaknesses to other's strengths
• Refusing to acknowledge your strengths
• Never accepting compliments
• Lack of confidence
• Perfectionism

IMPROVING SELF ESTEEM DURING A BALANCED STATE

The following information was gathered from a host of internet sources and my time during inpatient and outpatients stays. Improving your self esteem while you are balanced will not be only easier, it will help lessen how it dips lower during a depressive state. You must remember that thoughts lead to feelings, and that leads to opinion, which leads to your perceived reality. You will have to accept your reality is irrational and imbalanced to improve your self esteem and be willing to work on it by taking action that will probably be uncomfortable.

Highly Self Critical

Do you take every situation and judge yourself? And I mean every situation. Even those that had no mishaps. While looking at your life with a critical eye can be healthy for growth, taking every situation and finding something wrong with it will drain your self esteem and lead to a life of constant regrets. You are going to have to stop judging yourself. This not easy. It involves realizing and accepting you are not perfect. You need to begin looking at the positives in situations. Repeat them to yourself. Tell yourself, "It's okay because I...". And, if you made a mistake, I can't repeat enough that you have to accept no one is perfect.

Being highly self critical will paralyze you. You will being so focused on your criticism that you won't be able to move forward. Moving forward promotes your positive growth. Learn to recognize when you are ruminating and feel stuck in a rut. Instead of spending all that time criticizing yourself, force yourself to come up with one positive for the situation and congratulate yourself for it. Then, move on.

Focusing On Your Mistakes

Do you spend inordinate amounts of time thinking about a mistake? This is a clear indication of low self esteem. Mistakes happen. Think it over, figure out what you can learn from the mistake, take steps if necessary to prepare for next time and move forward. And just to be clear, if this isn't what you are already doing, you are spending inordinate amounts of time thinking about a mistake.

Negative Self Talk

This is closely related to being highly self critical, but more involved. It relates directly to your self worth (a future blog will focus on healthy self worth). There is nothing wrong with looking at a situation and thinking you may want to handle it differently next time (you may not shame yourself by saying the words should, could, or would though). With low self esteem, we begin to talk to ourselves in a manner that we would never talk to a loved one. Imagine looking at everything your child does or says and telling them they are a failure and will never amount to anything. This is what you do when you put yourself down and talk negatively to yourself. It isn't realistic nor is it true.

Negative self talk is invasive and like a tape playing over and over in your head. You may not even recognize it as it happens. You can combat this with positive affirmations. Use a journal, sticky notes, letters to yourself...anything, to document positives about yourself. If you have troubles thinking of positives, ask trusted friends for help. They see the good in you and shouldn't hesitate to tell you.

Practice positive self talk. Work on catching your negative self talk and replace it with a positive. This is difficult to do so write about it and use your trusted family and friends. It gets easier the more you do it. Try standing in front of a mirror and tell yourself something positive. Smile.

Self Hate
Many things lead to self hate and it is a huge culprit in destroying self esteem. Self hate is like a rabbit hole. Play those negative tapes in your head long enough and down into the self hate hole you will fall. Overcoming self hate takes acceptance. Accept you are human. You are not perfect. Accept your faults. You may have the most faults of anyone on this planet, but you still have positives. Focus on those. Make plans to improve your faults. Celebrate improvements, no matter how little. Look in the mirror and tell yourself, "I love you because..." every single time you are in front of a mirror.

Comparing Your Weaknesses To Other's Strengths
There is no one in the world like you. You are a unique individual made up of things well done and things not so well done. You have certain talents that are better than others. The lower your self esteem is, the harder it is to recognize this.

Instead of beating yourself up where you think you should be better, consider how another person's talent can benefit you. I have a teenage son that will major in music education next year. It was something I considered also when I was his age. He can talk circles around me and when it first happened, I immediately felt like I must have made the right decision to pursue another degree (I felt inferior) and even beat myself up about it. Now I realize how much he can teach me and I enjoy our time together. It has made us much closer and, I have learned a lot.

Refusing To Acknowledge Your Strengths
A person with low self esteem will not only compare themselves to others, but also have a difficult time appreciating and acknowledging their strengths. The focus will always be their weaknesses.  Use positive affirmations with an explanation. An example is, "I am strong because...". Place sticky notes strategically through your life. Ask close friends.

Never Accepting Compliments
Do you ever find yourself hearing a compliment and verbally dismissing it? This is a sign of low self esteem. Make it your goal to simply reply, "Thank you" each time. You can't say anything else but thank you. Eventually you will have created a habit that results in healthier self esteem.

Lack Of Confidence
Chances are if you are suffering from low self esteem, you will not have much confidence in yourself. A person with low self esteem expects the worst and is paralyzed to try due to the fear of mistakes and failure. You can improve your self confidence little steps at a time which in turn improves self esteem.

Stand straight, throw your shoulders back and smile. If you look the part, it will help you to be the part. People will see you as confident, treating you as such. It leads to better self confidence. Someone t work asked me how she could get employees to respond to her. She noticed immediate results from the above and felt really good about it.

Pick a small goal. Don't try anything life changing, like stopping smoking. Choose something you can manage like taking vitamins with your meds regimen. You'll feel better when it becomes habit and it will give you confidence in the success.

Access your limitations. A good way to do this is to write. Are your limitations real, or are they something you place on yourself? If you aren't certain, write about it and include a plan to change a bit at a time. If you truly have a limitation, and we all do, work on it one step at a time to lessen the limitation. You don't have to be an expert at everything, but improving yourself is a definite confidence booster and will improve your self esteem.

Perfectionism
This is a topic I could go on about forever because I have perfected trying to be perfect. I have an example to give that I hope will help. I have a mentor in the business world. He always tells me, "Be your best."  My thought process on this statement in the past has been that I have to be the best in everything. It was only recently that the light bulb came on. Being my best really means I should continue utilizing my talents where possible and accept my mistakes by growing from them. 

Perfectionism is a fallacy. Trying to be perfect will never result in healthy self esteem. It will be like hitting a brick wall. You will never win. So, when you aren't perfect, try thinking of how you can grow from it. Your self esteem will grow from not beating yourself up and from the growth you experience.

SELF ESTEEM DURING A DEPRESSIVE EPISODE
You are not going to be able to stop your self esteem from dipping lower while in the midst of a depressive episode. You can, however, work towards maintaining it to the best of your ability with little effort (I promise) and the dip won't be as drastic. The key is your actions during a stable state. I like to take to pen or pencil and paper. If you write, you can refer back to it during depressive episodes. Document your strengths, your goals achieved, your victories. Create a jar and write positives about yourself on sticky notes to review later. While living through a depressive state, review the good things about yourself.

Talk to trusted family and friends. Let them help you remember better days and how you handled them. This can be used in addition to writing, but shouldn't be used to replace what you can write. If you are struggling with self esteem when stable and have trouble believing things, you will struggle more when in a depressive state. Reminders will be hard to believe. Family and friends also may not be able to remember everything.

Revert to the mirror again. Talk to your image, and smile about it. Tell yourself you love yourself and why. Remind yourself of a positive while staring into your eyes. Talk about a goal and what you did to achieve it. Look at yourself and say, "I will do this. I can ride this wave. I have done it before and I will do it again."

Do not try to achieve a goal. Breathing, getting out of bed, showering, and getting through a day are the goals you need to focus on. Those are fantastic achievements each day of a depressive state. Celebrate those and let the other stuff slide for awhile.

To balanced and productive days my friends,

Laura

What Causes Bipolar

Over 10 million people are affected by bipolar. It manifests differently in each person regardless of race, ethnic group or socioeconomic class. Women tend to have rapid cycling bipolar more often than men and also suffer from more mixed episodes. A man's first state is usually hypomanic/manic while women normally experience a depressive state first.

Children who have one parent with the disorder have around a 10%-25% chance of developing the disorder themselves. Children with two parents that have the disorder have a 10%-50% chance. 

FACTORS

• Genetics - Studies clearly show bipolar runs in families. While it may skip generations, if you have bipolar in your family history, you are at risk. Research also shows that the chances of both identical twins having bipolar is small. So, if it was only hereditary factors that cause bipolar, both twins would suffer from it because they are identical.
• Biology - Some neurotransmitters that fire and receive the chemicals serotonin and dopamine do not function properly and only connect randomly. These neurons are responsible for firing and receiving seratonin and or dopamine, the two chemicals that are in control of your mood swings. A depressive state results from too few and a hypomanic/manic episode results from too many neuron interactions. Much research also now focuses on what abnormal genes play a factor in bipolar. Scientists believe that bipolar is more than likely caused by issues with multiple genes. And, research is currently being conducted to identify what medications work better for different individuals. This will lead to better management of the disease.
• Environment - Circumstances from childhood and as an adult also can trigger bipolar. Abuse, neglect, rigidity, trauma, anxiety disorders, PTSD, substance abuse, health problems and ADHD are all causes. Left untreated, environmental factors may cause suicide, relationship troubles, as well as legal and financial troubles, substance abuse as a way to self medicate, problems at school and work, absences at school and work, and isolation.

BOTTOM LINE

Bottom line is there is no singular cause for bipolar disorder. Instead, varying factors have a part in what is the whole cause of bipolar. As shown above, two of those factors are something we don't have a choice in. 

Although a stressful and traumatic event can trigger bipolar, stress in itself is not a cause. Still, with bipolar, it is ultimately important that you learn to manage stress (a future blog will focus on managing stress with bipolar). Managing stress can help us manage bipolar more effectively.

Bipolar is a complex disorder. Not only does it have varying causes, it also affects each sufferer differently. To exasperate it, no one medication works for all. However, understanding the possible causes and educating yourself will help you to understand and live with the disease.

To balanced and productive days my friends,

Laura

The Dreaded Bipolar Conversation With Work

40% of those of us with bipolar find themselves unable to hold down a job. For the rest, there is probably going to be at least one time when you feel like you may need to discuss the very personal topic of your mental illness with someone at work. So, when is the best time and how can you best handle the situation?

TIMING
There is no magical time to have this conversation. The success of the it rests largely with the type of personality you have to speak with. So, with that said, it is important for you to remember the results are a reflection of them, and who they are in that moment, not you.

HANDLING IT
You have responsibility in the conversation. Approach is everything. An open mind is helpful. The most important piece of advice I have to offer; do not wait until you are in a full blown depressive, and or a hypomanic/manic state. It will take training to learn how to act early on a potential serious mood swing. And the best way to do that is to get to know your triggers (a future blog will focus on identifying triggers). That takes patience. It also takes forgiveness of yourself if you don't succeed every time, and finally, it takes practice. I start talking to my support group before I get unstable. I know because I log my moods. They help. All of this is a big positive for keeping mood logs if you are thinking about trying.

• Pick a time you are most stable. If you feel unstable, the mood log can show a pattern if you log your mood often.
• Look for a pattern in your moods and choose the best time you can. 
• Pick a comfortable space for both of you. 
• Speak in a soft, yet firm voice. 
• Choose your words carefully. Use the words "we" and "us instead of "I" or "me". 
• Look for signs that the person isn't understanding, getting offended, or irritated. Folded arms in front is a sign off them closing off. 
• Do not let the person sit while you stand. It may make the person more defensive because your standing can appear dominating. Both of you should be comfortable and sitting sown. 

If you aren't well received, it may be time to think about moving on. You were looking for a job when you found this one. Remember!!! You are in charge! You know more than they do about bipolar and consider this an opportunity to educate them. I just went through this and want to share what I said. I have this memorized.

"I have bipolar. While it can't be cured, I can manage it with effective medication, diet, exercise, sleep and therapy. Bipolar is a illness, a brain disease.  I did nothing to get this disease. Neurons and receptors started firing and receiving at less 100% for no proven reason. That causes an imbalance of the chemicals that control mood swings that I have no choice but to endure. I don't expect different treatment and I am responsible for coming to you when I feel my mood changing so we can come up with a game plan that won't have work suffering unnecessarily. I want to reach out to me if you have concerns or questions."

Unfortunately it wasn't well received. If that happens, you will have to decide if the job is salvageable or not.

To balanced and productive days my friends,

Laura

Friendship and Relationship Gut Checks

They take never ending hard work. Add your bipolar diagnosis to that and things are immediately made harder for you. You will face, time and time again, the test of living through mood states. They create more than the expected complications in your friendships and relationships.

The most important friendship and relationship to care for is the one you have with yourself. Treat yourself with compassion and kindness by how you love yourself. You are usually your own worst enemy and abuser, worse than anyone else (a future blog will focus on how to go from being your worst enemy to your best ally).

DISSOLVING A FRIENDSHIP
The more you have an emotional connection to a person you are acquainted with, the more they move from being an acquaintance to being a friend. Dissolving an acquaintance is easy. Tell them you don't want to be friends anymore and wish them well. Of course, you could do as I may or may not have done. Ignore that acquaintance...

As for a friend, we will assume they at least know your diagnosis. So ask yourself honestly how well they support you. No relationship is perfect. But if you find yourself with a friend that is negative about you in any way, it's time to have a conversation where you say that your priorities have changed and you won't be able to continue the friendship. It is a true statement. You just made your mental health a priority. That should always be your priority. There is no need to explain unless pushed. Revealing less emotion is better. Be prepared. The reaction may not be what you expect. Some do not realize they are negative persons that want you you to as miserable as they are. Refuse to be baited by their negativity to justify your actions. Be ready to stand your ground and back away from the conversation for your own mental health, if needed. And, keep in mind that you are doing this for yourself and how they react does not have a reflection on you.

DISSOLVING A RELATIONSHIP
This involves much more emotion and therefore, is more complicated to go through. The more history you have, the more complicated it will be. The hardest to end is a toxic relationship. Synonyms of the word toxic include deadly, dangerous, and poisonous. If I gave you candy, would you eat it when I told you it was poisonous? Of course not! But by allowing yourself to mentally digest toxic behaviors, you are eating that candy (a future blog will focus on how to leave a toxic relationship).

You have allowed a negative person a place in your life. And you deserve to be free of negativity. As a matter of fact, your wellness depends, in part, on how much negativity you allow in your life.

When you end the relationship, you need to be prepared for the fact that the reaction is probably going to be negative. Use your tools. You have to be assertive, calm, and remember their reaction is a reflection of them and not of you. You are cleansing for the number one person in your life. You. If the relationship is long standing, you may lose other people also. This may include people like in-laws and friends. However, those that do not support you or your decision are not positive and supportive like you need in your life. Ignore the urge to try to explain yourself to anyone! This is your life. You are in charge of your happiness. Having bipolar, you need all the positive you can fit into your life.

To balanced and productive days my friends,

Laura

How Distorted Thinking Affects Bipolar - Part Two

Improving and managing distorted thinking can be a difficult task. However, with time and practice, you can train your brain to thinking differently. Think of it like this. Practice makes better! Never will we be perfect. Perfection is impossible (believe me, I have tried). But, each time you practice the steps below, you will improve your thought process.

The time that will take is going to depend on each person and how deeply ingrained distorted thinking is. For me, I catch myself in distorted thinking often. However, I have become much better at correcting myself over time.

WHY
Why do we engage in distorted thinking and torture ourselves? How can we tell when distorted thinking has us in it's grip? An easy answer is our state. It is also related to our self esteem(a future blog will focus on improving self esteem).

Studies have shown that persons living with mental illness have lower self esteem. Depressive and manic/hypomanic episodes cause us to behave and act in ways that embarrass us. Sometimes we are left with the task of apologizing and/or repairing relationships. Living with mental illness and the stigma surrounding us is exhausting and erodes our self esteem as we try to fit into society and don't always succeed. It is through no fault of our own. We didn't ask for mental illness. Thinking that can easily lead to shame, further lowering our self esteem. There are times when we simply can't manage bipolar. It manages us. It is frustrating. So, how can we improve our distorted thinking?

WRITE IT DOWN
Take some quiet time along with paper and pen or pencil and think. Use the categories from "part one" of the blog. When have you engaged in distorted thinking? Make a list and write the examples down for each time you remember a distorted thought. If the categories seem confusing, reach out to me for help. I would be honored to answer your questions through the comments section below, or via email. My email address is available on my profile page. Don't judge yourself during this process. Just take a honest look at yourself and allow yourself to document the examples. This will give you examples of what thoughts you want to retrain in the future.

AWARENESS
You are no ready to begin retraining your thoughts. This may be the most difficult thing you do. As time progresses, you will become better and better. Try to catch yourself when you engage in distorted thinking. You may catch yourself immediately or you may realize the thought was distorted later. When you realize it is not important. Count it as the victory that it is. The more deeply ingrained the distorted thought is, the harder it will be to catch and improve upon. After all, thinking something turns into believing, which then turns into reality. The more familiar you are with the categories, the more you understand them, and this will aid you in your awareness.

When you become aware, approach it with mindfulness. If you have never heard the term before, it means acceptance. We pay attention to our thoughts and feelings without judging them; without believing, for instance, that there's a “right” or “wrong” way to think or feel in a given moment and judging yourself based on that. Yes, your thinking isn't correct. But, you will see this repeated below, "You are human", so you are not perfect and will make mistakes. Focusing on the wrong will only lead to shaming yourself. Focus on the retraining instead. Focus on catching it sooner next time and moving forward in peace.

PROOF
You once again want to use mindfulness for this step. Do not judge yourself. If you do, you are not going to be able to see the proof in the fallacy of your thought. For this step, you will once again want to take to paper. Write down the category from "part one". Then, write down the distorted thought. Finally, write a statement to prove the thought incorrect. Keep doing this and it will lead to you correcting your distorted thought quickler. Below, you will find examples of how you can prove to yourself that your distorted thinking incorrect.

EXAMPLES
Mind Reading

• We see two people whispering and immediately we think they are talking about us. (PROOF: They could be talking about anything. Even if they are talking about you, it doesn't necessarily mean it is negative, and if it is, it is a reflection of them and not you.)
• We don't get a response on a text message and assume we are being ignored or someone is mad at us. (PROOF: Their phone may be off or the battery may be dead. They could be away from their phone. They may be busy and can't reply immediately.)
• We may think anyone of the gender we prefer is attracted to us just because they say hello. (PROOF: A simple hello is a societal commonality. It is used to be polite.)

Fortune Telling

• We have a presentation to give and assume we are going to perform poorly, or fail. (PROOF: Everyone is imperfect. You are human. The presentation is not going to be perfect. Other people aren't perfect and aren't going to expect us to be perfect either.  As long as we are prepared, all we can do is to do our best.)
• We meet someone new and assume they will not like us. (PROOF: We can't be liked by everyone, and if not liked, it is a reflection of that person and where they are at that moment in their life, not a reflection of us.)
• We have an idea we plan to turn into a project and assume everyone else is going to see how wonderful it is and want to buy into it. (PROOF: This is unrealistic. Everyone has their own opinion and it may not necessarily agree with ours.)

Minimization

• We may have a good day, but one mistake would make us feel as if the day was unproductive or unsuccessful. (PROOF: Examine the day and find just one thing that you succeeded at. One victory means a productive and successful day. Nobody is perfect and is going to make mistakes. You are human.)
• Someone compliments how we look and our reply is that our outfit is old. (PROOF: Take the person at face value. They aren't going to compliment you unless they feel so. Your outfit may be old, but you still got a compliment on how you looked. Take it for what it is. If is seems insincere, that is their issue, not yours.)
• We complete a project to specifications but don't feel it is good enough no matter what. (PROOF: Again, nobody is perfect. You are human. There is most likely something you could have done better, just like every other human being that has completed a project.)

Catastrophizing

• A boss criticizes us, constructively or otherwise, and we fear we are going to get fired. (PROOF: Ok, if you are on final notice, maybe you are right to worry. But, realize companies have a process before firing someone.)
• We fail one test and fear we are going to fail the entire class, or worse yet, school in general. (PROOF: How many tests and homework assignments have you passed? What is your game plan for moving forward and doing better?)
• We argue with our partner and fear they are going to leave us. (PROOF: Arguments happen. You are two different people handling things your own way. Learn when to voice your concerns by asking if you can resolve it with your partner. Chances are, it is worse in your head than theirs.)

All Or Nothing

• We lose a job and think we are a failure that will never be successful, will always be a poor provider, and a worthless person. (PROOF:@ You were looking for a job when you found this one. This economy is still tough, so keep this in mind as you begin your job search. You are not failing if you are looking.)
• We feel we are always right, never wrong, and will argue every point that doesn't fall in line with our own. (PROOF: Everyone is imperfect. You are human. This is impossible.)

Personalization

• We see our child struggle and feel like it is our fault. (PROOF: Your child needs struggle to grow. And, the older they get, the more choices they make for themselves. It is unrealistic that you are at fault, and if you can't shake it, concentrate on making it better and doing a better job of parenting next time. You are human.)
• We get into an argument with a friend and feel like we are to blame for the argument and the friend has no blame. (PROOF: Every argument has two sides, both driven by human emotion. Both not always verbalized well. If you have a friend that assigns you the blame, you need to rethink that relationship.)
• A child may assume their parents are arguing just because of them. (PROOF: You are the giver on this one. Consider the age and explain that people disagree to the best of your ability. Reassure often. Consider your audience when fighting and move somewhere private.)

Emotional Reasoning

• We say something to embarrass ourselves and think we must be an idiot. (PROOF: Mistakes happen. You are human. You aren't the first to make one. You, and you alone are thinking about your mistake more than others.)
• We have acne and feel we are ugly. (PROOF: Welcome to life. I am 52 and still get acne. People won't noticed acne as much as you do. And a confident smile goes a long way.)
• We think our outfit makes us look fat and therefore we are fat. (PROOF: Please love your body. It houses your beautiful soul. Remember our society preaches thin. Years ago, you were coveted and captured regularly by famous artists.)

Labeling

• I am a loser. (PROOF: Have you held a job for any length of time? Did you graduate? Do you know how to drive a car? You can't be a loser then.)
• I am worthless. (PROOF: You are born with worth. You do not inherit it. You do not achieve it. It is simply there in our care anf keeping (a future blog will address the topic of self worth).
• I am useless. (PROOF: Not likely. Have you ever taken out the trash? Have you ever offered a kind word to someone sad and made them smile? Have you ever kissed a child's knee? You are not useless.)

Would, Could And Should

• I should have tried harder. (PROOF: Next time, I will try harder.)
• I could have not said that. (PROOF: Next time, I will choose different words.)
• I would have been happier if... (PROOF: Stop! That doesn't matter. The world is your oyster. Focus on now.)

To balanced and productive days my friends,

Laura