The Stories We Tell Ourselves

If you don't mind, I'm going to get a little deeper than normal today. The subject for this post has been bouncing around my head for a little while now. 

I don't know about you, but my head often tells me stories about myself that aren't always 100% true. Since I was young, I have fought to maintain a decent self esteem. I don't blame it on any one piece of my childhood, but likely some of it stems from being a "fat kid" during some of my younger years. Memories of extended family members and classmates talk about my weight to my face still sting a little bit. In reality, I wasn't that fat. I was chubby at most. 

Alas, I've fought that battle and would like to think I won. Running has no doubt transformed me and made me more confident in my abilities than anything else. 

 


But when I'm feeling vulnerable, I let my mind wander to mistruths if you will. I start telling myself mistruths about my career, my personal success, my future, our financial goals {dreaming of owning a comfortable home with a large kitchen, a fireplace and a mantel}, my dreams, etc. And as you might guess, the more stressed out I'm feeling, the more prevalent these mistruths are in my daily inner dialog.

In a dream world, I would love to be one of those people who just doesn't let that stuff get to me. The kind of person who always sees the glass half full (or overflowing), but I'm just not hard wired that way.

Does anyone else struggle with this on a regular basis? And if you feel like you have a pretty good handle on not letting your expectations run away with your thoughts, how do you do it?!

Since we got back from Chicago, and after reading Julie's post on Habits of Happy People, I keep thinking of my sister-in-law's quote "It's just small potatoes" {in regards to the little stuff in life}. Deep down, I KNOW I shouldn't let little stressors tear me down or let these thoughts or what-ifs hold me back, but I do.

I also like what Amber and Julie both echoed that for them, when they start to get stressed, they think "Will this matter in a week? In a month? In a year?" Chances are, it won't. A little perspective definitely helps.

Comments

This is something I struggle with as well. I really let all of my worries about things take over and impact me. I feel so much anxiety about the coming year because so much is up in the air and I hate that feeling. And I say things things like "the only thing advancing in my life is my career" but when I think about that, it's not really true because I have strengthened friendships and met new people and traveled in the past year. So I am just entirely too hard on myself... I have gotten better about this as I have gotten older, but still have a ways to go...
missris said…
I am seriously hard on myself, and I worry about the little things all the time. It's definitely something I struggle with. You're not alone!
Amber said…
I've become way better over the last few years at self awareness and usually I am aware when I am blowing something out of proportion or thinking silly ridiculous thoughts. The two things that really help me not get too anxious about the "little things" are remembering that if something has already happened it's too late to change it and it's time to move on and figure out where to go from there and also reminding myself that you can't predict the future or know what is going to happen so there is no point getting upset about something that hasn't even happened yet!! I used to be much worse at freaking out about these two things but recently I've gotten better at adopting a 'whatever will be will be' kind of attitude and it really does help with stress AND with self confidence!

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