Happy Friday and happy 33 days until Christmas. Yikes! That’s a reality check for me for sure. I really wanted to be on top of everything this year and get all my shopping done by the end of November so I can enjoy lots of family time in December instead of running around in the consumer chaos. My plan may not exactly on schedule yet but I am trying to do my best. Of course that means with so much to do that my writing gets pushed to the bottom of the list which is so frustrating. I am in such a good place with my book and I can see everything unfolding so naturally in the story, but I don’t have time to write it. Worse yet, every time I step away from my story for a long period of time, the longer it takes me to get back my story mojo. People tell me all the time that I am too hard and put too much pressure on myself, but it’s only because I want to be able to do it all. I don’t want to waste a second of life and this story is burning in my soul to be written. I need to write it, but I guess I have to come to terms with the fact that it could take a decade to write. Okay… maybe a decade is a bit dramatic. Maybe another year would be more reasonable, but I am so terrified within that time that I will lose my passion for it. It’s happened to me before when life becomes overwhelming and the thought of writing and completing a novel feels daunting so I shut down. I know the difference this time around is I am far more committed to my writing; this being my 36th weekly post and counting. I know I need to live in the moment more and appreciate the small victories. I suppose it could be worse and I could have absolutely no inspiration; no story burning inside me to tell. I have lived through that horrid writer’s block many times throughout the years. That is not fun.

The holiday season is stressful for everyone: finding the perfect gifts, decorating the house just right, attending parties and events, finding time to reflect on the past year. Ultimately I know Christmas is supposed to be about family. It’s about sharing that day with my son, soaking up the small moments. He is still young enough that he doesn’t care about the presents under the tree (though I’m sure he’ll be happy) but he cares more about his Mommy and Daddy being there on the floor with him. He wants to snuggle near the fire with us and play our silly little games. In 33 days from now, after the day is done and the house is quiet again, I’ll put my head down on the pillow exhausted and think about the simple moments with my son. Those are what I will carry with me. So I guess when I start to feel stressed about trying to balance everything in my life and pushing my writing down to lowest priority, I will read this blog post again and remind myself. It’s okay. It’s okay to give myself a break for the next 33 days if I simply can’t find the time. My characters will survive in my mind until the new year…however spending time enjoying my son can’t wait. 

So I wish all of you good luck finding balance over the next month and accepting time is limited. I’m sorry if I rambled a bit in this post; I think I might be under a bit of stress. I ramble when I’m stressed.

Until next week!

❤ Melissa

Happy Friday everyone. I hope you had a good week and found some time to reflect on Remembrance Day (Veteran’s Day for my US friends). I always make time to appreciate the sacrifice those soldiers made all those years ago and those today who are still sacrificing to make our world a better place. This kind of inspired my blog piece for this week because it reminded me of the novels I wrote when I was 17. 

I wrote a romance trilogy over the course of about two years, from 17-18. At the time, I was so excited that I completed three manuscripts and so sad when I finished them. I remember sitting at my computer screen typing the last words of my third novel and after I saw the words ‘the end’ I ended up crying. I cried happy and some sad tears because I knew my time with those characters had come to an end. After that emotional rollercoaster, I needed to take a break from it, so I left those books alone for years until one day I had an itch to edit them. I had some more writing experience under my belt by then; I’d taken a few college writing courses and felt like I was ready to make my return to them. Reading about five or six pages in, I realised they were horribly written and it was going to take some serious editing to get them where they needed to be. I think I tried for six months before I just couldn’t stand the book any longer. The plot events and character reactions were so far-fetched that no one would believe them. The grammar of the book was just as bad and quickly I became overwhelmed by the crappiness of my book, so I turned my back on it again. This happened several times over the course of ten years that I kept coming back to those stories and trying to fix them up piece by piece, but I couldn’t figure out why I would only grow more and more frustrated and never felt like I was getting anywhere. The crap book hole just seemed to get bigger and bigger every time I touched it. But just a few weeks ago I had an ‘ah-ha’ moment. During one of the seminars I attended the instructor was talking about how he edits a book by telling us about a book he’d written years prior but just couldn’t bring himself to edit it because too much time had passed. He explained that the writer who wrote that book no longer existed. As years go back our writing evolves, we evolve and to try to go back and edit the words just doesn’t work. YES! Yes, it totally completely made sense. Every time I added a sentence or edited words, I was doing so as my current writer self, not as the 17-year-old writer. The only way to go back to those stories would be to rewrite them all over again from scratch and edit them to perfection soon after completing them. All the anger, frustration at myself I felt for trying and failing, it all got washed away. I wasn’t a failure because I couldn’t edit my story. Finally after all these years, I can just appreciate those stories for what they really were…. practice. I was practicing to be a romance novelist. I feel good now that they are a part of my history and don’t need to be in my present. One day, far in the future, I might get the courage up to rewrite them all over again, but if I don’t, I will always have those three novels, frozen in time, as only my 17-year-old self could write. Those books are my time machine to bring me back to those nights after school, typing furiously in my bedroom, for hours. Back when I had endless amounts of free time and much angst living inside me, ready to spill out on to the pages.

I can’t wait to read my blog posts in twenty years from now and admire how much farther my writing will develop. Maybe I’ll appreciate my angst-y 30-year-old self then too.

Til next week. 

❤ Melissa

Happy Friday! Hope you all have had a good week. I have had an amazing couple weeks. At the beginning of October we spent eleven days in Maui relaxing on the beach then last weekend I spent in Whistler enjoying the Writers Festival.

This was my first writer’s festival and I didn’t really know what to expect, but I had my notebook ready in my hand and my mind open to learn. I started at 6am Friday morning driving up the treacherous Sea to Sky Highway. It was pitch black dark and pouring rain the whole drive up, but slowly I made it. My first seminar was The A to Z of Self Publishing with Martin Crosbie. After having his book turned down over one hundred and thirty times, he self-published his first novel and subsequently became an Amazon bestseller. The seminar was all about Crosbie sharing his tips and tricks on self publishing. He shared a lot of the things that he did wrong when he first went to self published his first novel; basically the what to do and not to do’s of self publishing. It was all day seminar which he mentioned he normally teaches in a weekend, so my head was overrun with great information. He provided great tips on using Amazon as your distributor. I’m still not sure if I’m going the self publishing route when I complete my novel but I definitely feel like I have a great head start on how to do it if I decide to.

On the Saturday my first seminar was writing descriptive prose with Steven Galloway, the director of the University of BC’s Creative Writing Program. He captured my attention with whole two hours with his advice on writing prose. He was funny, interesting and according to many people in the audience a brilliant writer. I, myself, haven’t read his work, but I did send one of his book’s to my Kindle to find out. My second seminar was ‘Good Writing is Rewriting’ with Charles Foran and I was looking forward to tips on editing and maybe some advice on how to appreciate it because I loathe doing it. (That’s a blog for another day.) I didn’t really get what I was hoping to from his lecture which was disappointing, but the one thing I took away from the class was I’m not the only one starts editing only to get frustrated and then quickly ends the editing session.

The last seminar for the day was a reading by four Canadian authors: Vincent Lam, Denise Roig, Kim Moritsugu, Ian Weir. They all read from their currents book and I have to say Vincent Lam was my favorite. His book, “The Headmaster’s Wager” really grabbed my attention and I actually downloaded the book because he left me wanting more.  I really enjoyed hearing the stories from the authors themselves because they brought the story to life with their love for the characters as they read it aloud.

Overall I had an amazing experience in Whistler. I have renewed inspiration to keep going with my writing. Maybe one day they’ll ask me to read from my story. One can only dream. Somehow listening to what everyone had to say over the weekend really concreted the fact that I am on the right track and now all I need to do is finish this book. And I will.

Thanks for taking time to read my words again. I hope you find inspiration during this weekend to encourage you to write or do whatever makes you happy. Until next week.

Stay tuned for my next book review next week and more detail blogs about the inspiration I got from the Whistler Writer’s Festival.

❤ Melissa

 *To find out more about any of the people I wrote about today, click on their names to visit their websites.

Hello everyone out there, hope you are doing well. As always, thank you for checking in with me. What is new with me you ask? Well for a long while now I have felt completely under the gun with laundry list of fun and not so fun activities we have had planned and some how I find myself scrambling often at the last-minute to get things done in time. I thought I had pretty good time management skills, so I figured it came down to too many things in my life. What to do? I guess I have to eliminate something. Hmm.. that was difficult because I didn’t really want to get rid of anything I had planned. After a week of contemplating every day of what I should do, I came up with the only answer I could think of. TV had to go. Yes, I was taking a no TV two-week challenge to test myself and whether I could free up some time to get my other tasks done. The few people I have told about it first gasped and then said you’re crazy… how will you relax then? Good point- I do enjoy turning my brain off at the end of the day and just watching a great TV show. Really by the time we’ve had dinner, cleaned up, done bedtime routine with our son and then packed lunches for the next day we only get about an hour of TV during the week nights. Still if I took that hour to write a blog post or read a couple of chapters of a book then I’d both be relaxed and ahead of the game. One problem I’ve encountered this week though is I am not home at night until late or my hubby isn’t home til late which means I’ve had to do all the nighttime routine myself, so really I have yet to gain any time to get myself ahead. This weekend I’m away for a bachelorette party weekend and next week the hubby is away fishing… so the ironic part is I haven’t actually had a chance to sit down and be tempted to watch TV and don’t foresee much of a chance next week either. Ha, ha, ha! So all I do is laugh to myself. I guess I’ve learned TV isn’t much of a priority in my life, but it is the summer time and there isn’t anything on TV anyway. I might as well watch TV when I can because obviously I do take on too much and have little time to watch TV any way. Not willing to give up on busy schedule just yet, I’ll just keep thinking that I’ll rest when I’m dead until then I guess I’ll keep living every minute, full steam ahead.

Unless of course you wise people out there, have any advice to offer me? Is everyone else always on the run trying to balance everything and get it all done? I sure hope so!

Well here’s hoping to find some balance this weekend. Until next week!

❤ Melissa

Happy Friday once again! Hope all of you are doing well. I have a feeling this post is going to be a short one because it’s Thursday at 2:00pm and I’m just sitting down to write this and my son will probably wake up soon. I am under the gun big time! I have a huge lists of things to do and feeling like time just slips right through my fingers. My list keep growing because- well that’s where the karma comes in. The past few weeks have been rough and I have been feeling so negative. There have been obstacles I have been fighting, parking issues at work, conflicting feelings within myself, anger being one. Our car broke down a few weeks ago and we spent a bunch of money getting that fixed only for our washing machine to crap out this week. Now I have huge piles of laundry I need to cart else where to wash there. I have a child; I have a lot of laundry and I’m short on time.

I have always been a believer of you get back what you put out in the world, so I am taking full responsibility for putting out anger and frustration. The world has presented situations to test my character and I am up to the challenge. I am done being mad and sad, so I figured the only what to stop bad things coming my way is to put out positivity. I am going to be doing random acts of kindness over the next while. I might even try to stop yelling and fingering people when I am stuck in rush hour traffic and they can’t drive worth shit. I will smile and say it’s okay that life has thrown my family some curve balls because it is just money. It isn’t important. We have our health and our happiness and that is enough. I have the support of my family and friends who I don’t tell enough that each of you are always in my thoughts. Every single day I am grateful to have the best friends and the best families, most people aren’t as lucky as I am. I am surrounded by so many people who would drop everything and give anything if I asked and even if I didn’t. I have the most precious perfect son who melts my heart just by one smile. The world can burn down around me and I wouldn’t care as long as I could hold him in my arms and listen to his laughter. I have the most supportive, loving husband and I often sit and wonder what I did so right in my life to deserve someone so wonderful. I am sorry I don’t tell him that enough.

So I take these rough couples weeks as the world reminding me, I have so much greatness in my life and I haven’t been working hard enough to return the goodness out in the world. I will do better. I will spend less time complaining about the bad things and more time being thankful for all the good. Like you… thank you, yes you for reading my words. Your support means everything to me. I am honoured that with the infinite amount of blogs, websites, social media apps, you choose to come back every week and see what I have to say. I wish you all good karma in your lives. TGIF! With that I must go, my son is calling me. I guess this post wasn’t so short after all. 🙂

Off to find a working washing machine… um… yay?! See I’m being all positive already…

Have a happy, safe weekend filled with laughter and love.

❤ Melissa

Happy Friday everyone! For you local people, hope you are enjoying a break from the scorching sun and embracing the cooler weather. Thanks for coming back this week and reading about my exciting news.

Continuing with my no fear 2014 year, I have made another big step. A few months ago I had read about Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts which is this weekend August 14 to August 17, 2014. I was really interested in attending, but I had already had plans for this weekend way ahead of finding out about the festival and I couldn’t cancel those plans. But it got me really thinking about attending a festival and off to Google I went. Going to a writing festival has always been something I wanted to do for years, but I never felt like I could get the courage up to really go. I reassured myself this year was different and after Googling: writer festival Vancouver, writer festival BC, etc… I found one. There it was- the Whistler Readers and Writers Festival, October 17 to October 19, 2014. Of course I came up with several reasons why I shouldn’t or couldn’t go: we just arrive home on the Tuesday that week from Maui- that’s too much travel in a short time; I don’t think I could leave my son for the weekend- he’d miss me; I’m not a real writer-just pretending… and on and on it went for weeks.

One day a few weeks ago, I couldn’t get the festival off my mind. To be honest it was on my mind every day and that’s when I knew I had to go. This was a dream of mine and I had to see it through, in baby steps of course. The schedule wasn’t being released until August 8, so I convinced myself last month to find a hotel room that was refundable (in case I changed my mind) and book it. At least if I booked a hotel room for the weekend, I’d be one step closer yet have a way out if I panicked when the schedule came out and changed my mind. My fears eased. I got my Expedia.com email confirming my hotel room. Check step 1!

Next the panic leading up to when the schedule was being released. What workshops would there be? Would I want to go to any? Which writers would be reading their work? Could I really go this alone? Was I really this brave?

Last Thursday night I visited the website. www.whistlerwritersfest.com/2014-festival/ and found they’d put up the festival schedule, but the tickets weren’t on sale yet. My stomach did a huge flip-flop and I took a deep breath, reaching for a pen and paper. I scrolled through all the events details, chose the ones I was most interested in and wrote them down on my piece of paper. The next morning bright and early, I ran down to my laptop and refreshed my page. Tickets were available! With my heart racing, I added several workshops and one reading to my cart before I checked out. Only then did the panic of reality really hit me, if I clicked ‘Purchase’ there would be no refunds, no exchanges. These tickets would be mine and I’d have to go. No way out. I wasn’t going to just throw away money by cancelling in the end. I wiped the sweat away from my eyebrow. Yes my eyebrow sweats when I get nervous. I was so close to being a big fat writer chicken and not buying them, but in that moment, staring at my screen with the countdown clock counting down second by second before my tickets would then be released back to the public, I couldn’t let myself down… so I closed my eyes and clicked the mouse. Purchase!

So I am thrilled to announce, I am attending my first writers festival and I am so excited to be exposing myself to new opportunities. I am also ecstatic that I am going alone with just my laptop and plan to sit in my hotel room with the fireplace going, a glass of wine next to me and just write. Write, write, write as much as I can stand in that weekend, outside of my workshops of course. This is just for me. This is all about me, for me. It feels so good. I don’t know why I waited 31 years to be brave. Maybe it is only now that I can really appreciate my gift and don’t take it for-granted any longer. I want to nurture it, cherish it and pursue it to the best of my ability.

Whistler… look out, October 17th… I’m coming for you. 🙂

As for this weekend I encourage all of you reading to make something happen for you that is just for you. All about you. I give you permission to be a little selfish and treat yourself to something special, whatever it may be that your heart desires. Life is short and I remind myself every day I only get one shot at this life. I will not shy away from it any longer.

There’s my food for thought. Happy Friday!

❤ Melissa

 

 

Hello and happy Friday! Thanks for coming back and connecting with me. This week I took the time to look back and congratulate myself on completing 16 weeks of blog posts. Yes people we have been here together for 4 months already. I can’t believe it! After years of hiding my writing away from the world, I have finally got the courage up to make it a focal point of my life and so much good has come out of it already.

Firstly, there is this blog giving me the platform to connect with my family and friends and share some thoughts, some ideas and some of my work. Hearing and seeing everyone’s support and amazing comments has really been such a boost as a writer for me. At times it is difficult to share words that are so personal to me and the way my work has been so well received has been unbelievable. Everything I write has a piece of me inside of it and I am eternally grateful for the way everyone has responded to it.

Secondly, there have been so many people I have never met that live all over the world that have read my blog. People from 22 different countries (and counting) have read words I wrote. I can’t describe how that feels to have so many diverse people reading little old me from Vancouver, Canada. My twitter followers are a huge support group and I am so very grateful for every connection I have made with everyone. I have found lots of tips on everything to do with the writing industry just from the links people provide in their tweets. Aside from the tips people give, I love seeing that I’m not the only one out there struggling to do all the normal every day stuff and still find time to write.

I feel that I have come so far and yet have so far to go, which is okay. One step at a time and a little more courage at a time too. I have a game plan for the rest of the year and ideas of where I am going with my writing. Pursuing my writing career is on my mind from the moment I get up to the moment I lay my head down at the end of the night. I am driven to follow through on all my goals because if there is one thing I know it’s life is short, so I want to live with no regrets and no dreams unrealized. 

So cheers to Week 17! And cheers for all of you who come back every week and read my words. I can’t wait to share another 4 months with you on this journey and see where it leads me. 

For those of you still waiting for my book review of The Opposite of Maybe by Maddie Dawson it is on the way. I only have a little more to read and I am done. So far so good I have to say that I have really enjoyed reading her work. I’ll save the detailed stuff for the review which will be up next week or the week after. Promise!

Well… happy BC long weekend to those in BC and happy weekend to the rest of the world. See you next week!

❤ Melissa

 

Hello all you great people out there. Did you have a good week? I hope it brought you much good. Today I am talking distractions, a writer’s nemesis. Okay not just a writer’s issue; most of us out there love and hate a good distraction. What’s your worst distraction in life? Mine is the blinking phone distraction.

I sit down to write: balance my Sony Vaio in my lap, carefully place my phone next to me and open my Word document or my website to write the next great blog post. A few words later my eyes begin to wonder to my phone. Blink, blink, blink… red, blue, green, yellow… blink, blink, blink… could it be a tweet… blink, blink… Facebook message… blink… better just check… with fast fingers I type my password in and quickly swipe my phone down to check my notifications relief washing over me. Now I know who or what is trying to reach me. Okay… lock my screen, place my phone down. Returning my attention to my work, I type away and then once again my mind is begins to wonder- my eyes return to my phone: blink, blink, blink. Oh no… the blinking phone light distraction strikes again. I know what you’re thinking why don’t I just put my phone out of my reach and then I won’ t be distracted. BUT, imagine what I would miss out on!

In saying that, I am not a person completely obsessed by my phone. I can put it away when I go out for dinner or when I’m visiting with family or friends. I don’t understand people who go out for a nice dinner together but spend the whole time on their phones. The world is passing them by and the whole point of spending time together is wasted. So that isn’t an issue for me, but when it comes down to sitting down to write I need that out, that distraction.

In thinking about this further, maybe it really isn’t a distraction so much as multitasking. Yeah, yeah, multitasking… I mean every good writer has to be able to tweet to their followers while writing their next great novel, right? It’s all about being accessible to people. Yeah, accessibility. Okay maybe there is a fault in my logic but I never miss deadlines even with the blinking distractions. I haven’t once miss a week’s blog post since I committed myself to this. Once I dedicate myself to something I follow through; powering through the blinking light phone distractions all the while because I don’t want to miss anything happening in the moment. I have fallen prey to our instant gratification society. We want everything right now: communication, connections, information- immediately. People are posting tweets, photos, status updates one minute after the next and in this busy life, that is how we stay connected to what’s going on in each other’s lives.

Speaking of being connected, sadly I will be away from any internet connection this weekend… yes… there is sweat already collecting on my brow from the withdrawal syndrome setting in. We are going on a family vacation to a remote location without internet. Yes places without modern technology still exist! When the disconnection from the world is too much to bear, I will find try to find Starbucks close by to check in when I can. So please, comment, tweet, email me over the weekend and I will respond to you as soon as I return to civilization.

Until then, have a very happy weekend and thank you again for taking the time to read. Be sure to come back next week because I’ll be posting some of my poetry. I can’t wait for you to read my work and to hear your thoughts.
❤ Melissa

Happy Friday everyone. I hope you all had a great week. Did you get your 7 Happy Thoughts about yourself? I did. It was really scary at first to come up with one each day. It felt wrong in such a weird way like I would be full of myself if I thought of seven good things about me. I didn’t want to be vain, but this task wasn’t about vanity. It was about connecting the mind and heart and just feeling love for ourselves.

The first two days I didn’t think any bad thoughts;  I didn’t say anything bad about myself; I didn’t wiggle my tummy fat. I was off to a pretty good start, but the third day I did waiver slightly… I was thinking some bad thoughts but I quickly reminded myself of the happy thought of the day. If I’m being honest the last few days were harder still. It is very difficult to change your thought pattern in a week, so as those same old insecure destructive thoughts entered my mind, I kept thinking about my happy thought. By yesterday I had completed my 7 Happy Thoughts mission. It was hard giving myself permission to say and believe the following mantras.

1. I am a good Mother. – This one is my first thought because I am so proud to be a Mommy and believe wholeheartedly that I am a great one.

2. I stand up for what I believe in. – This is the second because this is an important part of my character. I love the fact that I am someone who will not stand in the shadows and keep my mouth closed if I see something wrong happening.

3. I am compassionate and caring- One of the best qualities I possess because I do care deeply for others and will try my best to help anyone I can.

4. I work hard to achieve my goals- Writing a weekly blog, constantly searching for ways to diversify and put myself out there is no easy task with every thing else on my plate, but I persevere anyway.

5. I am always trying to be  better version of myself- I try to review the ways I could handle situations better, be kinder to people, be better wife and mommy and be a better writer, etc. Life is about working every day to be better than the last.

6. I have a great sense of humour- Laughter is the best medicine and I love making people laugh. I am sarcastic and love to joke around. I think that side of me makes my personality attractive to people.

7. I am proud to have lost all 45 pounds of baby weight- This was no easy task. It took me 16 months after giving birth. It was difficult trying to accept my body postpartum. It certainly didn’t feel or look like how it used to, so I worked my belly, hips, and bum off trying to get back into shape. It’s still a work in progress but I am so proud of how far I’ve come.

There it is in black and white. My 7 Days of Happy Thoughts. It feels good. It looks good. It reminds me of my struggles and triumphs in my life. Isn’t that what life is all about- how we overcome the obstacles put in front of us? After reading my seven thoughts over again now, I’m starting to feel like maybe this is something I could continue. I have to change the patterns of my destructive thinking and just keep these 7 Happy thoughts close by. Every time I start to tear myself down, I’ll think about them and remind myself that I am worthy of love, life, laughter, beauty. We all are. It shouldn’t matter how other negative people view us or how they might try to make us feel less than we deserve. The only truth is what lies within our own hearts. The more we fill our hearts with love for ourselves; the less empty space there will be for hate.

I hope you did your own 7 Happy Thoughts and if you didn’t get the courage up to, I hope you try it soon. If you feel like sharing, send me a message, email, tweet, whatever form of communication you choose. If you want to keep your happy thoughts private, I respect that too. Even if we all just gave ourselves one happy thought every day who knows how the world around us might change… love is the strongest emotion.

Until next week, keep your happy thoughts written on your heart. Enjoy the beauty of  the weekend.

Take care!

❤ Melissa

 

Another week goes by… wow… I hope everyone is doing well. Thank you for taking the time to check in with me and read another blog post.

This week I’ve been talking to a lot of the women in my life about self- esteem and the way we think about and feel about our bodies. The question came up in conversation when did we start hating our bodies? What changed to take us from the carefree days of our childhood to the self loathing and body image obsessing teenaged years which carries on through adulthood? It seems to gradually get worse as we age too and the more we try to fight the age spots, saggy skin and cellulite, the more frustrated and self destructive we become. When is the last time you looked in the mirror and thought I look great today? I don’t know there was ever such a day that I can remember for me. I can always find a fault; the flabby belly, acne scars on my cheeks, stretch marks, thunder thighs… I won’t bother to continue but I know a lot of you ladies out there know what I’m talking about all too well.

All these thoughts brings me back to my inspiration for my short story that was published in the Nobody’s Perfect spin-off from Chicken Soup for the Soul books. “Beautiful All Along”, which you can find and read under my “Published Work” tab on my website, is the short story I wrote about how I began to grow from a child’s body into a woman’s body and learned to accept myself. While I did make steps towards loving myself more, I certainly don’t love myself as much as I should. If I had a dollar for every horrible thing I said to myself or every time I grab the extra flab on my tummy and wiggled it in disgust, I’m pretty sure I’d be rich.

There is a great quote that has stuck with me from Eleanor Roosevelt, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent”. The only person making me feel inferior is myself. I can blame magazines, models and Hollywood for brainwashing us into thinking a near skeletal woman is the picture perfect image of beauty. That would be easy, to blame someone else, but I take full responsibility for how I view myself. I admit to feeling frustrated when I work out at least four times a week, eating salads, not drinking pop,  chasing after my one year old all day and the scale doesn’t stop close to where I’d like it to. I know I will never be a size zero because I naturally have wide hips, thick sturdy legs and heavy bones. I want to feel satisfied that I put the effort in to be healthy and be happy with the results I have got.  That is difficult with all the bad thoughts circling in my mind.

I want to change that. I do. I have been taking notice of woman in the grocery store, walking down the street, wherever I’ve been and most of them do not look like a size zero. Their bodies in reality are more comparable to mine. In my mind I convince myself that the majority of woman out there have better figures than I do and less imperfections. This is simply not true.

I began to think about how to stop myself from feeling inferior. Every morning for the next week I am making a vow to write down one good thing about myself and throughout the day I am going to think about that one good thing. How terrifying it is to think about writing down 7 good things. I’ll even share those things next week on my blog. Are there any ladies out there willing to take the challenge with me? I invite you to try this with me and share your good thoughts next week. Maybe if I see the words written down on paper I’ll be more likely to believe them.

Here goes 7 Days of Happy Thoughts to bring me closer to not making myself feel inferior.

Until next week. Happy thought-ing… 🙂

❤ Melissa