CHANGING OUR MINDS

Good morning! No, have not just got up but I have jobs to do first thing. Getting out of bed is the first job: better with the electric bed once I find the right buttons. Don't ask what happens when I don't. Then the dogs have to be let out and the squawking seagulls, I mean puppies,  now have to be let out too. Then Pussy and Megan get fed. then the puppies get fed. The adults know my drugs have not kicked in so watch out that i don't fall on them. Even Megan has cottoned on to that.

Be positive! Every cloud has a silver lining as they say. I have suffered body dysmorphia since my teens. I would look in a mirror and all I saw was a fat hideous hunchback of Notre Dam figure, even when I only weighed 7stone. I pretty much dealt with this by refusing to have a mirror. I had only a small one for many years to shave. 
Well, when I had my epiphany that all changed. We now have two large mirrors. On my bad days I don't look because if I do, I hate what i see. On my good days I see Daniel Craig. THAT is the silver lining I was referring to. It does get better, it really does. If you want it to and are prepared to do what it takes and what it takes is that you change your mind. Seriously. There is no magic pill, no magic answer. We just need to change our minds. It is of course the most difficult thing in the world to do. We often don't know what our mind is, let alone that it needs changing. For me, I had to realise that the ideas I had been taught, were just that, ideas, nothing more, and that i could create my own ideas, ideas that would enable me to live without fear and shame which was destroying me. To realise that my parent's opinion of me, the Church's opinion of me, my brother's opinions of me, were just that, opinions and nothing more, I was free. Once I realised that all any of us have is ideas. I had to change mine. The first and biggest problem I faced was to ditch the idea that if I told about the abuse, God would strike me down dead. The first six months of telling were among the most frightening of my life. So much so that I did lose it for a while. But as time wore on and I was still alive I began to realise that my therapist was right. Nothing happened bad happened to me for telling the truth.

Over the years, my ideas about myself, about life, about other people changed. I know they changed for the better because I have such a good life today. I always find that when I feel bad, it is I who needs to change MY thinking on the matter. Be it getting rid of the person, as sometimes that is how our idea must change, we change our mind about it being good for us to have such a person in our lives, or we have to change our attitude to a problem.

All of our problems from abuse, addiction, fear, shame, shyness, all of them respond only to a change in us. Deep within us. A complete overhaul of the way we think. It is simple but in practice it is not and is extremely painful but so worth doing. I am so glad I no longer live the life I used to live, in it's horrible dark dark day after day of suffering, years on end. Today, I don't often suffer in that way. My body suffering is a doddle by comparison.

If I can, you can. You just have to be prepared to change your mind. Literally. The difficult part will be finding out what your mind is. Meaning,, finding out what you really believe. That is really very astonishing. I was gobsmacked to discover some of my core beliefs about myself and others and the world. My core belief was that I was evil and unloveable and unacceptable. Once we knew that, we had to find out what the ideas were that made me think that. Well, I wasn't loved or liked or accepted by my own parents so obviously I was no good.  Not obvious at all. I eventually after years of work, came to realise that the problem hadn't been me but them. WOW! That had not occurred to me. It also wasn't that simple. i couldn't possibly believe that. if I did, God would smite me. After all, one has to Honour Thy Parents. 

I am always surprised at what I write once I start. So here you have it, my thoughts this cold and wet morning. I am happy.