Merry Monday: the Positivity Challenge Week 6

And we enter the final week of the positivity challenge.
I am definitely happier, and much more aware of my lack of positivity. I think awareness is the first step to recovery.

This week's challenge: Nurture your sensitive, artistic side.

• Be creative: draw, paint, write, compose poetry, mold clay,journal even if you have not done anything like that before. Let your right brain work and express yourself. Your purpose is not to demonstrate how much of an artist you are, but to have fun being creative. Get your Momster on, by getting dirty with some arts. Put on some music and lose yourself for a half hour in something purposeless, yet beneficial and beautiful.
  
• If you have a dog, go for a walk or spend time playing with them, pet them, brush them. Realize the miracle of your dog alive, communicating with you without words. Enjoy being playful.
• If you keep plants, do some gardening and find peace in grooming your plants. Buy yourself a flower pot of your favorite color and remember the beauty of life whenever you look at it.Plant some seeds of your favorite vegetable and savor the process of growing life. This is one area that I do not have much success in. I often joke that I have a "black thumb" being the grim reaper to any plant that has the unfortunate chance of bending their stems into my house. So I will stick to sewing, crafts and paper- inanimate, non-living items.

 Remember you can repeat the six week challenge anytime you feel negativity breathing down your neck, or after a particularly stressful time in your life.

Happy Yom Kippur! Time to restart and renew.

Love and positivity,
Kerry the Momster

Merry Monday: Positivity Challenge Week 5

Positivity Progress thus far:  I have to be honest, it has been VERY difficult to help people whilst on bedrest, but I have tried to do things for my family. I called people, wrote letters, and gave undivided attention to my daughter. I thanked my husband for his help as much as I could and really hope he knows how much I appreciate him. 

This week's Challenge:

Try some journaling in a diary, or journal. But be specific about what's bothering you. Take five minutes just to write out everything that is going on in your head. It doesn't have to sound good, witty, or beautiful. It's just like a brain vomit (charming, right?). But just keep writing until you feel cleansed.

Love and positivity,
Kerry, the Momster

Merry Monday: Positivity Challenge Week 4

 Hello and a Merry Motivational Monday to you all!
AND Happy Labor Day! 
Very appropriate for me as I seem to be in a constant state of preterm labor and continue to be on bedrest :/

 Progress thus far: I forgave myself for past mistakes, and refuse to keep beating myself up like one of those monks who whips themselves to acknowledge their inadequacies. I will no longer dwell in past doggy-doo. Of course this-as all of it- is a working progress.


Positivity Challenge Week 4: Try to help someone or do something for someone each and every day. Helping your family is great helping strangers is better! Some ideas: hold a door open for someone, bake cookies for an annoying neighbor (don't put things that they are allergic to inside as this negates the positivity- although it may FEEL positive for you as you cackle with glee whilst baking), offer to run an errand for someone, pay the toll for the driver behind you, put money in a meter that's almost empty, offer to help someone unload/load groceries, rent your spouse's favorite kind of movie and watch it with them (even if you loathe it, more props for not saying how much!), volunteer at a shelter, buy flowers for your mother, give a homeless guy a hot meal, or a bag of new socks (trust me on that one!!)... 

You get the idea. It's not about getting recognition, or even being thanked. It's about putting a little love out there into the world. Let your positivity have some reach.

 

Love and labor,

Kerry, the Momster

Merry Monday Week 2: aka the Positivity Challenge

It is merry Monday yet again, and I am still trying to remain positive. My task this past week was to take a short walk every morning to meditate and reflect.

Day 1: I enjoyed my morning walk, but honestly trying to get through the lack of sleep during the day cancelled out the positive start to the day. This had less to do with the actual walk, and more to do with getting back to work and 6am wake ups.
Sigh.
Day 2: Great walk, but swung by the mailbox, which kind of offsets the aimless mind-clearing activity.
Day 3:My walk got shorter as I was pressed for time, but took some nice cleansing breaths to begin my day. I definately was in a better mood today.
Day 4: Oops, no walk this morning. Got up 15 minutes before I was meant to leave for work. I think I will switch my walks to the evening. I rush around too much in the morning.
Day 5:Ahhh, no walk today either, due to no sleep and a run in with a noisy neighbor. But maybe my positivity is increasing, because said neighbor's face is still in tact. Lucky for her, I am super zen now.
BUT I will continue the walks as they are peaceful, so they now will be after-dinner walks.
 
This weeks challenge: is to find something positive to say about and/or to each person you speak to. This can be a compliment or a statement about your life, or just an observation. But it must be positive!

For more positive inspiration to keep you inspired read this blog.


Love and lightness,
Kerry the Momster

In a more positive light....

kerryjaclyn.com

Call it age, call it life's hard-knocks, call it pure cycnicism.... I have noticed that in most activities and conversations, I tend to lean towards the negative. I have noticed it more and more in recent months and I need to act to end it right now! I do not want to turn into one of those bitter old women, complaining about everything, where nothing is never enough.

As it is one thing to proclaim "I will no longer think negatively!", and an entirely different to actually DO it, I have set up a challenge to break the habit. My good ol' friend, Dr. Phil says it is easier to start a new habit, than to break and old one and thus I will work to eradicate negativity, by adding positivity. It's simple math, really.

My project is that each week I will add a new activity/challenge or thought process to my life. I will continue it for the full 7 days, and then the next week will add the next thing on top of that.
I don't really have an end date in mind, as I would like this to be a lifetime ambition, but I will revisit how I feel now, in 6 months, and compare notes.

Things that currently bother me:

• how annoyed I get at people while driving
• my short temper with my family and easy irritability
• the way I tend to focus on negative aspects in other people's lives
• my negative self talk (saying to myself that I don't do enough, or try enough)
• not being satisfied with all that I have
• complaining about work all the time
• how I feel some friends aren't there for me

I hope that in 6 months I see a vast change in these areas of my life.
So starting TODAY, each Monday will be Merry Monday, and I will write about my new activity. I hope you will challenge yourself to join me in making the world a brighter, ticklier place.


This week's challenge: An early morning walk. Now I know what you're thinking! I have enough to do in the mornings with getting kids to school, getting ready for work, and being a teacher, I have to be at work by 7:30. But I aim to get up 10 minutes before my usual alarm time of 6:30 and take a leisurely stroll whilst drinking my coffee, by myself, contemplating the day, the world and whatever else flows through my thoughts. So I'm not "losing" sleep, but gaining meditative time.... see I'm thinking more positively already!

Love and lightness,
Kerry the Momster