Choosing a State of Mind

Lately I have been remembering that I choose my state of mind. I choose how I perceive things-within my ability to perceive otherwise. I was feeling angry at my brother for something, and I stopped for a moment and realized I didn't have to be angry. (Especially if I am going to follow what I believe in-which is that everything happens for a reason. :) ) It didn't really matter. I keep making things matter that aren't that serious. Of course, I know the reasons behind my mental exaggerations. They are more serious, but they really don't have anything to do with the situation at hand. I've found that my main fear is that I'll be a failure. I'm afraid to fail at life, so I don't try to live. I create relationships that are bound to fail, out of my need not to fail. I create fail/fail choices because I don't want to be responsible for anything, because I don't want to fail. I fail because I don't want to. I talked to God about this in my journal. He made it clear that the only way for me to escape my fail/fail options is to decide who I really want to be, and what I really want to do. If I want to do it, and I do it, I can't fail. It only becomes a fail when I'm not sure about my decisions. Here's what He said: "Decide who you want to be, really. Decide what you want to do, really. And once you have, don't let following your chosen path count as a failure. If you do it, you succeed, no matter what you fail to do. When you succeed at winning, you fail at losing! Just as you succeeded at saying no at the retreat, and failed at saying yes." Later She said: "Do not worry. You will not fail me. You cannot fail me." Oh, I needed to hear that so much! Thanks, God! :) God's love for us is higher than our deepest wishes of what love could be. We cannot fail God!

Suffering for Silence

I was ordered to speak

but remained silent

for fear of ridicule

for rebellion

But what use was it

to keep quiet

and destroy love?

To whom must I be

faithful?

Must I betray myself

to please him?

Or uphold my dignity?

This question burns me.

What choice do I have

when both paths

fail one of us?

Who's to suffer?

I took this question

to bed

and let my tears

wash me into myself

where I was no good

and death loomed

before me

my emotions tore at me

until in my pain

I smashed my head

into the bars

of my prison

until it split

and my blood

poured out into

my dreams

and drowned my purpose.

As I lay there

hopeless

I fell asleep

and when I awoke

it was no more.

Only a memory

of suffering

and a throbbing

in my head.

I want to be free.

Never Good Enough: The Lie of Perfection

I'm not really interested in doing Tuesday Topics anymore, I just don't really have any thoughts on the subjects they choose, so it's kind of pointless. Besides that, I don't like to write my thoughts when they are not interesting and thought provoking. It makes me feel ineffectual, less than who I want to be, and I judge my writing by strict standards. It sucks being a perfectionist. Actually, it's quite depressing. I drew a picture of my mother a couple of years ago, and I don't like it at all. I see it's flaws. I didn't feel it was good enough to show anyone, but I decided to anyway. Everyone I showed it to seemed to think it was a work of art. My fears and need to be perfect have deprived me of sharing my gifts with the world. Never good enough is my constant inner message to myself. No wonder I'm depressed. I do not know how to stop that recording. I have had it for so long. How can I believe anything but that? It makes itself sound so true. Especially when the messages around me are usually the same as the one in my head. When they are not the same, I don't believe them because I don't trust others-unless they agree with my misperception of myself! So defeating! I'm trapped in my own head! I do hope I have a key, or someone does. God's message to me is that She loves me-how do I even truly believe that when in my head it's "No one loves you. You are not worthy to be loved." Will continuing to affirm that God loves me break the chain of negative messages? I truly hope so, I have been using affirmations for a couple of weeks. I do not see much progress, but that does not mean it isn't working. Could just be that these positive messages I am using are pushing the negative ones out, and that's why I am running into them more often and with more ferocity. They do not want to leave their home. I feel insignificant and pointless. I feel like I have no purpose. God has said that my purpose is to live as the trees live. They give of themselves naturally. And they give what they can give, and not what people want them to give. You can't expect a tree to grow money, you will be sorely disappointed. I am tired of the expectations people place upon me. Trees live. I am to live. Just to live. In living, I love, I give, I grow. I do not have to give the perfect gift, nor give it perfectly. I do not have to love perfectly or grow perfectly. I do not have to be perfect! The image of perfection is a lie-the only perfect we can achieve is imperfect. My drawing of my mother is imperfect, and that's perfect! It must be imperfect! It is meant to be imperfect! My gifts are perfectly imperfect. We really need some new words, I think. Perfect and imperfect are so full of prejudisms and biases.