Blue Sky Thinking

Blue-sky thinking is modern-speak for thinking without limits, to use another cliche, "to think outside the box". When I see blue sky like this, it reminds me of positivity, fun and potential. Today is the re-starting of my thinking, to be more positive, see more fun and aim towards my potential, rather than run away scared. Success (and failure) comes from trying, not from avoiding.

Blue Monday

According to the "experts", today is supposed to be the gloomiest day of the year - all to do with distance from Christmas, distance from Spring/Summer and the weather + the economy news at the moment. Actually I thought it was supposed to be next Monday as it's a month from Christmas, but then I'm not the expert of formulae for happiness.

All I know is that today I'm not going to let someone else tell me what my mood is supposed to be. I have positivity and strategies - they're not raining on my parade!!

Negative v.s positive

Yesterday my positivity evaporated - I got too close to a negative black hole - but it showed me as a reminder to keep myself away from negative energies and thoughts. I used to surround myself with negative people. I don't consciously seek it but they found me. And the thing about negative people, they don't build their esteem up, they knock yours down to their level, and zap your motive and energies. And it takes all your strength to stay positive around them - they are negative black holes and they leech your strengths out.

I chat and help others on a website for those recovering or seek to recover from mental illness, of which depression and anxiety (my original illnesses) are just a few. Together and separately, we each on the website and its portal are trying to find the ways that work for us to turn away from that black hole, and get some space between ourselves and it. And some ways will work, and some don't, but from each other we get new ideas or the fuel to keep moving away from the black hole, and sometimes we have to work alone, as we are the experts on our ups and downs. Something happened today, I found something I thought was lost (nothing really, just a phone charm I'd bought but which disappeared) and this revealed two things to me: 1. sometimes things/ideas etc are found when you aren't really looking for them or have stopped looking for them and 2. that sometimes light reveals much more than darkness does.

Advice isn't for everyone - it's for us to acknowledge that it is just advice and we can choose if we take it on board or discard it as not for us, but we do have a choice. It's what makes us us and not other people . Yesterday luckily there were people out there ready and willing to let me lean on them, and their words, compassion and empathy helped to repair the work negativity had done to me, as negativity is contagious, drawing you back if you’re not careful. In recovery I'm learning how to live with my illness, rather than it telling me what not to do. Keeping some positivity for me, but sending some out too, best wishes for today and the weekend, wherever they each find you, love xx

Wishing you a New Year

Here's to a New Year,

A year of beginnings or ends

Of possibilities, not disasters

Of meeting new friends.

For some it may not be happy

But I wish positivity to all

And may you find it unexpectedly

In places you thought you knew well.

xx