Changing my mindset

This week I realized that even though my life has so much goodness in it, I’m overwhelmed with the negative and not seeing the goodness as much as I should. I have been overwhelmed with the sadness and hardships going on in this world, and as someone who deeply feels empathy for others, it’s taken a toll on my mental health. 

For a while now, I have been pretty consistent with my daily Examen and writing down 10 things I am grateful for each morning or evening. These were always in the form of “Thank yous” to God for the many, many blessings in my life. During Lent, I felt that darkness creeping in. I was inconsistent with my daily gratefuls. I even talked to my spiritual director about it last month. I felt like I was in a desert and just stuck. Finding the “good things,” something I had been doing regularly since I was 20, was a challenge, a chore. And I stopped doing it. I felt like I was repeating things, and my heart didn’t have the lightness and joy I often felt even when I did manage to write something down. Instead, my heart remained heavy even when I could muster up the energy to do it.

This weekend, I realized after talking with my husband that we have to really, really work on changing our mindset. There are things that we love that end up feeling dark and like heavy chores. Has this weekend been busy? Yes… but it was also so good! 

I met up with my book club friends after missing our meetings for months. We cheered our kids on in a lot of sports— we watched our son play baseball (after having eye surgery last week), watched our other son make amazing saves as goalie at his soccer game, and watched our daughter step up to the task of being team captain for her first game of the season. I had money to buy flowers to plant in my yard and in pots to make me (and pollinators) happy. My husband and I went on a date night at our favorite wine and cheese place; our daughter is old enough to babysit so we don’t have to get a sitter and we can save money and get us time. We went to Mass. We went to bed early and slept in some, giving our bodies much needed rest. We did some work on house chores. God took care of rain so we were given time back and didn’t have to water the plants. I even got my nails done and read some of Pope Francis’ autobiography while I was there. We ALL did laundry. We ate well. I ended the weekend with an engagement session for a former student and her fiance; I get to document their wedding in June. 

I was surrounded by busyness, yes, but I also had so many good things happening in my life. I was reminded that I have to stop and soak in so that goodness and see the joy that came from wonderful family time and memory making. THAT is what I need to focus on.

Despite the fact that I know this, what do I see myself dwelling on? I hear the negatives. They’re loud and clear. I’m feeling discouraged with myself because I only did a TINY bit of grading. I’m hard on myself because I didn’t get in a workout. I’m frustrated with myself because my house isn’t spotless. I didn’t get all of the plants I bought in the pots or in the ground. I’m letting those negative voices be so much louder. Can anyone else relate? Does anyone else let these voices be louder and sometimes take control? 

The Easter season is about new life; sometimes I feel like that by giving up or doing something in Lent, we’re attempting to create new life when we give up that bad habit or doing that thing that is good for us we don’t do enough. It’s like a second attempt at a new year’s resolution, and it’s over at Easter. But really, shouldn’t Easter be the season where we say yes and really give into that change? 

I didn’t do my best with what I was doing at Lent, so guess what… I’m trying to start over again. I’m working to notice where God’s presence is in my life. I’m working on journaling again and recording where the magic is happening in my life. 

Maybe I needed the warmer temperatures that came this week, the green trees, the singing frogs, and colorful plants to remind me that I am lucky. My life is good. God has blessed me, and God continues to bless me despite the ugliness in the world.  

We’ve been reading Pope Francis Family Devotional as a family since he passed even though I bought this book for the kids years ago. I think the reading that touched me the most this week was from a homily he gave at the Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida, Brazil on July 24, 2013. He said, ”I would like to say forcefully: Always know in your heart that God is by your side; he never abandons you! Let us never lose hope! Let us never allow it to die in our hearts! The ‘dragon,’ evil, is present in our history, but it does not have the upperhand. The one with the upper hand is God, and God is our hope!”

So as I begin a new week, I am working on taking these words to heart. I’m not letting myself ignore the world’s ugliness, but I am remembering that God has the upper hand. I’m trying to remember that God is at my side, encouraging me to see goodness and hope. It’s about changing my perspective, my mindset. Hopefully, that shift helps me to continually see how blessed I really am.