The Wagon

As you probably gathered, Tuesday wasn't one of my prouder moments in life. I decided to wallow that day. After I spent the day wallowing I realized that I didn't really care for wallowing. But isn't wallow a fun word? While it seemed like it was too much effort to try hard to like myself that day I realized that it also takes effort to not like myself and makes everything else so much harder. When I don't like myself I can't be a good wife, mother, friend, daughter, sister, or person.

I had an Ah-Ha moment. Or maybe a thank-you-captain-obvious moment. It's fascinating how often the two coincide. I realized that when life's storms start to rain on us the first things we let go are sometimes the most important. When we become stressed out about money, raising children, work, school, family, or any combination of things the first thing we let go is exercise and healthy eating. We also start to feel bad about ourselves. Obviously the only reason we are dealing with these stresses is because we simply aren't good enough. Then we fall off the wagon and watch as it carries on without us.

Image taken from http://mosquitomediaserver.com

So back to my Ah-Ha moment. I think we are too quick to assume that the wagon has fled. So we had a bad day. So what? If instead of falling off the wagon we would continue our healthy, happy habits we would find that dealing with all the other stuff gets a lot easier. We can actually deal with our stress with style and may find that those things we thought were such a big deal are no longer such a big deal.

So that's the goal. But let's face it, we will all have a day on the ground now and again. We are not perfect and we will eventually give in to our desire to wallow. That's okay too, but don't stay off the wagon long. It won't get that far in front of you. Spend your few minutes or even a day in the dirt, but then get up and get back on. 

You only fail when you give up. So do what you need to, but never give up.

Image taken from http://www.therealmartha.com