I had a "pause"

I was up today at 6:00 (ok 6:15) doing unglamorous tasks such as sorting and washing laundry. I don't think I've done any laundry since DC and it's caught up with me :) I still need to finish putting up some books and finishing up my rearranged apartment...I just was so tired yesterday coming home from work. I already am feeling better starting up my plan again. Even though I stumbled (or had a pause) yesterday during the mid afternoon, I felt more active, in a better mood, and overall happy about life. The tired that I felt...it was a full, satisfied day tired. Not a run down, I'm always tired kind of thing. There's a difference--I've been feeling that run down tired feeling for the past couple of months :)

Today the book piggybacked on yesterday's reading about using more positive language when you mess up or make a mistake on your dieting plan. They recommend saying to yourself "I had a pause." Which, sounds kind of awkward to me. For some reason I associate it with "I had a period." I have no idea why, but I do. Haha. Anyway! I like the analogy the author used of hiking a mountain, and because you get tired and thirsty, you pause, resting and drinking water, and then get up to start again. If you did this, you wouldn't berate yourself for pausing and then give up. You also would beat yourself up and make yourself restart back a few hundred paces. You just continue.  The author encourages you to view slip ups as this kind of pause. "If you slip up on your diet plan, simply say, 'I had a brief pause, but now I'm back on track."

Good little chapter :)

"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others." Phil 2:3-4

Oh, to live a life in which I don't do something for selfish reasons or vanity. I have a lot of self confidence at times...which...at other inconvenient times...turns into vanity. The fact that I can't not check myself out in a mirrored/glass object when I walk past is partly because I want to make sure I still look right, and partly because I am like "damn, you're still cute." Haha. But in all seriousness...how many times do I consider others better than myself? Gosh...how many times do I consider myself better than others? More often than not I feel like I look at a situation or person and judge it/him/her, rather than try to understand it and come to a sensible conclusion about it.

And I think that I'm a pretty non-judgmental person at times, especially when it comes to people I don't know...but the criticism and the inability to recognize people's good points and why I liked them in the first place comes into play when I've known someone awhile...just long enough for them to irritate me :) I'm learning to be more graceful with my friends, with my coworkers (lord help me!), and with my family. To be honest, my family is easy. I don't know if God granted me that grace awhile ago, or what. But I love them so much that I don't know if I can even hold a grudge at this point :)

Anyway, I'm going to think about that...looking not only to my interests...but to others as well. How can I help further this person's goals? How can I make them feel like family? How can I be more loving? etc. We'll see how this goes. I'm an ever imperfect work in progress :)