So much has happened since yesterday’s post.

After writing that blog I fell asleep while Elysse was taking her nap. I woke up with the same gloomy empty feeling. So I grabbed my phone and visited the fitness group page that I’m a part of on Facebook. I saw a couple of posts of some of the girls that had gotten their workout in and then I scrolled my news-feed and I saw two more posts from friends that are health coaches. The last one really hit me in my heart. She had a picture of herself and the following quote, which I’d seen before:

I will believe in you until you believe in yourself.

As I lay there I thought about those words. What did I need right now, how could I feel better? I glanced at my watch, 2pm. A 30 minute workout. Elysse is asleep. I have date night tonight. I haven’t had lunch. And I need to pick up Celeste at 3pm.

A 30 minute workout.

Without further hesitation, I jumped out of bed, opened my dresser and quickly found workout clothes to change into. I thought again about the time, about date night, that my makeup would smear, that I might have to rush out of the house in my post-workout sweaty state to pickup Celeste at school. Then I went to the TV and looked for my workout page.

It felt SO good to do the warm-up and get my workout started. Especially because I had lost my consistency in the last month and a half. Then Elysse woke up. Gasp!

Since she had fallen asleep in the stroller, I just went over and rolled her over to the living room. Thankfully she just lay there and watched me continue with my workout and just got fussy for me to grab her the last 5 minutes. By then it was 10 min to 3pm and I peeled my clothes off (seriously trying to get out of a sports bra post workout is ridiculously difficult!!) and rinsed off super fast, changed back into my dress and ran out the door with Elysse in hands.

This is what I wrote on the group fitness page that I was telling you about earlier:

The last month in a half has been so rough for me. I can probably count with one hand the amount of times I’ve worked out 🙁 today I got hit with such a wave of discouragement and it made me sad. It was more related to purpose in life and I knew it also had to do with the fact that I haven’t been consistent with working out – something I have grown to love and need physically and mentally. So I took a short nap and woke up still feeling empty. Then I saw your posts and other friends posts that workout. And one in particular wrote that quote “I will believe in you until you believe in yourself” and before I could think of an excuse I put my workout clothes on. The afternoon is my least favorite time of day to workout. Plus I barely had enough time to do the workout. My makeup is now smeared and it’s date night tonight. But that’s ok. Because I feel so good right now and that’s going to make for a better rest of the day and enjoyment of tonight. ❤️😊

Changing my thoughts allowed myself the opportunity to be flexible and to do something that helped change my mood tremendously. The rest of the day I felt genuinely happy. I was able to fully enjoy the date night with my husband. I kid you not, this shift in my thoughts created an incredible vibration of positive things in return.

My cousin sent me a video about having a thankful mindset…even being thankful for not being where you think you should be at or achieving the thing you believe you should be achieving. Just being thankful triggers a different reaction in your mind and body, in the way you perceive your present life and in being able to enjoy and be happy with where you are at now.

I ran across this awesome quote:

 What a truly powerful message there is here. I thought to myself, how often do we (I) fall and quickly convince ourselves that this thing we’re trying is maybe not for us? I realized how easy it can be to let our thoughts stop us from moving forward. It’s hard, I know. It was also tough for that little kid learning, and look at him/her now!

My cousin shared that when she read my post yesterday she thought, this was Yvonne five years ago, when I had these feelings and left Sanie. And even though I was somewhere else, I still had the same feelings. And then I came back to Sanie. It’s not my job, it’s internal. It’s the fact that I sometimes fall victim to the mentality “maybe this isn’t for me” and I forget to be thankful. I forget that I am exactly where I am meant to be. And I realize…today I have the very blessings that I prayed for over a decade ago.

So I changed my thought process this morning to being thankful for where I’m at and believing that today will be a good day. I had an email exchange with my cousin in which she apologized for being late to work and although her and I have always had a very distant relationship filled with friction, I paid it forward with all the positive energy I had received from others and I sent her an encouraging reply related to, you guessed it, being thankful in the midst of difficult mornings. Basically, life.

And then I got a message from the mom of one of Celeste’s dance friends asking me if I would be interested in joining a Girl Scout troop they’re forming, it’s her and another mom I know (our girls are in the same dance company). I was floored because I kid you not, we had been thinking about putting Celeste in girl scouts but there was no troop close to home and then I get this message and these two ladies live about a 1/2 mile away from us.

Our thoughts and the vibe we send out matters. Again, it’s not easy, but the outcome is very well worth it. Even here at work. I’m happy to be here. There’s some negativity and gossip that happens at work, which honestly happens everywhere, but today before I walked in I said out loud, I’m thankful for the opportunity I’m getting to learn how to deal with negative people and how to be better about how I handle that kind of behavior and those situations.

“Attitude is everything. New day, new strengths, new thoughts.”