The Power of Words

So, I made a commitment last week to not complain for seven days. At first I thought that this was too difficult to accomplish and I balked at even trying it for a day. This was last Tuesday, and I have gone six days without complaining (at least consciously). What an amazing difference this has made in my life already! I have always known that words are powerful and that what we say, think and do creates are reality, but I never thought of approaching my life in this particular way. Now, I have to admit that not complaining can be difficult for someone who has been dealing with chronic illness for several years. It starts to become all a person can talk about, and even on days when you are feeling better, it is very tempting to talk about how bad you were feeling, or how you are afraid that you will never get better. For me, it has become my story or some sort of strange badge of honor that I carry around and whip out whenever I want to feel unique or feel that I am in need of some attention in the form of pity. Well, all this has done for me is make me create more and more of the same. Not only that, but I keep attracting more people in my life that do just that: complain.
These last few days have been a challenge because it has become very familiar for me to talk about my Cardiomyopathy and Fibromyalgia and what my body was going through - at certain points I felt like I was at a loss for words when speaking with friends. What do I talk about when I am not feeling well and they ask me how I am doing? So far I have focused on talking about how they are doing, or I share with them that I am working on being positive and I am certain that everything is going to work out. Honestly, it has been a new experience for me and it feels so much better not having the need to tell everyone how crappy I feel. Strangely enough, the bad days seem to pass rather quickly when I am focusing on gratitude and the solution, as opposed to calling all of my friends in the hopes that they will feel sorry for me and give me some sort of comfort. All of this has made me realize that being a victim is really an old and outdated way for me to think and live. Do I want to look back at the end of my life and regret the fact that I didn't do much with my life except for suffer and spread my suffering around to others? Or do I want to drop the poor me routine and live up to my God given potential? I have to say that the latter sounds like a much better alternative to me- I know that it is going to take some practice and patience to change my old ways of acting, but if I work on it daily I can only imagine how much better my life will be! I challenge all of my readers to try it for seven days and see how much better it makes you feel- I can pretty much guarantee that you will be thrilled that you made this commitment to yourself too.