I gotta love me first

So I think a big part of being hopeful is loving oneself.

I know everyone is on this entire binge of self-love, all with various definitions and some a bit warped if you ask me.

I just think it's simply about treating yourself well - in relationships with people, with your career, your hobbies, your everyday interactions with strangers, with everything.

You can't be nice to someone if you're not nice to yourself.

Take it easy on yourself, you're only one person.

How about if you love yourself a little bit more and hate yourself a little bit less?

How about if you try new things, leaving a huge margin for error and a lot of room for improvement?

When things go wrong, don't be so hard on yourself, learn from your mistakes and try again.

You're only human you know, take it easy. You can't do-it-all and you're not superman.

Loving yourself means trusting your gut instincts, it means challenging yourself and it also means forgiving yourself when things go wrong.

Tomorrow start anew by telling yourself that 'I love you today and that I'm proud of you.'

Try it.

It just might work.

Faith

So what is faith? And I'm not meaning to come across as some know-it-all here. I'm just asking a question here.

Without faith, I can't really do anything, because sometimes I'm not ready, I'm not prepared, I don't have the skills, but if I think realistically, I'll never do anything. I'll never go anywhere.
But with faith, I can do anything I put my mind to. With God's help. In fact, when I think about it, with God leading the way and me just following.
That's such a hard thing to do, just have faith and go. Let go. and go for it.
Faith, hope and love.
Remember?

Faith is, according to the dictionary:

faith |fāTH|noun1 complete trust or confidence in someone or something:this restores one's faith in politicians.2 strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.• a system of religious belief: the Christian faith.• a strongly held belief or theory: the faith that life will expand until it fills the universe.

Deep thinking

Some days I get lost in my thoughts and I spiral out of control. I feel overwhelmed and start to panic that I'm nowhere near where I would like to be.

Sometimes it can last the whole day, a few days or on the odd good occasion, just a few hours.

I am getting better at catching my mind before it heads off on towards the 'race of doom'.

This race has many slogans -

'You will never be where you want to be', 'Stop fooling yourself', 'You'll never be good enough', 'You'll never master the guitar', 'You'll never be able to support yourself, you'll always be struggling'.

It can get really bad. Well, not to the point where I don't get out of bed, but I can be in a bad mood for a while.

But I've been reminding myself recently to enjoy the present.

Stop looking so far ahead, focus on the now and plan properly for the future.

And have hope. Things never turn out the way we think it will.

Sometimes too much deep thinking can be a trap in itself.

Oh sure, think and ponder about life and all its' many facets, but sometimes if we think too much, we'll never get anywhere. We'll be trapped in our own thoughts and not doing anything about it.

Time to put thought into action.

Think and act soon(ish) I say.

A to Z Challenge Theme: Hope

I've decided my theme for the A to Z challenge 2016 will be 'Hope'.

A simple concept but one that's hard to maintain.

Hope.