January 2020

Deborah Horton

Best Laid Plans

The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. ~ Robert Burns

Many times, we can start something, make plans, try to help someone else, and yet it doesn’t go as we had planned. In fact, sometimes it can end up as a huge failure.

Our intentions can be absolutely good and worthwhile. We can feel that what we are planning and doing is the right path. We can even convince ourselves that it is going much better than it actually is because it’s hard to admit we have been wrong.

In some of these instances, our well-meaning errors only affect ourselves. However, in other less fortunate circumstances, these best laid plans affect others and that is when we can feel even worse.

The effects on ourselves can still be costly. If not in money, in other ways such as on our emotions, which can affect our physical health and on our thoughts about our ability to make good decisions. So we can begin to question ourselves, our intelligence, our intentions.

The effects on others can be more costly. Best laid plans may seem the right path to us, even for others, but when we try to decide or guide the paths of others and they are unable or unwilling to follow them, the cost can be high. Anger, loss of trust, loss of relationships, and emotional turmoil. Even with the best of intentions, we have to remember that others need to choose their own paths.

So what happens when our best laid plans go wrong? Outside of the things mentioned above, we are usually presented with some choices. The choices of how to continue now that we realize our error and the choice to learn from making the error so as not to repeat it.

Choosing to continue isn’t really a choice, life goes on. Choosing in what way we continue, however, is a choice. We can continue with trying to be better and do better or we can continue with being angry or depressed about our errors.

Choosing to learn and not repeat is a full on choice that we have to make ourselves. We can choose not to learn and ignore our responsibility in the error and we can choose to continue to repeat it suffering over and over and possibly causing others to suffer as well.

The best laid plans with the sincerest of intentions can look and sound brilliant to us, but in reality our perceptions can be wrong. Errors are unavoidable in life. We humans are flawed and we make mistakes. But we are also able to learn and grow and that is the beginning of every mislaid plan.

Until next time, Deborah

Deborah Horton

Mistakes

mistakes

Mistakes come in two categories. Those we do not realize we are making and those we choose to make. Both can be life changing and education, if we let them.

The mistakes we do not realize we are making can be the hardest to manage. They sneak up on us when we think we are doing the right thing or making the right decisions. It can take time for it to play out and for us to see that maybe it wasn’t a good idea in the first place.

These mistakes can be sometimes hard to accept. The ones where we think we are being smart but it ends up that we might not be as bright as we thought we were or that we didn’t do enough research or moved too hastily.

These mistakes can also be the ones where we are unaware of the issues driving us to make them or that we have not acknowledged those issues. Getting into bad relationship after bad relationship out of a fear of being alone but wondering why we keep doing it.

These mistakes can teach us lessons and can provide us with the knowledge of what not to do again – IF we let them. Recognizing the mistake and why it was made and working towards not repeating it can be life changing especially if it’s one that we have made multiple times.

The other kind of mistake, one we knowingly choose, is much harder to manage. The one where we know it’s wrong, or we know why we are doing it and do it anyway, or the ones we make out of anger or sadness but we know we are doing it. These can make us feel worse about ourselves after. These can cause us to seek out self-medication for the guilt. These can hurt others as well as hurting ourselves.

Acknowledging our responsibility in chosen mistakes can be very painful and something we try to avoid. We can try to tell ourselves that it was not our fault and blame others. But the truth is in us and it can make us feel like crap about ourselves but we may not know how to stop repeating them.

Both types of mistakes require self examination. Really looking to see how these mistakes happened. Were they the first kind or the second? Why were they made? What is our responsibility in them? And how can we learn from them, not repeat them, and grow? If the mistakes are choices, how can we work through the things that are causing us to continue to make that choice?

Mistakes are not the end, but only the beginning of learning, growing, acceptance, and healing. IF we allow them to be those things. The next mistake you make, stop, examine, don’t blame yourself or others, learn, grow, heal and keep walking.

Until next time,
Deborah

Deborah Horton

The First and The Last

first-last-5

Making the choice in your mind of what you think the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night can change your entire outlook and mood. One thought twice a day to change the direction of the rest of your thoughts.

How often do you open your eyes in the morning and say to yourself words such as – I slept terribly, my (insert body part here) hurts, I am still tired, I am in a bad mood, today is going to be a bad day, and on and on we go. These words are like the boot up for your brain for the day.

They turn on your system of thoughts and are the power source for everything that follows. If they are negative, everything that follows off of that power source will be negative.

However, if you open your eyes and say – I feel great, I am grateful for another day, I know today is going to be a good day, I am happy. The power source is switched. The boot up is positive. Endorphins are released. We are happier by default.

At night, it is the same patterns. We can end our day before going to sleep with all the negative things we experienced throughout the day. Or we can seek out the positive. Even if there is no positive to be found, we can end our day with tomorrow will be better, I am glad this day is over, I am grateful for sleep, I will dream of happy things. Visualize what you want to see in your sleep. Remember, what you input to your brain is what it will output to you.

Start to practice the first and the last words and thoughts of the day. If you find yourself defaulting to the negative, correct yourself, and insert the positive. Notice the output of your mind if you input the positive at these times of day.

The first and the last word and thoughts of the day can have a profound impact on your thoughts and feelings. Give it a try today and experience the change for yourself.

Until next time,
Deborah

Deborah Horton

Be Happy Where You Are

photo of woman looking at the mirror
Photo by bruce mars on Pexels.com

Many times we find ourselves being unhappy with where we are. We wish and hope that things will change. We want something, possibly everything, to be different. We cannot seem to be able to be happy right where we are.

I was reading the book The Four Agreements in bits and pieces again between clients this last week. I kept coming back to doing your best. We often can think and then feel that whatever we are doing, where ever we are, we are LESS than. It is not good enough. But in doing your best, it is WHATEVER we are capable of doing at that moment.

Some days, where we are is just awake lying in bed. But our best on that day is being awake lying in bed. Other days, we get up and sit in a chair or on the sofa. On that day, our best is in the getting up and sitting somewhere else. Still other days, we get up, get dressed, and accomplish a single task like brushing our teeth. On this day, our best is doing one single task.

Where we are takes on many shapes. It changes from moment to moment. Where we are can be difficult or it can be easy. Even so, sometimes when it is easy, we are still not happy where we are because we search for something more or find something else that needs to change.

Stop right now and notice where you are. What are you doing? Where are you? What can you see, touch, smell, hear, taste? Tell your mind that you are happy in this moment, right now. You don’t have to be happy about a specific thing, just in this moment I think happy, I feel happy. And smile.

How we think is how we feel, not the other way around. Work this week to be happy where ever you are and practice it over and over. Notice how thinking happy makes you feel happy. Be happy where ever you are.

Until next time,
Deborah