Me Again

Three weeks ago, I attended a special Relief Society Activity where a lady talked to us about Vision Boards.  Have you ever heard of those?  Because I hadn't.  In brief, a vision board is a display that's been divided into 9 equal squares, wherein you put 9 things that you want listed in first-person, present-tense statements. Then you stand in front of your board with your arms open to it and read it out loud daily, and you tell people about it as you feel the need to see things happen that are on your board, and when the things happen, you take them off your board, put them in a "gratitude binder," and replace them with new ones.

My ears perked up a little, because that's basically the same thing I did with my 30 before 30 list, and I've found it incredibly successful thus far (some of my goals haven't yet happened, but I see them all feasibly able to be accomplished by next April).

I didn't know what exactly to put on there, but I came home and told Steve about it, and then thought, "Hm.  I'll have to get a vision board sometime soon."  

And then, of course, I did absolutely nothing about it for a week and a half.

Come Mother's Day, Steve came in and brought me my present. I pulled it out of the bag, and voila...

My very own Vision Board.  He didn't write any of the statements on there (I do that myself, of course), but he was thoughtful enough to make it a magnetic one so that my goals/blessings/gifts, whatever you'd like to call them, would be easily replaceable as they were achieved.

So I've been trying it.  I don't know if you can see all of them very well (the picture is pretty fuzzy), and that's okay if you can't, but I want to focus on a couple in particular.

For months now, I've been in a funk.  I haven't been motivated to do anything, and if I've been happy at all, I've had to work hard to get to the point of even feeling happy or grateful or any positive emotions, really. Unless I was heading somewhere, I was content to spend all day in pajamas and without showering or doing any semblance of getting ready.

This isn't typical for me--I'm usually a positive, motivated person, and so to be in such a depressing state (without having PPD to blame for it) has been painful and frustrating for me.  

When it came time to write my vision board, I knew exactly what my first statement would be.  I wrote down, "I am EFFORTLESSLY happy!"  and then put it smack dab in the middle of my board.  

Every day for the past two weeks, I've read these statements out loud, facing my board with an open posture, and I've thought about these statements throughout the day as they come to my mind.

And yesterday morning, for the first time in months, when I woke up, I felt like ME again.  I didn't hide under the covers until my children forced me to get out of bed, I actually VOLUNTARILY swept and mopped my floor, and I was even motivated enough to get dressed AND wear make-up, even though I wasn't going anywhere.

I was effortlessly happy--even if it was just for a morning (my steam ran out around 3:00 in the afternoon, and although the evening was still nice, I was back in having-to-work-to-be-happy mode again).

Another square on my board-- "I have three potty-trained children and I am NOT STRESSED about it."

Potty training Jack was such a miserable experience that even though Clark is now 3 and a half, I haven't even started any kind of potty training techniques with him.  I would occasionally half-heartedly ask, "Do you want to go potty/wear underwear?"  

And when he invariably said, "No," I never pushed it.  I just couldn't.

However, on Friday, when I asked the same question, he answered differently.  "YES!" he shouted, excited to be putting on Big Boy Underwear.

He's only had one accident since then.  

...and Maggie is already showing interest in going potty, as well.

One of the most oft-repeated promises in the scriptures is "Ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you."  

I'm learning to ask--and to receive.
Now, to you, my readers--what would you like to receive?  What are some things that you'd put on your vision board if you had one?