the one about the uplifting weekend

This weekend, something very sad happened. For the first time in our marriage, Russ and I weren't together for the night! It was so weird not sleeping next to him . . . I don't know how anybody does distance for long periods of time. After 30 hours, I was definitely anxious to see him :)

But the reason for our separation was a good one. I went to Time Out For Women with my Mom, two aunts, and several of my cousins. Time Out For Women is basically just a conference where you hear lots of uplifting talks--somewhat geared toward women, but mostly quite applicable to anyone.

I heard so many amazing and uplifting talks that it's difficult to choose just one to talk about, which is why I've narrowed it down to two speakers who had related messages.

The first is Mary Ellen Edmunds. She talked about how powerful our thoughts are. Since our thoughts can be so powerful, it's important for us to recognize what we are thinking about, and to give more consciousness to our thoughts.

She shared an interesting analogy about gardening: If you plant tomato seeds, you don't ever expect watermelons to come up in their place. Likewise, if we are planting seeds of anger, doubt, or discouragement in our minds, we can't hope to sow feelings of happiness, faith, and courage in our lives. 

I thought that was such a powerful message. It caused me to reflect on how I think, and how my thoughts have affected my life. 

For example, anyone who has talked to me this semester could tell you that I've been hating my classes and homework. I never have anything positive to say about my classes, and I am just waiting for the day that this semester will end. As a result of my negativity, things haven't gotten better. I've continued to hate my classes and wish for the end. But Mary Ellen's talk reminded me of the power I have to change my life: Change your mind, change your life. I could have been more positive this semester and if I'd done so, I probably would have been happier.

Another presenter and musical artist, Hilary Weeks, shared a related message. She talked about how powerful words are. She shared about an experiment that she did with rice which basically goes like this: 

Cook some rice and divide it evenly into two jars. Then label one jar "love" and one jar "hate" and talk to the jars like they're labeled. Tell the love rice that it is the most beautiful white fluffy rice in the world. Tell it that it is good rice that probably tastes delicious. Tell the hate rice how terrible and worthless it is. Tell it to just turn black because you don't even care about it.

And the amazing thing? The rice listens. The love rice stayed fluffy and white and normal looking for a month, while the hate rice started showing signs of deterioration after just six days and looked completely nasty after a month.

I thought that these two messages were so related because how we think and how we talk to ourselves and others can both profoundly affect our lives and how we feel about ourselves. 

Nobody is perfect, and everyone has things that they struggle with. But why focus on those things if they don't lift and help us? Sure, we should recognize them so that we know what we need to work on. But how much more quickly could we improve if we celebrated our small accomplishments instead of beating ourselves up over our small failures?

Change your mind, change your life. 

YOU have the power . . . just let yourself use it :) What will you start changing today by changing the way you think?


**ashleynicole