What is your super power?

In January I told you that I wasn't doing any resolutions this year.  It's going to be hard to describe this but that was totally a turning point moment for me.  I feel like I finally gave myself permission to be me just as I am now and not who I might be in 5 years or even tomorrow.  That person is not real, she doesn't exist yet and she might not ever exist.  And somehow I don't think torturing myself with self criticism and overwhelming goals etc in the here and now will help her.
I suffer from a couple of auto-immune disorders, debilitating migraines,  and severe depression.  I usually don't tell people this, because I don't like trying to explain something most people simply don't understand.  I don't like the weird, pitying looks or the unhelpful advice that I have received. I don't like being made to feel like I am pretending to be sick because I look just fine.  So I have learned not to tell anyone and to pretend like I just fine.  I am explaining it to all of you now, because it plays into what I have learned in my experiment over the  last month of just trying find peace.  Sometimes as I pretend to everyone else that I am not sick,  I convince myself that I am not sick.  I am not sure I ever realized this before, but as I have stopped trying to meet any specific goals and simply tried to do things in the moment that make me happy and comfortable I have started to realize that most of the time I push my body too hard.  I can put a smile on my face and pretend to the world that I am just fine, but I have to tell my self the truth.  I have to realize that I am sick and I need to pay attention to my body.  Listening to my body has helped me so recently, by stopping whatever I am doing when I start to feel tired or hurting,  I have actually been able to get more done rather than less.
That's all well and good you say but what does being sick have to with superpowers?  Nothing.  And everything.  We all have weaknesses I have just described a few of mine to you and we all have strengths--superpowers if you will.  When we fight our weakness--either by believing they are insurmountable ( I love that word it is so much fun to say) or by pretending they don't exist, we are paying our selves a great disservice.   Paying so much attention to our "negative" traits, draws our attention away from what we are good at.  So as I have began to seek balance in my life and gave myself permission to be imperfect.  I started to see that I was awesome; I could see all sorts of things that I was good at that I had ignored because they hadn't fit into my narrow vision of what I wanted.
Everyone has superpowers some of them are silly and some of them seem unimportant but they are part of what make you unique.  Your superpowers are the things that you are really good at, things that make your heart sing, and the silly things that only you seem to do.
So what ARE your super powers you say?  Well okay okay... I am good at talking, but in recent years I have become a superstar listener.  I am a good teacher, patient ( well most of the time), and a great sight reader--both music and books. I can read at the speed of light, and  I am great at reading aloud,  good with kiddos, I know how to relax and have a good time ( doesn't sound like much of a super power but trust me it can be).  I am good at cooking, crocheting, knitting ( well learning to be), and learning.  And last but not least my super power is creativity--I always have at least a dozen crazy ideas cooking in my brain.  I wish I was a little better at following through with them but that is a story for another day

I have had a lot of fun in January.  I have learned a lot about myself and you know what at least for today I like me.  That feels great to say.  I Like ME!
So what are your super powers?

No More New Year's Resolutions

I dislike New Year's Resolutions. As I was thinking about if I wanted to make a New Years Resolutions this year, my hand started to shake and I started to cry. I told myself I was being silly and that making a goal would help me to be foicused and feel fulfilled, but the feelings persisted. I started feeling guilty about not completing my goals before I had even decided on a goal. I have had some difficult struggles, with self-esteem body image, and depression in the last few years. The last thing I needed was something else that made me feel terrible. I tend make huge goals, get overwhelmed and quit after the first two weeks of January. Then I feel guilty and haphazardly start and break a series of smaller goals throughout the year.

I like the idea of New Year's Resolutions--the idea of starting each year with a purpose and improving on the previous year. But it was obvious to me that setting mighty goals was not the way to achieve this, at least not for me. So I thought for a while about a way to start 2012 with a purpose without initiating a panic attack. As I thought, it came to me that I like to do lists better than schedules, and general ideas better than rules; I tend to think of rules of something put there to be broken. So I have decided that instead of a resolution I would choose a word--just ONE-- that epitomizes what I would like to get out of this year. I have chosen Peace.

More than anything I want to be comfortable in my own skin, to find joy in everyday things, and just to over be, umm well, at Peace.

Over all I think I am more of an idea person than a goal person we'll see how this works out.