Get your daily AFFIRMATIONS done I am confident. I am unstoppable...

Boost your morning with some positivity and let's jump in.

What if your past self came to visit your present self? What advice would you give yourself?

For me, I would tell my past self to NEVER MARRY A MAN WITH KIDS. Do not budge on this for anything self!

Walk your past self through your life and your house. You have to explain yourself. Are there dreams you've abandoned? A sewing room, crafts, career goals, unread books....what has sat neglected because you have been taking care of everyone else? Scuba was my big thing. My past self saw all my scuba gear and asked, "Where do you dive in this landlocked State?" My answer was, I don't.

This alone prompted me to re-evaluate what I am doing in life. I WAS NOT PAYING ATTENTION AND WAS NOT LIVING MINDFULLY. I was living by default. Living in the same city I was born and raised in because my family (who I am not close with) lives here. I have always felt alienated by the culture here. It's very conservative and stifling to me. Why do I live here?

Then I married a man with kids and found myself putting all those dreams and hobbies further on hold because we had to be in town every other weekend. Life was on hold because it was stressful getting ready for the skids to come to town, stressful while they were here and then we needed recovery days for our marriage to return to a loving place after the skids left. THAT'S NOT A LOT OF QUALITY TIME IN BETWEEN VISITS. That's a lot of stress, mitigation and recovery.

Back when DH was severely abusing substances, I had had enough. I threw him and the skids out of my house. The skids were never welcomed back and I should have never let DH come back. He did make significant changes however and currently he is doing better than he ever has. (Too little too late?)

My past self asked my present self, why my self-esteem was so low. Why did I tolerate being mistreated like this? My past self would be so ashamed.
In the end, my past self decided to not accept my present reality. She rejected it flat out! Instead she chose to follow her passions and tend to herself first. She chose to be an intact person FIRST instead of relying on a man or a marriage to fill a void of self-confidence.

This exercise was revealing to me. I immediately put a plan in motion to start living my life. Youth is waning. Health is being taken for granted. All for what? To be unappreciated by my husband and stressed out by his skid marks and BM? What a life.

SOME ACTION STEPS:

I quickly looked around my house. What if my house burned to the ground? What would I actually replace or buy again? Only a few pieces of furniture would be replaced. A good set of dishes, pots and pans. My piano. The things that matter to me are my animals, my photo albums, my outdoor recreation gear, a good pillow, comfy blanket...I was surprised at how little I really cared about and would replace.

I started SELLING things like a banshee. Craigslist, local online classifieds...it was easy and last month I made an extra $950 doing it! I miss NONE of it, in fact I want more gone.

Now I am building MY OWN FUND. That is MY money I can utilize, guilt-free. It's for renovating my old RV, hobbies or just saving and growing.

Suddenly my house was looking a little sparse. I realized I can live in far less space. This led me to look at my home as a MONEY-MAKING ASSET. I have decided to live in my RV this winter (in a warm climate. Florida I think). My house will be rented for $1700 a month at least. So I just increased my annual income by $20,400. Living in the RV will cost a fraction of that. Plus every month I am selling things I don't want or need. Can I sell the skids?
Maybe an RV is not for you but what about downsizing? Consider the space you are paying for in your own home. Look at storage rooms and areas of the home that are unused. If you're paying a mortgage TRY THIS: Value of your home divided by square footage = value of each square foot.

Estimate how many square feet of your home are unused or occupied by things you don't use. A garage you can't fit the cars in, dining room, front room, spare bed rooms.

Multiply the unused square footage by the value of each square foot. This is the money value you are giving up or paying for on a mortgage to store things you aren't using. My number was $85,500!!! The emotional toll is even greater than the monetary toll.

Let's start waking up our conscious living. Let's start paying attention to our lives and take some more responsibility for their outcomes.

It's later than you think.
Have a glorious day!