30 Days to Wellness Challenge Days 16 to 18: Positive Thinking and Feeling Gratitude

For Day 16 to 18, I would like to focus on Positive Thinking.  I am sure you have heard of the Law of Attraction but I am going to use the term "Positive Thinking" instead for those readers who think that LOA is a bit too farfetched.  I grew up in a household where negativity ran rampant.  This might have been because both parents grew up in extreme poverty.  I don't think that they were even aware of their mindsets and how it affected their thoughts, speech and actions towards others.  It took many decades of critical self-analysis for me to understand the impact on my own emotional development and then to start living life on a more positive path.  Even now, it is very easy for me to fall into a swamp of self-doubt whenever I hit a bump in the road.  One method I have found that helps pull me out is feeling grateful.  I am sure you have heard of gratitude journals.  At the end of every day, quickly jot down 5 things that you feel grateful for.  If you are really stumped, just being grateful for clean air to breathe and clean water to drink is enough.  If a gratitude journal is too much, then quickly think of just one thing that you feel grateful for.  Like anything else, a positive mindset doesn't just happen overnight.  It takes work and practice.  Because this was such a hurdle for me in the past and is so intrinsic to a sense of wellbeing, I am going to devote 3 days to it.  

If you have any suggestions for the Challenge, please let me know in the comments so that I can include it!

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LBH Weekly Roundup: La Vie En Rose Flannel Pyjamas and Clif Energy Bars

You know you have turned the corner into adulthood when all you want for Christmas are practical things that add value to your life.  Top of my list were pj's that I could button up the front.  Now that pulling sleep tees or any kind of tee over my head has become a monumental task, I became obsessed with finding comfy pj's that I could actually put on without assistance.  Forget sexy lingerie.  However, a casual stroll through the local mall before Christmas quickly devolved into an obsessive, panicked trek as all I could find were miles and miles of...sexy lingerie. Is this what designers think women want to wear in the middle of a Canadian winter?  In despair, I tasked Monsieur with my Christmas list which consisted of one thing and one thing only, pj's that buttoned up the front.

And this is what I got on Christmas Day.  I include them in this week's Weekly Roundup because I have been living in them for the last month and a half.  Monsieur thinks they are incredibly cute and loves the bright red.  He scored them at La Vie En Rose.  He said that there wasn't a great deal of choice as the other pj's had cartoon like designs printed all over them and the red one was the least offensive.  I wouldn't have cared if they had giant smiley faces all over as I was so pleased to have something I could put on without assistance.  Would you like to see a post on what to wear when faced with a physical challenge?  It would just focus on challenges faced with the upper body and would, obviously, be from my perspective and what solutions I have come up with.  Let me know in the comments!

Another thing I have been obsessed with are Clif Energy Bars.  There was a point when even lifting my arm to fork food into my mouth was an arduous painful endeavor.  By the time dinner was over, I felt like I had run a marathon and would topple into bed afterwards, exhausted and dispirited.  You know you have hit a low point when eating, one of the most primal of pleasures in life, no longer interests or captivates.  Then I stumbled on Clif Energy Bars.

  

I have never been a fan of granola bars (or the newly styled energy bars).  By the time I got to the middle of the box, I would be bored senseless with the compressed horse feed masquerading as human food.  But these Clif bars! I am especially fond of the white chocolate and macadamia nut one. Densely soft and squidgy but still satisfyingly chewy, it has that perfect balance between salty and sweet.  It is definitely an energy bar.  One evening, caught up in the late night munchies, I downed a bar and was so jacked up that I was unable to sleep for hours.  Hmmm, I think I am going to go munch on one now.