Thought by thought . . .

So how was your weekend? From the outset as of Friday night, mine was lookin a little bleak:

a. My blog’s feedburner feed and subscriber link stopped working.

b. My email wasn’t configured properly to my iphone and needed adjusting.

c. The plumbing broke.

d. And yet again, it was another grey, rainy, rather chilly forecast.

Wahoo! Sound like a recipe for a fabo weekend???

But it actually was! Each one of these scenarios was an awesome occasion to prove stability, confidence, and resolve! 🙂

Honestly, when small or biggie things used to erupt, here’s how I dealt:

1. Dwell.

2. Ruminate.

3. Blame self.

4. Dwell some more.

5. Blame some more.

6. Get angry.

7. Feel stuck.

8. Stay stuck. Add to it a dash of major complain.

9. Ruminate more…at least til a simmer.

10. Bring to a boil and feel exasperated!!!

Yuck. But true.

Hard to admit. But used to consent to that drama when stuff happened that felt too hard to fix.

“Here we go again! One more thing goes wrong. Nothing ever can just work in my life. Blah Blah Blah.”

But a bit ago, I made a conscious decision: STOP playing the victim. STOP consenting to helpless weak woman that has a ton of drama.

Now I’m sure a part of you can relate, right? There is a tendency among women to blame themselves. We are warriors when it comes to nurturing and caring for our own and for those we love and for those around the globe we have compassion for. And while that’s awesome, there comes with it a constant pull to feel responsible, feel there’s more I could have done, should have done, wish I would have thought to do, etc etc.

Hear the themes?

Good motive of loving, nurturing, caring, helping…but when outcome doesn’t measure with expectation, or when something goes wrong, feelings of  blame, self condemnation, guilt, and anger emerge.

Not healthy.

And more, not at all a part of our inherent nature.

No one yearns to act a victim.

It’s a habit.

It’s part of what we tolerate and accept for ourselves.

It gives us a drama, something to whine about.  It gives us gossip. It feeds our need for having something to stew on.

And even if we justify it and say “oh but I don’t talk about it” we ruminate. And that surely gives us an excuse to not problem solve.

So back to my commitment to cut the crap.

Literally.

I made a real concerted choice a ways back to S T O P:

S ilence

T he

O ption of

P ity.

ON EVERY LEVEL

So …for me..No self pity.

Translation: No consenting to victimized woman. Period.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, on with the story.

I implemented my new problem solving method — because along with my STOP (Silence the Option of Pity) Plan, I had to have a SOLVE IT routine.

And for me SOLVE IT stands for :

S olution

O ptions

L ie

V irtually

E verywhere

I ntend and

T rust

So…gentle steps…..here’s my 4 step SOLVE IT plan:

1. Affirm Solve IT! (see above ) The underlying spiritual fact is that the divine Mind is governing all things at all times and by reflection we are able to know what we need to know as we need to know it.

2. Write down what comes to mind as natural, unintimidating possible next steps to take.

3. Sift and weigh

4. Take action.

So I will keep this brief re: the delicious dilemmas of this past weekend:

1. I calmed down, knew there were solution options, knew I would know what to do as I needed to know.

2. I wrote down every possible step to take which was really very simple: call tech support on all issues (and 2 of these scenarios required me finding support online); and call the plumber.

3. During sifting and weighing, I actually strive to do what I least want to do first. That gets the tough stuff outa the way and makes the rest of the fixing stuff more fun!

The one thing I really resisted was the plumbing. I loathe it when stuff gets wonky with plumbing because of a lot of times in the past that this has happened (different housing). So I called the plumber, albeit on the weekend. This required shutting up all the doubting “But it’s the weekend.” “But you’ll disturb him.” “But they’re gonna bill you.” But But But….NO BUTTS!!!

After getting that lined up, I set to work on troubleshooting the other technical stuff.

4. I dove into taking action. And things were rocking and rolling with one issue, and the other two were not moving forward a wink.

And that is okay. Sometimes in the midst of taking action we have to remind ourselves of SOLVE IT all over again.

As much as we need to,  keep affirming “There’s a solution and I’ll know what I need to do when I need to do it.”

When it came to fixxing the email, I remembered I could ask a few folks I knew at that moment (visible through the chat window) if they’d be willing to test an email message with me. Of course they were! (This mini solution right there shut up the doubt “but who’s gonna be right at her computer?”).

In sum, all was fixxed within the weekend. And at each and every step, at each pull to consent to feeling stuck, I knew I could  STOP and SOLVE IT!

How bout you? What works for you to shut out the drama and SOLVE IT?