So this is the week of Love, everything around us seems to be trying to get us to show others how much we love them. Our husbands, our children, our friends, etc.. I am a fan of Valentine's Day because I love surprising people; however, I love surprising others every other day of the year not just every February 14th. This excitement of surprising others comes from my Mom as she too loves a good surprise. She enjoys this not for herself but for the pure joy of seeing others around her feel loved and watch them smile. This could be why she is everyone's favorite GiGi! While I agree 100% that we need to show our loved ones how much we appreciate them we also need to show ourselves how much we love us!
This morning during our Tabata Bootcamp warm up Allison had us perform a unique exercise. We did four rounds of 20 second Tabata style squats with a partner, during each rest time we were to find a new partner. While we were with our partners we had to share one thing that we love about ourselves. Not only did we have to come up with one thing we actually had to come up with four as we were not allowed to repeat anything throughout the exercise. WOW! That seems so much easier when writing it out but participating in this drill was rough for me. I could come up with one but two, three and four were difficult! After we completed the four rounds Allison reminded us that we are own worst critics. She wanted us to take that minute or so of warm up to focus on the good things we can appreciate about ourselves and love on ourselves for a change. She had no way of knowing what my week had held for me; therefore, she had no way of knowing that I had to fight tears this morning while completing this simple warm up.
You see this week has been full of comparison…both by myself and of me by others. I will spare you the ugly details and share only that this week I have come to realize that we all suffer from the pain of comparison and we need to stop. We need to stop comparing our past with our present, we need stop comparing our body style/shape to our neighbors, we only need to focus on ourselves and what we can accomplish. We have so many wonderful things to be thankful that it is a waste of time and energy to worry about the rest.
I also need to remember as a Christian the only comparison I should think about is being more Christ-like and relying on him to direct my path. I will never have something that I "want" without counsel and prayer about it first. During my reading yesterday in the devotion "Jesus Calling" I received a little smack in the face, see for yourself:
"Collaborate with Me in this training" is the line that grabbed my attention. If I would focus on his "wants" for my life I might not get where I want to be but I will certainly get where I need to be in my life. (maybe if I stepped away from the girl scout cookies I could accomplish this, too. Oops, that's a different post for a different day!) I am going to do my best to refocus and not worry about that silly little word "comparison" and I hope you will do the same!
The remainder of this week while you are loving on those special folks in your life, don't forget about yourself! You are valuable and loved, too!
A sweet little note for us all!
Happy Valentine's Week!
Mitzi
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