I Must be Really Weird to Feel Good Most of the Time

I came across a new site yesterday and got lost for hours as I played around with it. It’s called WeFeelFine.org - and it’s a super-addicting ‘game’ that crawls the blogosphere and captures what people are feeling and writing about in real time. And then you can even pull “I feel” quotes from people down to your hometown (or state, gender, age group, or specific feeling) and read about what they are feeling.

I told the search engine to go find what people are feeling in my town yesterday, November 21, 2007. (OK, so I just had to expand it to the state level, something must be amiss because there were hundreds of quotes from my town last night).

Here’s a sample of what I found:

I feel lonely and worried - Galesburg IL

I feel like I am in the ocean and miles and miles away from land - Crest Hill IL

I feel like I am the phantom member of my family - Chicago IL

I feel selfish and broken and bruised and emotionally exhausted - IL

I feel like dancing on the rooftops will you dance with me - Elmwood Park IL

Notice a pattern here? Most of the feelings people are expressing are negative - and I felt rather powerless as I sat here reading about all of this sadness around me, knowing I could help these people if I could only get to them… but I guess that’s just fuel to keep me going for now.

It reminded me so much of when I lived life that way - hating myself, hating my life, wishing I had never been born. Even I found it kind of weird that I couldn’t relate to feeling that way any longer - like it was a different world I lived in, but not.

I get a lot of comments from people wondering how I do all that I do, or have overcome it all. Sometimes I fear that the positive life I live seems unreachable and unrealistic to some of my readers.

I really want you to know that I really do understand where you are. And I really have come a long way. And you really, really can too.

So for this week of Thanksgiving, I’m eternally grateful that I have come this far - and even more grateful that I get the opportunity to share it with you. Thanks for reading and for helping to kick off this site with a bang. Thanks for sharing your own stories and comments with me. And THANKS for being wonderful, inspiring people in your own right.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone

Misunderstandings, Meanings, and Self Esteem

Originally posted at eMoms at Home:
I just received a scathing email from an old friend of mine - which really threw me off, because I wasn’t upset with her and didn’t think she was upset with me. Her email was filled with presuppositions and assumptions - things she had created in her head and believed to be true about a situation between her and a group of our friends. Yet as I read her words I was saddened to see all of the meanings she had attached to our actions. And I had to ask myself - if she had a higher self worth, could she have EVER made these assumptions about a group of friends that always has and always will love her?

It reminded me of a stark example I once saw about the meanings we attach to things - and how our interpretations can either empower us, or we can rip ourselves to pieces in the blink of an eye.

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