Whew!  Yesterday was a battle, let me tell you!  As I wrote, I woke with a negative attitude.  Everything I wrote was ugly; so, I just shared some pretty photos with you.  Yesterday, my wolves were fighting and it was a real struggle to feed the right one.

As I’ve shared with you before, I do not believe that happiness, or even attitude, is completely a choice.  I do, however, believe that my focus and my expressions are 100% my choice.  I can choose to share those negative emotions or I can choose to keep my mouth shut.  I can choose to be nasty or I can choose to be silent. It’s like I told my son when he was little, “You have every right to feel angry and to express that anger.  I have every right not to hear it.  Go to you room and have at it.”

I met with my new friend Nicole yesterday afternoon (get ready because in a few days, y’all are going to meet her and you’re going to love her!) and we talked about blogging since she does it, too.  I told her that I had chosen not to write much yesterday because I just couldn’t seem to write anything that was edifying. The news, movies, magazines, televisions shows, etc., are all doing a fine job of tearing us down, making us feel less than, arming us with snarky little phrases that we then sling at each other. I choose not to be a part of that cycle.

She holds a similar philosophy.  We choose not to be manipulated by the media.  We choose not to splatter other people with our own bile.  We choose to edify.

Or we try really, really hard to, anyway.

Nicole has lost well over 200 pounds!  Go ahead.  Read it again.  It’s just as amazing the second time. And the third, and the fourth….. Like me, she found that attitude and focus were essential in getting the weight off.  At my biggest weight, I was mostly invisible. At her biggest weight, she was the object of scorn.  Some of her stories made me feel ashamed to be human, I tell you!  But she didn’t let that scorn or other people’s doubts or even any of her own doubts get her in way.  She held her focus and lost more than half of her body weight while growing her spirit at the same time.  Amazing! She refused to allow other people to splatter her with their bile and she refused to splatter anyone else with her own.  She remained positive and, as a result, is victorious.

That is my goal: to remain both positive and victorious.  To do that, I must take care not to splatter others.