I love to clean. I love to start with a big mess and systematically trudge through it until I am left with a clean space, organized, and decluttered. If I always left my room clean, then how would I have a huge mess to have fun with and clean up?!

Family secrets can have a powerful effect on us and seriously change the way we view people we love or ourselves. According to Psychology Today, there are three types of family secrets: individual, internal, and shared.

One of the things that he said to us once stood out to me. He told us that fear gives us two options, which boil down to two acronyms created by author Zig Ziglar:

Forget Everything And Run or Face Everything And Rise

I learned my lesson that year. And this year, when the volunteer squash and tomatoes popped up – they were ripped out. It pained me to have to rip out healthy plants, but I knew that if I didn’t pare down, nothing would grow well.

Kind of like life, right?

The thoughts you have most--the thoughts that dominate your everyday life and activity--are generally the thoughts that will move you in any given direction. If you tend to think negative thoughts, that bad things will happen, or that you're a terrible person etc., your life will move in that direction. Conversely, the opposite is true. 

Let's be honest; 2020 was not the year we wished for. In fact, it's not even a year worthy of a do-over. I would much prefer to forget it ever happened. But if there was anything good, it was that I learned where to put my focus--on the things I actually do have control over. 

Fact: Nothing feels awful the way that doing something that betrays yourself does. I can remember in vivid detail moments from my childhood when family members would turn their focus on me, throw their arms wide, and in front of everybody say, “Come here and give me a hug!” And I did. Even if I didn’t want to. Even if everything in me was saying, “No.” I still did. As a child, I hadn’t been taught yet that there are moments where it’s far more important to disappoint another person than it is yourself. Instead, I was taught, like many of us are, not to make a scene or “disrespect” adults so I didn’t. I betrayed myself instead. It wasn’t until my teen years that I learned the importance of listening to that still, small voice inside and that there was a way to tell the truth and still be respectful.