Cognitive Restructuring

I completed my last discussion post for my Eating Disorders class today, so I'm one step closer to my master's degree - hooray!  It was a lot of writing work, but I enjoyed the word cloud assignment.... we created the original one that I shared here in July (with the mix of our positive and negative thoughts on food, body image, weight, and health)... and then we did a "cognitive restructuring" assignment to help reprogram our minds with truth... going through and exchanging every negative word for a more positive word to help reframe our perspective.  Stuck became moving forward... family stronghold became individual choice... financial incentive became internal incentive... negative things spoken about me became "free" (I'm free from that influence) and "Love keeps no record," etc.  A pretty simple project (free to create on wordart.com), and a really helpful visual!

It's one of three new tile pix hanging on my bedroom wall now! =)

I got to catch up with Jon and Kristin over dinner at Whiskey Cake in OKC last night.  I'm so thankful to report that they're seeing lots of improvement lately, but we're praying for continued memory recovery and full healing and restoration!  As well as extra grace and strength for Jon, Kristin, Miles, and Hope in this difficult season!  (They had dinner with me then attended a concert by Lindsey Sterling, and the double Lindseys made me smile.)

On what's kind of a related note to all of the above, I've been thinking about resilience lately.  I have several very resilient friends who endured hard things early in life.  For a lot of my early life, my focus was cultivating cushiness and comfort, assuming that was the best path to happiness... but I've learned through experience that cultivating resilience and inner strength is the far better path... one that will equip you to survive hard things and find a way to thrive and keep moving forward!  You live a more abundant life with a resilient spirit, viewing hardship and trauma through a more redemptive lens (trusting God's goodness and power to redeem losses).  I know from experience that hard things feel utterly catastrophic when you fail to cultivate resilience and a sense of your inner strength and outer support system.  We will all face hard things and troubles either way (John 16:33)... but I'm determined now to approach life and parenting with an emphasis on building grit and resilience rather than padded fragility, and God is using that to restructure my perspective in such healthy ways (as I witness others going through hard things part of me wishes I could protect them from)!  *P.S. Part of building resilience is building trusted relational connections and feeling well-supported in hard times - we are not helping by insulating or being overprotective, but we can support and encourage people as they move through hard seasons, and I love that!

I could say more, but I'm tired, so that's all for today.

Happy Monday tomorrow. ;-)  Hope you've had a great weekend.