This morning I had a good session with Ken. Now that most of my anxiety problems have been hashed out, we are working on my personal and professional growth and development. We talked about how I victimize myself to make situations seem worse, causing me to pity myself and have a bad attitude. I am aware that I do/did this about my allergies and medical issues, but I didn’t see where I was doing it in other aspects of my life until today. Ken had a point that was a sort of an “aha moment” for me:

If you don’t accept what is going on and you know you can’t change what is going on…then where does that leave you? The answer is stressed and angry. The only option is to change the way you view what is happening. Once you change your attitude and point of view, you can figure out the next step (whether you need to change jobs, a relationship, a financial situation, etc). In the mean time, staying pissed off and victimizing yourself only feeds your own hungry ego.

We also talked about commitment. I have no trouble committing to my relationships. Relationships for me are easy. I have the hardest time committing to myself. I want to commit to start a business making cards. I LOVE making cards for family and friends, and people seem to really enjoy them. I want to do this as a hobby AND as a job and the only reason I haven’t is because I am scared. I am scared to fail, and that people won’t want the cards. I know that this is probably the number 1 reason people don’t start their own businesses; they don’t want to fail. If you don’t try, you can’t fail. Well, after some encouragement from family, friends, and Ken, I am going to try. I am going to try and organize a good selection of cards and market them! I am not going to have any boring generic cards, I want people to request personalized cards. I want them to send me photos and I can create things for them! If they don’t want to send me photos, I can use my own photography to work up cards for them.

I don’t want to make the kind of cards that use scrapbooking tools and cutting and folding paper. I don’t enjoy that at all. I take photos and edit them and add words, make them personal, and I REALLY enjoy it. They are simple, but fun. There is something about taking a photo, editing it, making it personal, and physically making the card that brings me joy.

Below is a quote that Ken gave me this morning. I love it and I hope it offers inspiration:

Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issus from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would come his way.

I added some of my favorite examples of cards I have given to loved ones so you can get an idea of what I’m talking about!

OKAY so I went a little nuts. I had a hard time just picking a few though!