It's all in [my] head.

I've had some wacky stuff happen to me over the past few weeks. I've learned some things from them.

A friend was passing through and wrecked her car near where I live. I helped take care of her car and in the mean time she got in a wreck in my car (which is really my dad's -BIG oops there). Then, two days later, with my car in the shop and hers back to "road-worthy" status, I parked her car at work and left the door unlocked. Somebody promptly stole the radio out of it.
That's not all. Two more days later I let the battery run dead in it and had to get a friend to jump it. Three days after that I locked the keys in it and had to call my roommate to get the spare. Then, less than a week later I left the lights on in another car and had to get a jump.
Needless to say, my friends at work don't trust that they are safe in my immediate company.

I share this story as a laughable set of circumstances and mistakes, and, believe me, I laughed at myself plenty. I think, though, that the story's emotional significance is more potent than the financial or logistical outcomes. What I'm saying is that I could easily spell out to myself what it was going to cost my friend, myself, and my family in time and resources to get my messes cleaned up. However, I had no idea what these problems would do to my sense of well being or confidence, not to mention the emotional stability of anyone else involved.

I felt like a failure, a push-over, a weakling. "You're so dumb" kept ringing in my head, as if some imp was living in there reminding me with every passing moment what a literal wreck I had created / failed to prevent. I projected into the future about what people thought of me for letting someone else drive dad's car, for being too absent minded to prevent theft or loss of power. All of this "stinkin' thinking" -as I like to call it- put me in a very bad place. I spent many hours trying to drown out these feelings by watching TV or eating junk food. That made me feel even worse about myself, because the imp whispered, "If so-and-so could see you like this, they'd think....." Blah, blah, blah, blah. -Maybe there's two of 'em in there, jabbering away like verbal jack-hammers about my insignificance and inadequacies.

I told you that I learned something about all this. Here it is. 1) What I think about what happens is just as important or even more important than what happens. 2) My Higher Power values me even when I don't. The emotional mud that I get dragged through when I focus on what other people think is not His imparted reality. I'm choosing to focus on His opinion of my significance instead of the imps in my head, 'cause He loves me, values me, even likes me.

I'd like to hear your stories and their emotional significance to you. How did your choices affect your opinion of yourself, and how did you come out the other side believing that life -specifically your life- was still worth something?

As always,

Yore Truly