Sometime I daydream and create Castles-in-the-Air. 
Sometimes my thoughts are more realistic. Sometimes they are quite negative.
I work to remember that I experience the world through my thoughts, and that my thoughts create my feelings.

Once Upon A Time
                by Bonnie Jarvis

Once upon a time, I believed that it all occurred out there. Things happened … I reacted. Life was hard. I tried to control it all. It was hard. When things didn’t happen as I wanted, I got upset, frustrated, I cried out … in anger, in pain, in sorrow … it shouldn’t be like this. When things I believed caused my happiness were gone … I felt pain, sadness, what could I do?

Then I began to slowly understand … when things happen out there, I could choose how I reacted … or responded. I still tried to control the “out there” … but when things didn’t work out, I slowly understood I had the choice of how to respond. It was a little easier … not as frustrating as when I didn’t know I had a choice … about my experience.

As time went on, I understood I didn’t have to try and control the out there … the out there was … out there … and had little to do with me. But I got better at responding instead of reacting. And it got easier, less frustrating.

Now I see it is ALL in here … my experience of life, it is totally created inside me, within my reach.

Oh, don’t get me wrong … it sometimes still looks like its because of what’s happening out there … what makes me feel upset, or irritated, or even happy. But I now have a stronger understanding … I’ve played with it, tested it, experimented with observing my feelings and my thoughts.

So now, when the reason looks like it is out there … I can do things to clear my mind, like go for a walk or meditate. But the beauty of the way we humans work … is I can also do nothing in particular, because a new thought will come on its own … and I eventually remember … oh, I am feeling my thoughts about what’s out there. And this has brought more grace and ease … in knowing that its really all about what’s in here … in my thoughts, in my ability to believe or not to believe my thinking … in my willingness to let the thoughts pass, to let them go.

I don’t have to believe the meaning I innocently put on the thoughts … that cause the feelings … that can be high or low … and used to cause frustration from not understanding.

It is ALL from inside of me … my created experience … not from what happens out there.

Our culture’s current standards of beautiful perfection are impossible to achieve.

Yet most females harbor secret, dream-like fantasies of accomplishing that standard, and undertake difficult and daunting tasks with this goal in mind.

The following video addresses this issue.

DietHobby's message to the Negative, the Critical, and the Intolerant.