Changing my header

As I posted my New Year's blogpost on facebook, my blog description jumped out at me.

Well, not the whole description, just the word depression.

It didn't sit well with me.

"Thoughts on an empty nest, depression, love, hope, faith, grace, humour and chronic illness. Not necessarily in that order".

Not necessarily in that order, and yet that was the order I listed them.

It took me a while to find where that description was - and then I changed it.

Thoughts on the second half of a life. A life that includes swimming, knitting, love, hope, faith, grace, humour and depression."

I know that depression is still in there. But it isn't front and center anymore.

I don't want it to be front and center anymore.

I am more than that.

And maybe, just maybe, part of healing is to change how I describe myself.

It's the little things.

I don't describe myself as someone living with chronic illness anymore, even though 'technically' I do.

I don't describe myself as someone living with chronic pain, even though I currently am.

I do have so much love in my life.

I do have faith.

I do experience grace in my life.

I do have humour and can see the glass half full most of the time.

I have hobbies I love, friends I love, family I love.

Depression is there too, in and around and amid all the other things, but it is not the only thing. It is not what describes me even though it is part of me.

So yes, I have changed my header.

I am going to change the headers I give to others too.

I believe changing those headers can change people.

I really do.

If I expect the worst of another they won't disappoint me.

I believe if I think the best of another it can only help.

My thoughts, our thoughts, are powerful things.

Our words are powerful things.

Sharing the negative images, and negative words of another, only strengthens the negativity.


"Mind is the Master power that moulds and makes,
And we are Mind, and evermore we take
The tool of Thought, and, shaping what we will,
Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills: —
we thinks in secret, and it comes to pass:
Environment is but our looking-glass."

James Allen, As A Man Thinketh (1902).


What if I, we, stopped sharing the mean or intolerant things people said or did, and only shared the kind, and the tolerant.

Would it make a difference in my life.

In the world.

I think so.