Be at Peace with Yourself

I have another project today for this month's theme of PEACE over at the Path of Positivity Challenge blog. It is an art journal page with a watercolor background and another beautiful digi image from Sparkle N Sprinkle. The image is called Winter Cardinal.

After my background dried (be kind, I am a beginner in water colors), I colored Winter Cardinal with Copics and sprinkled fine glitter on the pine needles. Then I fussy-cut (one of my fave techniques) the image and popped it onto my background.  The sentiment is from Decosse's Dynamite Digis, and when you play in the Path of Positivity challenges each month, you'll get a free sentiment just for playing!! 

I used olive branch stickers, adhesive-backed jewels and a shaped button to embellish and my page is finished.

Life is way too short to spend another day at war with yourself.  I love this quote, because there aren’t that many people who are at PEACE with themselves.  Whether you feel too fat, too skinny, not smart enough, not enough friends in your life, too loud, too quiet, it is a virtual war zone within your soul.

Society doesn’t help much with magazines telling us how we can “improve” on our looks, our style, our behaviors.  People are quick to criticize but slow to compliment.  No wonder our teens are growing up with low self-esteem and body image problems!

It’s time to “give PEACE a chance” in tiny ways so that they slowly but surely build on each other like a snowball rolling downhill.

Start making PEACE with yourself:

  If your weight bothers you, list all the things you can do with the body you own, right now, without changing a thing!  Are you strong, are you flexible, do your children, grandchildren, husband, love to cuddle with you? Have those you love and love you actually complained to you about your being over or under weight?

  If it’s confidence you lack, list your talents and strengths, without changing a thing! We are our own harshest critics.  Listen to your loved ones; they know your value better than you do yourself.

  If it’s your past, list the good experiences you have had and the lessons you learned from the bad, because you can’t change your past!  You’ll discover that everything you said and did, everyone you met and loved, everywhere you’ve been, has combined to make you the marvelous person that you are today.

Stop declaring war on your body, your looks, your mind, your career, your location!   Make PEACE with what has happened already.  If you’re still not happy, then rejoice that you are still alive.  That means you have time to change if you wish it:

 Work out to become stronger, healthier, beef up, slim down.

 Learn new things, make new friends, experiment and explore, so that who you see is as strong as who others see.

 Sometimes I regret joining the Army right after high school.  However, if I hadn’t, I would never have met my husband of 37 years, had the son and daughter I cherish, met my daughter-in-law and gained 4 more grandchildren to the one I had already fell in love with.  When I think of the many crossroads in my life where I took the wrong turn, I see now that I only lost the battles and that I had won the war. 

So Make PEACE, not war…Starting with yourself, as all good things should begin!

Don't forget to link up your post/project with the Path of Positivity before May 4! We welcome anyone who would like to share their positive or uplifting take on this theme.