What Pooped Into My Head (No Complaining Discipline)

One of the recent blog posts included the reflective question, "What 10 words would I use to describe my life?"  Quickly typing them up in an email via my iPhone, one of the words which surprised me was "melancholy."  When it happens that a thought pops into my head that doesn't feel like mine, I consider that it's God*-inspired.  That's how this felt.

The interesting thing is that when I typed out "melancholy popped into my head," I either misspelled popped and it auto-corrected or I actually typed "pooped".  So what was in front of me to consider is "melancholy pooped into my head."

This definitely fit, even amongst the other 9 positive words that I had listed.  It's because I have all these amazing, wonderful pieces and still I have thoughts "poop" into my head.  They bring me to a melancholic place so it is important to recognize that melancholy really does describe part of my life.

The amazing God-filled part of being slapped with this truth is that, upon further reflection, it was a reminder that my Lenten Discipline is to not complain and I hadn't really given this discipline its due.  This pointed me towards it.  I began to recognize that my word choices make some statements complaint-filled ('finally', 'always', etc).  I also recognize that I could have a different tone if I more carefully select my words (in other words, think before speaking).

Recognition, of course, is the first step in changing behavior.  Thanks to "melancholy" "pooping" up, I'm stepping into recognizing the words which move a statement to a complaint.  For example, I first typed "I'm finally stepping...", but "finally" moves the statement into the complaint realm. 

In 2017, my word for the year was "awakening."  Looking back, I think it has to do with having awakened to my thoughts.  This year, my word is "harmony" and I'm working towards reflecting or pausing before I speak.
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Now for the reflective questions which you can journal about or if you'd like to share your story, the community and I would love to hear from you!  Your comment could have a major impact on someone else.  Most likely it will be just the right thing at the right time for one of the readers. For me, God* wanted me to know that helping even just one person is wonderfully impactful.
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Reflective questions:
1.  What are you working towards?

2.  What does God* want you to know about this (ask directly, "God, what do you want me to know?")

* I use the term God as a universal term.  You may decide that Great Spirit, Allah, Higher Power, Sensibility, etc. better suits you today.  It is not for me to decide.

Photo by MH (a glacier tunnel)

Note:  These posts are part of a broader call to do spiritual journaling which is simply journaling what's on your heart and mind and then asking God* what else you should know (read more at CardinalTouch.net).