*A challenge a day* Day 2

great challenge altho i kinda did this yesterday. i texted someone who really hurt me in the past just to say hello and how are u. i was the bigger person and i think they were surprised that I could be that cool about it all.

i'm kind of glad i did it, still not sure as it has brought back a lot of feelings and memories, but hey life is all about facing ur fears, its not supposed to be easy and you grow a lot from challenges.

thnx for the challenge!

p.s.. u may wanna make it easier for others to find new threads by posting the new link on the old thread

I'm in this is a good one for me

I do get angry at people who have wronged me, but I have learned to take a step back and realize that it is on them. I am giving them the power to have an affect on me.

A perfect example is a former friend who I bought a house with. We had been friends for a really long time and had an agreement we would each pay 1/2 the bills to gain some equity. The friend not only failed to hold up their end of the deal, but they also took my information off the mortgage paperwork to commit ID theft to the tune of $250K with various credit cars, car loans, payday loans, and other lines of credit. When the police started looking for the friend, they took off out of state whereabouts unknown.

This was complete devastation and financial ruin in its worst.

What I learned is that some problems are in your control, and you can deal with it. Others are not. It was in my control to run my credit and start writing letters to the creditors giving copies of police reports and other evidence that supported the incident. The actions of the former roommate was not in my control. Essentially it was on the roommate to choose to become a criminal.

As stressful as it was, I learned several techniques to alleviate stress and focus on the positive which resulted in taking away the power of the situation that was causing the stress. When my head was clear, that was when things started clearing up and I was able to calmly clear my name.

Someone cuts you off and you want to yell at them and flip them the finger of friendship, try to pity them because it is on them and they are obviously self absorbed, or having problems that are affecting their driving. Face it, if the person is just a jerk and drives like that all the time, they will wind up in an accident or with a ticket.

Things have got to be put in perspective.

As far as the usual family stresses, what you want to do is really embrace the positive behavior and ignore the undesirable behavior. That's how I got through to the stress junkie. When he does something desirable I make a big deal out of it and thank him. (Ladies, that is how you get the man to enjoy taking out the trash). When he gets into the dark cloud mentality, or exhibit an undesirable trait I would back away. There is a fine line to telling someone what to do and letting them know how it affects you.

When you have an issue with someone's behavior, don't become accusatory. Tell them simply when you act this way, it affects me like this....