Transitioning...

Been struggling with some difficult people in my life.  People that make me feel sad, empty, and stir up feelings of negativity.  Trying to step back and look at things for what they are, and accept that while I can't change them, please them or fix them... I can change how I react to them and how I interact with them.  Unfortunately, sometimes the conclusion you come to is that some of the relationships in your life aren't healthy. People that continually treat you with resentment, jealousy and mistrust are people that pull you down.  It's taken me many years, but I'm transitioning... starting to allow myself to truly see things for what they are.  It's not easy to accept, but in the end, I see that these sort of relationships just wear me out, frustrate me and upset me. Eventually you see the toll it takes on you mentally and/or perhaps physically.  So... with support from my rock, my Hubby, I see things more clearly now than what I've allowed myself to see before.  I see that these relationships are hurting me, and that I need to step back from them.  I choose to be happy, to be adventurous, open-minded and positive.  I won't continue to allow people who try to take those things from me have that power anymore.  May God give me power and peace to live my life and treat others in a way that builds up, and the strength to walk away from those who tear me down.  

Some quotes that have been especially meaningful to me recently...

"Times of transition are strenuous, but I love them. They are an opportunity to purge, rethink priorities, and be intentional about new habits. We can make our new normal any way we want."
Kristin Armstrong

“I will not be "famous," "great." I will go on adventuring, changing, opening my mind and my eyes, refusing to be stamped and stereotyped. The thing is to free one's self: to let it find its dimensions, not be impeded.” 
Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

"So many live their lives feeling unloved, unseen, unrecognized, unappreciated. So very many. You may not know who they are because we are all conditioned to hide our truth below a bushel of shame. But they are everywhere. When you make an effort to share your love, you don't always know where it will land. But be sure that it does. Sometimes it lights a torch for others to follow. Sometimes it gives them reason to believe that there is a better life waiting for them after a lifetime of disappointment. Sometimes it builds spirits and sometimes it actually saves lives. We just have to keep giving the love wherever and whenever we can. You never know how far it will travel."
Jeff Brown

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not seek answers now, which cannot be given to you because you would not be able to live with them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
Rainer Maria Rilke

"Hurt people hurt people.  That's how pain patterns get passed on, generation after generation after generation.  Break the chain today.  Meet anger with sympathy, contempt with compassion, cruelty with kindness.  Greet grimaces with smiles.  Forgive and forget about finding fault.  Love is the weapon of the future."
Yehuda Berg