Personal-Control Motto

"There is one thing you cannot take away from me, ever: my ability to choose how to respond.

You can hurt me, you can be mean to me. I choose to forgive, I choose to be kind.

You can try to disrespect me. But I have too much self-respect to give you that power over my mood and attitude. When you are disrespectful, I choose to have mercy because I can see the pain ripping you apart inside.

You can choose envy, bitterness and backbiting. It has no power over me. I choose mercy because that poison in your soul must be slowly drowning you.

You can take away my job and my possessions. But you cannot ever take away my choice to worship my Creator.

You can make my life inconvenient, try to kill me with a thousand tiny cuts. But I choose gratitude for another opportunity to grow up into a mature person.

I refuse to be a victim. I refuse to be a doormat. I refuse to make excuses and blame others. I choose how I respond today."

 

--August 30th, Kirk Martin (Founder, Celebrate Calm)

 

Several months ago one of my AAI parents shared with me about Kirk Martin and Celebrate Calm.  Eric and I went to one of his workshops and bought some CDs.  His message is actually very similar to Bryan Post and a lot of adoptive parenting experts in a lot of ways (even though Kirk is a general parenting guy).  They all say that a person must control themselves FIRST and that no person in this world can control another person.  We can only hope to influence people (usually with our actions rather than our words.

 

The other day the above message was posted on Celebrate Calm's Facebook page.  If you haven't already liked it, I highly suggest it!  I honestly get more out of the FB nuggets than the CDs. =-)  Eric and I sat down with our big kids yesterday and went through this line by line.  Today I printed it out and we're hanging it in our classroom.  If our kids would just "get" this, there would be so much more peace in the house.  No more "she did so-and-so" and that made me do such-and such."  No more crying for hours over what one friend may have said about you behind your back.  No more "he did this to me and now I've been bullied and will never recover!"

 

Keep calm.  Remain in control.  Don't give another person your power by losing control.  Never run out of mercy.  Nobody can make you react poorly to a situation.  That's all on you.

 

[Yes, Eric and I are trying to live by the same rules!]