Has a single thought ever changed your life?

[Entstoryench]

I've been reflecting on how important thoughts are, and how one thought can just change your life dramatically.

One example: when I was in my teens and early twenties, I was overweight. I was miserable and had no confidence. I always assumed that I always would be overweight and any attempts to loe weight were so half hearted.

Then one day I had this crystal clear thought: 'losing weight is completely in my control'. It sounds obvious, but I realised that if I changed my diet, I literally had the power to lose weight. Like, I actually had real control over this.

About a year later, I was 4 stone down and had to buy a whole new wardrobe of clothes. People didn't recognise me in the street and I replaced all of my old habits with lovely new healthy ones. 20 years later and I've pretty much kept it off and it was all down to that one thought that hit me like a tonnes of bricks one day.

Please share how a single thought changed your life!

'I don't need to take this shit anymore' has been a mantra for me a few times.

You can’t control someone else’s behaviour but you can control your reaction to it.
Helped me massively when dealing with toxic in laws and after that, many many times at work too.

Growing up I was always comparing myself unfavourably to the girls around me. I'd known them since I was very small and I just never felt good enough, confident enough etc. and was very down on myself.

Randomly one day this kind of thinking happened and I just thought to myself, it's ok you don't need to be like them, you're just fine as you are. The most wonderful warm feeling of calm came over me, like I'd finally solved it. I've never felt anything like it before or since. It was amazing. I've been so much kinder to myself from that and while it's not perfect, I don't compare myself negatively any more.

I love this @whereeverilaymycat

Thank you. Honestly I'll never forget it, I don't know where it came from but it was such a turning point for me.

"I never have to work for someone else ever again".

I have had a string of horrendous managers. Really awful, narcissistic maniacs!
I am now self employed and really love it. Truly truly love it.

I felt a huge sense of relief and freedom when I had that thought.

@GAW19
That's awful. I'm so glad things have worked out better for you. Well done you 💛

Allowing myself to say no, this is not for me.
I had booked an intensive skiing lesson on DHs insistence, as he wanted a skiing holiday. I was ok with trying it out, but I’m not sporty or brave.
About an hour into it I just freaked out, the whole thing was cold and scary and far too high up and just no.
I went into the toilets and cried.
And then I had this thought, you don’t have to do this.
Yes it’s been paid for, but you’re 30 and you can say no.
I went back out, told the instructor I was done, and went to get changed.
It sounds ridiculous but it changed everything for me.
I am a grown up, with my own money and mind, and I can say no.

We went on the skiing holiday, and I didn’t ski. The apres ski was bloody marvellous though.

Well done to all who have overcome something. You are amazing.

"It's ok to say no"

Realising I could manage my boundaries for myself was revolutionary.

The beautiful light of life and charisma that you see in others is also inside you.

I come from a very toxic family-I’m the scapegoat

so normal boundaries where alien to me,I didn’t see red flags and I’d put up with so much crap as it was my ‘normal’

i lurched from dv to dv,killing a part of my soul each time-I really thought I was unloveable

i was sort of seeing a guy who wasn’t good for me at all-he was obsessed with his ex (our first date was spent buying a tracker for him to put in her car)

anyway,I’d been on about 5/6 dates with him and I was sat on his sofa,listening to him droning on about her,while checking his phone to see if her car was moving and thought ‘I deserve better than this-im sick of being a punchbag-physically and mentally’

i got up,walked out,blocked him and went home

i then blocked every single ex,bad friend and anyone who didn’t treat me right

5 months later I met my now partner,who treats me like a queen-he’s always got my back-we celebrate our 7th anniversary on Wednesday

ive had the wankers from my past try to suck me back in but I just block and forget about them-I don’t feel the need to be polite or feel I have to speak to them-they don’t matter to me and have no part in my life if I don’t want them to (we moved away from my hometown so I don’t have to see anyone I don’t want to in the flesh)

I have never felt more free in my life

Thought doesn’t have to dictate action; action can dictate thought.

You are free to walk out of work whenever you like.

Will sound stupid to most people, but I was in a job for years that was like we were frogs slowly being boiled - managers telling staff off, colleagues sat at their desk crying etc. We just seemed to forget we were there by choice. One day a colleague told our manager work bullying was making her suicidal, and manager came to me afterwards and said "don't let her chuntering distract you today please".

And I suddenly remembered I had a choice. I suppose that's similar to an emotional abuse relationship.

That being a good parent doesn't automatically equate to having 'successful' dc - in my mind the 2 were linked, whereas actually there are loads of factors that affect how dc turn out, not just parenting. I knew that in some ways but hadn't applied it to myself.

And feeling 'full' rather than 'fat' after a meal. Again, too easy to conflate but now I try not too.

Yeh. Many times. Not all of them for the better. No way I’m posting those on here though. Best one though was probably “fuck this, I’m off home” and that’s what I did. Back in the village I grew up in with the friends and family I grew up with.

I allowed someone to treat me like utter shit for years because I knew if I put a stop to it, it would affect other people's relationships with both of us. Then I saw the "not my circus, not my monkeys" comment and realised those other relationships are not mine to manage and I walked away.

Knowing I would never again have to sit there and smile while she dug her claws into me was the most peaceful I had felt in such a long time.

I was very jealous and insecure in relationships as a younger woman and a friend, talking about her own situation, said they don't have to go to the pub to cheat to do, if they want to do it they'll find a way. And it made me realise all my crazy jealous behaviour was in vain because they absolutely will if they want to, any time, any where and there's nothing you can do to stop it. All you can do is trust them and hope they won't hurt you, and dump them if they do.

"Why not?" Said to me by a friend when discussing if DH should take an overseas job and move the family 7000km away.

I gave her my spiel about all the downsides but on the way home I just couldn't stop thinking "why not?" And so we did it.

Huge change to our lives. A real experience. I don't regret it and for the most part we're having a ball.

'When I'm dying and looking back on my life, will I be more grateful that I didn't give anyone anything to gossip about, or that I lived my life the way I wanted to?'

I had confessed to a therapist that I sometimes wished my family were dead so I could feel free to make my own decisions and learn from my own mistakes, without anyone criticising or breathing down my neck or everyone getting together and catastrophising and making me the 'problem of the week.'

And she just said, 'Why wait until then?'

That, plus a near death experience, crystallised that realisation. It was like I had suddenly freed myself.

I grew up with a terrible, narcissistic mother who had this hold on me, even after I'd left home and had my own life. One day I was thinking about mothers, and what a major effect that have on our lives, and I suddenly thought ' She did the best she could, she played the hand of cards that she'd been dealt
. She can't help it ".

I went from being sad / angry with her, to feeling sorry for her because she didn't know any other way to be. I started using the grey rock technique instead of over-reacting to her. I was always blandly pleasant to her, never reacted to anything she said. She never had any more ammunition so her behaviours slackened off and became almost pleasant. By the time she died, I was getting on quite well with her. And all because of that one thought.

Age 22: "I could be happy. I have to leave this abusive prick"

Age 22: "I'll call college about doing some gcses". I now have 2 postgraduate degrees.

Age 34: "I think I'll message that lovely guy I haven't seen in a few years". 4 years on, we have kids and he's the man of my dreams.

"I'm a lesbian" at 38 years old

If I don’t report him I may never get away from him. I phoned the police because I was so utterly terrified of him. Away now with a place of my own and loving it.

Yes this for me too. Along with knowing that life is too short for reading rubbish books.

It meant I'm more mindful of how I spend my (finite) time.

"This is worse than him being dead."

That single thought broke a 29-year cycle of fear, obligation, guilt and walking on fucking eggshells to prioritise the 'mental wellbeing' of my abusive ex. His suicide threats kept me locked into that cycle when his behaviour towards me escalated after our child was born because I lost my own father that way and I didn't want DC to feel the same pain.

Then one day he exploded fast, out of nowhere, and - for the first time in many years - I couldn't get our child out of his way in time to spare them from seeing it. I looked at their face as I was trying to get him to leave and that thought was as clear as if it were being spoken to me. Within 24 hours I had protections in place to ensure that he could never return.