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I woke up in the at twelve thirty at night, thoughts racing through my mind. Conversations I’d had in the day, things that were worrying me and how I was really upset with someone. As I lay there, I wondered what I could do and felt myself falling into old thought patterns; poor hard done by me.

It took me another hour and half before I thought about doing something else. Sleep wasn’t going to come and I couldn’t lay in bed any longer, so I got out of bed and took myself downstairs. Of course my two boys thought this was a great time for them to go to the toilet and as I opened the back door to let them out, I was met with a brash, cold wind.

My plan was to grab a book and read, while listening to the “sleep” playlist on Spotify and have a cup of nighttime tea. Instead, the movement sparked an idea within me. Take your own advice. Instead of doing other things to tire me out, I knew that I needed to work through the issues which had awoken me.

I grabbed a notebook and started to write about the things which were upsetting me. As I wrote an ever expanding list, I started to recognise that some of the things I was mad at. I was doing them myself. Someone has said, and I don’t know where it comes from, that the things that annoy or upset or anger us about someone else is usually because we can’t face those things about ourselves. As soon as I realised that I was doing the things I was upset with, I had to make a change.

We can’t change other people, we can only change ourselves. But there is magic in the changes we make, because they ripple out to others. When you treat a stranger with kindness, you get treated with kindness in return. Everything starts with you. When we expect other people to change around us, we are left disappointed and frustrated. Yet when we make the changes ourselves, then miracles happen. I’m not saying people will change over night, but you can if you want to. It’s all up to you.