Husbands G.B. Quietly Confident.

I've learned something this week. Or rather, I am in the process of learning something. To be unfailingly confident. I have to tell you that this is clearly a problem for me in general. For one reason or another, I find it difficult to be confident all of the time, In fact, because of my constantly being sick, I tend to be on the 'glass-half-empty-until-some-numbnut-knocked-the-whole-thing-over' part of the scale. I married someone who is positive, or at least much more positive than my negative; and she is good at seeing the good in all sorts of things. I have really needed that the last month or so.

Although generally speaking the GAPS diet allows the body to get better and better, sometimes you can get worse. This has been the case the last 3 or 4 weeks. I have been feeling run-down, nasty and really tired. I have been having day sleeps again, but I am aware that my descent backwards is not terminal. I put this backwards spiral down to a number of different factors: 1. My stomach is not fully healed so really I need to take Biokult every day to help kick it into gear a bit. Unfortunately I have been forgetting. 2. Sugar- I don't eat any sugar, but I do put an exceeding amount of honey in my cups of tea. This is not a good idea, because it feeds the bad bugs in your stomach, and makes your wife say "Do you want some tea with your honey" which causes general grumpiness and unhappiness. 3. I've been adding food too quickly and an excess of it. If I can have something sweet I will eat more than my share of it. 4. My children wake up 2 hours earlier for some reason due to daylight savings and we have inherited a juvenile dog that licks ears at 6:00.

But I have noticed something interesting in my journey these last few weeks, something that children have been teaching me. To be quietly confident. The first instance is my youngest who is learning how to walk. For the last couple of weeks he has been hanging on to everything, taking a step or two towards something else to hang on to. When He feels like he is going to fall over, he bends his little legs to sit down and crawl. He is entirely capable of walking but he doesn't trust his own abilities. His little tentative steps are met with thunderous applause from siblings and parents alike! It has lead him to a point where today he was about to sit down when we clapped and shouted for joy at his walking! Instead of sitting down, he took another two or three brave steps over to a convenient ledge and gave an enormous grin! It's heartening to see his confidence growing so quickly. The other instance was today at little athletics. We have just started doing little athletics (The children, not me. I would rather eat a bucket full of hair). and we have given each of them little encouraging claps and high fives when they do the right thing. But today I saw something which made me smile. One of the more experienced boys stepped up to the middle of the shotput ring. He strode up to the ring like he owned it and you could virtually see his little mind thinking 'this is going OUT OF THE PARK' It didn't. But it was a very good throw and it made me think about quiet confidence again.

Most of the time when I do something good, my wife gives me a compliment, or a thank you, but if I don't get it, I (being silly) compliment myself (e.g. 'I just washed the dishes! Go Me!, or 'I just put the washing on the line, Good on Me!'). I figure if no-ones going to affirm me I may as well do it myself! Yes it's a bit silly but how else is confidence formed? If we can't reward ourselves for the good that we have done, and we can't remind ourselves how far we have progressed, how can we be happy to progress further?

Because of us feeling run down we will have to probably go back to stage 1 for a little while, and stop eating nuts. This will be a challenge, because I like nuts and I will have to give up tea. However I have progressed far enough that I know that I can give up Mr Dilmah for a little while without having homicidal urges.I know that if I have done it once. I can do it again. That's quiet confidence.