Your tribe! Your go to! The people that lift you, support you and no matter how well they know you, inside-out and upside-down are there for you, they root for you and love you. It took me forever to establish a good tribe, a small group that amazingly keeps growing. I am blessed and honored to have these people in my life. The Psychology of positive reinforcement is really not "Rocket Science."  You don't have to be a genius to know that being around positive people is a positive thing, but what if you never had a positive influence in your life and all you knew was negativity. It's like eating chicken and thinking that was all there was to eat...and you know, everything tastes like chicken! Imagine growing up with negative toxic people, constantly bringing you down. What kind of adult would you be, what kind of parent, friend, spouse? Sometimes you are so swept up in the tornado that it's difficult to see the farm. You watch the cows and rooftops fly by and hold on for dear life. It's hard to see the end of the funnel or the tunnel. It's amazing how different I am because of my Tribe.  I feel it. More confident, stronger, and of course older. I'm a little more outspoken which gets me in trouble sometimes but still my friends get me, I'm opinionated but I've also lived quite the life. I talked about Toxic in the last post and can not stress to you the importance of surrounding yourself around positive people! It's not easy..trust me I know! What do you do when your hold world is surrounded by negativity, how do you even realize let along navigate? The thing that worked for me was out of every group of people that seemed negative there was always one positive person lifting me. I went to a lot of different schools growing up, making friends was difficult, the new kid is an easy target, but I always had a friend or a teacher, a paster or even the special-ed kids I always at lunch with my Senior year...they thought I was pretty cool. And that made a small difference. As I got older I yearned to be around positive influences. I lived a crazy life but my disposition is always happy and easy like Sunday Morning.


I have a wonderful crew, a diverse array of souls from all walks of life. And this small group whether it be a few of my besties or close acquaintances ( yea...they can be close)  Have my best interest at heart, they root for me. They help give me courage when I feel I'm not good enough, especially with my Photography, there's a lot of competition out there. My main cheerleader.... My husband, he is my absolute in this life. He always encourages me, inspires me and lifts me. He always says the most beautiful positive things to me. And believe it or not, this is a daily thing, not because he feels he has to, I know it's always from the heart, he wants to. Our friends tease us that we act like we're on our honeymoon, it's been a beautiful 22-year honeymoon.  


For me, it took years understanding who to let go of and who to call friend. Find your tribe, really and truely having positive people in your life will help you be a positive influence on others and your self. It is basically one extream or the other, you build or you tare down. building people up or bringing them down. It's a fundamental need to be loved and told you are loved unconditionally. I listened to Pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris TED talk about how childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime. And Psychology Today the importance of positive psychology. I know that I need to be the person I needed when I was younger, I need to be uplifted and uplifting. There's a great quote by Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn About being something of every minute of every hour, but it's been tweaked to this and I like this much better! 

LET  ME BE SOMETHING EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY HOUR OF MY LIFE. LET ME BE HAPPY AND LET ME BE KIND. LET ME BE SINCERE, TRUTHFUL AND COURAGEOUS. LET ME BE FAITHFUL, AND LET ME LOVE. LET ME BE SOMETHING EVERY BLESSED MINUTE AND WHEN I SLEEP, LET ME DREAM ALL THE TIME SO THAT NOT ONE LITTLE PIECE OF LIVING IS LOST