Halloween is pretty uneventful for me because Husband and I live in an apartment and we don’t get any trick-or-treaters in an apartment complex. So minus taking pictures of people dressed up in costume at work today (since I am in charge of our company’s social media and internal communications) and my cupcake adventure last night, it’s just been a normal day. But a very rainy day. It poured here all last night and all day until around 4pm. Then it all just went away, it had cooled off a little and the sun came out.

I decided to go for a run at the park even though I knew the trail would be soggy. Something about it just felt nice on this holiday evening. As I was running I was doing some thinking and also a lot of leaping over puddles. I had to really pay attention to the path because all of a sudden you’d be zig zagging to avoid huge puddles or piles of mud. Occasionally though you had no way around the puddle- so I leaped over it.

After I did this a few times I started thinking about those puddles. About how life is full of them. Smooth ground for awhile and then a big mess you have to get through and then smooth for awhile and then a mess to trudge through..and if you are not paying attention the big messy puddle sneaks up on you and before you know it you are right in it. I think I have a tendency to get in a puddle and then stay there. Focus on the puddle. I have a hard time letting go of the puddle. It’s a small feeling of negativity/glass half empty I am noticing that is always there in the back of my mind. But when I was running tonight I got such a rush after I’d leap over a puddle successfully. I started thinking wouldn’t it be great if I could just leap over the negativity and keep things positive. Leap over the messy puddles in my life. Not avoid the puddle, not jump into the puddle, but simply acknowledge it, figure out a plan and leap over it.

How do you handle negative thoughts? Do you think sometimes we can just dwell on things too much and really we just need to leap over them to move forward? Did you or your family dress up today? Happy Halloween!