Snap Out of It!

Even though I am spending time with my family I get the feeling that I am as lonely as if I were surrounded by no one. By nature, I tend to be pretty introverted and usually keep to myself. Normally, this is not the case when I’m around family, but something is different this time around and I’m not entirely sure what. I notice myself feeling isolated from the rest of the crowd and sometimes it’s not because I’m physically distant but emotionally detached. We have all been through something like this and having a friendly ear helps a lot. Everyone needs a person they can talk to. Having someone you can trust to discuss what’s eating away at your sanity, helps tremendously. However, not everyone has that luxury and we each need to find our own means of solving the bullshit in our heads.

The main reason you are feeling alone is because your worries and your thoughts are  consuming you, not allowing you to step into your surroundings. At this point you need to look outside of yourself for help, talk to someone dear to you. When you share something with someone, chances are they can relate to troubles. At the very least someone will empathize with you. People may notice your behavior change but people don’t want to bring up touchy subjects that might make you feel uncomfortable. If you don’t say something, then no one is going to be able to help you. Contemplating something over and over creates a tub of wandering thoughts, if it stays encased within your skull, it will eventually overflow. Finding someone who you can talk to about your problems on may not come as easy but everyone needs a friend they trust. By venting to your friend you’re creating an open space of mutual trust where both people feel safe to discuss their problems without fear of judgement. There will always be someone you can count on who will lend an ear. At times it can be difficult to ask for help but talking things out will offer some clarity. The benefits of telling someone else what’s on your mind is that this person can provide advice as an outsider looking in. Having another person aware of your situation, allows you to have companionship that can offer support when you need it. As mentioned before, if you keep overthinking your situation it increases the notion of feeling lonely because you’re the only one bearing the weight. Whereas if you share the weight with someone you are no longer alone. For those who might have trouble finding that person to share your problems with, here are some tips to deal with the situation on your own.

1) Find something that will transport your mind to a better place. Go take a walk, being surrounded by nature will help you gain perspective. When you take yourself and your problems into an open space, BREATHE in and let your thoughts flow out of you so you can view the situation at a different angle. As you appreciate how vast and complex our universe really is, you will then realize that your problem isn’t as bad as you originally thought. Doing this will help you see things in a different light so you can filter out what you cannot solve from the things you can, allowing you to gain control and understand the bullshit. It’s not so much about what you can do to ”fix” the situation but the important thing is to realize how the situation affects you and your actions.

2) Keep a diary to write out all your feelings. This will help you get your worries and anger out in a physical form. By writing things down, it allows you to physically GRASP what is going on in your head. As long as those thoughts are in your head you cannot FACE them, the moment you write them down they enter your physical realm allowing you to face them head on. After all the crappy thoughts are out, you can begin to absorb good thoughts and reflect on the things that bring you happiness. Write all of the things you are happy about in your life so that you are left with your positive thoughts. The more you fill your mind with good things, the less room there will be for the bad. Begin writing a gratitude journal: write down 3 to 5 things that you are grateful for everyday so that you feel appreciative of your surroundings. You can do it before bed or in the morning or both, but in moderation, don’t over do it.

3.)  Listen to music. Music has the power to transport your state of mind into a different wavelength. Tune into music that normally makes you feel like dancing, or jumping out of happiness, so that the feeling transforms your state of mind allowing you to feel happy.

Through meditation, journal writing and music you can find your peace of mind but there is so much to gain by sharing your thoughts with someone. If you keep your thoughts to yourself, it makes the process to solve the root of your distress harder. There is no loss in expressing your thoughts, what’s the worse thing that could happen? You might even be helping the other person get through some of their bullshit, and learn something from each other in the process. Everyone wants to be happy, so why not be that support for others on their journey to happiness. Don’t let yourself stay in this lonely state for too long because you’ll miss out on the things that make you happy and fill your life with positivity. Focus on the things that make you smile and live life in the present.

Happy Thoughts :)

Stand on Your Own Two Feet!

Independence, self sufficient, doing things on your own. To me Independence is when you do not need to rely on anyone or anything else to make you happy. In order to have a meaningful relationship you need to move past the issues you have with yourself. You have to be in a healthy relationship with yourself before you can expect to be in a happy relationship with someone else. If you are focusing too much of your attention on someone else, and not working on your inner peace then you will go crazy. The only person you have control over in this world is you, so take control and be independent. You have the power to determine your own outcome. When you enter any relationship, romantic or otherwise, and you are not happy with yourself, you will become dependent, you will look to the other person for validation. Let’s face it, we came into this world alone, and we will leave alone, choosing to be in a relationship is great because you determine who you will spend time with, but relationships are like ships passing in the night, they will fade with distance. So we need to be more than “ok” with being alone.

I am not saying that all relationships are bad, when you enter a relationship at the wrong time and for the wrong reasons, it will have a negative results. Don’t let anyone have the power of controlling your happiness. We did a post a while back about Best Interests it is about how everyone is for themselves, we ultimately care about our own well being. So if you are dependent, you will be the one to get hurt in the end, because the person you are dependent on is not always going to be there for you. So, who IS there for you? Guess what? You will ALWAYS be there for you! You cannot run and hide from yourself.

When it comes to romantic relationships, some level of dependency is required so that you can build trust with one another. But what happens when the other person is no longer there for you to fall back on? If something happens to your significant other, universe forbid, how will you take care of yourself? You should be able to say that you will be ok, but for those who are dependent, can you really say the same? When in a relationship, you should never forget who you are. Just because you are with someone you do not lose your individuality. You will never discover who you really are if your main identity is that you are someone else’s significant other. You are not property to be owned, you are a unique individual, and that is to be celebrated.

You do not want to lose yourself in the blur of the people around you, stand apart and define your own lines, stand out among the blur. Once you have established your individuality, no one and nothing will get in the way of your happiness.

~Be independent. Be yourself.

Jealousy; The Green Eyed-Monster.

Jealousy is a bit more complex than we may think. This is not only just an emotion, it is a reaction. There are many different situations in which jealousy can come out. It may be in a relationship, romantic and otherwise, or even in a competitive setting, the workplace, or a social gathering. Whatever the case may be I feel that it is a wasted emotion! We live in a society where we do not take the time to appreciate what we DO have in our lives, we spend too much time and energy worrying about what we want, or what others have. I always tell people that those things we want, materialistic or otherwise, are not always the things that make us happy. Once you look deep within yourself, trust me you will realize you have just wasted your time being jealous.

When it comes to competitive jealousy, it brings to light your level of self confidence. If you feel jealous because of what someone has, that means that you are wasting too much of your time thinking about other people, you really need to think about yourself for a change!!!! One could even say you are lacking self-confidence … and trust me that is not attractive. (Check out our post about confidence right -> HERE.) A person who is jealous because their co worker just bought a brand new BMW, suggests that something is wrong with their 10 year old Civic. The jealous person needs to realize that their Civic has lasted them 10 years and is still running great. This person also has a fear of what others might think of their little ol’ Civic, and last time I checked all cars serve the same purpose, get you from point A to B. So, who cares what the world thinks?!?!?!?! If you are happy and everything is working why you trippen’ for? Be grateful that you own a car, some don’t even have THAT luxury.

ROMANTIC jealousy, this one can be flattering, but still a waste. Some may think that it is cute when their significant other is jealous of another person due to the fear of loss, it shows that they care about the other person enough for this emotion to get in the way. Being jealous in this situation also shows that the other person has trust issues. They do not trust their significant other enough to believe that they will make the right decisions. With romantic jealousy we also get a mixture of other reactions such as possessiveness, suspicion, rage, and humiliation. Aside from the lack of trust, there is once again the lack of confidence, this person begins to question what is wrong with themselves; Why would my significant other do what they did? What does the other person have that I do not have? What is wrong with me?

A lot of the time jealousy can be projected by something that isn’t there, it may be your imagination running wild, but it happens if you lack trust in your partner and confidence in yourself.

What all of this boils down to is happiness, jealousy prevents you from being happy. Happiness is a choice, you can choose to be happy for someone or you can choose to be jealous of them. Learn to be happy for people and trust your significant other. Turn the feeling of jealousy into something positive and you will make your life positive.

There are so many issues in the world such as hunger, genocide, war, poverty, etc. so why waste your time and energy being envious of people? Be grateful for what you have and celebrate that with the people who are around you and care about you. You have the power to determine what your life will be like, and as time goes on the harder it will be to make that change. You have the power to determine your outcome.

~Peace

I've Got A Secret

It’s a nice day out and you’re chatting with a friend when they lean in and say “Can you keep a secret?” This phrase always makes me feel eeekkkk :P I can keep secrets, I know I can, however there are some people that can’t, and I would be careful about who you think you can trust to keep your secrets. Check out our post on Trust → Here. There are different kinds of secrets, family secrets, murder secrets >:) muahaha yes, affair secrets, secret secrets. In my opinion, if someone want’s to keep a secret they should not share it with anyone! >:( I don’t care if you have to tell somebody because there is too much pressure on you in regards to keeping that secret, you keep it! It’s funny when you want to keep something from the rest of the world and the next thing you know, everybody knows your business.

Secrets are risky business, and here is why. Everything is bound to come out in one way or another (except those RARE secrets that die in the grave or crematory, congratulations on those who did, but we’ll never know). When you entrust someone outside of yourself to keep a secret, you are creating a potential bomb, mainly because you don’t know when it will set off. You will be giving that trustee the opportunity to use the information against you, in the form of blackmail and betrayal. The person that knows of the secret has power over you, that is of course if you can trust them, (please read Hareena’s post on friends, a true friend is not easy to find)

What you decide to filter and purposefully keep from others, especially if you know they can benefit from the information says a lot about your intentions. Here’s another point of view on secrets, could they be considered a lie if you say nothing at all? No, it’s not a lie, withholding information is not the same as lying. Lying is when you purposefully make a statement to deceive or mislead somebody else. I went off on the topic of lying in my older post, please read it when you are done with this one.

I want to leave you with this simple quote by Chanakya “The biggest guru-mantra is: never share your secrets with anybody. It will destroy you.”

Much Love,

Edith

Be Picky About Who YOU Call “Friend”

“I would rather have 4 shiny quarters than 100 rusty pennies.” There are more than 7 billion people in the world, and who deserves the honor of being called your friend? You decide! The only way you are ever going to find those 4 quarters is through trial and error. You have to give everyone a chance, then you have to decide what the right decision is for YOU. It’s not hard making friends, but it is hard to say goodbye to the ones you could do without, ok that may be a bit harsh, but its the truth. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the definition of friend is a simple one, a person who helps and supports you.

You cannot be friends with everyone you meet, you have to have the mindset that it is an honor for someone else to call you friend. Everyone is special and everyone has something to offer, and they need to realize that, but not everyone is worthy of your friendship. I know that this may sound a bit selfish but once you read my post on Best Interest you will see my point better. You have to maintain the relationship that is beneficial to you, no one has time for Bullspit. In this case it has to be an emotional benefit and the relationship HAS to go both ways if it is going to last. What do both parties have to gain from this relationship? Life is not about business transactions, but without even thinking about it we make decisions with our own benefits in mind.

If you find yourself questioning a relationship with someone then chances are that the friendship is not worth it. I talked about a friend that I had to cut off in my post on trust, you should not hold something against people if they do not give you a reason to. The lack of trust or betrayal are just a few of the many things that can go wrong in a friendship. There is also a level of respect that friends should always have for one another, but there should also be a balance of fun and jokeyness in the equation.

I have found myself in friendships where I was a wallflower. Back in college I had a friend who would talk endlessly. I could never get in a word because this person was busy telling me their problems that they did not even notice I was trying to say something. I realized that this friendship was doing me more harm than good. After spending a full day with this person and knowing that the amount of words I spoke could be counted on one hand; “hey,” “uh huh,” and “bye.” I had to stop and look at the cost and benefits. The costs were much greater, this person would unload their baggage on me only to make me feel bad for them, while they were making themselves feel better. This friend was emotionally and mentally damaging to me, and I knew that If I ever needed to talk about my problems, this person would not be there for me. So I cut my losses and said goodbye. I do not regret my decision, but I still care for this person and wish them the best.

With all that said and done, if someone is causing you more pain, than good, it is time to say goodbye no matter how hard it will be.

~Ta

Forgive but NEVER Forget

A few years back I was having a conversation with a friend about the popular phrase “forgive and forget.” She was telling me that she never forgives nor forgets, and I was arguing that you should forgive, but do not forget. I think that no matter the situation, if it is big or small, forgive. My reasoning is a purely selfish one, forgive for your own peace of mind. When it comes to forgetting, don’t, file the incident in the back of your mind.

At the end of the day what really matters is how you feel about yourself. So, if you are busy being mad at someone else, how do you think that will affect your well being? Life is short so why waste your precious time being upset at someone else, just forgive them and move on. Buddha once said, “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.” By not forgiving someone else you are holding on to something that will only hurt you in the end, if you do not get hurt physically it may be mentally. As for the other person, all you can do is hope they have learned their lesson, you cannot control how how other people think.

Never forget. If this person has wronged you, you do not want to make this mistake 2 times, by allowing them to hurt you. Some will say that you are not truly over an incident until you have forgotten, but I am here to say is not true. Going back to my post on Trust , I say that because this person betrayed me I now know that I cannot trust them in the same way again. I have made peace with what happened, it is no longer bothering me, it’s water under the bridge as they say. However If I forget that this person betrayed my trust, it will only happen again. When someone does something that causes you to rethink your relationship with them, it is hard to bounce back and act as though nothing has happened. With that being said, people do change and learn from their mistakes, it is not right to hold something against someone that happened along time ago. With time comes experience, and as we all get older we learn from our mistakes. Give the other person the benefit of the doubt, because you cannot truly forgive someone unless you can move past the situation.

Another thing that people do not do often enough is forgive themselves. The fact of the matter is that you cannot change the past. Life is SHORT! (Check out my other post in Dying) If you cannot change what happened, deal with it,learn from it and move on. If you need to say you're sorry say it and go back to living your life. You cannot put things on hold, time does not stand still for anyone. Do you want to spend your life holding a grudge? I have never met a single person on this planet who did not want to be happy, so get over it and be happy … and yes it IS that simple. We are only as happy as we allow ourselves to be. SOOOO forgive the asshole (even if that asshole happens to be YOU) and move on!

~Live, Learn. Move on.

Trust

Have you ever told anyone something in confidence, and the next thing you know everyone and they momma knows? Well my trust was broken recently, and after I found out I was angry. How could this person do this to me? But I soon realized that this is what happens when you trust someone, it’s risky. You cannot control what other people say or do, you just have to have faith that the person you trusted has enough respect for you to not tell others about your business.

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, trust is defined as the belief that someone or something is reliable, good, honest, etc.. The key word that I would like to zone in on is “belief.” Just because we made the judgement that someone can be trusted does not mean that it is true. As a result, the only person that you can trust is yourself because you are the only one in control of your actions. I feel that I should be mad at is myself. I believed that this person was trustworthy. I made the wrong judgment and I was the one to get hurt in the end.

Looking back at this experience I have a better grasp on what trust is. I know that I cannot control what other people say or do, and I cannot go back in time and stop myself from telling this person, because at the time this is exactly what I wanted to do. As for that person, I now know I cannot tell them anything anymore, they did not have enough respect for me to keep this conversation between the two of us. They will never know I found out that they betrayed me, they will never know because this person is simply not worth my breath.

With that being said learning to trust someone is important in any relationship if it is meant to last, but it takes a long time to get to the point where people can trust one another. When you say that you trust someone it says many things about the other person’s character. Just knowing that you can trust someone says that you are familiar with their values and you know that this person would never do anything that would hurt you. As the writer George MacDonald said, “to be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.”

~Love is hard to come by, but trust is harder

Between the Liars and Their Lies

Why do people lie? What is a lie? A lie is basically an intentional false statement. There are different types of lies that one could research on the net. The type of lie that I think is most common is the one that covers something up, a secret. I have heard of the “white lie” where supposedly the lie protects the well being of an individual. There may be other forms of using a lie but the bottom line is that a lie is a lie. I’ll admit to lying at different points in my life and I’m not happy about doing that but I will fully admit to it.

I don’t want to justify lying period, I’m just explaining the difference between the functionality of these lies so I can introduce the lie I call the pointless lie. The pointless lie is the one that is told with no reasoning behind it. In my experience dealing with people who lie, do it out of boredom to see what they can stir up. Hypothetically, if you and I are the only ones in the kitchen and you ask me “Did you finish the dish soap, Edith?” after I have just washed the dishes, and I say “No” (not being sarcastic). Given that I used dish soap for dish washing, I clearly just lied to your face! How would that make you feel? Personally, I’d be pissed off because the other person is challenging my intelligence. This gets me mad because in this situation there is no bad consequence for telling the truth, so why lie?

Lying in general will not get you very far because sooner or later the truth is bound to come out somewhere. Like Twain said “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” People who lie have to keep track of the lies they say and they wouldn’t have to keep lying if the truth was there to begin with. Every time you think about telling a white lie think about how you would feel if you were the person being lied to, wouldn’t you prefer your friends to be honest with you? Once you find out the truth your relationship won’t be the same, you wouldn’t be able to trust that person anymore and you could lose the people you love.

The next time you feel compelled to protect someone by telling a white lie, or just lie in general, think about the future effort you have to make to cover up the lies. It’s best to tell the truth even if it hurts and hope that the other person values your honesty, it will also be beneficial to you because your conscience will be clear.

Thanks for listening, happy Monday :)