Currently I’m Loving…

Emma Watson’s He For She Speech

Yes, the cat’s out of the bag.   I’ve always loved and respected Emma Watson. In fact I’ve kind of not-so-secretly wanted to be best friends with her. This speech was so on point. Not because I was able to identify myself as a feminist (because according to the definition presented in her speech, I am one) but because she highlighted the struggles of men. Women are not the only ones held to a double standard. And I loved that she recognized that. I could go on and on about why I love her, but that sounds creepy, even to me.

Essential Oils

I’ve been struggling with anxiety attacks and other personal issues as of late, and essential oils have saved my life. I hardly go to the drugstore anymore. These oils have been more effective than any pill I’ve ever taken. Anyone who knows me personally knows that I am very anti-medication. No, these things are not magic, but they’re a great first step in the right direction for me.

This Huffington Post piece on gratitude. I’m all for gratitude, but everyone forgets. that there are some things that we take for granted. This is a great reminder of the little things that we tend to overlook that are just as valuable.

Jessica Chastain’s interview about her new movie. I’m not one to usually peruse Yahoo, but this was a great find, particularly because I’m so adamant about my own struggles with depression. I loved so much of what she said in this interview.

What have YOU been loving this week? Let me know in the comments!

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How To Turn A Bad Day Around

 

You know those days where everything that could possibly go wrong actually does?

You roll out of bed past your alarm. You spill coffee on your work clothes. You can’t find your keys. And when you finally do find your keys, you go to work, only to lock yourself out of the car. You’re sitting in traffic on the way to the airport. You miss your flight. The days where you constantly find yourself thinking, This is not my day.

 

We all have them.

 

I just had one a short time ago. Except this time, it wasn’t an endless ring of fiery hoops I had to jump through. I created this obstacle course with one mistake that could have been easily avoidable.

 

Not even finding a very uplifting post from one of my all-time favorite blogs could cheer me up. And this was while I was listening to music.

 

I was playing the “should have, could have” game for a good while. But we all know that that doesn’t do squat.

 

 

Let Yourself Feel Frustrated

 

You might say, “So you missed a flight. Big whoop.”

 

Actually, to some of us, it DOES seem like we were crushed under a boulder, thank you very much.

 

Sometimes it’s hard to let things go. Sometimes the littlest thing can seem like the end of the world, especially if you’re a sensitive person like yours truly.

 

It took me a good half hour (or more) of writing in freehand to free myself from the grip of a panic attack. And even then, my old insecurities surfaced. And I let myself feel them.

 

You could say that the universe was trying to teach me something. And maybe it was. But in those moments of frustration, sometimes the last thing you want to hear is a cheesy line like “Everything happens for a reason.”

 

Because it’s hard to find a reason when you’re immersed in the moment, riding an unwanted emotional high. Actually the word “hard” is an understatement. It’s beyond difficult. It just sucks. You feel like an ant that’s been crushed under someone’s heel.

 

It’s going to take time to let your emotions pass through you. Sometimes you’ll feel better after an hour. Other times, you can take the whole day. Let yourself take that time, no matter how long you need.

 

Once you let the emotion pass through you, you’ll feel a little better. And then maybe you’ll be able to shift your perspective and focus on the good things in your day. You have to feel bad before you begin to feel better. Yes, it sucks, but unfortunately, there’s no beating your way around the bush.

 

 

Don’t Add Salt (Or Give Someone Else A Chance To)

 

 

Who would want to add salt to that yummy cappuccino?

 

Sometimes the things people have to say just aren’t what you want to hear. Sure, honesty is great, but there’s a time and a place for it.

 

That place is not when you’re having a bad day.

 

You might come to realize the value of what someone is saying after sufficient time has passed.

 

But rubbing salt in a wound and pointing out the obvious is not the way to support them.

 

Know who you can trust to give you encouragement and pull you out of your rut. Cut unsupportive people out of your life if you can. If you can’t, try to distance yourself from them or find a way to interact with them in a way that doesn’t open all your old wounds.

 

Learning how to support yourself is key. Relying on other people to dictate your emotions places the power in their hands. It’s like handing over a puppet and its control to someone else.

 

I’m not going to say that there’s ONE WAY to learn how to support yourself because I’m not going to pretend to speak for everyone else out there who may have different coping mechanisms. Do what feels right for you.

 

You aren’t a puppet. You’re human.

 

 

 

Appreciate Little Things

 

Yes, even if you don’t feel it in the moment.

 

It feels GOOD to get a text message from your best friend saying that she believes in you.

 

It feels good to hear the flight attendant say tell you that you’re not the first person in the world to miss your flight once you calm down enough to turn the drama queen switch off.

 

Appreciate those things. Focus on them. They’ll make your day so much better.

 

I promise.

 

 

What do YOU do to get over a bad day?

 

 

 

“Keep Your Head Up, Nothing Lasts Forever”

Kudos to Kelly Clarkson’s songs for inspiring me.

 

There were so many things that I wanted to blog about this week. Yes, I’m that kind of person who can’t go anywhere without a notebook (or Evernote, if I must be parted from my beloved Moleskine for some reason).

 

No, I did not close my eyes and point to a topic on my ever-growing list of topics before churning out a blog post (although I am debating doing that at some point).

 

But I decided to combine a few topics and put them under an umbrella, and talk about gratitude again.

 

 

I’ve talked about gratitude before. Two times, to be exact. So what’s so compelling about this subject that I decided to do it again?

 

Chiara De Blasio’s recent article on XO Jane really got the cogs turning for me. Because I was in her shoes. On my bad days, I would say that I still am.

 

I had everything that so many people wish for. Clean water, clothes, food, a bed at night, an education. And I was taking it for granted. I was selfish. I was ungrateful.

 

I couldn’t recognize how rich I was, how fortunate I was.

 

I’m in a better place now, but that doesn’t mean that I never have bad days; everyone does.

 

Even when some friends catch me on a bad day, they don’t really believe that I still deal with many of the issues that I tell them that I dealt with. In their minds, it’s been over a decade. A decade should be plenty of time right? Get up, dust yourself off, move on.

 

In the past, people have called me selfish, thought that I was seeking attention.

 

I’m here to give them a big (hopefully very loud) wake up call.

 

These conditions are not picky. It’s not like someone decides, “This person is going to get X, this person is going to get Y, and this person is going to Z.”

 

People who have these conditions are not selfish. Our brains just work differently. Sometimes we go to these dark places because it’s the only way we know how to cope with the world. It’s hard to be grateful for what we have, to even see what we have when we feel like the world is out to get us.

 

The world can feel very unsafe for us sometimes. I know that as a victim of bullying, I felt unsafe in school. It didn’t matter if I was eating lunch, in class, laughing with friends. I still felt unsafe.

 

I don’t think people who deal with mental illness are selfish. They’re warriors. They’re dealing with life the best way they can, with the tools they have, just like the next person. Sure, the tools may be a little different, a little unorthodox, but they’re still trying to live, trying to survive.

 

Some would say that they’re just not seeing the big picture. I was told thousands of times that I wasn’t seeing the big picture, that being detail-oriented was a bad thing, that I wasn’t seeing the forest for the trees.

 

Were they right?

 

Maybe.

 

But sometimes what you say to someone doesn’t register. The things you say to them aren’t interpreted the way you intend them to. Sometimes we need events to remind ourselves not to take things for granted.

 

It’s sad to know that it takes the kidnapping of more than 200 Nigerian girls or a local fire to remind us to be grateful, to remind ourselves how fortunate we are to have the most basic of things. But this is the world we live in.

 

The best part is, we can change it.

 

We can help turn this world into a place where girls from all over the world are given the gift of an education. We can work to make this society a place where human trafficking victims’ stories can be heard, a place where the stigma of mental illness is no longer taboo.

 

What are you grateful for? What sorts of changes would you like to see in the world?

Image Credit: Pinterest

 

{Book Review} The Science of Getting Rich

What do YOU think of the advertising language used in the self-help world?

“Find your purpose and learn to embrace your inner beauty in three months!”

“Embrace miracles and live the life you were BORN to live.”

You know the drill.

Sometimes the programs don’t deliver what you’re looking for. You could say that it’s a case of high expectations, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s frustrating.

You spend hundreds (maybe thousands) of hard-earned money, invest time in said programs, and sometimes you come out of the program a couple hundred dollars poorer with minimal gain.

I don’t mean to disrespect those who devote their lives to these programs. They work for some; they have helped thousands of people.

Louise Hay, Dr. Wayne Dyer, the list goes on. And on. And on.

But the reality is that not everyone can afford to spend hundreds of dollars on these programs, and there’s no guarantee that they will work for you.

My experiences on my own journey has prompted me to  talk about books and other resources that I have found helpful (or not so helpful as the case may be).

Yes, it’s more than likely that you will have heard of (or read, or seen) some of these resources already. I’m not trying to force my opinion on you. I’m simply trying to offer you the resources that I have found useful should you need or want them.

I hope that these resources can make you into the person you want to be without you having to withdraw a 3 (or 4)-figure sum from your checking account.

So let’s start things off, shall we?

 

The Science of Getting Rich (Walter D. Wallace)

Wait, hold on. There’s a science to getting rich?

Or at least, that was my thought, when a friend first suggested this book to me. I flipped the book over and read a quote on the back. It said something like, “The most valuable book you will ever own.”

Or something like that.

When I read that line, I thought, “Oh great. Not again.” All this book needed was a landing page, and more glowing recommendations from professionally photographed people on a website.

Right?

Wrong.

If you’re looking for a short read to get your feet wet, this is it. It’s less than 200 pages.

But Wallace packs a lot into those pages.

This isn’t to say that once you read this book, your dream will come knocking on your door with open arms, but it helps a lot just knowing that your thoughts about your goal are not just your head getting lost in the clouds if you focus on your goal and set an intention.

He says:

“The thought of an oak tree does not cause the instant formation of a full-grown tree, but it does start in motion the forces which will produce the tree, along established lines of growth.”

So, in your case, the thought of your dream career (or life partner or car, or whatever you’re trying to bring into your life) doesn’t ensure that the thing will arrive wrapped in a giant bow on your doorstep, but it let’s the universe know you want it, and the universe rearranges itself so that you CAN have it.

The best part is that he tells you how to do it.

Not in a follow-the-recipie-checklist kind of way. Because, let’s face it. As awesome as this book is, it was written in the 1900s. I had to read the book twice because it wasn’t the language I was used to reading. Diction aside, the guy tells you how to make you dreams come true (cough, visualization and gratitude, cough) and why you need to do what he tells you (i.e.: why visualization is so powerful).

Pretty powerful, eh?

 

And if you go to the Law of Attraction website, it can be downloaded for free in PDF form. Who doesn’t like free stuff?

Are there any books YOU’VE read on your personal journey that you’ve found particularly helpful? Are there any resources you’d like to see here?

Feel free to suggest potential names for the series! I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Image Credit: Pinterest

 

2013: The Year of Mulan

 

 

(Image credit: Pinterest)

If it’s not obvious, Mulan is one of my favorite Disney characters.

I remember at 8, bawling my eyes out while listening to Christina Aguilera’s song “Reflection” before even seeing the movie. At one point, I remember shoving the CD into my Walkman and giving my mom the headphones, demanding that she listen to the track. The song could explain to her feelings that I couldn’t clearly articulate at that age.

As painful as it is for me to admit, that song has been the theme song for my life.

One thing I’ve learned is that recovering from trauma, as I’ve started to do this year, is a daily battle. You aren’t “fixed” and then let off the rails to fend for yourself. Recovering is a journey, something that you face every day of your life. There is no quick fix. My life coach equated my journey to working out. She said, “If you do it a little every day, it will serve you, even if you don’t see results. But if you’ve just started working out 2 weeks ago and then not work out for 2 weeks, it’ll be like you never started.”

This year has been a journey of reflection. I’ve been given many opportunities this year to re-evaluate and one of my goals for 2014 is to use the tools and lessons I’ve learned to continue that growth. I hope to use this blog as a way to keep myself accountable, and hopefully help others along the way.

I started the year by declaring that my goal was to obtain my driver’s license. That didn’t happen. I’m going to own up to that right now. It’s because I was paralyzed by fear. When the year started, I fully believed that my journey defined who I was.

(These images are mine)

I went to the 2013 World Domination Summit with no expectations. Those 72 hours turned out to be one of the highlights of my life. People who, like me, did not want to fall into the trap of mediocrity surrounded me. Add to that the fact that I was back in the city of my alma mater, a place that I loved.

I was home.

As a result of the event, I was exposed to an entirely new network of people, many of whom I now call friends who also live in the same city. They were the first ones I turned to when I was let go from my first job shortly after returning. They were the ones who spurred me forward. They were the ones who encouraged me to see this as a blessing and turn a negative into a positive.

I worked with a coach who helped me get clarity on my passions and re-framed the concept of gratitude and why it’s the one of the best things in the world. Since then, I’ve volunteered my social media skills with the biggest TEDx event in UK and worked with incredible women who have allowed me to participate in transformational programs in exchange for social media content development. This transformational journey has taught me so much about how to hold myself accountable in the world beyond academics. I am not perfect, by any means, and I am still learning.

Through this journey, I have learned to see my own roadblocks. Which is more than I can say for the girl that I was 10 years ago. I had no sense of self-worth, and I thought that the only way to deal with the world was to numb myself and to shut it off by pushing my feelings down the filter because they weren’t “right.”

10 years later, I am finally taking steps to heal and build myself back up again. I am learning to express my emotions instead of pushing them down and stay present instead of numbing the world out. I am learning to keep track of the little things that I am grateful for. I am learning to tap into my power. I am taking steps to learn how to overcome my fears.

I’m now reading books that I initially dismissed as what one of my coaches would call “woo-woo.” I took a driving lesson for the first time in 5 years (when I was terrified of even taking the written test), and I’m trying my hardest to be open to new practices.

I don’t have everything together. I don’t know what’s going to happen next year.

But do know that I’m grateful for everything that happened this year thus far (and the year’s not even over yet).

This time next year, I want to be saying “Thanks for making me a fighter.” I think you can all guess what song I took that lyric from and who sang it.

Are there any songs that have a special meaning for you this year? What was most memorable?

Why Every Day Should be Treated Like Thanksgiving (And How You Can Manifest What You Want)

As Thanksgiving around the corner, it’s difficult to not think about what you’re grateful for, especially since the end of the year draws closer. The year has flown by!

Sure, being seated at a big table surrounded by friends and family prompts us to say we’re grateful for various things: health, happiness, family and friends among them.

What if we could turn every day into Thanksgiving? What if I said that it could help you make sense of your past, bring yourself peace and create a vision for the tomorrow that we want to have?

I’m the first to admit that I’m not an authority on this subject, but I’m pretty sure that those are all things that people want to have right? Correct me if I’m wrong.

So what is this fantastical tool, you ask?

Write gratitude statements every day. Or at least every week. I try to do it every day, but I don’t always make the time, unfortunately.

Now, I am aware that this may not be the right thing for everyone. And if it’s not for you, that’s fine. Take little steps to find something else. We are all unique and we all operate differently.

In response to one of my many emails filled with questions and struggles, my coach sent me a lengthy email (that I will be paraphrasing liberally), which included the following quote:

 

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.

It turns what we have into enough, and more.

It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.

It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.

Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

Melody Beattie

I had been exposed to the idea of gratitude before; I had been told that I should be grateful, that I should keep a gratitude diary and write gratitude statements every day, and that it would benefit me, but I never understood why. And when I would ask why, people would just say things like “just because”

Seeing this quote gave me my why. I think we can all agree that the quote is a much better explanation than “just because.”

Who wouldn’t want to turn confusion into clarity?

Writing gratitude statements helps with those things (or at least it’s helped me). It helps me maintain a more positive outlook, and it helps me be grateful for things I want in my future, even if I don’t have them yet. (Yes, this technique works for the future as well.)

This doesn’t mean, however, that writing gratitude statements every day will give you everything you’ve ever wished for in life. But being grateful does work in mysterious ways.

For example, a few days ago, I was overwhelmed with anxiety about going to an early appointment and getting the paperwork I needed.

I wrote a gratitude statement about how I was grateful to have the paperwork even though it overwhelmed me with anxiety, and the next day, I walked out of the office in the morning with the paperwork feeling grateful.

It’s a bit early for resolutions for the new year, but I’ve resolved to keep writing gratitude statements. It’s a nice way to keep myself positive and present.

What are you grateful for this holiday season? Any other simple techniques you use to keep you grounded and positive in a busy time? I’d love to know!