Items! Whenever you’re feeling overwhelmed or stressed, throw out some items that have cluttered in your apartment or room that you don’t really need/want anymore. Sometimes, the way our workspace is set up is the reason for continuous anxiety. Have a cleaning day during the week! Organize things to your liking! Whether its printing out some cool art to hang on your walls, or getting rid of those flashy photo booth pictures you think you’re going to dig back up in 24 years, too many items = not enough clean space! Jump almost always! Jumping is an exercise that anyone can do. Jump when you want to lift your spirits, or when you just want to do something fun with your friends. The only jumping that is not permitted is jumping to conclusions! We often make assumptions that later consume our minds, sending our personal good vibes guru far far away. Stopping allowing your jump to conclusions take away your happiness! Karate. Take up karate with a group of friends. Maybe you can try it with your parent or sibling, or just by yourself! You’ll learn how to defend yourself AND how to be kickass! Karate helps boost your confidence in yourself! Let it go. No ifs, buts, or ands about it! Let it go! Live. Laugh. Love. Make mistakes to learn from them later. In life, we mess up constantly. Don’t let your mistakes hold you back from trying again or trying something new. When you’re afraid to fear, you’re afraid to live. Mistakes always evolve into lessons. Make them wisely. Name all the people who have helped you become you. After you name them, write those names down. Whenever you feel like no one cares about you or that you have no one to talk to, call one of them. Openness. Your heart will have scars, your trust will be broken, your emotions will be played with. Don’t let that stop you from being open to people. You never know, you might find someone who will end up surprising you for the better. Perfection. Perfection does not exist! Stop comparing yourself to those Instagram models, tumblr girls, or to society’s standards. You are enough. You are so enough. You don’t even know how enough you are.
1 Comment
life get's rough, times get tough, and the world spins out of your grasp. Here's some advice to enjoy life in 2017. inspired by a similar post done by my faves at themessyheads. Allow yourself to have fun! Yes, you have so many things to get done. You have a shiz ton of work to do! You feel like you're always busy! But in the spare moments, even if time is ticking, allow yourself to have fun when you work. Have a five minute dance break in between transitioning from finishing 3rd period's homework to starting 4th period's homework. Sing your lungs out to your favorite tunes as you cook. Stick your head out the window and bask in the wind as your parents drive you to school. You don't have to be serious all the time! Let your spirit be reckless in the spare moments. Begin from scratch. When we make mistakes, we frequently assume that the option to turn back is unavailable. However as impossible as it may sound, there is always an opportunity to change who you are, what you do, and how happy you can become. New beginnings are what bring new ideas, new strategies, and new experiences. When pressure starts rising as quickly as a loaf of banana bread in a pan, the overwhelming sensation of panic nauseates all thinking. Beginning from scratch gives us the possibility to take a breather, reminding us that there are other options besides giving up. Restart that project that you so desperately want to change, rearrange your room to something that will make you happy to look at when the sun's rays light your face so you sleepily rub your eyes, stop being friends with people only because you're not alone, and go on an adventure to find people that hold the same passions as you. Begin again. Create. Even if it looks bad, or you have no clue what you're going to be doing. When you create you allow yourself to transfer all excessive energy into an idea or an activity. Take up painting, draw a stick figure comic book, write poetry that doesn't make sense. Allow your mind to wander and break those ideas of having to stay in a box. Eat WHATever you want. have the last piece of the pizza so your tummy feels warm, full, and happy. Buy yourself that cold stone cotton candy ice cream because you had a bad day. Eat that extra large salad and melt into your food coma as you chew every piece of green! Eat whatever you please as long as YOU are happy! Friends are a huge part of what makes you, you. They are the family that you picked. Treat them with kindness. Friends can either make you or break you, so be cautious in calling someone your "best friend for life". sometimes, "life" can become four months. "Gratitude is the attitude! So much time is spent wishing and waiting for something else, and then when it arrives you are wishing and waiting for the next thing. Make an effort to bask in your now and appreciate everything your currently have. Happiness stems from contentment, not desire." ~Emma Mercury, Founder of my favorite Magazine & Blog Heartbreak is painful. let yourself heal. take a bubble bath, eat comfort food, and take care of yourself. sometimes the pain is what we need to see what we really deserve. and hey, you're pretty darn amazing. they weren't good for you anyway.
i just realized that this is my blog. with this being my blog, i can post what i want to. with or without being scared of anyone else's opinion. So, with that being said, let's move on. Burying it isn't going to help. Stuffing all of your emotions inside of a box is not going to help you move on and forget. Leaving things unresolved is going to resolve nothing except repicking at your wounds. This is the truth. I finally have the courage (immaturity?) to tell you. I had held on to this for so long, the way i felt, the way my heart ached, and the fear of telling people what was going on. All of this closedness. Why do we keep ourselves closed off? Is it because we want to be in control in who is allowed to see inside? The truth is as followed. i lost friends. i lost a group of friends. i lost my best friend. then i lost my second best friend. and now, i have lost myself. This all happened in a span of two months. I watched as everything crumbled to the ground with no explanation, no guidance, and no support. here is the truth: I lost the connection of unity and of feeling genuinely loved by people who wanted to take the time to know me and hang out with me. Sometimes during life we don't understand why things happen. Sometimes we have questions that we are too scared or ashamed to ask, so they are left unanswered. My life isn't perfect. It's not suppose to be. I don't want to give you a blog that doesn't hold the truth of life justly. I thought I had matured enough to know how to get through each situation. I was wrong. I know my faults in why I became a stranger to my friends. But I also know that it hurt. Friendships are a hard lesson. Those situations give you a choice: To be vulnerable or to not be. You may think that it's your fault because you find that everyone leaves you time and time again. But it isn't. It isn't entirely your fault. Or maybe, it isn't your fault at all. Friendships come and go, but like C.S. Lewis says, "Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” You do not need to have a perfect group of friends, or a group of friends at all. You don't need to have a best friend or a close friend. However, if you truly want that, you need to make yourself vulnerable, however many times you get hurt. After a while, you'll notice that instead of getting hurt, you're becoming happy because you will find the people that will treat you how you deserve to be treated. Life isn't a fairytale. You aren't going to connect with everyone you meet. Allow yourself to stop forcing it to be that way. I wish you all the best. We'll get through this. And the best part is, we'll find people who we can call a family one day. Enjoy the ride. vulnerable. december nineteenth, two thousand and sixteen. seven: forty-three p.m. title: a broken heart I feel so alone. I don't know why the sudden urge to cry is calling me. But it feels right. It feels just. How did i manage to come back to this? Or was it truly like this all along? I try to be happy, I try to find peace without thinking of the sorrow that will follow, of the pain it will bring. But every joy and blessing is overshadowed by the sensation of fear. When did I become so afraid of myself, of the world? maybe it happened when I was tormented in middle school. The feeling of isolation swallowed me whole, and hasn't since let go. I know it's all in my head. It has to be. I try to be joyful to everyone I see, but sometimes all I want to do is cry. To the people who left: why did you go? was i not enough? how can you just stop caring and move on? can you show me? why wasn't i enough? what did i do? i want to know. please. not knowing has eaten away at my heart, and my heart is not strong most of the time. “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
This is a double post rolled up into one as I forgot to post last week. It is currently 1:02 A.M. as I write this. My throat feels just like it might heave at any moment, and my eyes slowly droop down. My mind struggles to keep its head up and running. However I haven't written a blog post since forever ago, and for that I really am sorry! I've been having too much fun exploring friendships and living in the moment. But now here I am being brought to you again! So I'll try to keep my promise just like I always do! I was once the creative one growing up. People asked me to always built forts since I came up with the best ideas, which hiding places had the coolest interior when camping, how to write and fit more words in essays to bring them up to par, and they would come to me to simply hear me speak to inspire an idea. Now I'm not saying this to humbly brag, but the overall message is that I had a creative spark that felt like it would never last. Sadly, as I begin to converse with my friends and my family I find out that we have all lost some of the essence of that creative spark. The more I am being asked to write however I please in a narrative essay, the more I crave structure and instructions. Materials I was conflicted over, examples of those being math and science, I now understand with ease, and materials in which I aced at are now troublesome. I discover myself having doubts of an idea for my drama class, my mind becoming blank like the page in front of me when I'm being asked to write down a spontaneous idea for newspaper. Ironically, more and more of the new generation are becoming more involved in the arts, ranging from Graphic Design, to Sculpting, to 2D drawings and sketches, to even producing music, short films, or productions. The world is desiring for new creative mindsets. So, why have those who once were creative now become so fearsome of it? Why are we trying to grasp at straws trying to understand and analyze a concept in which earlier on in our lives we enjoyed the fact that we had no idea what it was or what it meant? sleepyhead. an abstract poem. when i wake up i smile at the sun but time is not my friend i tell the morning i love her but wish that somehow night would bend i want to dance on sunlit floors cold wood touching un-photogenic feet brain is telling me not to rise as the morning dew does unfold my essence feels oh but refreshed my lungs do breathe new air oh weary, how i can not rise out of my bed! for i'm a sleepyhead The music flowed freely as if nothing in the agenda for tomorrow would disrupt it. The soft keys played as the harmonies blended together creating a euphoric alliance with each other. Thoughts of all homework and studying for Monday washed away. My mind drifted off to my own mini film reel of small pieced daydreams directed by my wants and desires. I could feel the warm sand on my toes down to the smallest grain. I could sense the buzz of the city with the skyscrapers never ending as a taxi whizzed on by and cars honked on. I could see myself in awe of the forest green that seemed to go on forever, wondering if fairies truly were real or just of the imagination. I felt the welcoming sun bring down its loving rays on my face as the crisp autumn air turned my cheeks pink. I could hear the faint chatter of socializing from afar as, in my daydream, I felt the soft fabric of an old, light blanket on my back. My daydream self opened her eyes to view the evening sky dotted with pink and blue and white clouds up ahead in her eyes. She looked to her left and saw the brown straw basket used to carry the food to the picnic she was having with friends who she felt comfortable with, and comfort was a hard thing to find in friends these days. As I dazed out of my daydreams, my body was asking me to return. The little voice saying "please go back, I wasn't finished. I don't want to be in the real world right now." Then again, I knew I needed to get back to work. But I allowed myself to get lost in my daydreams afterwards. Even though my dreams come during all times, whether it be evenings, nights, afternoons, dawns, or even dusks. The skies the past week have been as clear as a glass mirror, as if it almost wants you to examine it and find every silver lining. My head tilts up to the sky, as if asking it if it's okay and if it needs anything. I find myself smiling at the sun from my window in the morning when I wake up. The softly lit pillows and blankets make my room more welcoming, as if it's a bit closer to the earth and to nature instead of being in an air-conditioned home. My mind has always been this way. It has always wanted to be calm and gentle, being one with nature and all of it's creatures. My mind longs for so much of the world, grasping at every straw it can find. The strong determination to be everything at once is challenging to live with, especially since I don't know how to put an end to it, nor do I think I want to. My soul is wandering even when I am still. My mind is racing even when I am asleep. My heart is seeking even when I am satisfied. I have always been curious and I have always been hoping that my curiosity lends me to seek new opportunities and destinations. Fear and worry many a times find my heart, but I still continue to wish. Up at the top is a playlist for you to click and enjoy.
allow yourself to get lost in any and every world. xx My cheeks flushed violently as my peer finished his upcoming concluding statement. "I swear your ego is so big it can be another person." My mouth automatically found the sound to make a scoff in reply. The Florida sun shone warmly and reflected light from my brunette roots as my body flipped my hair, my friends and I walking briskly toward the school fountain, breathing in the cold fall air. In all honesty, my heart was telling me how offended it was that I was being told that, and that a peer would dare to make that comment. But inside, my conscious was softly asking why it was a bad thing when people hear you make comments uplighting yourself. My little mind was deeming the question that was never clearly answered by friends, family, or even society. Why was it that whenever someone claimed they had an ego, it was frowned down upon? e·go ˈēɡō/ noun plural noun: egos
The text seen above is the definition of what an ego is, and what it means. We are so often identifying the word "ego" with a negative tone and connotation that we rarely remember the definition. An ego is a person's sense of worth to themselves, and each of us should have an ego in order to be confident in who we are in existence. Of course, like many other emotions, actions, or words, egos do tend to have benefits and consequences. I can't begin to tell you how many times I've claimed to my friends how big their ego was, and that they had to tone it down. As a young teenager who really doesn't know much, I thought I was doing the right thing, helping my friends to not look selfish to the world. However, sometimes egos are positive traits to have and they aren't really harmful to people unless people personally make them out to be. We tend to become uncomfortable when we are praised a little too much, or when favoritism is clearly shown. On the contrary of that, we tend to feel unwanted, invaluable, or looked over when we are praised and adored too little. Whichever way we view it, there can never be a perfect balance to our daily struggle to satisfy our craving to feel important and significant. Having an ego may be a positive outlook on life, especially to those who are battling self-esteem, identity, and confidence issues. The psychoanalysis definition of an ego states that an ego is the part of the mind that mediates between the conscious and the unconscious and is responsible for reality testing and a sense of personal identity! This is something that everyone should have!!! This is called the "Positive Ego" in which you use it to boost up your moral and your opinions about yourself in order to become more comfortable with your body, diet, personal goal process, and work ethic. Written by Cindy on heartstepping.com, Cindy makes a very delightful claim, stating "The ego is meant to be our window to the world around us–a neutral and extremely useful source of information about what’s happening." Just like anything else, the "Positive Ego" also comes hand in hand with the "Negative Ego". A negative ego is when you create a separation between yourself and others. This is when you label or find yourself comparing things as "better than" or "worse than". This is the part of you that wants to latch and link your identity through things and concepts which is why it becomes painful and a hassle when you try to re-separate yourself from these objects. The "Negative Ego" is where most of your inner suffering comes from. Whether it be your pride, grades, relationship, friendship, status, or beliefs you identify yourself with, the "Negative Ego" wants to hang on to the things that although mentally you understand they don't define you, the negative ego makes you feel that you would be lost without them. Sometimes your negative ego sneaks up on you. Just last week my negative ego decided to sneak up on me and relive emotions and thoughts that I knew would upset me. I began thinking to myself thoughts such as "If you were a better person, maybe you wouldn't loose friendships all the time." "You're not interesting enough to make people want to stay with you!" "You're way too uptight, this is why people are always upset at you!" and "Other people can work harder than this, you're clearly not smart enough which is why you always feel that you leave people unsatisfied." You see, our negative egos want to tear us down, unlike our positive egos which allows us to not necessarily make excuses for ourselves, but helps us understand that we are doing the best that we humanly can under the circumstances we are in. Once we begin to realize that we all have a negative ego, we can start stripping away the fear that it brings us, all the judgements made by ourselves and others, and that we simply observe that it is there and it is real. After those steps we can give ourselves the chance to become free to choose how we respond to what is given to us. John Lennon summed up the inward battle and affect that the "Positive" and "Negative" egos have on us, describing himself as "Part of me suspects that I'm a loser, and the other part of me thinks I'm God Almighty." Whether you are battling with your negative ego, basking in the new found version of your positive ego or unsure of how to know if you are freely responding to lemons being thrown your way from life, each one of us are bound to loose track and fall down the paths of happiness which we are trying to pave for ourselves. So don't stress if you vowed to be happy and dandy and then find yourself in a gloomy mood! Everybody falls, and happiness can never be fully achieved everyday. As long as you take notice that you tried your best today, tomorrow, and any other day, you've done more than enough. Here are some techniques you can use to get your ego working for you:
Many people have been called out as being "too sensitive" because they either couldn't take a joke from a friend, cried when it was deemed unnecessary or has taken things to heart far more than the average person. A lot of us at one point in our lives have experienced being "too sensitive" due to social normalities. I have realized that not only am I sensitive in certain areas, but that the people around me are also sometimes sensitive human beings. Sensitivity, a noun, is the quality or condition of being sensitive. Sensitive, an adjective, is when a noun is quick to detect or respond to slight changes, signals or influences. This brand new start is the best time to come to terms with your sensitive side. Human beings aren't suppose to be solid, emotionless, robots. Nor are we always suppose to be strong every minute of the day. There are things in this life that we take to heart, whether we want to or not. That soft pang in our hearts that we feel whenever we see something we didn't want to see, the soft aching in our chest when someone takes away the little hope and positivity we carry, that ache and pain is supposed to be there. That is our sensitive side softly whispering to us, politely wishing that we include it with our other emotions and moods. Sensitivity is a part of human nature, in which we are naturally weak in certain aspects. Moving on from a breakup, a friendship, or a close family member is no easy task, and society often shows us that crying is something we "aren't allowed" to do in order to not give our "enemies" the satisfaction to know they've won. That mind set is not only damaging, telling us to not be sensitive in subtext, but it is also tiring. I've had times in the past where I have distrusted and doubted against fellow peers, and my mind set was that everyone was out to get me. Not only was I always drained and barely left with energy, but it made me feel jaded almost constantly. That mind set in which we aren't allowed to feel sensitivity, is like telling a child that they don't need to put a bandaid on an open wound, because "it will take care of itself". "When we get hurt, our bodies immediately start trying to heal that hurt. This works for emotions as well." This statement is just one of the few in which Vironika Tugaleva expresses how we should never divide or remove our emotions from our own being. To deprive ourselves of one of our natural instincts is unfavorable in its own sense. Why should we feel the need to divide ourselves up into categories or defend ourselves for feeling something different than the rest? You shouldn't feel the need to defend the emotional response your body is generating at any time, even if the response doesn't fit the "accurate" or "normal" response of what society deems it to be. There was an incident in where a person close to me kept on talking to me, but the tone they were using didn't sit right with me. My stomach felt like it had dropped, and although I was unsure why my body and my being had responded so fiercely, I decided to give into my emotions instead of try to resist them. When I did cave into my feelings, acknowledging my sensitivity at how I was responding to the specific tone, I was told that I was "too sensitive". I wanted to scream out that I wasn't, my instant reaction to differ with the opinion that was handed to me. But I stopped mid-way when I was going to argue and paused to reflect. I realized that in reality, as much as I wanted it to be false, I was sensitive and that I had every right to be, whether I was going through troubles at that time or not. It is every person's right to be sensitive, because that is an emotion that is included in the package of being human. "When we get hurt, our bodies immediately start trying to heal that hurt. This works for emotions as well. If we were scarred socially, by an incident of rejection or bullying, we immediately start trying to heal. Like pus comes out of wounds, emotions flow from psychological wounds. And what do we really need at that moment? When we are out of that dangerous situation that scarred us, and we become triggered by some little thing - what do we need? Do we need someone to look at us and say, "Wow, you're really sensitive, aren't you?" or "Hey, man, I didn't mean it like that."? Do we need someone to justify their actions or tell us to take it easy, because the situation didn't really require such a reaction? And, from ourselves, do we really need four pounds of judgment with liberal helpings of shame? Do we need to run away, to suppress, to hate our "over-sensitivity" to situations that seem innocuous to others? No. We do not need all of these versions of rejection of a natural healing process. You would not feel shame over a wound doing what it must do to heal, nor would you shame another. So why do we do this to our heart wounds? Why do we do it to ourselves? To others? Next time some harmless situation triggers you or someone around you into an intense emotion - realize it's an attempt at emotional healing. Realize the danger is no longer there, but don't suppress the healing of old dangers and old pains. Allow the pain. Don't react, but don't repress. Embrace the pain. Embrace the pain of others. Like this, we have some chance at healing the endless cycles of generational repression and suppression that are rolling around in our society. Fall open. Break open. Sit with others' openness. Let love be your medicine.” ― Vironika Tugaleva Challenge yourself to give into your sensitive side. Find out what makes you sensitive and why. Observe who makes you feel this way, and allow your body to respond in however it wishes to respond to in any situation this week. Record the differences that you feel, I guarantee that you'll feel better, more genuine and a bit more liberated in yourself. "I have seen human beings suffer from the slightest adversity, the slightest annoyance, but still remain open-minded and sensitive to everything, learning something from each attack."
Most of these days my feelings are conflicted. It's the starting of a new age. We have new teachers, new classes, new materials to learn, new clubs to join, and new routines to get used to. But my ideas are not new. I have been feeling lost as to where I'm suppose to go now, which path to take and what actions to do. I'm beginning to question my journey, feeling the itch (or the invisible itch) that I must start a new one or start in a new direction. Recently I have been busying myself with the work I enjoy and the work that I want to exceed in. Now that I have my schedule planned and mapped out from front to back, my mind is asking the question in what I am suppose to do, who am I suppose to be. I thought I had a grasp of the idea of which category I was suppose to fill in the world, and now, I feel like I could never be that person because of the changes. Recently I have been re-trying to find the courage to use my new voice. I'm not sure what I'm suppose to do, now that I have freed myself of the groups that tied me down I can now focus on where to leave my mark. The world is going through some major changes, and everyday it discovers something new. Although my silence goodbye is bittersweet to me, I know that if I stay in one place for too long, and nothing is solved, all I receive is pain and sadness. Along myself, many others out there in the world feel like wanderers, searching for the group, organization, or friends to feel complete and certain of themselves and their interests. You probably crave company, not in a sexual nor romantic way, you crave the company of people. You crave to be fully acceptable as who you are and your interests, never running out of things to say. You crave the close-knitted memories of just being comfortable with people who will make you feel welcomed, loved and like they've known you forever. To those wanderers, you will be doing nothing wrong if you cut ties for a while (especially the ties that leave situations unresolved, and you receive no communication from.) and soak your feet in different oceans. Every person is going through changes, and I'm sure you are too. The outcome of change all depends on you. In this new start, I hope you stay with me as I discover my artistic side and spirit. Don't be afraid to start slowly this year. No one is rushing you to dive into this new grade (certainly not the world either!). If this start is a little sluggish, let it be sluggish. If this start is a whirlwind, let it be a whirlwind. Like art, life is not suppose to be appealing. Life is suppose to mean something! This is all I have to give this Thursday. See you next week. Be brave. Try out your new voice. Let it grow. Let it fail. Let it learn. Hello blog! It's been awhile since I've written and let me tell you why. The last blog post I did hit a lot of meaningful points, and reached out to so many people, and I've been giving people time to digest everything that they read and put it into action the same why I have been doing. Now however I'm back into making blog posts every thursday.
So let's catch up, You and I. This summer has given me the options to do loads of things. From exploring my own community, to being able to travel to different parts of the world and learn its history and culture, this summer has given me tons of things to do and to think about. However this summer I've learned many important key points through the sufferings and troubles that I went through personally. Here's a few key points of what I've re-learned or have continued to learn that can be useful later in life.
The biggest lessons that we tend to learn are those when we are most in pain. Sometimes in life, our burdens tend to turn into the best blessings. This week I've found out that reaching out is the best thing that you can do for anyone in your life. Some wonderful people have reached out to me, telling me things that I had no idea they thought of. To those people, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. Not only did you make my day and my heart full, but you made me realize that sometimes, the most influential people in my life don't know that they are the people who motivate me. This week I encourage you to "Pay It Forward" and message the people who truly and always bring a smile to your face, and who always give you hope. Whether it's a thread on twitter, a tumblr post, a shoutout on instagram, a private text message, or a DM through any social media platform. Tell those people that you care, and how you feel about them, and encourage them to do the same to the people in their life. So here's the "Recap" challenge of the week: Pay It Forward. Re-Learn and Re-connect. Forgive. And enjoy. I want to leave off this blog post with a quote that has been on my mind for a while. “Sometimes, reaching out and taking someone's hand is the beginning of a journey. At other times, it is allowing another to take yours.” ―Vera Nazarian |