http://zenhabits.net/one-skill/
reading this post inspired me for my own.
its pretty simple.
life always brings one main struggle. the feeling of not being good enough.
everyone deals with it in different ways...
your reach a new point, a new era once you realize that everyone feels like this.
everyone has something negative to say. even if the most beautiful people feel hopelessly insecure
i think i have stocky legs, no boobs, and awful acne. but i'll tell you what i still know that i am beautiful.
because no one is perfect and you will always exaggerate your negatives more than your positives.
living in a sorority has shown me that no matter how beautiful you are there is always something that could be better. this applies not only physically but in your life as well.
you need better grades, better jobs, a really good internship, you should be president of 5 different clubs and involved in 5 more besides that, you should have the nicest clothes and look perfect 24/7. i mean seriously???? how much pressure is that???
realistically no one can check off all those things. and its not healthy either.
i had my own struggle with perfection. and it can drive a person to insanity.
never again will i go that route. it may be easy to enter when i am lonely, sad, and angry which is ultimately why i took that path from the start
but now i am so much smarter from my past and mentally very strong to understand myself emotionally.
and that is why i love that post.
because nothing in this world feels better then knowing that i have achieved this one skill.
its like i am already one-ahead of everyone else.
nothing more would i love to show everyone how to be like this.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Life is just how it is.
“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum
One of my favorite quotes of all time. I love quotes that invoke the rawness of emotion. It helped me reminds during the times that "I am broken, betrayed, or left, or hurt, and death brushes near..." that I can't hide from the world. I can't runaway because of all the terrible things that have happened and might still happen. You have to love because if you don't you will enter insanity and forget how to love and give up on the possibility of ever being happy again. No matter what you are doing your best to survive and find your way in this thing called life. It is what life does you can't avoid it. Look for the sweetness and remember that you are living for your best.
I want to share a part of my personal experience with this quote and why it applies so much to my life and I want to never forget it. First, I just want to focus on the part where "...death brushes near" My senior year of high school, over 4 years ago which is crazy to even believe my best friend was diagnosed with a rare form of lymphona. She was my first and closest friend at my new high school. We hung out every day and could do absolutely nothing and just be happy. When we werent hanging out we were on the phone or IMing all the time. I had other friends but she always made me happy and my other friends were slowing going in a direction I didn't really want to follow. i also had a bf at the time which was constantly up and down and she was my rock through it all. Our last summer was amazing, car rides dance parties and getting into trouble was routine for us. Near the end of summer, I went on a small family vacation. She told me she didn't feel well and we didn't talk a lot for that week. It felt strange and I missed her.
Its all a blur now, but a few days later I get a phone call telling me She was flown to rochester at Mayo clinc under critical condition. I couldn't believe my best friend was sick and just had almost died. I cried for hours and I didn't tell my parents right away. I was scared and angry.
I didn't deal with any of it very well. I didn't each lunch with anyone at school. I avoided all my friends and I did homework or ran during lunch. I cut my eating and worked out for an hour. I didn't want to see or talk to any of my other friends. All my other close friends went to Park a private school I didn't attend anymore and was another world. I was alone in school having to deal with it on my own. I hung out with my bf constantly and working 25 hours a week and danced 3 days. I made myself so busy so I could hide I didn't care about anyone or making new friends and keeping my old ones. I had to deal with people claiming they were best friends with nicole and trying to get all this attention for how it was for them. No one understood, I never wanted to be like that. After a month or so, she came back and visited. I just wanted my best friend back. But she has to talk to everyone and everyone gave her so much attention.. I couldn't handle it it was so different. I may have even pushed her away. I don't know if she ever understood how hard it was for me. I remember one time we talked and we laughed and everyone who was trying to be her best friend now especially people who were not nice to her. I am glad she realized it but she forgave them all and just lived her life. Everyone thought she was going to live..but December they told her she had a short time left..She wasn't responding to treatment anymore and it was hopeless. I called her immediately almost in tears. It was our last convo and she was just like "yep, they told me I was going to be gone soon" she seemed so nonchalent about it and I told her I am coming to visit you don't leave yet. We barely talked for long and I never thought it would be my last convo with her. She was sleeping before I got down to Mayo she was sleeping but almost gone. She died December 15, 2007. After that I became more bitter and pushed myself harder then ever. I got really good grades that year and in all AP classes and was skinnier then ever. But I wasn't happy. I didn't have any friends. I was afraid of getting hurt again. I worked through the pain and it took me a long time. I went to st. cloud to get away and I forgot how to make friends. I couldn't remember how to do it. I used to be friends with everyone, but now I was scared to even say hi. I was extremely introverted and I had lots of anxiety because I was so afraid what my life was going to become. I clung on to whatever I could and I became obsessed with perfection. I worked out for 2 hours a day, obsessively watched what I ate, and got a 4.0. It was awful though even though I was being "successful" I was the most lonely sad person I have ever been. I was trapped and I couldn't get out of it. I couldn't stop the insanity I felt and I just couldn't let go.
"....and when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt......."
I put myself in a terrible position. Not only did I feel completely alone but I had this bf I spend all my time with. And he wasn't the healthiest person to be around. He was involved in a lot of drugs, but it was another mysterious world I could run away to and hide. I could make myself soo busy and every spare second I spent making him happy. I was so angry so mad I felt I deserved to suffer to feel the raw pain of unhappiness. Over time, He got trapped in a world all his own and I, the enabler, spun down with him. I did anything to make him happy. I remember so many times feeling "stuck" he manipulated my feelings and made me feel hopeless. He made me feel on top of the world to the worst girlfriend that has ever existed. I sacrificed so much, my sleep, my life. Its all such a insane blur of constant, no wonder i felt so much anxiety when I was alone. The drugs scared me especially when he thought he was in control. He lost control. Let me tell you. The day he said "I have a problem" was a day I thought I'd never see. Some days, I thought to myself is this my life??? Have I been dating this guy who emotional abuses me and is constantly high? It was a long uphill of using and abusing before any of the downward spiral ever occurred. And when the downward spiral hit, that wasn't ANY shorter and much more painful. I watched this guy who I was emotionally connected with hurt himself and lose control to a substance that completely took over. I remember nights watching him go insane. He got mean, manipulative and then super nice and lovey once he got his fix. He used anyone and anything to get what he wanted. I watched him suffer withdrawals over and over and it killed me every time he broke down and used. The cycle kept going again and again....When would it stop? Would it ever end??? I was scared it wouldn't. terrified. What was my life coming to??
During the all the cycles, I was dealing with so many personal things. I still felt urges to be perfectionist. I put my heart into staying skinny and letting myself not get out of control. I was always stressed and angry. But right before the cycle, I found out something that broke my heart into a million pieces. He was angry at me, I was pushed out of his apartment, locked, thrown all my stuff, and he yelled "I slept with your best friend". I left horrified. The feeling where you want to throw up and hurt yourself over and over because the pain is so bad. I starting bawling every tear and driving, driving as fast and awful as possible. I called her and was so irate and yelling loud the pain just seeped through. I had no one anymore absolutely nothing. I had been betrayed by the two closest people left in my life. The pain was unbearable, I stopped eating. I failed my finals, couldn't concentrate anymore and my anxiety was never higher then I can ever imagine. I went into depression. He wanted me back by the next day saying how sorry he was and lovey as usual. He told me he was high and drunk and all the most regrettable mistake. (another reason how the drugs hurt me) Nothing was gonna make me feel better, I didn't know how to function. But, the loneliness I felt and the need for being needed was too strong so I went back. I numbingly went back. I bawled to his face almost everyday, I never thought something like this would happen to me. I felt like scum. I felt like I never wanted to love again or open my heart to anyone else. I sucked myself back into the insanity with supporting this guy I knew I could never marry but just couldn't physically let go. Slowly, I did let him go.
Now as I look back...
― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum
One of my favorite quotes of all time. I love quotes that invoke the rawness of emotion. It helped me reminds during the times that "I am broken, betrayed, or left, or hurt, and death brushes near..." that I can't hide from the world. I can't runaway because of all the terrible things that have happened and might still happen. You have to love because if you don't you will enter insanity and forget how to love and give up on the possibility of ever being happy again. No matter what you are doing your best to survive and find your way in this thing called life. It is what life does you can't avoid it. Look for the sweetness and remember that you are living for your best.
I want to share a part of my personal experience with this quote and why it applies so much to my life and I want to never forget it. First, I just want to focus on the part where "...death brushes near" My senior year of high school, over 4 years ago which is crazy to even believe my best friend was diagnosed with a rare form of lymphona. She was my first and closest friend at my new high school. We hung out every day and could do absolutely nothing and just be happy. When we werent hanging out we were on the phone or IMing all the time. I had other friends but she always made me happy and my other friends were slowing going in a direction I didn't really want to follow. i also had a bf at the time which was constantly up and down and she was my rock through it all. Our last summer was amazing, car rides dance parties and getting into trouble was routine for us. Near the end of summer, I went on a small family vacation. She told me she didn't feel well and we didn't talk a lot for that week. It felt strange and I missed her.
Its all a blur now, but a few days later I get a phone call telling me She was flown to rochester at Mayo clinc under critical condition. I couldn't believe my best friend was sick and just had almost died. I cried for hours and I didn't tell my parents right away. I was scared and angry.
I didn't deal with any of it very well. I didn't each lunch with anyone at school. I avoided all my friends and I did homework or ran during lunch. I cut my eating and worked out for an hour. I didn't want to see or talk to any of my other friends. All my other close friends went to Park a private school I didn't attend anymore and was another world. I was alone in school having to deal with it on my own. I hung out with my bf constantly and working 25 hours a week and danced 3 days. I made myself so busy so I could hide I didn't care about anyone or making new friends and keeping my old ones. I had to deal with people claiming they were best friends with nicole and trying to get all this attention for how it was for them. No one understood, I never wanted to be like that. After a month or so, she came back and visited. I just wanted my best friend back. But she has to talk to everyone and everyone gave her so much attention.. I couldn't handle it it was so different. I may have even pushed her away. I don't know if she ever understood how hard it was for me. I remember one time we talked and we laughed and everyone who was trying to be her best friend now especially people who were not nice to her. I am glad she realized it but she forgave them all and just lived her life. Everyone thought she was going to live..but December they told her she had a short time left..She wasn't responding to treatment anymore and it was hopeless. I called her immediately almost in tears. It was our last convo and she was just like "yep, they told me I was going to be gone soon" she seemed so nonchalent about it and I told her I am coming to visit you don't leave yet. We barely talked for long and I never thought it would be my last convo with her. She was sleeping before I got down to Mayo she was sleeping but almost gone. She died December 15, 2007. After that I became more bitter and pushed myself harder then ever. I got really good grades that year and in all AP classes and was skinnier then ever. But I wasn't happy. I didn't have any friends. I was afraid of getting hurt again. I worked through the pain and it took me a long time. I went to st. cloud to get away and I forgot how to make friends. I couldn't remember how to do it. I used to be friends with everyone, but now I was scared to even say hi. I was extremely introverted and I had lots of anxiety because I was so afraid what my life was going to become. I clung on to whatever I could and I became obsessed with perfection. I worked out for 2 hours a day, obsessively watched what I ate, and got a 4.0. It was awful though even though I was being "successful" I was the most lonely sad person I have ever been. I was trapped and I couldn't get out of it. I couldn't stop the insanity I felt and I just couldn't let go.
"....and when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt......."
I put myself in a terrible position. Not only did I feel completely alone but I had this bf I spend all my time with. And he wasn't the healthiest person to be around. He was involved in a lot of drugs, but it was another mysterious world I could run away to and hide. I could make myself soo busy and every spare second I spent making him happy. I was so angry so mad I felt I deserved to suffer to feel the raw pain of unhappiness. Over time, He got trapped in a world all his own and I, the enabler, spun down with him. I did anything to make him happy. I remember so many times feeling "stuck" he manipulated my feelings and made me feel hopeless. He made me feel on top of the world to the worst girlfriend that has ever existed. I sacrificed so much, my sleep, my life. Its all such a insane blur of constant, no wonder i felt so much anxiety when I was alone. The drugs scared me especially when he thought he was in control. He lost control. Let me tell you. The day he said "I have a problem" was a day I thought I'd never see. Some days, I thought to myself is this my life??? Have I been dating this guy who emotional abuses me and is constantly high? It was a long uphill of using and abusing before any of the downward spiral ever occurred. And when the downward spiral hit, that wasn't ANY shorter and much more painful. I watched this guy who I was emotionally connected with hurt himself and lose control to a substance that completely took over. I remember nights watching him go insane. He got mean, manipulative and then super nice and lovey once he got his fix. He used anyone and anything to get what he wanted. I watched him suffer withdrawals over and over and it killed me every time he broke down and used. The cycle kept going again and again....When would it stop? Would it ever end??? I was scared it wouldn't. terrified. What was my life coming to??
During the all the cycles, I was dealing with so many personal things. I still felt urges to be perfectionist. I put my heart into staying skinny and letting myself not get out of control. I was always stressed and angry. But right before the cycle, I found out something that broke my heart into a million pieces. He was angry at me, I was pushed out of his apartment, locked, thrown all my stuff, and he yelled "I slept with your best friend". I left horrified. The feeling where you want to throw up and hurt yourself over and over because the pain is so bad. I starting bawling every tear and driving, driving as fast and awful as possible. I called her and was so irate and yelling loud the pain just seeped through. I had no one anymore absolutely nothing. I had been betrayed by the two closest people left in my life. The pain was unbearable, I stopped eating. I failed my finals, couldn't concentrate anymore and my anxiety was never higher then I can ever imagine. I went into depression. He wanted me back by the next day saying how sorry he was and lovey as usual. He told me he was high and drunk and all the most regrettable mistake. (another reason how the drugs hurt me) Nothing was gonna make me feel better, I didn't know how to function. But, the loneliness I felt and the need for being needed was too strong so I went back. I numbingly went back. I bawled to his face almost everyday, I never thought something like this would happen to me. I felt like scum. I felt like I never wanted to love again or open my heart to anyone else. I sucked myself back into the insanity with supporting this guy I knew I could never marry but just couldn't physically let go. Slowly, I did let him go.
Now as I look back...
365 days of thankfulness.
I want to start a new goal. and write something in here that I am thankful for everyday.
life is too short to not be thankful.
I am thankful for my strength and the life I have been given. Life has not been easy and sometimes I think "why me" but I am so grateful for who I am and the happiness that radiates in my life. I am one lucky girl who is very strong and I have a lot of love around me. I know I wouldn't be as strong if I haven't gone through what I have. I know it will all benefit me someday and I never want to take life for granted. It goes by too fast, I want to grasp on every second because I don't know when its going to go bad again.
That is a lot of things I am thankful for but I think about this everyday and I don't want to ever forget this feeling. This feeling of content, happiness, and love. <3
Happy Valentines Day.
or as I like to call it "Happy being single because I don't need someone else to validate me to know I am amazing."
<3 Chelsea J
life is too short to not be thankful.
I am thankful for my strength and the life I have been given. Life has not been easy and sometimes I think "why me" but I am so grateful for who I am and the happiness that radiates in my life. I am one lucky girl who is very strong and I have a lot of love around me. I know I wouldn't be as strong if I haven't gone through what I have. I know it will all benefit me someday and I never want to take life for granted. It goes by too fast, I want to grasp on every second because I don't know when its going to go bad again.
That is a lot of things I am thankful for but I think about this everyday and I don't want to ever forget this feeling. This feeling of content, happiness, and love. <3
Happy Valentines Day.
or as I like to call it "Happy being single because I don't need someone else to validate me to know I am amazing."
<3 Chelsea J
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
don't settle.
“Don’t change yourself – BE YOURSELF”…The responsibility is on you to communicate your needs and to choose someone who honors you, cherishes you and loves you…If you don’t love, honor and cherish yourself, you will settle and your needs won’t get met.”
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
new years. never too late.
I got the idea for this from here. I really want to paint it and hang it up so I can see it everyday. I really like the powerful reminder of goals I want to achieve and how I want to live my life.
It is just a great reminder of who you are and what you stand for.
I really encourage everyone to have a purpose in mind. Don't be afraid to edit or change it at anytime. Even now as I look at what I wrote, I have more ideas I want to see. Its such a good idea to set new goals and aspirations because that is how you become the best person you can be.
<3 Cj
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)