You Have to Start Somewhere, Start with Yourself.

But first. Coffee.

I’ve learned along my life, albeit not a long one, that when you’re having crisis you must first look within.

Example: a bad relationship: consider the fact that although you DO indeed deserve to be 100% happy, you may be part of the problem.

Step back to take in the larger picture that is life. Paint with your mind something better for yourself. Once you have an idea of what you want for yourself- what you deserve-then who is stopping you from getting it? Answer: Only yourself.

Only YOU can choose to make a change for yourself. Sometimes it takes a change in your path in life, sometimes it takes seeing yourself at your lowest of lows. No matter what it takes, no matter how many people keep telling you the same thing over and over, the bell will never chime as clearly as when you speak the words yourself and hear them echo inside your head and want the difference from within your being. Whatever that change may be.

There are degrees of “change” that people think others should change about themselves, although truly what should and should not be done for another person is up to them. Things like:

• curtailing smoking cigarettes
• stopping the abuse of alcohol
• “be” less depressed
• be more cleanly
• not as lazy
• loose weight
• workout more
• better work ethic
• more respect for authority
• loving specific people or things (having a better family relationship)
• appreciating the things that you like (bias)
• ….and the list goes on…

People cannot be who you want them to; if they are going to better themselves they must take the first step. If you are the person hoping to help another who seems to want to better themselves, maybe encourage them to seek professional help or to read self help books. Maybe even my blog. First steps are always the hardest. Try to put yourself in their shoes, that isn’t easy either.

On the other hand, if you are the person trying to find motivation to do any of the above things or many others; first congratulate yourself for taking not just the first step towards getting here, but multiple steps on your way towards bettering yourself. You took time out of your day to get this far. It isn’t easy, and believe me- I know.

Bettering yourself, however you define that, is a journey and it will take time and patience (definitely not a get-rich-quick scheme). If you didn’t notice a lot of the bullet points I listed aren’t necessarily physical “bad habits” -some are- but most of them have to do with self-awareness and how it effects your emotions.

Without a healthy sense of self-awareness, a person does become depressed, lazy, unhealthy maybe even anxiety ridden. Those who love and care about you try to help, but it feels like they are doing everything wrong; that they don’t understand. At times it may make you mad because all you want to be is sad.

And you know what, that’s fair. Sad is an emotion too. It needs it’s 15 minutes; because if it doesn’t and you wind up bottling it up you will repress everything until you explode. Let sad be sad for a little while, but please, let the happy shine through.

If you don’t and you don’t open your ears and your mind to what resources are available to you, you will not find your happiness. Guess who that hurts the most?

Take the time to make time for yourself. Literally, schedule “Me Time” in your planner, agenda, write it on your hand, in your head – whatever it takes so that you make time for yourself. The goal of this is to know that throughout all of the people and their signs, “You’re #1“, “You’re the Most Important Person in Your Life” don’t gloss over that with a temporary smile and a feeling of, “Yeah right, there are bigger things to worry about.”

If you don’t worry about yourself who’s going to?

Make time for your life. You deserve to…

…now go have a foot bath and some wine.

Adulting: The Second Puberty?

      Please, we already had to deal with enough going through our first puberty.  No one told us about a second puberty! I wasn’t prepared for this.  It snuck up on me like a cold front in the middle of summer.

During our first puberty, there were the memorable classics of our voice adjustments, practical overnight growth spurts, hair…need I say more?? And of course, our ever-growing sexual curiosity.

This “second puberty” I find sometimes chooses to continues the previous puberty…more & more hair, again a shifting in voice register (but only at random and inconvenient times of course; i.e., the day before or of an interview, etc…).  I have known guys who have gone through two-three growth spurts during their lives, the last into their 20’s and being in such pain from the muscle & bone growth at that age. (I can’t imagine, I am only 4″ 11′).  Lastly, I imagine sexual curiosity matures with age 😉 .

However, there are differences that the majority of us did not encounter during our first puberty of which we are now all too familiar.

• Wrinkles for NO reason! (…let’s call them “laugh lines”)
• Aches & pains after only 20+ years?  WHY?!?
• Taking forever to gradually climb out of bed.
• Sometimes too busy to satisfy our sexual curiosity.
• Stretching has become part of the necessary morning routine – otherwise, yer fucked.
• Body parts crack for no reason as well, and if I don’t crack them it drives me nutso!
• I’ve started using creams and lotions; nightly face cream, moisturizer, & pain reliever.
• My skin is a whole different animal than it was 5-10 years ago. It decides when to break out and where…even though I already have face wash and preventative acne medication that took me 5-10 years to perfect. I think my epidermis is finally figuring out it isn’t as invincible as it thought it was.  It makes me feel unprofessional and like a teenager again; can’t we just get in the same boat for once?!?
•  Don’t even get me started on the weight that I have gained and not been able to loose lately.  I feel like I’m pretty new to this whole “Adulting” thing, but I think that’s because in my head I feel as if I’m still 21. I actually have to think for a moment when someone asks my age. Eating is one of my favorite activities, not because I’m the laziest person ever and can’t/won’t do anything else, but because I have a very precise palate – I love the taste. I love to eat and unfortunately pay the price.  My “freshman15” turned into my “college40”.  This wouldn’t be as big a deal if say I were still a freshman, with maybe a higher metabolism, yet here I am, 30+ lbs later unable to loose the weight as easily. Our bodies onto tidbits.
• One of the biggest situations I am having troubles with currently is my circadian rhythm being completely flip-flopped! For a while I thought it was – again – just me being lazy, but no, it turns out that this is normal and that typically during this phase in a human’s life they are more apt to stay awake during the nights and sleep more during the daytime. I am tired ALL the time! I want my other half a day back!!
• One other thing I found was having zero control over your body temperature! It’s almost pre-menopausal sounding, (and that’s scary)! It feels so true too. There are times when I am freezing when everyone else is comfortable, or hot. Other times when I am trying to peel off my skin and adjusting the thermostat as low as possible, others complain that I was just cold!! Which is so true.

What the fuck life?

When does this end? When do we get to just be old like we agreed to in the first place?

Is this “second puberty” the longest phase in a human’s life? I think it truly depends on the human. As I mentioned earlier, I still mentally feel as though I am 21 or so, although I am 27.  I think it is fair to say that our “second puberty” ends when “middle-age” begins (I know nothing about that, so I’m going to take a liberal guess). Please feel free to correct me. My guess is that the Adulting phase starts around 21, ending around 45.

      This “second puberty” is a natural cycle of a human’s life.  Why is it that people are recently having such a hard time accepting what comes with life?

Internal Conflict

“To be or not to be”. Something like that, right? The internal struggle will always be the hardest one. It is much easier to tell someone else what they should do, or what you think is “right” for them to do, than to make the choice yourself – when you have no one to ask – no one to validate your ideas it becomes infinitely harder.

I’ve found over the years that those “seeking advice” are usually just seeking validation to their issues without realizing it. Wanting another to only agree with you is not, and maybe even the opposite of advice.  Someone who gives advice/counsels properly is there to listen to a person and give their honest feedback after analyzing the body language, and communication of said person.

Seeking advice from a friend/family member is a common move, but it is not one that could benefit relationships of any kind. Internal conflicts lead to conversations with those trusted friends and family members, who may not necessarily know what “should be or should not be”…since that is the question...

Of course, I would suggest to seek professional help. I do advise to do so if you are having such internal conflict that you are stressed to no end, that you find it hard to motivate yourself, if you have troubles reaching out, no support system, and/or cannot envision goals for yourself. These are common everyday issues that perfectly healthy people begin to find themselves encompassed by.

You seeking professional help for something that you may feel is “mundane” has a statistically high likely hood; why don’t you leave that up to the professionals 🙂 .

Be Well.

 

Passionate Planning

Towards the middle of January 2017, my mom encouraged me to invest in a Passion Planner. Fortunately there was a sale going on at the time (we’re those people who only ever buy things on sale; if they aren’t, we go without.) It was a 50% off sale! So I indulged.

My justification being that, now that I am out of school and looking for work, making appointments all the time (and hopefully having interviews every other DAY), that this purchase would be extremely beneficial.

Before making my purchase, which was last minute (we’re also those people), I did a little research about the Passion Planner. Not only do they have good information/ideas on how to use the planner on their own website.

http://www.passionplanner.com

They also have YouTube videos with great suggestions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t46Bemvsjcw .

I learned that the organizational ideas came from founder, young entrepreneur, Angelia Trinidad. The Passion Planner came from her need to organize her life in such a way that other agendas didn’t provide. So she made her own. Trinidad knew that others needed a lifestyle/planner based on goals and positiveness, instead of just a “To-Do” list. One of the first pages in the Passion Planner is the “road map”, which is supposed to help the user stay on track throughout the entire Planner.

One of my favorite things about the Passion Planner, one “tip” which was mentioned in the video I linked, is the fact that there is less structure to this agenda. As Trinidad said, it may be intimidating to those who are used to structure; however, it is slightly liberating to be able to just…do whatever the fuck I wanna do! Not to mention if I miss a day or two (or a week) because I haven’t been keeping up – why waste that week’s page, when I can just write in the dates of that current week without skipping and wasting trees?! This also applies to months. Nothing is marked; as the video says – you fill in the blanks. This planner could last you a very long time!

I like to keep the monthly and the current week pages available to flip back and forth between, I have them clipped together for ease.

Recently I drew on the front of the Planner with a gold Pen-Touch liquid pen. I traced the lines of the things that mean the most to me: the Walkman, the bike, the coffee mug, a star, a cloud the palette and paint brush, and the pencil at the very bottom which leads up to all of the stenciling (the picture cut off some of the things I colored in). It was an interesting experience, also liberating, because I was afraid the gold liquid pen wouldn’t dry on the leather-like material, so I had to do a test area, small and inconspicuous. Also, the pen wasn’t as fine-point as some of the areas that I wanted to color in – but I did my best, and I am happy with it. Embellishing it made it more unique and more my own. 🙂

The Passion Planner suggests that you spend a few moments planning your day,or planning the next at the end of the day. Even if it’s not a Passion Planner that you use, having an agenda can help with time-management, calming stress, and peace of mind.

Hopefully I’ll get better at it, and be able to use it more efficiently. It has been a great investment.