"LIFE GOES ON." This is my favorite motto. It is simple but so strong, much like humankind. We are all simple beings that are a part of such a complex universe yet we yield so much power. Theses are the three words I live my life by.
Life Goes On
Sometimes in life we fuck up, we make mistakes, people piss us off, we piss other people off, we get mad, and we cry. That is all part of being human; shit just happens. The one thing I have gotten good at in the recent months is telling myself that life goes on. I constantly need to remind myself that I am still breathing and the Earth is still spinning. Whatever minor problem that is going in my life is not going to matter in the next year and if it does well then that is a ME problem because why am I not resolving something that is causing conflict in my life? At the end of the day I am still alive, I am still breathing, and there are still so many wonderful things in life to focus on rather than being bitter.
Who the Fuck Cares?
I'm not sure where the overwhelming sense of wanting to be liked by everyone originated from. We can blame it on social standards created by social media but let's get real, this started way before the first social media site was created. As we grow up it is harder to create genuine friendships with people because we are all afraid of being our authentic selves in front of our peers in fear of being judged. Who the fuck cares? I used to have this bad habit of being someone I wasn't just to make people like me. I had a chronic case of PPS (People Pleaser Syndrome) and it took me a really long time to cure it. I would see all of these people who seemed like they had their shit together, had great friendships, and just all around seemed really cool. So, like what any insecure teenage girl would do, I tried really hard to make these people like me. Let me tell you, it worked but at the expense of my true authentic self. I was hitting vapes and smoking weed just to fit into a place that I didn't belong. I didn't feel good but I felt like I had to please these people when in reality no one cared. Some days I wish I could go back in time and tell my younger self that no one cares if you don't do drugs, in fact it's cooler not to, and that posting every single thing you do to seem cool on your private story is actually annoying. But that is a part of growing up.
You know that little saying that goes, "you are your own worst critic"? As cheesy as it may be, it is true. I can say with absolute certainty that I do or say something "embarrassing" at least two times a day. People may laugh, my face may get a little red, but hey I made people laugh. There are worse things in the world and guess what, life still went on. Now I'm not sure if you noticed or not, but I did put quotations over the word embarrassing and that was for a reason. Embarrassment, by definition, is "a feeling of self-consciousness, shame, or awkwardness". I heard someone, somewhere say that embarrassment is a choice. I wish I could remember who said it, or where I heard it from but I have never forgotten that saying. "Embarrassment is a choice".
Say you are in a long line of people waiting for the bathroom after a concert and you just can't hold it in any longer so you pee your pants. Embarrassing right? It doesn't have to be. Now that you've peed your pants you really don't have to wait in that long line anymore so you can just leave. You also didn't know anybody in that line so the odds of you seeing them again are very slim and if by some chance you do, they are going to remember you just as much as you remember them, not at all. At the end of the day, you just gave yourself another funny story to tell your friends and family. You'll have to walk home in wet jeans but who cares, you just saw one of your favorite artists in concert and now you'll never be able to forget it. By flipping perspective of the experience, you then take away that choice of feeling embarrassed. This is one of my favorite stories to use as an example of choosing to not be embarrassed because it's a personal experience. I did in fact pee my pants in line for the bathroom after a Carrie Underwood concert five years ago and I went back to school two days later and told everyone about it because it really is just funny. People may have judged but life still went on so who cares?
Diving Deeper
Recently I had a crush on this really great guy. We had gotten close over the course of a month and then I went back to school so things naturally began to fizzle out. I would text him every once in a while just to keep in touch because my feelings for him were still lingering. Around Thanksgiving time I had asked him to hang out over break, he had told me that he wasn't sure what he had going on yet but he would let me know. On Thanksgiving day, he posted that he had a girlfriend. She's gorgeous by the way and not a single feature of hers resembles me so I figure I'm just not his type. I was then left on opened. This devastated me because I knew that we were just friends and I only had a crush but the feeling of knowing I missed any sort of chance with him hurt a little bit. I did what any normal girl would do when upset, shed a few tears, dyed my hair, and spent all of my money on new clothes. After a week of self-pity and wallowing I let it all go. I had finals to take, jobs to work, vacations to look forward to. I couldn't sit around and be sad forever. Everything happens for a reason, as amazing as he might have been, he wasn't the one for me and the universe made that clear. I wrote all of my feelings down, felt them for about a week, and then told myself that life goes on.
If you've ever read Eat Pray Love you'll know this but if you haven't (and you should because it is amazing) there is this section of the book where she is going through her divorce and she just wants the process to be over. She mentions that she wants to pray to God and ask him to help her in ending her marriage but doesn't want to be the kind of person who only talks to God for favors in desperate times. Her friend tells her to approach it as if she were sending in a petition to God for her divorce process to come to an end. No actually petition had to be made and no one had to physically sign it, but they sat in the car driving for hours listing names of people who would sign her petition to God. Soon after finishing the petition prayer, she had gotten notified that her husband was ready to finalize the divorce and it was now all over.
I mentioned this part of Eat Pray Love because:
1. I LOVE this part of her story, it is extremely admirable and overwhelmingly inspiring. Seriously if you haven't read the book I highly recommend it.
2. It reminds me of something similar I like to do when reminding myself that life goes on.
There will be many things in life that bring you to tears, feelings of depression, feelings of extreme anger, or mix of all three at once. These feelings tend to cloud our minds with negativity. It is important to feel out your emotions, that is one thing I have learned in therapy, suppressing your feelings will only make them grow stronger. I have discovered for myself that the best thing I can do is give it the rule of 5's.
Once you reach the "regroup" stage of the Rule of 5's, this is where the "prayer petition" comes into play. In this stage I want to you start listing every single good thing in your life. Leave nothing out, include people, the food you eat, things that happened to you years ago, things that happened just that day, things that will happen in the future, anything good you can think of in your life, list it. Once you finish your mental list remind yourself that for every one thing that goes wrong, you have a long list of things that went right to over power it and that life goes on.
Affirmations
Bad things are bound to happen in life, unfortunately it is inevitable. Feelings get hurt, embarrassment may happen, and angry feelings may occur but it is important to remember to take time to feel your emotions, breathe, and list all of the good things in life. Life is not going to stop for any inconvenience you may endure, life goes on and you should too. You are strong. You are wonderful. You can face any challenge and curve ball life throws your way.
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