Not Everybody Is Going To Like You

Did you ever think back in high school that you'd still be dealing with feelings of being left out or not part of the "popular" crowd? I sure didn't. I've dealt with these experiences off and on through out my life but never forsaw my 35 year old self dealing with the same feelings I felt back in grade school. We all have a deep desire to fit in, to have friends, to be liked, and validated. 

Life brings us challenges that we must overcome otherwise they repeat themselves until the lesson is learned.

So who cares that I didn't get invited to the party, the girls night, the baby shower, the wedding, the fancy event, ect. Does that really mean I'm not a lovable person? That I don't have friends that appreciate and support me? No! 

So why do we FEEL this way when we didn't get the invite? Why do we allow ONE thing to bring us down and forget all the wonderful things in our lives?

We can't ALL be included in EVERYTHING. We need to take our turn. Everybody has experienced the feeling of being left out, but most likely we have also experienced the thrill and excitement of being a part of a great group of friends or invited to the awesome party.  So lets focus on all the good in our lives and allow others to have THEIR TURN in recieving good things.

So as I'm sitting here being consumed with these thoughts, I'm reminded of my role as a mother. Trying to shift my focus and remember the messages and lessons that I hope to pass on to my own daughter. First one being DON'T TAKE THINGS PERSONALLY.

My favorite quote by Joel Osteen is: 

"Many people let negative words or other peoples opinions ruin their lives. They live to please other people and honestly think that they can be happy by trying to keep everyone else happy. They don't want anybody to say a negative thing about them. That's simply impossible. You have to accept that not everyone is going to like you, not everybody is going to accept you, and you certainly cannot keep everyone happy. Some people will find fault no matter what you do."

It's human nature to want love and acceptance, but we can't win them all.

Social media can do crazy things to ones self-esteem. We are constantly comparing ourselves with others. We get a peak inside someone else's life and we can't help but think that their life is a little better than our own. We think,  if only I had this, if only I lived there, if only they were MY friends. We somehow think that if our lives were a little more like someone else's THEN we would be happier. What we fail to remember is that nobody's life is perfect. Maybe they have a nice house but their marriage is failing. Maybe they have a huge social media following but feel lonely inside. Perhaps they have amazing friends but struggle with their weight. They may have been blessed with physical beauty but struggle with self doubt. There is opposition in all things.

We all have struggles. Things that we've dealt with in the past, things that we are dealing with now and things we will have to endure in the future. We don't typically share the things we struggle with, not necessarily because we are trying to portray a perfect life. Let's be honest, nobody wants to get on social media and hear people complaining all day. We like HAPPY, it's what draws us in. 

I hope that I can get a little better at loving myself and having gratitude in my heart. Instead of focusing on the negative, I want to focus on all the good in my life. There is always good to seen, we just often times forget to recognize it because all our energy is going towards trying to fit in or getting people to notice us, love us and appreciate us. It's such a selfish way of living right? What a narcasistic way of thinking. Why not take the focus off ourselves just a little and GIVE what we desire to receive. It will have the same affect as if it were happening to us.

Another one of my favorite quotes by Joel Osteen in his sermon about not wasting your pain and using it to lift others.

"God will allow you to take your mess, and turn it into your message. The reason God allowed it , is because he trusts you. Your pain could be for a different purpose. Don't take on a victim mentality. You will come out better, and will help others in the area."

One of the best parts about having a blog is that it's extremely theraputic and also gives me great purpose while using my pain to help others. It's always nice to know that we are not alone and that others experience the same kinds of emotions. Maybe not exactly, but we all struggle every now and then.

You might also like to read 12 Steps to a Better Day & The Wrong Road.

Feeling Beautiful At Any Age

I’m reading this awesome book right now called Change It Up and I just read something so profound. I immediately grabbed my laptop because I felt you all should hear it too. Aging is not something we get too excited about, right?  I know in the past I’ve spent way too much time worrying about my saggy butt, stretched out tummy, age spots and fine lines. I’m slowly but surely learning what true beauty really means.

   “The way to feel beautiful at any age, with any body, is to shift the focus. We no longer need people to look at us to feel beautiful–we need to look AT PEOPLE. We become the mirror for them. Beauty, real beauty, truly is in the eyes of the beholder and not the “beheld”. The beholder feels beautiful herself because she loves what she beholds.

When our toddlers throw their arms up into the air for us to scoop them up, we feel beautiful. When our husbands run to greet us when he returns home from a long trip, we feel beautiful. When our children get married and tell us they’re expecting their first child, we feel beautiful. None of those feelings requires that we look any certain way for other people to admire. We can be thin or heavy, wrinkled or smooth, tan or pale, weak or strong. We can “let ourselves go” or stay in perfect shape. We can be exactly the way we are right now at this moment… and we can be the way we’ll be in five years and twenty years and beyond. We can age without any concern for stretching our face until it feels smooth. The feeling of beauty requires only that we look at the objects of our love and devotion.
This is finally it–the end of needing to be seen, and the beginning of seeing.”

-Amanda Dickson

Don’t you love that! She just said it so perfectly! I’m beginning to understand this more as time goes on. It’s simply switching our focus and being grateful for each moment we have with the ones we love. I truly feel beautiful when I hold my babies, care for them and love them. It’s really amazing how this works. No more worrying about our aging bodies, and lets focus more on SEEING the beauty in others and loving our skin and bodies just they way they are.

Why I Quit My "To Do" Lists

For those of you who have been with me since the beginning of my blog back in 2009, know that I'm a routine lover and proffessional list maker. I've been known to be quite OCD at times. This year though, has been the beginning of a new way of life for me. I have changed things quite dramatically. Recently I blogged about how moms just LOVE to be amazing at EV.ER.Y.THING and in the process we unintentionally run ourselves into the ground.

So this year I decided to make some changes, starting with my "to do" list. I came to the conclusion that my routines and mile long lists of things I needed to do were not serving me well. I felt busy all the time and I didn't like the affect it was having on my spirit and the way I treated my husband and children. I knew that some things needed to change. I wanted to be more present and relaxed without feeling a constant pull to get things done. So I let everything go. Well not everything, but I've made some major progress. I'm simply trying to allow room for God to guide me in my every day. Trying to become MORE by doing LESS.

To be clear, I didn't give up ALL lists. I still use them when necessary like to ensure I don't forget things, or when it comes crunch time and I MUST get certain things done. Basically I'm just a lot more selective. My lists and schedules got pretty ridiculous at times. Like writing down what time of day I would say a prayer,  or when I would sit and play with my kids.  I'd even go as far as mapping out everything we were going to do during the hour of play time. Although this method can actually be really good, for me it was removing myself from the actual moment. I was constantly thinking about what I needed to do next, had timers going all the time and I would never just sit and relax. It also made me extremely frustrated because the TIME schedule with my kids never went as planned.

I just want to simplify my life, and be happy with doing NOTHING once in a while, or having no plan for the day. Doing nothing can be very good for the soul.

The book I'm reading right now has been extremely helpful in this endeavor. It's called The Power of Pause by Terry Hershey.

"We live in a world that urges us to admire and pursue whatever is faster, whatever is newer, and whatever is bigger~ the underlying idea being that we should be living a different life, not the one we're living now. This is no surprise given the model by which we quantify success. Since we crave speed and we see productivity as our objective, these things become our standards for measuring how well we're doing."

By giving up my obsession for "to do" lists and schedules I have opened up a whole new space in my life that I didn't know existed. I'm leaving room for creativity and spontaneity.  It's quite refreshing. Not an easy task but it definitely has it's rewards.