{life reflections} A Slap in the Face: A Reminder of Happiness

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{life reflections}

 Weekly thoughts and rambles. A glimpse into my mind and world. 

Entries that I might jot down in my Happy Diary; the release of thoughts to flow uninhibited. Reflections from the soul. 

Reflections of life.  

I hope to leave you inspired. 

If you want to share your own reflections of the week please leave a link to your "life reflections" entry in the comments for all to find and see.

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A Slap in the Face: A Reminder of Happiness

Who is familiar with that moment when a certain realization attempts to slap you across the face? While I've had many moments like this, one in particular struck me again recently. In being honest, this little funk I've been in has been a rather tedious and lingering ordeal, one which I have been struggling with daily. Some days I feel like I must be bipolar: sparking from happiness to anger to tears in a matter of fleeting moments. One couldn't guess when the tempest would strike next. But then, I remember that I am cleansing, and that finally (several years later) all the excess estrogen has been attempting to leave my body after five years of being on the birth control pill. I also remember that the emotional roller coaster has been doing a few maniacal twists as of late--probably to keep me on my feet ;). And so, life simply has its funks and it is best not to beat oneself up over such things. We are, after all, all human, and happiness doesn't always come so easily. 

And then I was slapped across the face. I don't remember how it happened, what prompted it, or why exactly in that moment it sprang up from that inner part of my mind to give me a good talking to, but it did. That slap reminded me that my happiness depends on Me, and Me alone. I am in control of my own life, I am responsible for my own state of mind. Sure, it's not always a cake walk, and sometimes things really test your ability to simply "be positive". I mean really test you. For instance, every time over the past little while that I have had a moment of absolute happy bliss, it seems to be snatched out from under me like some cruel joke. I blame everything outside of myself for that bliss being snatched away from me. Because it's easy to pass the blame, especially when one is struggling with their own inner demons within life. But then there's that slap. That slap that reminds me that I am responsible for my own happiness. In seeing this, I have to remember--and I mean really drill it into my mind again--that I not the circumstances, people, or events around me can take my smile away. Sure, things will test you (and, again, sometimes really test you) but in the end, You are still responsible for allowing these things to ruin your day--and your life. It's a harsh reality at times, especially if we are caught in a state of helplessness within our own deteriorating self-appreciation. It's like one more thing to taunt us, to tell us we're not good enough because we can't Just Be Happy. Oh cruel world! But, when being honest, and if we can really take a step back then we can also realize that this mentality only further traps us into the web of self-helplessness and the "poor me" attitude that spirals so easily out of control. Because we refuse to accept that We are in control--at least, we Can be. 

Again, I'm not saying it's an easy walk in the park. Sometimes it is, most certainly, but other times it really feels like you have to fight tooth and nail to climb back to the top of the happiness ladder. And once we are at the top for a few fleeting moments, sometimes the foundation is still weak and so we topple quite easily down again. And this is another cycle that is so easy to start feeling helpless in, to start beating yourself up for, or cursing life for being so cruel. It's the self-perpetuating cycle of self-rejection, of self-loathing, or lack of self-appreciation. This is why I still hold strong to the belief system that happiness must must must start with You. Once you start feeling Good about YourSelf, then you can start to stabilize your ladder to happiness and the journey, while still bumpy, can be much easier and more manageable. 

Life truly Is a beautiful, wondrous gift, and to see it as a cruel place there to tear us down or laugh at us doesn't serve you. Life is not cruel, only our mentalities towards it are. These mentalities are built over time, burdened by life events and tribulations to solidify the feeling; but all the beauty in life can also serve as your tools to change your perspective. Once the perspective starts its building then the path to happiness can truly be paved. And that path is most easily paved by gratitude: gratitude for the small things, the big things, the people around you, the events around you, the material things, the weather, a roof over your head, anything and everything, but most importantly, gratitude for Your Self.  

So, allow a little slap to cross your face every so often. Let the lessons remind you to have the courage to empower yourself, to remind yourself that You Are Strong enough to overcome anything. Put yourself in control, truly and fully empower yourself and replace any negative thoughts with the words "I Can!". Love Yourself. Encourage yourself. Remind yourself that you Deserve to be happy, that you Deserve Good Things. Healing takes time, but more than that, healing takes Persistence. Do what you must for yourself every single day, by doing this you can move yourself away from the "poor me" helpless mentality and start to write a beautiful life for yourself once more. 

Much Love and all the Happiness in the world to you and your beautiful sparking soul! 

xo

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{life reflections} Being a Woman! + Emotions & Health

. . . . . . . . . . 

{life reflections}

 Weekly thoughts and rambles. A glimpse into my mind and world. 

Entries that I might jot down in my Happy Diary; the release of thoughts to flow uninhibited. Reflections from the soul. 

Reflections of life.  

I hope to leave you inspired. 

If you want to share your own reflections of the week please leave a link to your "life reflections" entry in the comments for all to find and see.

. . . . . . . . . .

Being a Woman! + Emotions & Health

It's tough being a woman. It's also intensely magical and amazing and I wouldn't trade it for the world. My husband has asked me before, on days where I'm clutching my stomach with cramps of death (of course he waits until they subside before asking) if I would not trade all that to be a man. I wouldn't. It's not because I don't like men or don't find them deeply fascinating as well, it's just that I love being a woman. Being a woman is such an opening experience, as if we can feel more deeply and wildly and enter depths and bonds amongst fellow women that perhaps men don't get to enjoy. I just love the feminine energy. There's something magical about it; like free gypsy souls, empowered goddesses, and/or soulful fairies. 

I saw this meme on Facebook yesterday (see below) and it made me giggle because I've been talking about similar things with other women in my life a lot at the moment to which the image made me relate. For instance, I keep describing myself as trying to "get my fire back", and we as women in general tend to like using these whimsical metaphors to describe our energies and feelings and passions that can't be put so bluntly into "logical terms." Sometimes it's as if women have their own dialogue--and studies have down that in some ways we do because of the way our brains are wired. These are things that if you tried to explain to (most) men, you'd probably get an arched eyebrow and a look to suggest you might have lost your marbles. "You're fire back??" But… women get it. They just get it. You'd only need to half explain yourself and women would just get it. "Ah, yes, your fire back! Of course!"

The experience of being a woman is one I wouldn't trade for anything. Being a woman is fun, and we are strong, compassionate, fiery beings that have so much to offer each other and the world around us. So, I'd take cramps of death any day and still be a woman. 

The truth is that our society is very uncompassionate and detached when it comes to women's health and women's bodies. I realize this more and more as I dive deeper into learning about my own body, about our cycles, hormones, and the emotions that Directly affect our health. And yet we're meant to believe that our health has nothing to do with our emotions. This is another topic that has been reoccurring lately: Emotions and Health--but I'll get to that when I'm done talking about the awesomeness and trials of being a woman. 

Being a woman should actually be a lot easier than it is. Every part of it! But society has suppressed women for centuries. Feminist talk? Absolutely! How about we stop shying away from being "feminists" because every single damn person on this planet should be a feminist! Feminism doesn't mean hating men, it means equality. I also feel that it is much more than that, I feel like it's about getting back in touch with our roots, with each other, and with men as well. Becoming open to Love in all areas of life. Our attitudes towards men has developed into one of tension and separation. Separation is everything to do with feminism (in my opinion) because women have been pitted against one another creating separation amongst our own gender and the opposite gender--leaving us feeling utterly alone for much of our lives. I think it's so eye-opening and important to realize this so that women can stop being so catty towards one another and finally love and support one another instead. You'd have to be pretty blind not to have noticed, or not to have felt, (once you're paying attention) the level of cattiness women have towards one another--feelings of jealousy, envy, and all around bitchiness. It's absolutely mad that women should be this way! But it's absolutely intentional, because it came with the territory of suppressing women all that time ago. What better way than to pit women against one another? Now, feminism has continued because of our society, because of the mentalities of both men And women. We can no longer blame it on the opposite gender, as many men are also feminists, and most women are a part of continued suppression (simply because it's embedded in our society). 

I've been reading Christiane Northrup's book "Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdoms" and it is absolutely fascinating and every woman should read it! I bring this book up because reading it is like one long moment of "Wow! That is so accurate! I wish I'd realized this sooner!" However, one bit in there really stuck out to me that I wanted to share: that women are constantly apologizing for their very existence! It is so so true, and on such a deeply embedded subconscious level that it really becomes no surprise women still face such oppression. The mentalities of our society keep women in check; we grow up apologizing for being here, we grow up feeling badly about our bodies, about our appearance, about our periods and hormones, and everything else imaginable. We have a constant feeling of never being good enough. It's no wonder we have PMS, hormone imbalances, health problems and relationship drama. If we are constantly apologizing for our very existence how can we possibly hope to feel love, feel good about ourselves, and thrive and flourish as the fullest awesomest versions of ourselves? 

Back to emotions and health… when women are constantly apologizing for their very existence, then that creates some awful emotions towards our bodies, minds, and souls, and thus, health problems result. The connection is absolutely undeniable (between emotions and health) but it is something never taught in the medical field or in society. This connection makes the issues of PMS and other women-related health problems no surprise at all--because we're practically taught that our bodies are foreign objects that give us pain and bleeding every month and that this is simply something we must accept and deal with. We don't! If we start to fix the way we Feel about our bodies and ourselves then we start to see improvement within our health and all of those PMS syndromes can finally go away. Of course, this is such a deep and complicated issue, which is why I recommend picking up Christiane Northrup's book, because this woman is brilliant and highly educated and I feel as if she could help every single woman on this planet with her information and insights and intellect. 

My husband also picked up this amazing book the other day that has this chart connecting certain body parts to the emotional significance. Going down this chart, we were both blown away by the accuracy. Completely and utterly blown away! I wish someone had made me realize all of this sooner. My health has had it's turbulences forever now, but it makes so much more sense knowing that it all began (and continues) from emotional blocks. I feel much better knowing now that if I want my health to improve then it's time to dive deep emotionally. 

As it happens, I had a large breakthrough a while back, which has only been more and more solidified by all these new insights. I feel very fortunate to know these things now, which is why I felt like rambling about such subjects today. I mean, what amazing things to know and understand that we have not been told about?! The truth is that a lot of my time and thoughts have been taken up on these subjects at the moment (women's issues, emotional trauma and health). But, for today, that's all from me. 

I wish you all the courage in the world to tackle your own emotional blocks and to get your own health to all that it should and deserves to be!  

   

So Much Love from my heart and soul to yours!     

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☺ Depression: You Don't Have to Stay There ☺

Ah life. It truly truly truly is a beautiful thing, it's just such a shame that we've been conditioned to believe that life is suffering, that life is hard work, that life sucks. Think about how many brain patterns we have formed during our upbringing, to make us feel badly about ourselves, to make us feel that life is no fun, to make us believe that materialism and money are the only forms of happiness, to make us believe that our happiness depends on things outside of ourselves, and to make us believe that happiness is a farfetched myth that is always just around the corner and just out of our reach. 

People seem to accept misery as if it is their only option. People seem to just accept that they are depressed as if there are no solutions or ways out. People seem to accept that life is suffering. Life can be tough, I won't deny that, I don't think anyone can deny that, but the more you conscientiously work on yourself, your happiness, your life, and most importantly, your attitude, then life becomes funner, happier, and easier. But we accept misery and I do believe this is our biggest downfall. 

Now, this next part I ask you to keep reading before you get offended--because this may be your initial reaction, that is not the purpose of this article but to empower you, so please keep reading--I'm here to at least try to help. 

Depression is not a choice--but staying there is. 

The truth is that depression comes to so many of us, and that part isn't much of a choice (especially due to the society we live in that pretty much tells us to be depressed), but the choice does lie in staying there. It can be hella difficult to climb out of the depths of depression--again I don't think anyone can deny that--it's not as easy as waking up one day and declaring that you are no longer depressed. As awesome as that would be, it's just not really possible. We have created so many brain habits and thought patterns that got us into the state of depression, therefor it takes a conscious amount of work to reprogram your brain out of it. But it is possible and anyone can do it. It takes work, it takes time, it takes some real turbulent ups and downs, but anyone can do it. And those turbulent ups and downs are worth it when you realize that you're going to get better. But you have to want to get better. If you don't truly put your heart into wanting and trying then you'll never get motivated enough to reprogram that brain. Enthusiasm, even if it's faked at first, is extremely viable. You can choose to wake up in the morning and stay depressed and not change. Or you can wake up in the morning and pretend to smile, you can force yourself into enthusiasm. The more you wake up trying the more you'll start to feel the changes emerge in your attitude and in your life. No one said it would be easy, but it is the most worthwhile trying and fighting you'll ever do. Because life is about being happy. And if we give up on trying to be happy, if we give up on fighting our way out of depression or misery, then it's like we've given up on life. There is never a reason to give up. Ever. Because if you reach that point where you feel like giving up, guess what? You have nothing left to lose! You can take the boldest chances of your life, and you can make the biggest leaps. Choose to change, no matter how small it may feel but never just give up. 

Now, this topic has been on my mind a lot lately because, with ReLove Plan.et, I truly want to try to help people and when some people are unreachable then it teaches me to take a step back, to put myself back in the suicidal depressed shoes I once lived in and reflect on the feelings, emotions, and bumps that I struggled with; so that I may find new approaches or advise that may reach people. Because I think everyone can and should be happy and if I can change one person's life then I know it will ripple.

Do what you Can.

Again, people accept depression as if they have no other options, as if happiness simply is not and will never be feasible for them. But it is. People complain about being unhappy, or just accept that they are unhappy and are silently more and more depressed about it. But they don't DO anything about it! This is the part that bothers me. Maybe because I have been there, maybe because I see people do it far too often, maybe because a part of me just can't stand to see others depressed when they don't have to be, and maybe because it's just plain hard to watch people continually self-destruct, but I want to shake people and tell them they can do better, that they Can be happy. This is why this blog started in the first place; because I know what trying can accomplish, because I've been into the depths of hell, pain, misery, self-loathing, and suicidal thoughts, and I never ever thought I would climb out of it but I did. Because I got up and decided to try and not accept that depression was my only option in life. 

Trying doesn't mean you have to make drastic changes with the snap of your fingers, trying means you're going to start, it means taking that first step forward. When I say that it bothers me to see people not trying, I'm not talking about people's inability to just "think positive" and change their attitudes in an instant--that stuff takes time and is not usually a beginners step if you have severe depression. That being said, you can always try and start to change your attitude--but I'll get to that later. These are the steps that I'm talking about that people fail to work on: diet and exercise. 

People turn to anti-depressants before they even try. It's not that I don't get it, I mean everyone wants to feel better, but from what I've seen antidepressants don't help anyone--I still have yet to meet someone on antidepressants who actually feels happy, good, or even not a zombie. Get off that shit! It's making you numb and it won't make you better, and in the meantime you're becoming hella dependent on chemicals that will make it even harder to actually get better. Not only that, but antidepressants are prescribed like giving out candy to kids on halloween. I once had a friend in high school who was having a hard time with her parents and was acting out a little. She was brought to the doctor who prescribed her prozac. My mind was blown! This girl was my best friend, we talked to each other about everything, and she wasn't depressed, not by a long shot. Hormonal, sure, frustrated, maybe; depressed, no! I talked to her about not going on them and she admitted to not being depressed and that she just wanted to make her parents happy. I am so glad, and I know that she is too, that she never went on them.

What I'm getting at is that antidepressants are a bandaid, and while that bandaid remains, the problems beneath are festering and building and will never heal until they are allowed to surface, be worked through, and released.  

Okay, so get off antidepressants and don't turn to them in the first place if that is something you've been contemplating. 

Getting back to those steps people can take to get better but don't do… 

Exercise has been proven to be just as effective as antidepressants when it comes to relieving depression. How many depressed people actually exercise? If you're depressed, start exercising! Go for a run, get an elliptical or stationary bike, go to the gym, get a bike, go hiking. Hell, you can just WALK for 30 minutes a day and that's all you need! I know that you probably won't feel motivated to exercise. I know that at first you won't feel like it's doing anything. Do it anyway. Because it absolutely does help. 

Eat properly! People complain about being depressed yet have you taken a look at your diet? How many foods are you eating that are diminishing your health? Your brain--therefor happiness--depends on a healthy body! How many foods are you eating that are depressants? Do you consume alcohol or do drugs? Do you drink coffee regularly or other highly caffeinated beverages? Do you eat sugar like most people do? Do you eat processed packaged foods? Again, I know that you won't feel motivated to eat right because when you're depressed one of the last things you really care about is yourself, therefor your health. Do it anyway. Sugar alone is one of the most potent depressants you can put into your body, yet people consume sugar as if it's nothing. When I give into a sugar craving, I go crazy, bonkers, like I want to throw my fist into a wall. Sugar is crazy! I mean really really crazy and it'll make you even crazier. Alcohol as well, terrible depressant on the body. It's not rocket science, it's just common sense. Eat more veggies, eat more fruits, eat REAL food, and stop eating foods that are making you depressed! 

So, if you're telling people that you can't help but be depressed, if you are telling people that you can't change, that happiness is simply not for you, and that trying is really hard, well… yeah, trying may be hard, it may be challenging, it may be hard to get motivated at first, but you CAN get better, you CAN get happy, and there are steps you can start taking to get better. 

Start with that 30 minutes of exercise a day, and start by really disciplining yourself with your eating habits. I promise you that once you start doing these things alone then you'll start to feel a difference; and then you'll be able to focus more on changing your attitude, reading helpful books that you'll be able to apply to your life, and the journey will just get easier and easier from there. 

You can also take natural remedies to help boost your serotonin and get your brain working the way it should--because years of depression take a real toll on your body's natural ability to produce serotonin. I highly recommend doing this. Some suggestions are: St.John's Wort, 5-HTP, sam-E, or rhodiola. Make sure you're getting your balanced omegas and DHA as well, these will help and are easy ways to boost your brain power. Make sure you're getting enough B-12, B-6 and other B vitamins. And make sure you're getting enough vitamin D.

These are all steps. You are not helpless. You CAN change. But you have to want to and you have to try. Take it in steps and don't beat yourself up if the change is slow, it does take time! But trying and struggling with that trying is better than just struggling without improvement. If you really need help then I do recommend seeing a therapist or councillor as well. If you can't afford one, lots of places have free councillors available through social services--take advantage if you have them around you because they are amazing people who are there to help you. 

It's never too late to try, it's never too late to start again. You can be happy, trust me. So please start taking steps. 

Much much love! 

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