(Strokes chin thoughtfully with tail)...I expect you to die!
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They grind.
And they eat flowers with their big-mouthed friends.
The hits just keep coming from Carrie T.
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Hello Friends!
I am working with a group of incredibly gifted and like minded people whom have opened up a whole new experience and world for me. I don’t expect it to be for everyone. However, the journey will be shared via WordPress of what we learn, experience, and how we grow spiritually and on a vibrational level. If you are interested and you would like to know more about it please check out the link. We had out first sitting last night and it was a wonderful experience! You can read more here:
http://lagunalightnight.wordpress.com/
Otherwise, if you have a question or would like to submit a topic please email me at honestgoodadvice
Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Maria Cristina McDonald
“What we call chaos is just patterns we haven’t recognized. What we call random is just patterns we can’t decipher.” ~Chuck Palahniuk
Life has a funny way of teaching us lessons. When there is something you need to learn, something that you need to work on, the same situation will continue to repeat itself until you either learn your lesson or find a healthy way of dealing with that particular issue.
Think of the movie Groundhog Day. It was one of my favorites. Once Bill Murray realized that he was living the same day over and over again, he came up with ways to fix the things that went wrong before.
He learned how to fix the relationship with the object of his affection. He even learned to deal better with the annoying insurance salesman who approached him every morning.
It wasn’t until he learned to accept his fate that the cycle of reliving each day ended. He also became more compassionate and more sympathetic—an overall better version of himself.
I hear people say: Why do I keep going through the same things in relationships? I’m with different people, but things always end up being the same, or they act just like someone who I used to know.
Some of these people give up, some get stuck in a vicious cycle of their own making, and others don’t even realize that they are basically chasing their tail, repeating the same situation over and over.
Recently, I found myself in a pattern of attraction. It took some time for me to understand it. I had a hard time coming to terms with my divorce, and for years I wanted a second chance in that area of my life. A new start. A new marriage.
Only problem was that when I did come across someone I liked, he was unavailable—already in a relationship or emotionally unavailable to me, and therefore, unwilling to participate in a relationship with me.
I went through a period of time when the only guys who asked me out were either married or in a relationship of some type, live-in or on-and-off with a current girlfriend.
Instead of pursuing those situations (for obvious reasons) I would instead go for the single, yet emotionally unavailable guy. And I would try to win him over, to no avail, trying to prove that I was “good enough.”
It wasn’t until recently that I had an “a ha” moment, in which I realized that the critic I was trying to “prove myself” to was not someone else. It was me—the inner critic who still had not come to terms with the dissolution of my marriage and considered it a complete failure.
My thought process was: If I could turn this person around or make this person change his mind and love me, then I would be worthy of love.
It was an erroneous way of thinking. Had I not done the emotional self reflection I would probably still be in a pattern of trying to win someone’s love, or what I like to call chasing my own tail and going around in circles.
A good question to ask is: Am I reliving the same scene, over and over again? What’s my part in that?
It might not be in relationships, but in different situations, like at work for example, when the same issue comes up disguised. If you work with the public it could be the same issue with different customers, until you find a way to deal with it or until you learn the lesson.
While working with the public, I have noticed times when every single person I come across is upset, angry, or annoyed, and at first I would react in a similar way. We are all mirrors of ourselves.
After a number of people with the same, or similar issue, came up to me, I started to try to find different ways to resolve the problems—for example, not taking things personally and showing empathy to the person I was helping.
Around that time in my life a pattern, or lesson, I was in could be described as: How to stop taking things personally and how to view problems as opportunities.
Had I not experienced the same problems with customers and made the necessary changes, I would possibly still be in the process of learning that lesson.
I’m still working on this; some lessons take longer than others. Instead of reacting to situations, when something comes up and seems familiar, I try to stand back—if even for a second—to think.
For a while it will seem like coincidences playing out, but over time the pattern of your lesson will come up. This is the lesson you need to learn at this time.
It could be a lesson in humility, or a lesson in gratitude, or maybe you may need to learn empathy to see things from the other person’s point of view.
Instead of reacting all the time, every time something challenging comes up it could be an opportunity to learn.
One lesson I’ve needed to learn recently can be summarized with a Shakespeare quote:
“To thine own self be true.”
I’m realizing that, no matter what other people say, do, or think about us, it is our opinions of ourselves that really matter. And, when making decisions, sometimes it is good to question our own intentions. Think: What am I doing here? Or what am I up to?
Ultimately the question I’ve needed to ask myself is: Am I being completely honest with myself? What is the particular reason why I’m scared of change?
There are times when opportunities have come up for me to change my residence, or my place of employment, or even my car, and I haven’t seized those possibilities. I’ve stayed in place. Why?
One particular opportunity entailed moving out of my city to live closer to my family. My family members have offered to help with an out-of-state move, including offering me a place to stay with my children. But still, I haven’t.
I’m still here.
When I started being honest with myself, I realized that this fear of change was a big issue for me. I needed to handle it because, if I did not, situations would continue to come up where I was forced by circumstances to make a decision involving a change.
I learned that not making a decision is in itself a decision—and that my fear of change was actually a fear of failure. That was when I noticed the pattern of things breaking, or circumstances changing, forcing me to deal with my inability to make decisions.
Find your pattern. Find your lesson.
A good way of recognizing patterns in your life is by listening to your feelings, your intuition. I’ve found that when I am involved in a pattern, my emotions run a bit stronger, kind of like a warning from my subconscious mind to pay attention to what’s happening.
More often than not, I recognize the pattern when the situation has ended, or changed. Hindsight is 20/20 in this way. It can be difficult to recognize a pattern while it’s playing out. So, usually we realize what happened afterward. And that is okay.
In turn, life will continue to send us ways to overcome our patterns and learn our individual lessons.
The key is to be alert. When you’re open to recognizing a pattern, you can change it by learning the lesson, and in doing so, change your life
I find this post to be most insightful and interesting. I believe we all have something to learn from one another as well as within outselves. If you have a question or would like to submit a topic please email me at honestgoodadvice@gmail.com
"Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lives"
-Mother Theresa
Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Alden Tan
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” ~Albert Einstein
Hi. My name is Alden, and I’m an angry guy. I’m 26 years old.
Anger has always been an issue for me. I hate the feeling of being angry, especially for no particular reason.
It feels like it’s eating me up from the inside out.
It can get so bad sometimes that I can get pissed off while I’m alone in my room, just blogging or surfing the net, whenever a negative thought passes through my head.
Anger makes me feel upset with myself. I wonder why that I, a grown adult, still have to deal with issues that have been around since my high school days.
Am I still as immature as I was then? Why is it so hard to let go?
These are some of the events that made me angry with life:
My dad passed away when I was 20—from an incurable disease. Someone I grew up with was taken away suddenly. I still feel pissed with the world.
An ex-girlfriend cheated on me—with a guy with a bad reputation. It felt like an insult to me.
A friend who I was very close with betrayed me. He accused me of something he messed up himself. Years of friendship went down the drain. I never felt such disgust for a single person before.
I got punched in the eye once—by this guy in a club. I won’t go into it, but I didn’t think I did anything wrong.
These are only the major events of my life. I also get angry with other things in life, like a late bus or rude people.
Anger has been always one of my greatest challenges. Sometimes it feels like I need to get it all out, once and for all, but I don’t want to end up like some people who act rashly, by getting into fights, for example.
If you’re reading this, you might be like me. You’re very aware of a problem you have and you want a way out of it.
I’m sharing this now because I’ve worked on it for a long time and I hope it can help you do the same.
I can’t say I have it all under perfect control, but I’ve learned a few ways to tame that angry monster inside:
More often than not, it’s a negative thought derived from a bad memory that makes me upset, instantly.
As stated, this is where you should replace the bad thought with an awesome thought.
Don’t even approach the bad thought.
Don’t try to rationalize it.
Don’t even think about it.
The way I see it, any of the above is a passive reaction to the negative thought, hence making you feel the negative feelings that follow, which isn’t helping you at all.
So, replace the negative thought on the spot.
Just think of something you like. It could be a fond memory in the past or something you really want in the future.
I personally like to go crazy with my imagination and come up with amazing scenarios, like when I’m listening to a song I like, I imagine myself singing it in my own music video.
Sometimes distraction is a good approach, if it’s something you’ve already dealt with but keep rehashing in your head. Watch TV, listen to music, read something, or just go out. It helps.
You know something?
The clichés work.
Every tip you can find in blogs, magazines, or the newspaper work.
You just have to apply yourself and try it out.
Screaming onto your pillow actually makes you feel like you released a ton of emotions that are trying to get out.
Writing an angry letter to the person you bear a grudge against allows you to clearly articulate your feelings. Just make sure you don’t send it.
Exercising really helps with anger too. Sweating it out and letting the adrenaline take over your body can clear just about anything.
I know how it is when you feel angry and then listen to advice that you doubt will help your situation. It feels like nobody out there can fully empathize with how you feel, so who are they to talk, right?
I can empathize, and I promise that if you give it a shot, you’ll be surprised with the results.
Anger is a personal issue for everyone.
But unfortunately, some people around you cannot fully understand what you go through.
I find that most people feel angry because of their surroundings.
You hang out with supposed friends who make condescending remarks at you, but you don’t think you should do anything about because you don’t want to come across as petty.
You have a really dysfunctional office environment, filled with shady colleagues and a controlling boss.
Do these things sound familiar to you?
The problem is, people think they are “stuck” or they absolutely “must” be with such people because of their circumstances.
I say otherwise.
Make the conscious effort to surround yourself with people you can look up to and talk to. It won’t always be easy—if you need to look for a new job, for example—but it’s worth the time and effort.
Our surroundings influence our mood in a major way. So instead of focusing solely on addressing your inner anger, also address the external factors that trigger it.
I used to be a lot angrier before my dad’s passing.
Sounds contradictory? Continue reading.
You see, as I grew up, I always did the “right thing.”
I never talked back to people who insulted me to my face. I walked away from fights. I held back a lot of my emotions.
But as a result of doing all the “right” things, I went home feeling angry with myself.
When my father died, it just hit me there and then, “I did so much for people around me, and yet this still happened.”
My biggest takeaway from my father’s death was that you have to live life to the fullest, and sometimes, if not all the time, it’s okay to take care of yourself more than anything in this world.
I’ve fallen out with friends who kept insulting me.
I now actively make the choices that suit me, even if others disagree. (For example, I may not even go to a gathering when I know someone I dislike is there.)
I even quit my job to be a full-time blogger, much to the surprise of my friends.
Caring for myself more has allowed me to truly express myself and not hold back any longer. The anger has subsided a lot as I don’t have to look back and ask, “What if?”
Your life is your own. And life is short.
If you feel anger taking control, let it go by caring for yourself. Don’t be afraid to be yourself. It is by being yourself that you can fully realize the life you’re meant to live, and anger has no part in that.
When I feel angry sometimes I have crazy ideas of seeking justice, of finding my wrongdoers and letting them have it once and for all.
But I don’t act on it because I don’t want to add on to the crap in this world.
Let it go, not just for a better future, but also because you’re a good person. And a good person isn’t angry most of the time. Instead, he sees beauty in the world and strives for a positive life, in which others around him can be inspired too.
Choose to let go of your anger so you can be that person.
There are many other positive emotions you can enjoy when you make the effort to let go of your anger.
