Archive for Peace of Mind 101
Personal Debt Management: A Dash of Self Love Will Go a Long Way
Posted by: | CommentsEveryone wants to be loved, but the big difference lies in how they want to be loved, and what loving means to them. Do you measure love in terms of the number of people you attract, the fame that comes with it, or in terms of how many want your attention? A lot of people profess that they are unlucky in love, but what they really mean is that they’re failing in one aspect in their lives that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with giving and receiving love.
It all starts with loving yourself.
Psychological health is seldom discussed outside the shrink’s office, and when finally brought up, becomes a thing that only psychologists and life coaches can deal with. People who admit that “they have a problem” take the first step to mending their lives, but the whole process becomes a convoluted array of counselling sessions and antidepressant pills. Is there a way to make the self loving process simple? One thing that people fail to understand is that they put so much stress on themselves when they don’t need to.
Do not do anything that will cause you stress in the future. Setting yourself up for financial ruin by borrowing too much now to assuage that nagging guilt that you’re not loving yourself more will not help you really give something back to yourself in the future.
One example of this is the credit card issue. Let’s say one person owes 500 dollars in credit and is allowed to borrow up to a thousand. Does he resolve the 500 dollar debt first before even touching the rest of the credit limit? Or, would he use it until it maxes out then worry about everything later?
Worry is the keyword there. I can tell you now that the best gift you can give to yourself is peace of mind. Allow yourself breathing room, to live free of obligation and anxiety. This starts with an overhaul of your spending habits. You must not treat each ‘frugal’ move as a self sacrifice. Think of frugality and thrift as a means of giving yourself that feeling of not owing anything to anyone.
Self love means imposing tough love on yourself.
Like our parents tell us “You have to do this so that you will be well off in the future”. Always think of what kind of emotional and psychological state you will be in. Aiming for a stress-free future becomes the new goal.
Recovering: Standing Up and Moving On
Posted by: | CommentsWe are to ourselves just what we think we are
-Phineas Parkhurst Quimby
Inventorizing is not just a term that we use in business. We use it also to build (or re-build) our self image. Those who are recovering from a loss, or a really bad blow in life must start reorganizing by taking note of what’s left.
It’s easy enough to say “I’ve lost everything” when all the things around you, including your feelings are in disarray. Start by realizing that you are still alive. The fact that you can still feel something means you can still feel relief. No matter how painful the hurt, if you are still hurting, it means you can also feel it subside.
Stand up, take a look around you and within you. Be a friend to yourself and be compassionate to what your heart is telling you. It hurts from all the torture. Your better qualities have not left you, you just became blind to them. Look at them in a new light as you stand up from a bad tumble.
Romance and Self Esteem
Posted by: | CommentsLove-Junkie? That’s me.
Romance is a feel-good thing we crave for, long for and dream about. It will never cease to be a factor in our daily lives as women. We need it to be inspired somewhat, and we know it. I feel sad when I hear stories about couples that find themselves lying next to a stranger after 30 or so years of marriage. One wonders what happened to the fairytale wedding that propelled the marriage. That they lasted that long means they have weathered most storms right?
Sadly, some unions lose the romance and become jaded. I never thought it’s be possible to get jaded together, but apparently it is. Apparently, it doesn’t happen overnight and it takes time to grow away from a partner. The couple’s relationship is at the center of the family’s life. There was husband and wife before there was mother and father.
A woman’s healthy self esteem sometimes stems from the fact that she knows she is loved, and wanted by her partner. Like the cliche goes, a woman ‘blooms’ inside a loving relationship, making her productive, able and all the more willing to pursue endeavors and businesses.
Kids will grow up and soon, it will be just you and your partner again. When the kids are able to take care of themselves, we can relax with our partners. Feeling the love and appreciation of our partners strengthens us and keeps us going. Romance and intimacy play a significant role in keeping us confident.
Forgiving Yourself: The Diva’s Creed
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We have all been burnt before. From the moment we learned how to handle things as kids to the time when we are old enough to know better, we get rubbed the wrong way, maligned and other things that make us feel like we did something wrong. While we find it so easy to say “forgive and forget”, this line is often translated as “forget and never learn”.
We often think of forgiveness as an action related with our external connections without realizing that the same notion applies to ourselves. I, myself, have been in a situation wherein I focused on forgiving others rather than myself first.
One example: I have always disliked how a boyfriend made me look like a fool by cheating on me. Because of this, I felt that I hated him and anything remotely related to him. I have since forgiven him for his transgression but still could not be comfortable talking to him. Now, I realize what was lacking. I have yet to forgive myself for letting him take advantage of my cluelessness.
The Diva’s Creed of Self Forgiveness
Say this to yourself whenever you feel depressed, sad or self pitying. This has always worked for me. This, for me, is the first step to forgiving others:
I (your name) forgive myself for being (insert negative adjectives here, e.g. stupid). I vow to learn from this experience and never let myself feel down for being (insert negative adjective here) again.
Self Discovery Through Writing: I Am My Own Life Coach
Posted by: | CommentsI learned a trick from a former dorm mate. She keeps a diary that isn’t really a secret one, she lets us read every once in a while, or she reads her entries to us. The only weird thing at that time was the way she divided a page in her notebook and only wrote on one side. If you viewed a page from afar, like we all do, it would seem as if she’d suddenly freak out if she accidentally wrote something on the other side. It was spotless.
I got curious enough to ask, of course, and her answer startled me a bit. She writes her daily thoughts on the left part, and the right part is for writing her thoughts when ’she knows more’. It’s like self-therapy and self-discovery.
Here’s an example to illustrate how this self-coaching method works:
On one part of the page, I wrote about how scared I am to start freelancing. Listed there are the reasons why I hesitate and how I plan to start. A few months later, I write about my experiences with conquering my fear and actually doing it.
This way, I analyze the way I think and find a pattern. I can directly pinpoint my weak points, what things usually debilitate me too much that I just quit.
My goal of course is to lessen my procrastination. If I can do this regularly, I know I will be a better person.
