 Tough love.
I love you enough to tell you the truth. Complaining doesn't do a dang thing. Complaining won't make your life better. In fact, it will drag you down, down, down into the depths of deeper crap. We all know that hard things happen in life. There are things in life worth crying about. The loss of a loved one, you have to grieve. The loss of a pet, you need to grieve. But mostly crying about what is wrong with your life doesn't fix it. It doesn't lift you, and it doesn't make things different. NEWS FLASH... Unhappiness does not bring happiness!!! Blowing off steam is over rated. I've tried it thinking it might have some value is helping to get past things that have upset me. It just increases the upset to go over things again and again. YOU HAVE TO DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT. Want love in your life? Don't cry about being lonely, JOY is what will attract love. Want success in your life? No more waaa waaa waaa! Imagine the most successful people you know--what ever the area of success--and I'll bet you don't hear a lot of whining from them. Complaining is a habit that you have to change. It will not be comfortable and it may not be easy. It may even take some effort. Like the effort to look around your life and find a reason a day to be happy. Create a new habit of noticing and acknowledging things that will make you feel good. This is a place to start. You can do this! Love, Aunt Laya
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"A life spent in making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing." ~ George Bernard Shaw Don't be afraid of making mistakes. It's one of the ways we learn. Learn from your mistakes and then move forward. Dream your dreams, do the thing that gives your life meaning. If you're doing something that doesn't make your heart sing--in the big picture, nothing is always perfectly wonderful, there are challenges in even the best of choices--you can always change direction, change your mind, regroup, and move ahead in the direction you want to be moving! One of the beautiful gifts that life experience brings is that each mistake you make shapes you. You have more experience and you get to make more choices from a position of deeper understanding. Be true to you. (and be honest with yourself!) Remember: "In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity." ~ Albert Einstein Thanks to morguefile for the photo
I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain. ~James Arthur Baldwin  As painful as it might be, feeling the feelings that come up for you are important. There's an expression: "Let it flow, then let it go." There are processes that ask you to follow your feelings, name them, then just see what comes up next, and when you do that, eventually you come to a place that is clear of the negative emotions. When you allow for the feelings, you'll be in a better position it let them go. While forgiving is a process that is for you and not even for the other person, it may be true that some things are unforgivable. So then what? The idea is can you set yourself free? Can you? My father taught me one way he used to relax himself to sleep at night. He would go through the muscles of his body, tense a group of muscles, then release. Eventually he would fall asleep. When I am stressed one of my most effective exercises is listing what I am grateful for, from the tiniest to the biggest (if you're a regular here, you must know this by now!). Sometimes when I am so upset, I just write and write about the upset, or I rant and rave privately (so no one else can hear me). It's kind of like puking (yes, vomiting!). You don't feel great to begin with but you sure feel better to have the poison out. Feeling hate has a price to pay and the longer you hold on to it, the more you stew in it, the more damage it will cause (this is NOT about revenge, do you hear me?!). OK, so we're all human, I am not asking you to stuff the feelings. I am suggesting that you can put your focus and attention to the things in life that will BUILD you. Break the cycle and set yourself free! Freedom involves the abandonment of hate,
because hate is the abdication of freedom. It is the projection of our conflicts onto an external force whom we can then blame, but only at the cost of denying responsibility. ~Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks Thanks to Morguefile.com and Anita Peppers for the photo "Like" and share :-) 
Sometimes you gotta get stuff off your chest, rant, blow off some steam. But that doesn't mean you have to do it in a destructive way. Gossip, talking about other people, is a pretty destructive way to go. It won't really help you in the long run, and in truth, gossiping about other people will hurt you, the listener, and the subject in ways we don't even fathom.
That's not to say you can't talk about things ever but when other people are involved, caution is important. Once you let the words go, you can't get them back. One way I have dealt with my hardest of feelings, hurt, anger, disappointment and so on, is to write it out. Let it loose and say what you need to say. The idea here is that you will not be sending it. Just spill out the feelings and get clear. Clear out the hurt and anger and maybe even get clear about what you need to learn from the situation, if you can. Some people rip up the paper after they write the letter. Some people even burn it up. I was very upset about a few things and wrote a bunch of letters in my journal. At first I thought I might send them but in the end, I felt better and there was no reason to send the letters. That would not have served anyone at all. The issue here is how you are inside yourself when times or relationships are challenging. You'll be happier and more peaceful inside your own skin and that will have a ripple effect in positive ways. So, spill your guts onto paper and then let it go. Delete the hurt and keep the growth. Love, Aunt Laya |
Live the extraordinary life you deserve.
Aunt Laya
Aunt Laya inspires and encourages you to live the life you want for yourself! She'll tell you the truth, even when it's not always so easy to hear so that you can learn to handle the hard stuff of life and be your best, happiest self. Always with love and caring. Archives
October 2022
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