Live!

The post of today is about life and how we waste it. I'll have different quotations inserted here and there cause I think they transmit better what I want to say with fewer words, maybe.
I'm gonna talk today about life and how we sometimes we pretend we're living.
We're getting all warmed up by a daily routine that gives us the illusion of safety and comfort( which is fake, we are never safe and you can never be too comfortable- life's unpredictable, deal with it, and that's actually what makes it beautiful).

Let's talk about safety and comfort. Why do we like these sensations? Maybe it's something imprinted deep in our genes, since we were savages running around from predators. When we didn't have a house, but a cave, no electricity, no marriage, no Dunkin Donuts. No parking fines, either. But maybe that's a good thing.

And these things, comfort and safety, we are basking in them everyday. How many of our actions are automatic? How many things do we do without even thinking about them like going to the grocery store or washing the bathroom sink or chopping veggies? These are normal, don't get me wrong, but when it comes to our lifes being only that, doesn't it look kinda sad? Imagine stepping out of your body and being able to observe yourself on a daily basis! Would you be happy with what you're seeing? Would you at least be satisfied with it?

We are never safe and usually when we step out of our comfort zone amazing things happen. Some bad ones might happen too but every experience is good cause it helps build up your character, it shows you a new face of yourself you weren't aware of and prepares you for bigger, greater things.

This is your life, good to the last drop
Doesn't get any better than this
This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time

This isn't a seminar, this isn't a weekend retreat
Where you are now you can't even imagine what the bottom will be like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSpqObhK4Rw

^ And that's the truth. Let's not live our lifes in fear of change. Cause what if you change something in your life and something terrible like HAPPINESS occurs? What then? Will you regret it?
Embrace change and embrace living in the present. Live fully. This is a one way ticket you're having (that's up for discussion though) and this train won't come back when it reaches its final station.

What would you like to remember when you're old, worn out and useless? (kidding)
Would you rather think about how "you could've done that and that" or say "Damn it, I've been crazy as f but it was all worth it" ?

That's a quote from one of my fave people ( you gotta love classic Hollywood)
And don't wait for people to make it happen. You can make it happen. You are strong, way stronger than you think you are. Let go and feel.
Don't fear something bad will happen. Think positive and the universe will respond to it. You are energy and you attract energy. So make sure you're sending out positive vibes, alrighty?

We all start as caterpillars. It's up to us if we transform into butterflies or continue crawling, literally.
Instead of a conclusion, I'm gonna leave you with one of my mantras.

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

Charles Bukowski.

Emotional abuse. The ugly thing nobody wants to talk about.

As stated in the title, we're gonna approach today the subject of abuse.
Emotional abuse, to be more exact.
The dictionary says that : 

1. Psychological abuse, also referred to as emotional abuse or mentalabuse, is a form of abuse characterized by a person subjecting or exposing another to behavior that may result in psychological trauma, including anxiety, chronic depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder.

Though it seems quite harsh, I guess everybody experiences some sort of emotional abuse at one point(even though it can be a milder form of it).
Cause emotional abuse doesn't necessarily lead to that. Usually, it leads to anxiety of course, cause you're getting scared of being involved with someone else. You feel too raw to expose yourself, to dare to be vulnerable again by letting another human being stepping into your personal space, you fear making room for themselves in your life and implicitly in your soul. In less words,  you're being scared to live again. 
Cause once you open yourself to someone and that person screws it badly for you, it's hard to even make baby steps in the right direction.
Some forms of emotional abuse are:

1. Humiliating or embarrassing you.
2. Constant put-downs.
3. Hypercriticism.
4. Refusing to communicate.
5. Ignoring or excluding you.
6. Extramarital affairs.
7. Provocative behavior with opposite sex.
8. Use of sarcasm and unpleasant tone of voice.
9. Unreasonable jealousy.
10. Extreme moodiness.
11. Mean jokes or constantly making fun of you.
12. Saying “I love you but…”
13. Saying things like “If you don’t _____, I will_____.”
14. Domination and control.
15. Withdrawal of affection.
16. Guilt trips.
17. Making everything your fault.
18. Isolating you from friends and family.
19. Using money to control.
20. Constant calling or texting when you are not with him/her.
21. Threatening to commit suicide if you leave

And these are only some forms of it.

Of course solutions exist. Not all of em are fortunate though for you and sometimes for others. You can always turn to casual hookups, emotionless encounters with people you don't wanna see again after it happens. But somehow it's not enough. Cause every encounter like this carves pieces out of you, makes you feel hollow so you need to continously feel the need to perpetuate it. Booze usually accompanies it and fuels it somehow, so those intense, short lived moments work for you. You become a junkie that needs its fix. And in this case it's being close to someone even for a bit of time, stealing some pleasurable, even ecstatic moments and then getting on with your life. And it's nothing wrong with it. But is it enough?

Some people call it living. Maybe it is, and I'm not gonna be a hypocrite, cause I've seen it happen to people. I call it postponing living. Cause you're not actually living. Being able to open yourself fully to someone, daring to be your own, vulnerable self again, that's living.Cause when that happens, well, it feels million times more intense, better and stronger and meaningful than all of those moments added up.
Back to emotional abuse though, cause that's today's topic, some people do this to you without even realizing it. And then there's the ones that actually do it on purpose. It's probably cause it's been done to them and subconsciously they reflect it on you or there's the small possibility of them having a mental disease. 

The solution it's quite simple. Get the f away from em. Like, immediately. You don't deserve that. And never let yourself be manipulated into thinking it's your fault, cause most of the times it ain't. They're just good at playing the master puppeteer and you're so wrapped around in them threads that you don't see clearly anymore.
What you can do instead is to not let anyone put you down. You are the most important person in your life, even though it sounds like a cliche or it sounds selfish that's the honest truth. Don't let anybody bring you down. People should consider it a privilege if you let them in your life, near your heart, close to you.
Emotional relationships and relationships in general should be based on respect, connection, admiration. You deserve that. I mean it. YOU DESERVE THAT.

And you can always recover from it. It takes time but when it happens you'll be stronger, a better version of yourself.  It's the one that dares to be himself/herself again, that there's to trust again, to love again, that's strong, not the one that runs away from it. Grow some wings and learn to fly with them!
Instead of a conclusion, I'm gonna share with  you something that somehow became my personal mantra :

I no longer have patience for certain things, not because I’ve become arrogant, but simply because I reached a point in my life where I do not want to waste more time with what displeases me or hurts me. I have no patience for cynicism, excessive criticism and demands of any nature. I lost the will to please those who do not like me, to love those who do not love me and to smile at those who do not want to smile at me.

I no longer spend a single minute on those who lie or want to manipulate. I decided not to coexist anymore with pretense, hypocrisy, dishonesty and cheap praise. I do not tolerate selective erudition nor academic arrogance. I do not adjust either to popular gossiping. I hate conflict and comparisons. I believe in a world of opposites and that’s why I avoid people with rigid and inflexible personalities. In friendship I dislike the lack of loyalty and betrayal. I do not get along with those who do not know how to give a compliment or a word of encouragement. Exaggerations bore me and I have difficulty accepting those who do not like animals. And on top of everything I have no patience for anyone who does not deserve my patience.

As a final thought : Love your life, live your life. Love's life and viceversa.

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2014/10/13/21-warning-signs-of-an-emotionally-abusive-relationship/

Love or dependency

There's a very fine line between loving someone and just getting used to him/her being around.
That warm, fuzzy feeling you get when in his/her arms, the comforting feeling of having someone to talk to that knows you and up to some extent gets you, that sense of security somehow of knowing "you're not alone" can be easily mistaken for love.
It is love, don't get me wrong, but it's not being in love with that someone.
It's not the sizzling, all consuming feeling that you might have experienced at the beginning. It's not that earth shattering experience that conquers all, that makes you feel almighty and free( in a very non Conan the barbarian way).
And there's proof for what I'm saying.
Dr Helen Fisher, which is a world renowned anthropoligist had done actual brain tests on people.
The results were somehow shocking, cause she actually found people that were together for longer than 20 years(!!!!) that manifested the same "symptoms" in the brain as people that were at the very beginning of their relationshiop(I'll put a link down at the end of thist post)SO IT IS POSSIBLE.
So don't give up on finding your "the one".
Don't settle for less and I'm not gonna say don't settle for less than you deserve cause that's not the case. It's funny how things happenn. How love turns into friendship/companionship. That doesn't mean we're better or worse than those we are together with. It means it's not meant to be or, in a more practical way of speaking, that we don't match. Just like two pieces of a puzzle, our edges don't connect well. And that is wonderful anyways, cause any experience is wonderful(that sounds kinda hippie, but it's true).
And that's never bad anyways cause those moments, they are priceless! They make you who you are, or at least, they teach you something! No lesson is worthless.
Live your life. Find your love. Live your love! And don't give up, never give up, no matter what you do. And that's valid for all aspects of your life.
As a last thought : do you believe in soulmates or not?

https://www.ted.com/talks/helen_fisher_studies_the_brain_in_love/transcript?language=en

I'm no doctor love...

As the title says it, I'm no doctor love.
I'm just a cerebral yet hopeless romantic woman who still believes in love, against all the evidence that points to the contrary.
What I notice, and it's not just a thought formed by my hazy, quite tired mind (accurate description for this moment, anyways) is that though there's an endless web of theoretical possibilities of finding love, the internet and implicitly the social networks playing a humangous part in it, real love rarely happens anymore. Of course you may say : who's she to judge this, what makes you think you know each and every case but, come on, taking into account the immense pool of possibilities, are we actually more prone to find love nowadays than let's say 50 years ago?
What I can agree on is that yeah, there's a better chance of finding hookups, casual dates, f buddies and all that but actual love? Not so sure about that. Does technology actually make us less human, less inclined to be in touch with our emotions and our true self? I'm not blaming it and I'm not saying I don't enjoy the benefits of it (wouldn't have liked to live in the stone age, freezing to death while faith decided if I was the next meal of some predator or he would be mine- theoretically speaking since not many species of predators are actually commestible-rambling activated) but I guess everything good comes with a price. And I think the price we need to pay nowadays is INTIMACY.
And I don't refer necessarily to sexual intimacy, I mean the whole spectrum of things related to intimacy : emotional connection, vulnerability, soul revealing encounters. Things that make us human and noble and free. Again, I'm not saying sex's bad or whatever (not preaching for abstinency in any way possible, it's quite unhealthy as studies have shown) but wouldn't it be so much better if wrapped up in all that bubbly, emotive, spectacular haze of intimacy? Of discovering yourself through your partner's eyes and soul?
Is there an actual remedy to it?
Well, I think there are several.
First one (and the geekiest one) maybe reading a book will help, instead of internet posts. I know that it might sound silly but I for myself feel a lot more "myself" so to speak whenever I read something. It gets me in touch with my mind, my emotions, my inner self.
A second remedy might be to look around us. Smell the roses (just kidding, though it's perfectly alright to do that- I sometimes do that-TMI). What I mean is maybe stop using your phone for some minutes while you're out in the park. And if you're not out in the park, go there, there's plenty of things you can laugh at ( funny mood today). Connecting with nature is I think, one of the most precious sources of harmony and balance and "feel good" sentiments.
Spend time with friends. Not casual, not-being-on-the-same-wavelength friends. Real friends. People that you care about, that you love spending time with. That complete you, that accept you the way you are ( yeah, you guessed well,I'm talking about imaginary friends-kidding). People that bring meaning to your life. That you can talk whatever with. That accept you as you are, Raw and Unfiltered.
And there are others but as I said, I'm no doctor love...

Til next time : Do we actually know what's love anymore?