Category: Growing Me

Lately, I have been thinking about words, thoughts, and experiences and how they affect me in the way I feel about myself. What I realized was whether what was said or done was coming from an internal place or said or done by another person, you control your next response. You can be defeated or encourage. I hope you choose to be encouraged.

Self-Validation

Validation can sometimes be misunderstood. Many think that it has to do with other people believing the person who is expressing their thoughts, feelings, or experience. Validation is the acknowledgment and acceptance of another person’s thoughts, feelings, or experience. It’s not always agreeing with another person. Self-validation is the same just internally with your acceptance of your thoughts, feelings, and experiences. We all have thoughts whether they are positive or negative. Both extremes can change or alter our thoughts and feelings towards ourselves. One thing that I have learned is I can not stop negative thoughts, but I can validate them and go to a different thought pattern. It’s difficult to do. I struggle with it a lot. Even though we have negative thoughts, feelings, and experiences in life we do not have to let them control us. We all want to have good thoughts, feelings, and experiences in our lives. The way to get there when dealing with negative things in our lives is to accept that we feel this way and affirm ourselves with what is good and true in our lives.

Not Pleasing Other People

It is easy sometimes to fall into doing something that you do not necessarily want to do. Some times it’s because you feel like you have to. Other times it is because a person feels like they will get something out of it. Sometimes people please others because they don’t want to lose someone they care about in their life. If you fall into any of these categories, compromising who you are and what you need is unnecessary. When you do that, it changes the way that you feel about yourself. I know for me, when I try to please people in my life, it takes away my identity and takes away my confidence. One thing that I notice in my life is that when I am not trying to please other people and doing the things that I enjoy, I have more confidence in myself. My attitude towards myself changes to see the different possibilities of life.

Having a Voice

Having a voice in different situations can be difficult, especially if you are a people pleaser. When you are silent, it is easier for people to take advantage of you or think that you are complicit in a bad situation. Recently in my life, I have begun to have a voice in my life and with things that have happened to me. For example, I have a manager, whos negativity was becoming too much for me to handle where I would become angry with the things he said. When the anger was directed at me, it made me feel bad about myself, but when I told him how I felt about his actions, it took the responsibility of his anger off of me and back onto him. What I learned was I could not control what other people do, but I can control what I am exposed to. Even though my manager retaliated against me, it didn’t change the new respect I had for myself. I was able to hold my head up and have more confidence in myself. I know that having a voice in situations can be challenging, but it is worth it.

Just Being You

Many things go on in life, but through everything that is going on, it’s important to be yourself and not compromise who you are. Take time to encourage yourself. Maybe share your interest with the people around you. Do things that you enjoy. It can possibly give you more confidence in yourself and help you respect yourself.

3 Benefits of Doing Something that You Enjoy Everyday

1. Confidences Improves

When you do the things that you enjoy, it allows you to feel good about yourself. You’re taking the time to do something that you love and giving yourself the space to be yourself. Your confidence will improve because you appreciate the abilities that make you the unique person that you are.

2. Enjoy Life More

You will enjoy life more by doing the things that you enjoy. You will feel like you apart of life instead of merely existing. Possibly you will want to do more things.

3. Increase Motivation

It gives you something to look forward to doing. When you do something that you enjoy, it can lead to wanting to do more tasks, even those that are not enjoyable.

My Experience

I try every day to do something that I enjoy—someday, its more challenging than others based on what I have going on in my life. On a busy day, it might be I wear my favorite clothes, I eat my favorite food or listen to my favorite songs. This may not sound exciting, but its what I like to do without overly stressing myself out by adding things in my day that I do not have time for even though I love them. On less busy days, I like to do arts and crafts projects, photography, write poetry, go for long walks, or plan and write a post. By just adding one thing a day that I enjoy has changed the way I feel about myself. Some new-found confidence has come from giving myself space to be me and doing something I enjoy. To offend in my life, I have tried to please people by doing the things they enjoy instead of what I like to do. As a result, I developed self-hatred. This small step changed my attitude from self-hatred to appreciating different parts of who I am. As a result of that, I feel like I am apart of life. It has helped me discover other things I want to do. Finally, from doing something that I enjoy everyday, I am motivated to do things that I usually do not like because I feel like I’m apart of life and not just a watcher of life.

In the previous post, I talked about the benefits of a gratitude journal and the two types of journals. I have not done a guided gratitude journal, but I do keep a notebook to write down my gratitude. I decided that I wanted to share a way to decorate a journal.

Step 1

First, you will take the composition notebook, paper, and pencil; and draw an outline of the composition notebook on the paper.

Step 2

If it helps, I found that taping the paper on to composition notebook helps keep the paper in place.

Step 3

The outline should look similar to this.

Step 4

Then take the scissor and cut out the outline.

Step 5

Now glue the paper onto the composition notebook.

Step 6

Then put the glue on the composition notebook and smooth out the glue evenly. You will repeat steps 1-6 for the other side.

Side note: I messed up the first time on this, so I want to give a suggestion that I learned. Do not put the glue on the paper and then try and paste it to the composition notebook. It leaves bubbles in the paper. The above method helps the paper to lay flat and smooth.

Step 7

After the glue dries, then its time to add the duck tape.

Step 8

Place the tape around the bind so that it is even on both sides.

Step 9

Once all that is done, its time to decorate.

Step 10

These are the supplies that I choose to use to decorate my notebook. You should use and decorate your notebook any way that you please.

Step 11

Here is the finish composition notebook redesign.

Hopefully, by adding your personal touches to the notebook, you will stay motivated to write on it.

Being thankful is not something you have to wait until Thanksgivings to recognize. You can start looking and acknowledging things your grateful for each day of your life.

Keeping a gratitude journal can help you be mindful of the positive things about you, your life, and the things around you. I know with having depression symptoms, it’s easy to discount the positive things about yourself and things in your life. A gratitude journal will help you begin to see the positive even in bad situations. It is a great coping skill to help maintain better days.

3 Benefits of a Gratitude Journal

Increase Positivity

– My experience with keeping a gratitude journal is I am able to see positivity in bad situations I experience. I know that is from acknowledging the good in each day.

Improve Self-esteem

– My self-esteem has improved some because I see myself as a part of life and not just watching it. Feeling like I’m apart of life makes me feel better about myself and my existence.

Reduces Stress

– Most of the stress I experience is from external situations, and by writing gratitudes, I’ve noticed I focus on the good and less on the things that worried me before.

Types of Gratitude Journal

1. Guided Journal

A guided journal is helpful in helping you figure out what to write with different gratitude prompts. Using a guided journal helps to keep you motivated to continue writing daily.

2. Blank Notebook Journal

A blank journal takes a little more work to stay encouraged to write in daily but gives you more flexibility on what you want to be grateful for that day. If you choose to go this route, you have to be more intentional in finding a prompt. You can write one thing your grateful or several things you are thankful for in your life. It can be from the past or the present; there are no limits. Just put the date and start writing.

You know yourself better than anyone, so whichever way works best for you, then you should try it. If this isn’t a coping skill for you that’s okay. We all are different and need to find positive coping skills that work for us individually.

It is easy to get a glimpse into other people’s lives through social media and begin to feel like you do not measure up because you don’t have a specific job that you thought you should have. Maybe you thought that you should have found that special person you want to spend the rest of your life with together. Some people felt that they would have children by a specific time in their life. Other people thought they would have the luxury items of their dreams like traveling, a house, electronics, etc. Whatever you are comparing yourself to, know that the things you have gone through are necessary to meet the people you are supposed to cross paths with in life. Even if that means not getting the things you want in a specific time period.

One day I was listening to a sermon on 1 Corinthians 12. Even though the story is talking about using your gifts within God’s body, I feel like it relates to the acceptance of one’s life. Throughout the chapter it talks about different body parts being significant and all serving a purpose. It made me think about how much people compare there lives to other people. I know I an guilty of comparing myself to others. Just because you don’t have something someone else has, it doesn’t make your life any less than another persons. Your specific experiences may help someone else, allow you to learn something, or possibly be used in the future.

I know from personal experience that I thought I would be working my dream job and have children by the time I was this age. Just because none of that has happened, it doesn’t mean everything I have been through up until now is insignificant. I had to learn that my life is never going to be like someone else. I am aware that I have to work harder to stay healthy, have relationships with people, and control my negative mindset. The truth is everything that happened in the past has helped me become the person I am, whether they’re good or bad characteristics, but it also taught me different things to help me grow as a person.

I know that I have not entirely accepted my journey, but I am understanding the reasons why I do things. I do not know when I will fully get there, but in the meantime, I know I have to keep doing the things I need to do to take care of myself, and hopefully, I’ll get there.

Are you accepting your journey?