10 Ways To Feel Free
1. There are no “should-be’s,” there is only what is.
Putting too much weight and meaning on what is supposed to be in comparison to what our lives are can be debilitating and self-damaging… so don’t. Carve out your own path and take a stake in what’s already yours. Dispose of the narrative that tells you how your life should be, and just let it be.
3. Caged birds still sing.
Because even under unfortunate circumstances, you can either choose to enjoy what you have left to enjoy or wallow in your misery. In many cases, you choose your freedom. I don’t mean by the way of legislation or literally being caged, but metaphorically, yes.
4. There are no wrong feelings. Breaks between notes make a song.
Don’t pull yourself away from experiencing everything your life has to give because you think you shouldn’t feel one way or feeling another way would be better. It’s all part of the story.
5. The next big thing will not resolve what’s holding you down now.
You cannot keep waiting for something to free you and make you happy. If you can’t find happiness now, you won’t when “someday” comes– you’ll revert to your baseline.
6. Schedules and routines are things you plan and we rely on for comfort. Change yours today, even in a small way.
It’s the best reminder of just how much choice we have in our lives, and how often we choose the same things again and again while complaining that we wish our lives were different.
7. The next time you feel the next to explain your reasoning to someone, don’t.
You do not owe anybody an explanation. You are free to do as you please, and you can embrace that freedom by literally doing just that.
8. Be the person who loves you most and judges you least.
You’d be surprised (well, maybe not really) by how much your own fears and judgments about yourself hold you back from pursuing what you really love. Isn’t that what freedom is anyway– doing as you please without restraint? Don’t be your own restraint.
9. Dependence on others keeps you at their whim.
If you need someone else to do something, you’re always going to be at the whim of someone else. You won’t be able to do and live as you please when you are depending on other people. This is because sometimes freedom involves having to stand, think and act on your own. Self-dependency is the essence of living without restraint.
10. Look for love that is freely given and received without need, guilt or condition.
That’s what real love is– free love.
(For full article, by Brianna Wiest)
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18 (Real) Rules For Living
4. Learning to apologize is good. Learning to apologize when an apology is due is what really matters.
To pretend that we are flawless and just ignore our mistakes will be debilitating and crippling, especially in relationships. However, apologizing only for the sake of doing so is not the same as apologizing when you have genuinely done wrong. There is something that really softens people when you admit that you are wrong: they release their defenses, and realize that you are, in some ways, holding up the white flag of truce.
5. One of the most important things you will do is learn to be alone with yourself… happily.
You are all that you have. People can be terrified of doing things alone, but it’s important to get over that hurdle because nothing is certain in life and nobody is bound to you but yourself. You may argue that family, spouses, friends are, but as has been proven time and time again, that just isn’t so.
6. The only thing you can be sure of in the future is change.
We really must move past our hangups with being attached to what is. It is a recipe for suffering. There are few things I can guarantee that will happen in your life other than the fact that things will change: rapidly, unexpectedly, beautifully, tragically and slowly. Sometimes bit by bit, sometimes all at once. There is no use in doing anything but embracing this.
8. Nothing is real but right now.
The past is obsolete and the future is pending. You may attach yourself to these concepts, they are just figments of your imagination. It is a false comfort you get from them. Learn to be comforted and even astounded at what you have right now, and how beautiful it is.
9. You have not failed until you stop trying.
You are not a failure because things haven’t worked out yet. You are a failure when you decide you’re not going to try to work on them anymore. You can spend years and years resolving or working toward something, and the day that your work pays off, you have succeeded. Until then, you’re still working on it.
12. Imperfect is an idea that only we have devised. Everything and everybody just is. We have just made up what is right and wrong about ourselves and others.
It’s only bad if you make it bad, you are only wrong when somebody tells you or you are otherwise led to believe so. Otherwise, you would carry on without considering it. The truth of the matter is that the extent at which people judge themselves and others is largely rooted in what they have been taught. Not necessarily what is true or isn’t.
13. If you want change, change.
Complaining will not change anything. Thinking that you want change won’t do it either. You have to be ready to ease out of your comfort zone a bit. You will live the same life and face the same problems and woes until you do something about it/them.
14. No one owes you anything.
Not your parents, not your lover, not those who have wronged you. Not the government, not life in general. Although we all deserve the best, it is not necessarily anybody else’s responsibility to ensure that it happens.
15. Long term purpose and short term goals.
I’ve spoken about this before, and I must reiterate, that we’re are always in an equilibrium between what we want now and what will be best for the long-term. You need to have a bigger vision, but know that the way to get there is through the little things that add up.
16. Happiness will largely depend on your ability to stay interested and engaged.
This obviously excludes cases such as mental illness. Happiness is not a perpetual state of sustaining joy. If that were the case, there would be nothing stimulating about joyousness. It is just always having something new to delight and fascinate yourself with and by.
17. It is okay to not be okay.
Resisting being okay is actually what will affect you more than what you are resisting will. Let yourself be who you are. Let yourself feel what you feel. Be okay with not being okay. Once you can accept even the unfortunate things your life becomes a succession of experiences rather than just a series of fortunate and unfortunate events.
18. Happy people are not the ones who have it all and do not suffer.
Happy people are not, and never will be, the ones who don’t face challenges or suffer or become depressed or have dealt with serious trauma in their lives. They are the ones who know how terrible things can be, so they appreciate every little thing for what it is.
(For full article, by Brianna Wiest)
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19 Things That Aren't Worth Your Time
1. Comparing yourself to other people’s bodies in bathing suits this summer. It’s all about how you feel in your own skin, and staring at other people’s flat stomachs or dimpled thighs is only going to make you feel like more of a crappy, shallow person.
2. Listening to one friend talk shit about another friend, especially when you absolutely don’t agree with what is being said. You don’t owe anyone your complicity in their gossip.
6. Harassing your friends, over and over, for advice on your circular relationship when you know you’re just going to make the same bad decision yet again.
13. Staring at your stretch marks in the mirror. They are not going away, and no one actually cares about them.
14. Keeping up with a friend — through messages or phone calls or even letters — who clearly doesn’t ever make the effort in the other direction. If you are always the one who is reaching out and initiating contact, they are not the person you should be putting all this effort towards.
16. Looking at other people’s Facebook profiles for long periods of time, hoping to find something embarrassing or gross because you can’t stand them. They are winning, because you are giving them your time and attention.
(For full article, by Sophie Martin)
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20 Truths That Can Change Everything In Your Life by Brianna Wiest
1. You can easily define your life with your fears.
Don’t underestimate the power of what you are afraid of. It is the root of much of existence as we know it. You can neglect your full potential because of being afraid. Know that it is nothing more than a mindgame. Danger is real. Heartache is real. Fear is not. It’s a story we tell ourselves.
2. The important questions usually can’t be answered.
There are many questions that people have tried to answer for thousands of years, but to no avail. Or at least not one that is universally agreed upon. The things that matter usually don’t have concise and easily attainable answers. The mystery is part of the magic.
3. Much of your suffering is rooted in attachment and expectation.
Learn to jive with the ebb and flow of things. The most beautiful thing I have learned, through countless examples in my own life and observations in the lives of others, is that very often when things don’t work out the way you want them to, you hold onto what you think should be because you see no alternative. That alternative is right around the corner. Just wait for it.
4. If you want meaning in your life, learn to apply it.
There is no universal meaning for life. It is, simply, what you make it. So make it what you want. There is nobody else who should dictate what your meaning is, so it’s up to you to apply it. I suggest applying it to the beautiful, everyday things that keep you going. The things you may overlook, but you’d be lost without: the things that really matter most.
5. Being kind is more powerful than you probably realize.
You will be amazed at how many people, hearts and opportunities open up when you open your heart to them. It’s a tricky business, kindness, because we live in a world rampant with cruelty, and some may trickle in. Don’t let it close you.
6. Happiness requires the ability to embrace uncertainty.
Happiness has everything to do with just living for today– something most of us are slow to master, if at all. People think that they’ll be happy once they have this thing or that thing, or at the very least, that they know love and success and wonderful things are coming. It’s like we need something to make today’s suffering worth it. But here’s the thing: tomorrow may never come. Love and success and wonderful things may never come, or they may, and they may leave just as quickly. Nothing is certain but what you have today, so it’s the only logical thing to base your happiness on.
7. “Eternal silence is always at hand.” If you have something to do or say, now is the time.
You may not always have the opportunity to say what you think or feel. You may not always have the opportunity to tell somebody that you love them. I know there are a dozen reasons you would rather not, but there’s only one reason to do so if you feel compelled to: you may not have another chance.
8. Life will rarely look like what you thought it would.
Some things will be worse, some will be better than you ever could have imagined… and some will just be different. Many grandiose visions that we have never come to pass, so learn to release them. Spending everyday comparing your reality to the ideas you had in your head will always leave you feeling shortchanged.
9. “This too shall pass.”
The pain will pass, but so will the other things that you may not always have around to enjoy. It’s just a simple reminder that everything is fleeting and temporary.
10. It is always the little things.
This has a lot to do with the concept of your baseline of happiness, something I’ve written about before. Your overall level of contentment will briefly fluctuate with great successes or major tragedies. You will eventually return to your baseline. To change that, you must fill your everyday life with the little things that make you happy. In retrospect, you will most often find, that the things you most remember and look back on most fondly are little, and would otherwise seem insignificant.
11. If you don’t go after it, you’ll never have it. If you never ask, the answer will always be no.
All you need is a few seconds of courage. It’s scary when your pride is at stake, and you’re afraid of losing someone or damaging your reputation. But if you feel something is so inherently true and you are otherwise compelled to say so but are withheld by your fears, take that step. Even if it doesn’t go the way you wanted, you can at least cross one other avenue off your list of possibilities.
12. Consider trying to adopt some qualities of the person you’d like to fall in love with. By that I mean, love yourself first.
You should always be your own person, I don’t mean to say that you should base your own self around someone else, I just mean to propose another way to learn to love yourself. Very often, the qualities that we would ideally like in a partner are the ones that we wish we had ourselves. Don’t wait for someone else to complete you.
13. What you think, you become.
It’s an ancient principle, but it is one of the things I have found to be most true. Change your mindset, change your life.
14. Equal does not have to mean the same: embrace and respect your differences.
Being human is all you need to be eligible for equality. You need not prove yourself as being “the same” as someone else to feel worthy of equality. You deserve it, as does everybody else, just because you are.
15. When things least look like they are going to change, they usually do.
There’s only one way up from rock bottom, right? When things seem absolutely hopeless and you’ve all but given up, something beautiful and little and miraculous usually shows up and leads you to the revelation you’ve been waiting for.
16. Never cease to be thankful.
Imagine if someone less privileged than you lived your life with you for a day. Imagine how grateful some people would be to have food in the refrigerator and a computer or fancy phone to be reading this on… lest we forget just the privilege to be able to read.
17. Mind over matter.
10% what happens, 90% how you react. Always.
18. There is an atlas in your gut. Listen to it.
Those little voices and feelings are not to be ignored. The tricky thing, though, is that they’re just that: little. Easy to brush off and ignore. So often arriving in a swamp of other “nonsensical” thoughts and feelings. Believe me, it’s worth your time to learn to differentiate what your gut feeling is. It will serve you in ways beyond what you can imagine.
19. Always consider what you would do if money were no object in your life.
We are controlled by our need for money. It can be very difficult to differentiate what you want from your life with what you need simply because in our society you need money to survive. It may not always be practical, but it will always be beneficial to consider what we’d do with our lives if we were just here to be, and all our needs were taken care of. It will help you to define yourself for who you are, not what you are conditioned to be.
20. You usually know what the right thing to do is. It’s just a matter of having the courage to do it.
More often than not, you do have the answer. It’s just a matter of having the courage to do what you know you should.
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