You Never Smile

I have always thought of myself as a pretty happy-go-lucky person.  I laugh a lot and find comedy in most of the things around me.  I am one of those people that actually notices a beautiful sunset or flower and I get a warm, fuzzy feeling and smile when my dog cuddles with me.  I acknowledge that I am not always happy and that is something I am working on.  However, as sarcastic as I am and as annoyed as I sometimes get, I never feel like I am totally pissed off with the world.  Contrary to my personal belief on the subject, I am told on a daily basis, in some form or another, that I never smile.  Most commonly, I hear one of the following:  "You must be having a bad day.  Cheer up, it will get better.  Ready for your weekend? It can't be THAT bad. She's not having it." etc, etc. 

It wasn't until recently that someone told me the first time they met me they were scared of me because the vibration I gave off was that I was pissed at the world.  I was taken back by this comment, because I truly am not pissed at the world.  I am not happy with myself, so it is my guess that I am manifesting my unhappiness through my body language.  But even as a kid, I was constantly told I should smile more.  Well you know what.  I'm gonna take that challenge.  Everyday I read a handful of blogs from a site called The Daily Love and today there was a piece called, Send Smiling Energy.  It basically advocates for mindful breathing (something I am working on anyway) and adding smile energy to your exhale breath.  Sound hokie? Well, maybe it is.  But if part of the process is staying present and staying present involves becoming aware of your breath and if you are already aware of your breath and can add the smile energy component, then why not?  Maybe if I work at it enough, I can keep a smile like the one above and eventually it won't be work but second nature.  Now that would make me smile!

Taking a Break.

I'm taking a break from this blog for the next few weeks.  With Inventory at work upon us, the summer heat, and a vacation soon, I don't have the time or energy to work on the Trust30 entries or to blog in general.  Hope to be refreshed by the end of July. 

Trust30 Day 13

I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, if we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Think of a time when you didn’t think you were capable of doing something, but then surprised yourself.

 How will you surprise yourself this week?

This week I will surprise myself and actually whole-heartedly follow through with my eating and exercise plan that Wendy and I have created for me.  I have been very lax with this even though logically I know it is what is best for me.  I am having a lot of trouble balancing logic and emotion in the journey I am currently on to heal past wounds by peeling away the layers I have built up.  I immediately turn to food to suppress my hurts and I am in the process of learning to love myself, but I am not quite there yet, so I falter and turn to food.  This may sound pathetic to some, but for me there is no thought in the process.  I instinctively turn to food and don't even realize it.  It is not logic based.  It is pure emotion.  It is a survival mechanism I have in place to not deal with my negative emotions.  I want to get to the place where I am present and making healthy choices every minute of the day.  The baby steps for this is to follow the plan outlined for me.  I hope to surprise myself this week by making it a full 7 days until I meet with Wendy again next Monday.  

Trust30 Day 12

These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Is fear holding you back from living your fullest life and being truly self expressed? Put yourself in the shoes of the you who’s already lived your dream and write out the answers to the following:

Is the insecurity you’re defending worth the dream you’ll never realize? or the love you’ll never venture? or the joy you’ll never feel?

Will the blunder matter in 10 years? Or 10 weeks? Or 10 days? Or 10 minutes?

Can you be happy being anything less than who you really are?

Now Do. The Thing. You Fear.

Obviously the answer to these questions in NO.  Fear is a very strong deterrent for someone like me who has a lot of self love issues.  As I continue down the road of learning to love myself, it is my hope that fear will become less of an issue.  And, true enough, you cannot be really happy being anything less than yourself.  It is getting to that place where you are living authentically that is the hard part.  

Trust30 Day 11

Imitation is Suicide. Insist on yourself; never imitate. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Write down in which areas of your life you have to overcome these suicidal tendencies of imitation, and how you can transform them into a newborn you – one that doesn’t hide its uniqueness, but thrives on it.

There is a “divine idea which each of us represents” – which is yours?

I am so far removed from knowing my true unique self that I'm not even sure how to answer this question.  My inner voice tells me to do right by people, be honest, show compassion, and utilize my creativity to bring joy to myself and others.  I have so many walls built up inside from years of hating myself that it is hard to see my own divine idea.  I am currently in the process of peeling away the layers and breaking down the walls, brick by brick.  It is far too difficult to see while I am this close to my unhealed hurts. I honestly draw a blank.  I will have to come back to it when I have some distance and clarity.

Trust30 Day 10

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, that is genius. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

What is burning deep inside of you? If you could spread your personal message RIGHT NOW to 1 million people, what would you say?
 
On any other day, I would say that having compassion for those around you would be the message that I would share with the world.  It is how I try to live my life and I truly believe, at my core, that if we could all act from a place of compassion, the world would be a better place.

However, I have been doing a lot of inner work and exploring the reasons why I have problems loving myself.  I follow The Daily Love and a recent blog hit me like a ton of bricks.  To quote the lesson I learned and would love to share with the world:


Each moment you hold onto resentment, anger, blame, about the past, you are killing your present. What happened is done and nothing you do, or say now will change what happened. It is done.

Often we refuse to let go, and hold onto the anger at our parents(or others)because we feel dignified in doing so.

Yes, you are right. They were not right or justified in what they did.

However: “Do you want to be right or free?”

“Is being right making you happy? Is holding onto being right changing them?”

Each moment you hold onto the resentment, you keep yourself stuck in a prison of victimhood. You are not responsible for what happened to you as a child. It happened. You were young back then.

But now, today, you are responsible for what you choose to do.  (from Klute Blackson)

Trust30 Day 9

The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson says: “Always do what you are afraid to do.” What is ‘too scary’ to write about? Try doing it now.

The thing that I am probably most afraid to do in this world is to travel by myself.  I think a HUGE reason I haven't done more traveling is that I haven't had anyone to do it with.  My boyfriend of 7 years did not have any desire to travel and so we didn't. The boyfriend after him rarely had money to travel and I couldn't afford to pay for both of us, so we didn't travel outside of a few hundred miles from home.  My siblings have families of their own or others to travel with, so I just put it on the back burner because I wasn't going alone. 

This fear stems from a couple of different places.  One, I would be scared to be in a foreign country by myself.  I know I would feel uncomfortable and would most likely hole up in a hotel and keep to myself.  I have had such low self esteem for such a long time that I usually operate from the position that others won't like me.  This would be magnified in a setting that is completely unfamiliar to me.  Two, I think traveling would be better if you had someone else to make those memories with, someone that you could reminisce with and that could relate to the experience.  Perhaps these reasons are irrational, but they have been the truth for me.

What I am realizing now, though, is that if I want the experience, I have to just go for it.  I have serious fears about this issue, but I need to start small and go from there.  Maybe I'll start with a vacation to somewhere in the U.S. by myself.  Baby steps, Katie, baby steps.