viernes, 5 de septiembre de 2014

Being happy with oneself means...

So, here’s the deal…  these days, every time someone complains about being single, there are a great deal of answers coming their way about loving oneself first and all that…  there’s quotations form great authors or philosophers or psychologists saying it; there’s pictures with the lines and maybe a butterfly or a meadow or a young woman smelling a flower or running down the meadow…  there are conferences about it, and they cost a lot…  there are workshops and therapies and books and CDs and YouTube videos about it…  We covered a little bit about that a few entries ago, right?  Well, I am going to expand on that, going rather into the whole “key to be happy in your life” thing that the free-to-over-expensive advice gives us in every media:  Love yourself.  Forgive yourself.  Accept yourself. Know and trust that you deserve only good things!

Well, World, let me ask you a question, how about you stop TELLING US those wise words and let us START SHOWING that we do believe in ourselves for once…
What do I mean?  Very simple…   I will begin my answer with an anecdote: about a year back I had been writing my news about my masters to my family and friends, and even though sometimes I went through rough patches, I decided to focus on the positive rather than complain about certain things that I knew would only worry people and bring about a bunch of questions that I did not have the energy or time to answer…  We all do that at certain points; it’s not about saying things to make others happy, but about avoiding subjects that might stall your own progress by focusing on the negative answers rather than using the law of attraction (hence the need to be positive when we communicate).  So, the thing was, someone that I love very very dearly told me to stop doing that; that it made me seem like I was trying to convince myself as well as others that I was happy…  and then there is that thing about not letting the world know about your happinesses and joys because envies rise way too easily…  have you heard any of that…?

I’ll add to it what I’ve been told a lot lately: that I am being arrogant, cocky and egotistical whenever I say that I know I deserve good things because I am a pretty darn good woman…  Now people are telling me to be more humble, after about 25 years of giving me the same speech as the ones on the first paragraph of this entry.  I have said many times throughout these six and a half years that the reason I was in the relationship that destroyed my life was because I believed I was not worthy of a good man, so I stuck with the bad one I had because I thought that otherwise I would be alone forever…  I have also said, many, many times, that the reason I got my life back was because one day it hit me that I did deserve someone, not only better, but as awesome as I was, because I was quite awesome even then!  Yes, hiding away in a violent relationship, overweight to the point of obesity, with acne problems that I’m still trying to fix, even then, I was awesome because I had my personality and hopes and dreams (and even a bit of hidden beauty), and I saw it and I ran for dear life.  Now, tell me folks, if that’s not loving oneself, then what is it?
Thing is, by then I had already done many of the workshops that gave me the tools to fight my illness off, and I had been in therapy and medication for a while, so I *know* all of that helped, but I also know that it wouldn’t have helped if I hadn’t had the force of will to continue pushing through.  Why am I saying all this?  Because I am in that time of life when one goes “Holy crap, I’ve been doing this for over half my life now!”, and that “this” means healing.  But (yet another but) because society tells me it’s wrong to boast about my happiness with myself and how far I’ve come and how for the past four-five years I have actually become the person I wish to become and that those little things that I don’t like about myself do not annoy me as much anymore because I am doing something active to CHANGE that about myself, then I’m going to take a different approach:  I’m going to lower my head and talk about all the things I am not enough of, because that’s what we should do, right? In order not to raise envies and all that?

So, then, because I’ve just mentioned the weight and meds thing I will star with that: I am not sexy enough because I haven’t fully got rid of the medicine-induced overweight.  But I’m also not fat enough to be considered even a “gordibuena” (oh, I just realized this entry should have been written in Spanish… er, mental note to add it to the “at some point to be translated” list! Lol). Oh, translation? “Fatty-but-hottie?” No idea, cos “Curvy” just means something else, and that definitely I am, just not lean enough to be sensual, gosh.
An easy one now: I’m not geeky enough to be a geek cos I have no working understanding of science or computers.  But I’m also not feminine or glamorous enough cos I’m obsessed with geeky Fandom things.

Then the oh-so dreaded question that so so so so so so many people ask me here:  where am I from?  Well, I’m not Mexican enough to be Mexican, that was very plainly made known to me years and years back in school and the streets and nightclubs and basically anywhere in that country…  Still, I was never American enough, either, cos I lived in Ann Arbor only two years, even though they were 100% central to my creativity going BOOM!  I am certainly not Italian enough cos I never really got the hang of it, not after the few months I was there… and not British enough –get this- for the very same reasons I’m not Mexican enough… ha!  Yep, that is the irony which holds my life together.  (Er, the reasons are the ones in the nightclubs and streets a bit as well, so you might get the drift).

Ugh, you win, I will talk about it… I don’t like to party, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like to have fun…  Fun means a different thing to everyone!  And just because I don’t like to be in a place where the music is so loud that you can’t talk to people or where there are half-naked women prancing around and stealing the glances of every man that I could have been interested in, or that I really really don’t like the feeling of alcohol in my body, does not mean that I do not know how to have fun, or that I don’t know how to live.  It means that I have always had fun in my very own way, with my books and my fantastic stories during play-time in my childhood and teens and twenties and still now…  To me, frank laughter is way more important than dancing all night, and I fully accept that part of me… No, I’m fully PROUD of that part of me, and suddenly it turns out that it’s not okay to say it?
If you look at my list, I am every bit of those things I said I’ve been told I’m not enough of… well, except fat now, yay, I’ve been losing inches like it’s 1999… wait, no, wrong Pop Culture reference…  Agh, my mind is a slip’n’slide, if you don’t know that about me by now, you will never ever know me…  Ha!  Nailed it!  Um, coming back to the matter at hand:  yes, of course I’m sexy, and I am very confident in my sexuality; just because I don’t fit into size (Erm) does not mean I am not comfortable.  Just because I don’t want to say the size does not mean I am lying, it just means I have enough common sense not to let the law of attraction get the wrong idea… yes, I still need to work on some areas of my body, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love it, or that I have never loved it… maybe it took me a while to accept the fat, but that never meant that I’d stopped loving myself.  Actually, I’m curvy and I like it!

Then there is the geeky thing… some people have told me recently that I am just saying that I’m a geek because today is, like, cool to be a geek, you know? but that since science does not fit in my head and electronics tend to stop working at my touch, then I should not say I am a geek…  Excuse me, seventeen years of school-bullying say otherwise, AND it’s the purple hair all over again…  Me in purple, pink, blue, sometimes all three colours in my hair, being stared at in Durango, called names, criticized to the point of no return. And the day Shakira comes out with her video in the purple WIG, people turn to me and go: “Oh, you look so *modern*, so *in fashion*!”.  Now you see where I’m getting at?  And, no, a full nerd I never was (I think I’ve mentioned), because my grades were never the best, although they were usually in the higher end of the class spectrum, and I tended to be teacher’s pet high and low…  So, how could I not embrace that part of me?  That’s the only part of me that I’ve fully, truly loved and embraced during my whole life, even when I went through the low-self-esteem that drove me otherwise…
And then comes the other side of the coin, the one that makes me embarrassed sometimes because there is simply no period of my life now when I don’t have one foot or the other in my mouth… I keep saying the wrong thing at the wrong moment, and though it usually sounds brilliantly funny in my head, people just stare at me blankly or opt for ignoring me…  Now, I am a hell of a lot more glamorous than I’ve ever been in my life, but every once in a while I get sooooo looked down by professional women, or actresses or dancers, or all-in-ones…  Gladly I have learned to push that aside (it normally stays aside for a while, then comes back in those times when one gets a touch of the blues or so, but puh-lease, who doesn’t fall back on little insecurities now and then?).  Truth is, I’ve come such a long way from the girl who dressed like a boy in high school to the woman who is described as trendy, flirty, sexy, stunning, and, yes, glamorous, by her friends now.  And I’m proud of it!

Now you see why I took the second approach?  In putting my head down I was able to tell it like it is once again in here… it’s not about trying to convince anybody, and certainly not about playing the victim!  I don’t shed even a single tear anymore for the many mistakes and big or small traumas that made me fall really low at other moments in my life…  and I don’t shed them because I have been healing for over half my life for god and the goddess’ sakes…  I mean, what would be the point of learning all of that stuff and going so far on the healing path if we’re never allowed to say we’re okay, right?  Everyone should start thinking like this…!  (Well, NLP says that we should stop using the word “should”, but I think in this case we should use it!) (Wait, what? Lol) (Think about it, if we all think that it’s okay to show people how happy we are with whom we’re becoming, the world would be a more positive place altogether…  And I’m not talking about flaunting or arrogance, because that implies that the person doing it is looking down at the rest, and that is not the point!  The point is that we should all be allowed to feel peace and freedom with who we are, without fear of being judged or criticized by others…   And I know there are soooo many people who already do that, including many many of you, lovely readers, but what if we spread the word? Let’s just try it, and see what happens…
Bye for now and keep your amazing selves being amazing…

 
Wait, what?  That I cannot leave without saying what…?  Oh, that, yeah, no, I was not forgetting, I was just avoiding it for the time being…  The whole Mexican vs. British thing, sigh.  It’s so hard to find the words.  I have them in my brain, but they’re encrypted somehow… give me a week and I’ll get back to you on that…  I just hope that by now it’s perfectly clear that I love being both and that it was never a matter of disdain, right?  I should have made myself clear on that by now…  I will expand next time. Promise!
Have you all a lovely weekend!

Cheers!

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