On Monday I shared this post on instagram… I has having a VERY bad day and on Friday, I shared this post… I was having another VERY bad day. The past weeks, I have been having bad days but with my friend in town (I talked about her on this post) it was easy to wash away the feelings, carry on with the day and actually end up having a great day but now she’s gone so…
Here’s the story:
I’m working on a side project with my family that has nothing to do with A Hint of Life (another side business, hey!) and the deadline for the project was 3 weeks ago. When we first hired out the guy that was going to do the work, he said the project would take 3 weeks but the communication has been TERRIBLE. Every week he’s blaming someone else, every week there’s another “complication” that’s happened and so on. For the first three weeks I was pretty calm because I knew he was working on the project but it was towards the end of week 3 that I started realizing… shit – this is not going to be done on time.
So, for the past 3 weeks, I have been back and forth asking when the project will be done – I NEED this project to be done because essentially, we are losing money. In our action plan, we planned out 3 weeks (maximum 4) to cover costs without an income but it’s now been 6 weeks and for the looks of it, project will be done by end of week 7 so… do you get my frustration??!! AGH!!!
The worst thing of all, is that okay we are losing money and we are still not done with the project but the WORST, WORST, WORST thing of all is that I unconsciously (or very consciously) blame Luis (my boyfriend) because he said he trusted this guy to do the job. Now, I know (now) it’s not Luis’s fault. You trust people until you don’t but OMG my head cannot understand that. So, when I say on my instagram posts that I’m sad, angry, frustrated, disappointed and that I have a million pimples coming out of my face I fully blame it on Luis. Although I know, I shouldn’t.
Monday was the tipping point. It was the tipping point of my frustration and anger and it was the tipping point of me NOT wanting to feel these feelings ANYMORE. Luis invited me to dinner and I very angrily said NO!! I know you guys have never seen me angry before but it’s not very pretty. It sucked because over the weekend I had spoken to Luis about my feelings and I was able to calm myself down and relax and be a normal, happy, girlfriend but then Monday came and I turned into a flame! Why? Why do we always go back to bad habits when we know we are not right?
Why do we insist on hurting the wound, when we know it’s not going to lead us anywhere?
Our freaking ego is the answer. Plan and simple.
When things go wrong, we immediately feel the rush to say “I told you so!” or, “You should have listened to me!” or “I knew I was right!” or even worse… “I should have never trusted you!” – We say these things not because we mean them so much but because they make us feel better. How horrible; right? These words make us feel safe, they make us feel like we have the power, like we are in control.
While I’d normally categorize feeling safe, in control and like we have enough power in our hands as good things, when we are hurting others and possibly not being fair, it’s not such a good thing.
I spend SO much time reading, researching and advocating for personal development but practice is really what teaches us the most and life, someway or another always finds it’s way to teach us. Like Gabby Bernstein says, “People are our teachers in the classroom that is our life.” So, this is how I knew it was my tipping point of learning to do better, to be better.
- I said no to dinner (okay maybe I screamed NO a little bit)
- Drove home listening to relaxing music (Instrumental Chill Radio on Pandora)
- Took Nikki for a walk to free my mind. I didn’t take my phone.
- Started working on my vision board.
All of these steps were important to making me feel better without having to hurt someone more than I already had but, the last step was the best one, I admit. I want to do a full post on vision boards but just to give you some background – you choose all areas of your life (career, relationships, body, mind, etc) and write down how you want to feel when you think about them (the areas of your life) and then get magazines and a board and starting cutting out images that represent your wants (feelings wise) sometimes people go full-on with material stuff but the reality is, material things are pretty much worthless when it comes to true serenity and happiness so it’s good to focus on the feelings. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE FEELS!
Anyway, after all these steps, my mind was clear and relaxed. The vision board helped me because it put things into perspective.
LIFE TIP: When things in your life get heated or you feel the need to say “I told you so!” take a walk outside, enjoy nature, be in-touch with your real feelings and then talk. We don’t say the right things when our ego is talking. If you are having one too many bad days like I was, get in the exercise of knowing exactly what’s making you angry, put on your thinking caps on to think about the “Vision” of your life. Is what you getting you angry, frustrated, sad, irritated, etc. on your vision board? If it’s not, it’s not worth the pain. Plain and simple.
You guys, we always worry too much about really non-important stuff. We think they are important but they are not. Most of the time we put other people’s expectations as our own but when we do that, we are depriving ourselves of the opportunity to truly grow and live life for ourselves.
Uff! Writing this feels good. Luis, if you are reading this (I hope so!) I love you. Thanks for being the teacher in my life. And for the rest of you… THANK YOU for reading and let me know if you have any questions or comments!! <3
xo Belen
