love the way you lie.

obsessed.

life's too short to be anything but happy.

Lately, I've been realizing how important it is to surround yourself with people who genuinely care about me and will always make me feel good about myself. There are some people who I've once considered to be my really good friends, but now I'm realizing I can't always be the one initiating everything and showing that I care, while they act however they want and include me whenever they want or whenever it's convenient for them. I have to learn to be bulletproof to those people and not care about them because they aren't my true friends. My true friends will be there for me no matter what and bring the best out of me, not put me down.

Everyone should do the same as what I am trying to do. Nobody should settle for bad friends just because they feel like they are the only options. Everyone deserves at least one true, genuine, caring, loyal friend in their life, whether it be a classmate, cousin, or even sibling.

You are worth as much as everyone else. Don't let anybody let you think otherwise.

five natural ways to boost your mood.

1) Go for a walk
Not only is walking a great mood-booster, but walking can burn calories and reduce body fat.


A study by researchers at Dalhousie University found that 30-minute walks were effective at reducing tension, anxiety, and mood disturbances and increasing energy and vigor.


What you can do:
•A pedometer can help you get motivated, make walking fun, and help you stick to healthy new exercise habits. It keeps track of the number of steps taken, total distance traveled, and number of calories burned.And if you hate the idea of having a gadget strapped to your ankle, not to worry. Omron makes a pedometer that can be slipped into your pocket, purse, or clipped to your belt.
•Going for outdoor walks has an added benefit: the natural light stimulates the brain to produce serotonin, a neurotransmitter involved in mood.


2) Go to bed early
If late nights are a regular way of life for you, it may be affecting your mood and outlook on life. Getting less sleep than you need can increase anxiety, tension, and sadness.


Studies have shown that lack of sleep reduces emotional and physical well-being, reduces optimism, and even contributes to the onset and worsening of physical pain.


What you can do:
•Try to go to bed 30 minutes earlier every night.
•Make your bed a restful haven. Splurge on good pillows. Also consider treating yourself to soft sheets with at least a 300 thread count.Sheets made of pima, supima, or better yet, Egyptian cotton, which tend to be softer than muslin or percale.


3) De-clutter your spaceIt’s almost impossible to relax and feel great when everywhere you look, there are bills, papers, and appointment cards piled on workspaces and spilling out of drawers. Organizing your home and office is a great way to start off the new year. Having everything in order can help calm anxiety, and some people find the actual cleaning part therapeutic.


What you can do:
•Each weekend, tackle a different area of your home or office.
•Turn to home stores for help. There are many types of organizers available to store your things in a neat, easily accessible way.
•If you don’t have one already, consider getting an agenda or notebook to help you organize your thoughts.
•You can also make to-do lists (rather than memorize them) – it can really help to calm anxiety and checking off each task as you accomplish it provides a sense of fulfillment.


4) Listen to music*******Music has a powerful effect on mood. It activates areas of the brain involved in the feeling of happiness.


Research has shown that it can lower blood pressure, heart rate, stress hormone levels, and may even improve cognitive abilities.


What you can do:
•Listen to music while traveling to work, during your lunch, or before you go to bed.
•What is most important is that you listen to music that you enjoy.
•Try music especially designed for relaxation or nature sounds.


5) Consider aromatherapy
Aromatherapy involves the use of concentrated, aromatic plant oils called essential oils.


If you’ve never heard of it before, you may have seen it before in the form of naturally-scented bath salts, body lotions, and massage oils.


A study in the International Journal of Neuroscience found that people exposed to the scent of lavender or rosemary essential oils felt more content than people who didn’t use essential oils.


What you can do:


•Lavender essential oil is thought to have calming properties. Try it in an essential oil diffuser (a table-top gadget that lightly scents the surrounding air.
•Other options are body lotions, massage oils, and bath salts. Make sure that pure essential oils are used, as many products are made with artificial scents.

five natural ways to boost your mood.

stand by me.

“To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.”

“Trust is like a vase.. once it's broken, though you can fix it the vase will never be same again.”

“We're never so vulnerable than when we trust someone - but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy”



I am not the kind of person who has trouble trusting people. When I meet someone, I tend to think of them in the best way possible until they do something to make me feel differently. Unfortunately lately, a lot of people have been giving me reasons not to trust them. Besides family, there are four people in my life that I fully trust. These four amazing friends have always been there for me and have time and time again showed me that they can be trusted and that they will never betray that trust. I am sometimes sad and frustrated with my other friends and wish they would be trustworthy and live up to their full potential. In the big picture, though, I am lucky to have four friends I can fully trust and rely on 100%. Those other friends who do not deserve my trust are the ones missing out. I pray that sometime, hopefully soon, people my age will stop thinking about themselves and learn to accept the way they are and how amazing they can be, because that is when they will start to be truly happy with their lives and happy with themselves.

imagine all the people living life in peace.

i wanna celebrate and live my life.

PERFECT PUMP UP SONGS (blasting the music is also necessary):

i hope you had the time of your life.

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather is one of those things that give value to survival."

My friends are AMAZING. Without them, I don't know where I would be. I always have the best time with them, even if we aren't doing anything special. They can make me laugh at any occasion, and usually I end up crying from laughing so much. They allow me to be comfortable just being myself; I know they wouldn't judge me no matter what. They are always there for me and I am always there for them. I want them to know how important they are to me. I probably don't say it or show it enough, but they mean so much to me and I am so grateful that they are my friends. I know that I will be friends with them forever, even if there are some stupid fights along the way.

I love you guys!

what is normal?

Nobodys life is perfect. The thought of normalcy is purely subjective and just depends on each person's upbringing and life. Everyone has a a different thought of what the definition of 'normal' is. As much as someones life may seem perfect and uneventful, there is always something. You really never know what someone is going through until you take the time to stop focusing on yourself, and instead of focusing on the others around you. Take the time to learn someones story and maybe even make their life a little easier by showing you care. Get out of your comfort zone; don't overthink it, just do it. Who knows how much of an impact you may have on someone. The obstacles one goes through in life are just ways to learn lessons. What are the point of these lessons if you don't fully learn from them and then teach them to others?

happy [belated] fathers day.

I know I'm a couple days late, but I want to take the time to honor all dads everywhere, especially my dad. I am so grateful to have in my life, for he has taught me more than he will ever know. He shows me what's important in life and how to handle the ups and downs. He has always been very religious, and he uses his faith as a way to stay strong and just fully put himself in God's hands. I think that is so admirable and brave of him. I remember when I was little and I'd be complaining about something, my dad would always tell me to 'offer it up'. The message of that phrase is that people are going through worse things than you are and you have to just stick it out.


Through everything my dad has gone through, he has never complained or given up. He stays strong and accepts his sickness and disability and learns to live with it. I am sure he gets sad and feels defeated at times, but he never appears that way. I can bet that when he does feel this way, he just prays to God to help him get through it.


Everyone can learn a lesson from my dad. He is my inspiration in life. He may not be the traditional father and we may not have conversations daughters usually have with their father and we may not do the same things, but I wouldn't change anything about the times I spend with my dad. I love you, Dad!

story of my life.

"I don't regret meeting you, but I don't wish you would magically come back into my life again because I believe God gives us someone like this for a reason. Someone who will hurt you a million times, someone who will leave you and not look back. But this person, they will make you a better person in the end. You will come out stronger than ever before and you will be happier without him than you were with him."

~~~~~~

This quote explained exactly what I was going through/feeling about someone about a month ago. It helped me move on and realize what I needed to do to help myself. Hopefully it will help one of you through a hard time you may be going through...

you are beautiful, no matter what they say.

A post from the blog: http://secondchanceonline.blogspot.com/

SECRET REGRET OF THE DAY: June 22, 2010
I regret all of the years I wasted hating myself. The suicide attempts, the hospitalizations.

I regret that my "Glory Years" of my youth were spent in a mental ward. I regret how easily I lied to and manipulated staff members and doctors. I was so young and so very ill... but not one soul ever knew just how deep any of it ran.

My liberation was found in embracing that no matter what, I'm strange. Just a little different. Years trying to hide it nearly killed me.

At 20 years old- I finally have a life. A job. Friends. A boyfriend. Finally with the strength to go back to school. I'm finally myself, and not someone wearing an overcoat of pain.

Of everything, I'm grateful for the responsible young adult I've become. I'm excited that, after years of being self conscious of myself in every way, people genuinely like me. And I still don't understand how, but I've accepted that they do.
I've become the person that puts smiles on strangers' faces without meaning to, and.... As I type this I'm realizing just how much I LOVE that fact.

I am: A dork, goofy, silly, smart, charming, beautiful (if not conventionally), a good person, a great sister and a DAMN good daughter.

I came from the darkest slums of the human mind.

And I'm always so conscious of not using "I" in anything... and look how much it's been used here. Well, I deserve to realize that things are about me sometimes.

I regret how many teenagers there are in this world that don't feel as if there is any other way out than the most permanent. The pain they feel. The reasons they feel it.

F/20

I am so inspired by this post. It shows that everyone really has to accept and embrace the way they are and that they are worth being loved. Too many people I know do not feel that way about themselves, and sometimes that person is me. I feel like the problem is especially prominent in teenagers. Everyone is racing around trying to be 'cool' and be in the right group of friends and go the right parties. All that those people are doing is wasting their time and missing out on making genuine friends. It's sad to me seeing beautiful, smart, funny, kind, and seemingly confident girls social climbing and not being themselves just because they feel like people won't like them for who they are.

"Never think you're nothing. Never cry at night over not being pretty enough. Never tell yourself you'll never be good enough. Because to someone, you're everything. To someone, you're beautiful. To someone you are the world."

all that i'm after is a life full of laughter.

“An optimist laughs to forget, a pessimist forgets to laugh.”

“Laugh as much as you breathe and love as long as you live.”

“As a general rule, the freedom of any people can be judged by the volume of their laughter”

“Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.”

“Laughter is the spark of the soul."

“You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything, even poverty, you can survive it.”

“Laugh at yourself, but don't ever aim your doubt at yourself. Be bold. When you embark for strange places, don't leave any of yourself safely on shore. Have the nerve to go into unexplored territory.”

“A smile starts on the lips, A grin spreads to the eyes, A chuckle comes from the belly; But a good laugh bursts forth from the soul, Overflows, and bubbles all around”

The importance of laughter is so true. It can totally change the vibes in a situation. My friends and I experienced this firsthand recently. We were all pissed off and in a bad mood, but we started to joke around and we ended up laughing so hard that we were crying for twenty minutes straight. I stopped being pissed at people who weren't worth being pissed at and realized how lucky I am to have the amazing friends I was with. Life is too short to be caught being in bad moods. Next time you're in a bad mood, call up some of your friends and have a dance party. Do something spontaneous and crazy. Eat ice cream. And most importantly, LAUGH.

boom boom pow.

love this kid.

get ready its a new day.

"This is the beginning of a new day. You have been given this day to use as you will. You can waste it or use it for good. What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it. When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever; in its place is something that you have left behind...let it be something good."

ten ways to release regrets.

1. Uncover hidden regrets.

- Admitting to past or present events that pull on your attention and energy is an important step toward freeing yourself and moving on.

- Ask yourself: “What incidents from the past still come to mind from time to time and make me feel angry, resentful, or unhappy? Do I feel like a victim? Do I secretly blame myself for contributing to someone’s harmful behavior or allowing them to act out and hurt me or others?”

2. Accept endings as natural.

- Endings, in fact, can help us grow.

- Resist the temptation to greet it with bitterness. Instead, know that for some reason you need to turn off the road you are traveling on and take another route.

- Don’t continually look back or hang your head as if you are being punished. Expect that your new adventure will, in its own time, reveal its reward.

3. Choose the present, not the past.

- There is nothing we can do to change what has already taken place. Our job is to fully engage with the present moment, which is where we must be to take the next powerful step on our journey.

- Remind yourself that letting go is a step-by-step process.

- Be patient with yourself.
- Don’t ignore your feelings, but don’t allow yourself to get hijacked by them either.

- Acknowledge the pain and then determine to move on.

4. Create your new story.

- By retelling and reliving that old, sorry tale, you are acting as if that moment describes the whole story of your life. It doesn’t.

- Choose to stop dwelling on the past and talking about the people who hurt you.

- Instead, focus on the positive aspects of your life right now and the wonderful things you are looking forward to welcoming into your life.

5. Depersonalize the situation.
- Studies show that empathy and depersonalizing hurtful events can help us forgive more quickly.
- Ask yourself: “Even though I don’t approve of what that person did to me, can I see what may have caused him or her to do it?” You may not be able to relate 100 percent to people’s behavior but recognizing the pain and fear that drove their actions will help you distance yourself from their immature behavior and rise above it.


6. Look for a lesson.
- No matter how unpleasant an incident, you can gain something from it.
- Keep in mind that when we don’t learn our lessons the first time around, we magnetize similar situations until we do. The sooner we learn the lesson, the more quickly we can move on to more fertile ground.
- Ask yourself these key questions and write down the answers: What insight, information, or invaluable lesson am I meant to gain from this experience? What did I learn about myself or about the others involved? How can I apply what I learned to the rest of my life?


7. Actively seek resolution.
- Come to closure by being proactive rather than letting regrets plague or paralyze you.
- Look for a way to make things right.


8. Create a ritual of release.- Get creative and plan a ritual or activity that allows you to express your feelings and is personally meaningful to you. Let this ritual mark the passing of an old era in your life and the initiation of a new one.


9. Say a powerful affirmation every day.
- Giving personal affirmations that reinforce your intention is a powerful technique for letting go and moving on. Your affirmation should be short, simple, and easy for you to remember and say aloud.
- Every morning when you awake and before you go to sleep, speak a simple affirmation like one of the following, tailored to your own situation and needs: “I am honoring myself today by opening my heart to a beautiful new beginning,” “Today I make decisions that bring me greater peace and joy,” or “I am grateful for the magnificent blessings that are coming my way right now.”


10. Re-envision your future.- As philosopher Henri Bergson said, “To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” Remember, what you focus on you will energize; and what you energize will become a reality.
- List, in very specific terms, what you want your life to be like. Start by asking yourself questions like these: “What are the most important qualities (kindness, generosity, support, honesty, etc.) I value in my interactions with others? How do I want to be treated? How do I want to treat myself? What do I want to accomplish and how do I want to give my gifts?”

ten ways to release regrets.

if you had one last lecture to give before you died, what would it be?

Randy Pausch's Oprah lecture (ten minutes):

It is an easy time to dream when we are young (and happy) and we should never lose that spirit.

Experience is what you get if you don’t get what you wanted.

When people drive you hard, they care about you. They want you to be better.

When you are doing a bad job and no one points it out to you, that is when they have given up on you.

Brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want things.

Good parents are instrumental for us to achieve our childhood dreams.

The importance of people versus things (people come first, always!).

Never ever underestimate the importance of having fun. Choose to have fun today, tomorrow, and every day thereafter.

Work and play well with others: (1) tell the truth, (2) apologize (properly), (3) wait, and people will show their good sides.

Tell the truth – integrity.

A good apology has three parts. (a) I am sorry, (b) it was my fault, (c) how do I make it right. Most people neglect the third part and fail to demonstrate sincerity.

Be patience. No one is pure evil.

Show gratitude.

Don’t complain, just work harder.

If you lead your life the right way, if you live properly, the dreams will come to you.

The whole lecture at Carnegie Mellon (an hour and fifteen minutes):

(some points are repeated)

Loyalty is a two-way street.

Never give up.

You get people to help you by telling the truth. Being earnest. I'll take an earnest person over a hip person every day, because hip is short term. Earnest is long term.

Apologize when you screw up and focus on other people, not on yourself.

Get a feedback loop and listen to it. ... Anybody can get chewed out. It's the rare person who says, oh my god, you were right. ... When people give you feedback, cherish it and use it.

Show gratitude.

Don't complain. Just work harder.

Be good at something, it makes you valuable.

Work hard.

Find the best in everybody. ... No one is all evil. Everybody has a good side; just keep waiting, it will come out.

And be prepared. Luck is truly where preparation meets opportunity.

don't stop believing.

Through the experiences in my life, I have realized that hope and faith are very vital in life. Without hope and faith, it would be impossible to get through the many ups and downs.

I do not know where I would be right now if I did not have hope and faith to help me deal with my dad's sickness and just life in general. Religion and God have become a lot more important to me this year. Through many amazing experiences, such as Kairos and a service trip to Lourdes, France, I have gotten a lot closer to God and realized that everything happens for a reason.

I am confident that God has a plan for everyone, and that he does not make us go through anything we cannot handle. I know that I have become a much better person because of the bad times my family has had. God will take care of all of us. Everyone must have hope and faith in Him that everything will work out and we will get through it.

It's easy to think about how my dad will die someday from this cancer and that we may have limited time with him. It's much harder to remember to just live in the moment and take every second I am with him as an important time and to just live it to the absolute fullest. Because my dad has short term memory loss, he forgets arguments I have with him, or times when I am in a bad mood. Thinking about what he does remember keeps me in check of what is actually important in life. And that little arguments or bad moods are taking away from the memorable, loving moments I can have with him.

I have hope and faith that God will take care of my dad and my family. I'm not saying I won't be devastated when my dad gets sick again, but I am going to try my hardest to just live in the moment and not think about what is coming. I encourage everyone to do that, even if a particular sickness or tragedy is not on your mind at all. Everyone should live it up because life is short. Seize the day. Don't have any regrets. Just live your life.

Serenity Prayer:
God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.

dream big.

“Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today.”

“Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe.”

“Dreams are like stars...you may never touch them, but if you follow them they will lead you to your destiny.”

“The only thing that will stop you from fulfilling your dreams is you.”

“Don't be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.”

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”













“Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.”

“You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith.”

In life, it is essential to dream. Dare to dream for what seems to be impossible, because you can accomplish anything. The world is at your fingertips and you are just wasting your life if you are not taking full advantage of it. If you dream it, you can do it. In order to succeed, you must believe in yourself. If you believe, you can dream. Don't hold back. You'll never know what will happen unless you dream it and do it. Take the risk and don't look back.