You hear it all the time. Love is painful. Love is hard. Doesn’t sound too appealing now does it? I am coming up on my one year anniversary with my husband that I have been together with for six years. I do not believe it when people say love is painful. Its not, at least its not when your with the right person 🙂 I think its figuring out how to live with another person that can be painful at times and its hard no doubt about it.
The thing about love is its actually one of the best feelings you can ever feel. It’s a feeling that fills up all of the dark places in your heart, and heals all the bruises you have gotten over the years. How can anyone ever say that this wondrous emotion can be associated with anything negative? I have seen it with my own eyes the power this feeling can bring to people. Have you ever watched another person go through a horrible relationship but then they found someone that healed all of their hurts? That simply finding the correct person to love made them so much happier and they improved so fast you feel a little whiplash? THIS is love! If you believe that love is suppose to be hard and hurt then you need to reconsider if the person in your life is the one for you.
Understanding how to adapt to the person you are creating a life with is hard and can be painful. You might need to adjust some of the things you do all of the time to adapt to your love. But in my experience this is the hard part of living with another person and has nothing to do with love directly but rather determination. Sure you love them enough to change and you might see that as a consequence of loving that person but its not a direct result of the feeling love. Its from your determination to keep this person in your life.
Ultimately love is a happy emotion. So instead of thinking of love in a negative light remember that its what makes you happy. Love makes the world a better place! Go give the person you love a huge hug today! Life is so much sweeter when we are sharing it with the people that make us happy!
I love to read! I started back when I was in middle school and have had my head in a book since then. I think the amazon kindle app and audible has been the best invention since indoor plumping. But what I really did not realize was the affect those books could have on my emotional stability. I am definitely an emotional person and while I am reading books I tend to put myself in the head of the character I am reading about. How they are feeling in that part of the book can sometime bleed over in my emotions throughout the day.
I know this sounds a little ridiculous but just ask anyone who really knows me :). I love scifi books that have a lot of action. One of my favorite series is Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews. This is full of humor but has a lot of bad things that happen to the protagonist. It could put me straight into a bad mood! Then I would spend an hour pissed off at nothing before I would draw the connection that it was my book that put me in the bad mood. So I use to only ever stop on parts of the book that were happy.
When I first started to change my negative outlook to a positive one I stopped reading the books I usually read. I started to read books like The Secret, Rich Dad Poor Dad, and Think and Grow Rich. These books were all about putting yourself in a positive state of mind. As well as pointing me in the direction of what I should be doing to better improve my life. Honestly it really did make a difference!
Now I am focusing on ways to change how I am thinking to better improve my life. There is a quote that I constantly hear during my morning motivation sessions and it says. “The person you will be in 5 years is based on the books you read and the people you hang around with” by Charlie Jones. Changing the books I was reading was so simple. Its affect in my life has been nothing but positive. Its changing the people in your life that can be the challenge. Some people you can’t get away from. If that is the case than I would suggest to challenge each negative action they do with a positive one. This will either make them avoid you because negative people like to stay that way or you will start to change their outlook on life. Either way its a win win.
Ultimately the best way to stay in a positive frame of mind is to be taking in positive information. Think and Grow Rich and The Secret are both really valuable books that teach you the benefits of a positive state of being. Shout out to my wonderfully positive big brother Chris for pointing me in the direction of these books! So the next time you bring up the kindle app and start searching for your next book try out one. You never know what the benefits might provide for you in the next five years!
Good Morning, today I want to talk about the benefits of saying thank you. First and foremost its proper etiquette to say thank you after someone has done something to help you out. Understandably this is one of the most basic things you should be doing on a day to day basis. Saying thank you does two things. One it makes the person that you are thanking feel respected. That the time they took to help you out meant something. The second is it will make you feel better.
If you don’t believe that saying thank you to someone will make you feel better than challenge yourself today. Say thank you to everyone that you come into contact with, and see how it makes you feel. I have been studying the laws of attraction over the last few months and being grateful is one of the biggest impacts you can have on your positivity.
The simple act of saying thank you can greatly affect your life in a positive way. If you are always saying thank you and truly feeling grateful you are putting yourself on a higher energy level than those around you. Just like smiling can make the people around you feel better, saying thank you will provide you with a happiness that people will be drawn to. So start the day off feeling thankful and see how wonderful your day will become!
Lately their has been a drive to feed your dog the highest quality food money can buy. It seems that more and more dog food companies are spending time making sure that they express how healthy their food is. I have always had dogs while growing up, and we always fed them kibble plus some table scraps every once in a while. Over the last year or so I have seen a big drive with in the social media community to stop feeding your dogs kibble. The idea that my dogs needed to be switched to a different type of food didn’t hit me until mid way through this year, and it all started with getting my dogs teeth cleaned.
Currently I have two dogs. One is a 5 year old Dorkie and the other is a 9 month old Cockapoo. My Cockapoo was not exactly excited about the kibble. She would generally sit next to the food bowl and watch her brother eat until he finished. Only then would she start eating her kibble and never with any gusto. My Dorkie has always been a picky eater. I usually have to resort to putting chicken on his food to make his kibble look more appetizing. This was a constant stressor because he would always eat the chicken and spit out the kibble. No one likes to step on kibble with bare feet. But he acted normal and had a lot of energy so I tried to put it out of my mind.
This all changed when we brought him in for a routine teeth cleaning. He ended up getting a massive infection, and I truly believed that I was getting ready to say goodbye to my beloved pet. He developed sores that took three months to heal, and now have become some massive scars. We had been going to this Vet since the beginning, and they have always been great. But when he got infected they suddenly went from being competent to not having any idea what was going on. They had us bring him back three times in a week and all of those times they acted confused. Though they certainly had no problem charging us for every visit and all the new pills that they kept giving us to try. The first part of my lesson in life started here. This is when I should have immediately brought my dog to another Vet. Especially after they started to accuse us of beating and poisoning our dog! I would rather saw through my own arm with a butter knife than hurt my dog. I felt like I was in a different reality and I am going to have to say bye to this little dog who stole my heart. The second I made the decision to go to another vet it all got better so fast my head spun. When we switched to a different vet all she told us was that it was an infection, gave us different medication (that really worked), and sent us home with an appointment in two weeks. He started to look better the next day, and we were so relieved.
But during the time I was stressing out that my dog might be dying I was creating negative energy. This presented itself in an odd way. One day a news article popped up in my news feed that stated the dog food I was giving my dog was on the FDA’s watch list for enlarged hearts. I immediately thought that maybe all of his problems started with a poor diet. Now this is where being negative about the situation compounded itself. A day after we found out about the dog food something else popped up on the news on how the process of making kibble is potentially very harmful to your dogs. Now I am finding out that the kibble I am feeding my dogs is not just going to enlarge his heart but also potentially give him cancer. All I could think of is that I am going to have to say goodbye to my dog because I was feeding him stuff that was bad for him!
So when I finally stopped beating myself up I started to look into different options. Which brought me to the raw diet for dogs. I contacted a local provider of raw food for dogs, they told me to go do research, and come back when I am ready to order. So I researched it and found out that its actually a lot easier, safer, and in some cases cheaper to home cook my dogs food.
I spent 4 weeks researching what they need to switch them over to home cooked meals. I learned a lot. The most difficult thing I ran into was finding the correct supplements for them. I posted them below if any of you are trying to do what I have done. Almost all of our food is fortified with the essential vitamins and minerals that you need. The same thing goes for kibble. When changing over to home cooked dog food I needed to create a plan that included every thing they needed, and supplements are important if you want to be cost effective. I got a food processor, supplements, and now my puppies cant wait for their food!
This situation taught me two lessons. One is that its always a good idea to get a second opinion from another Vet. I feel that if we had done this earlier he might have healed faster. What was stopping me from doing so was not trusting my dog. He is a shy dog which makes it hard for me to want to change Vets. I was afraid that he would not take going to another Vet well so I waited longer than I should have. But when we did bring him to the new Vet he enjoys it there so much more. I can tell you that the new Vet treats my dog better. They are so much more focused on making sure he feels safe and happy that I came down pretty hard on myself for not switching earlier. The other lesson is that when you are constantly being negative only more negative stuff will continue to happen. Once I switched from thinking negatively about the kibble to thinking positively about developing a plan to feed them better, life got better. My dog was healing, and both of them can not wait for meal time! I am very grateful to have switched my dog’s food. They are both very happy, and I feel better knowing that they are eating better.
If you are looking into switching over to home cooked meals here are the few supplements and other things I needed to get started.
When you decide to be happy you can affect those around you. The energy that you are creating echos around you, and makes it next to impossible for someone to not feel lighter in your presence. If you ever want to test this just smile at everyone you see today. More than likely they are going to smile back 🙂
This weekend my little sister got married to an amazing man. The happiness that those two were creating made the day so incredibly enjoyable! Weddings are the perfect atmosphere! Two people are declaring their intentions to stay with each other for the rest of their lives. If done right, this emotional display creates so much happiness in the people around them! The reception last night was so full of love and happiness for the two that everyone was having a great time!
Mr. and Mrs. McIntire
Happiness starts within yourself. If you are in a situation that does not bring you happiness you need to decide whether or not you are going to stay that way. The decision might be really hard and you might have to do something that will push you out of your comfort zone. But to live in a world without happiness is a fate that no one deserves. Choose yourself first and then watch the people around you become happier as well! Have a great day and choose to be happy!!!
I feel as though most of the time I am so focused on what I am trying to accomplish that I forget to appreciate the simple joys in life. Like color! I spent sometime babysitting my cute little niece Adalynn yesterday (7 months old). I was just walking her around trying to keep her occupied. I spent probably about 75% of the time showing her anything that was brightly colored. She was so fascinated with the different colors. Watching the simple joy in her face reminded me that sometimes we have to stop and take joy in the little things 🙂
I am a painter and I love colors! But I can get so focused on what I want to create that it really takes me to the end of the painting before I take a breath and enjoy the play on colors that I have created. I have always considered the creative process for developing a painting stressful until the final details because the painting doesn’t look right until the end. From now on I going to make a concentrated effort to be thankful for the simple things 🙂 Like seeing each stage of my paintings as the next step to something amazing!
I tend to forget to appreciate how far I have come and how much I should be thankful for everyday. I have made some really wonderful things happen in my life recently, and I know that it will only get better. My drive to create a better version of myself will create the life I want to live. Like I said happiness is a choice! We choose to push ourselves to do better that we sometimes forget the simple joys in our life. So take sometime today to pause and appreciate the world around you.
I have two puppies at home. I call them both puppies mainly because they are about the size of a cat. This is actually super adorable because they always stay ‘puppy’ size 🙂
This is Sidney aka “Sid’ or “little man” he is a 5 year old Dorkie
This is Nancy aka “little girl” and she is 9 month old Cockapoo.
These two are just a fountain of love! There really is nothing like the unconditional love you get from taking care of a pet. Whenever I am having a bad day at work and really need to smile I will look at pictures of these two cuties. If something is really frustrating me, I will visualize Sid’s face when he is really happy. Its just so adorable! I just can’t stay upset, and I know that I get to come home to two amazingly adorable puppies every day! So I wanted to start your day off with some cute pics of my puppies! I hope they make you laugh as much as they make me!
Did you know that smiling is actually powerful?? Yup! Showing those pearly whites are beneficial not only to you but to the people around you. Not only is it a basic emotion that dogs and babies react to on a instinctual level but it subconsciously changes your outlook at the time you are smiling!
Smiling releases all those feel good hormones we love so much! If you are having a bad day then the simplest way to feel better is to force yourself to smile. Using the muscles for smiling tricks your brain into thinking you are happy 🙂 so it reacts by releasing Oxytocin and other wonderful hormones at the same time suppressing cortisol. So you can actually make yourself happy by simply smiling. How awesome is that?!
Have you ever noticed that if you are walking around smiling people are more likely to smile back at you? When you put yourself in a happy state people react subconsciously to you and feel better in your presence. So no matter what you are going through if you just choose to be happy and smile your life will become brighter! Enjoy your day and do not forget to SMILE!!!
This blog is about my own personal growth. I created it to encourage thoughts into your own journey. If i can do it so can you!
Hello!
Most of you might be familiar with my original blogging cite Womeninjiujitsu. I had such a wonderful time creating posts for that blog. Unfortunately at the current moment I have had to take a few steps back from Jiu-Jitsu as I figure out what my next step within that part of my life. During this time I started to focus on my own personal growth. I have created this blog for multiple reasons.
First and foremost this is a blog dedicated to my own personal growth. Writing is something that I truly enjoy. I hope you all enjoy reading my posts and much as I enjoy creating them! This blog is going to focus on the steps, hurdles, and improvements that I have or will be taking to my efforts to become better each day. Creating these posts will keep me invested in focusing on growing even on days I do not necessarily feel up to being the better version of myself.
The second focus for this blog is to help you! I am hoping that reading along with me on my journey will do one of two things. Jump start your won personal growth and/or be a constant good reinforcement to the path you are currently on to creating a new better you. I am not saying that the way you are at this moment is not good. I am saying that everyone can use a push in the right direction every once in a while. This blog will always be filled with motivational pictures and stories that you can read whenever you need to remember why you started improving.
So enjoy everyone! Lets all start to develop habits and ways of thinking that will better improve our lives and the lives of those around us!
This blog is about personal growth and happiness. I hope you enjoy what you read and make sure to subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.
Happiness Is A Choice 