Sounds like you’ve got a lot of baggage

Imagine that. Imagine someone who used to claim to love you telling you that no one after them will love you because you now sound like you’ve got ‘baggage’

Maybe that should come on the warning label when you date someone with a narcissist personality. Not only will the tear you down when you guys are together, but they will continue to do so once they aren’t even in your life.

Funny thing is, that so called ‘baggage’ they’re claiming makes you unlovable is only from all their unneeded extras they’ve left you with. You know when you get to the airport and realise you need to get rid of a few things you don’t actually want because your suitcase is too heavy, yeah well that’s the crap they left you with.

You were just fine, in fact your suitcase was way under the weight limit, but the stuff they left you with weighed 10x the amount of anything you actually owned yourself.

But it’s ok, because a heavier suitcase just means you need to develop a more keen sense of awareness for what muscles are working to carry this heavier weight.

If we’re speaking metaphorically, the muscle they’ll have left you needing to work on is actually your brain. But god damn will that muscle be toned af for the next person who wants to try and join you at this made up airport (kind of like a terming to jet off to a perfect healthy relationship).

Here’s the part when you can thank your narcissistic piece of s**t ex for leaving you with the weight of your relationship and where it went wrong because all they’ve done is provide you with the ability to sense someone with negative intentions a mile off.

Typically speaking, this kind of ex will normally be the second person you fall in love with. And this is based off of the findings of anthropologist Helen Fisher and according to her we only fall in love three times in our life but our second love, well that’s the hardest one.

It’s the one that teaches us lessons about who we are and how we often want or need to be loved.

Our second love will typically become a cycle, often one we keep repeating because we think that somehow the ending will be different than before. Yet, each time we try, it somehow ends worse than before and we focus so much on making it work that we will tend to lose sight of if we actually should be trying to make it work at all.

More often than not, our second love is unhealthy, unbalanced or narcissistic. Most likely there will be high levels of drama. This is exactly what keeps us addicted to this storyline, because it’s the emotional roller coaster of extreme highs and lows and like a junkie trying to get a fix, we stick through the lows with the expectation of the high.

So it’s no surprise really that this love has just us with some ‘baggage’.

However …. what it has done is shown us exactly what we don’t want from a love that we will have forever. It’s also taught us lessons that we would never have learnt if it wasn’t for going through this experience.

So thank your second love, for leaving you with their baggage (and then kindly reminding you of it years later just to make sure you don’t move on from them) because without them, you wouldn’t know what a healthy long lasting relationship is and how to cherish the man/woman that makes you feel safe and respected.

What if fate said….

What if fate was screaming at you both that you shouldn’t be together by never letting you live life running on the same timeline?

Would you listen?

Or would you put your fingers in your ears and sing to yourself to dull out the sound of life maybe having a pre planned route for you?

I’m talking like the adjustment bureau kind of vibes. Like there are some people who come into your life either to steer you into your real purpose or away from it.

Would you listen to fate if it was trying to tell you the person who’s constantly been your maybe is actually a no. That actually ‘timing’ was never the issue between you both but actually you just shouldn’t be together.

I can almost hear what people will be saying ‘but I know I should be with him/her just not right now, we’re on different pages’ but that’s the thing about literature, the pages are never the same, but somehow they still move in chronological order.

If you two aren’t even making chronological sense then maybe it’s time to accept that somewhere life never intended for you guys to be together, you stumbled across each other by a totally romantic accident and that’s ok, because they’re part of your journey but they aren’t your destination.

And what about the other end of the scale?

Those of us who life and fate has continuously attempted to propel together but by some crazy miracle or inconvenience you’ve kept missing each other.

For years the two of you had life plans that should have naturally twisted together but something has kept drawing you away from each other, maybe those people just weren’t quite ready to be shown what their ‘forever’ looks like quite yet.

Maybe the two of you have been so busy forming yourselves into the person you want to be by gaining a tonne of life experience with the wrong people. You were busy getting your hearts broken to get remoulded and put into shape ready for the person fate has in mind for you.

Or maybe the two of you will never meet?

Either way, maybe fate and life has a pre planned idea of who we should be with, or maybe it doesn’t. And maybe we don’t actually have any control over how our life will end up.

Edward Lorenz suggests that ‘Small actions will eventually lead to vastly different outcomes’ so weather we’re pulling away from our forever person or pushing towards them, if you’re meant to me together eventually you will be, once you’ve done all the ‘life stuff’ you need to do first.

When the unexpected punches you in the face

I bet you didn’t even realise that you’d feel like this, after having something taken away from you that you didn’t even know you wanted, or at least you didn’t know you wanted it right now.

Darling girl, it’s ok to admit how much it’s hurt you to have to get through this by yourself, not having anyone to hold you while you’re curled up in pain, which constantly wakes you up throughout the night. It’s ok to admit that it would have been easier to do it with him than without him, that doesn’t make you weak, it just makes you human.

I know you’ve spent days sitting there wondering what you did wrong, how you could have avoided creating the total and utter mess of a situation you’ve now found yourself in. If you’d have known, what would you have done differently, would you have looked at yourself in the mirror in a different way each morning? Would you have moved slower, eaten better, or even started meditation?

But hey, guess what? You didn’t know. And although you’ve already heard this from anyone around you that you’ve told, it really wasn’t your fault. This was just life’s way of saying ‘not right now’ and that may hurt, you may want to kick or scream or punch anything you can. But it doesn’t change what has happened.

Sometimes, life takes a choice away from you before you even knew that it was a possibility and maybe that’s because it knew you weren’t ready to make that choice yet.

Not all beautiful things are supposed to unfold how you imagine they will and it’s just because they’ve appeared at the wrong time.

Imagine it like this: a flower has accidentally decided to try and bloom in winter, instead of the harsh weather letting it come out and struggle through a phase it just wasn’t meant to see, the cold will kill it off before it even has a chance to suffer. That beautiful flower has been saved a load of unnecessary pain, Mother Nature just had to hold it back and say ‘now is not the time, one day not far from now you’ll blossom into something beautiful, but now just isn’t the time. The world isn’t ready for you yet’.

It’s okay to cry for the loss of something you didn’t even know you wanted, it’s okay to be hurt at the fact a decision was made out of your own hands, grieving for something you didn’t even know …. is understandable.

I know you feel like your body is fighting against you, the one thing you thought you had control over during a time of uncertainty now also feels like it’s betrayed you and let you down, and the worst part is, this crazy surge of emotions being fired up in your brain, is fighting for something that isn’t even there, making you question your own judgements and I know the confusion just makes you want to cry even more.

It’s ok to miss the idea of something you never even really had. It’s ok to hold on to a ‘what if’ even if it’s just for a while. You haven’t been given a set time to get over how something could have been if it had been left in your control.

So maybe this was life’s way of saying ‘not yet’ but this can also be your way of saying, ‘I’m happy to welcome unexpected events’ because life is crazy and beautiful and we make it what we want.

So when life throws yet another unexpected punch at you, just thrive in the fact that each day after is a day of healing. Things will get better and eventually you’ll be in the time when these things are supposed to happen for you.

Closer to 30

Officially turning an age that means I’m closer to 30 than I am to 20 seems even more significant that turning 21.

It’s as if all of a sudden, your decisions should start becoming sensible … as if the steps you take from here on in are actually going to have an impact.

21 to 25 is like a trial, a sneak peak into adulthood. Because although you’re working and paying a few bills, no one expects you to know what you’re doing and have your shit together.

But when you tell someone you’re 26, they start asking about your career and where you live and who you live with, it’s as if all of a sudden conversations become 10x more invasive because everyone expects you to have locked down what you’re doing and who you’re doing it with ….

I hate to break it to people fresh out of university ready to start their “adult life” but you will now just start to look for adultier adult in situations where you forget that you are in fact an adult yourself.

Most of us are still here making exactly the same decisions that we did when we were at uni or in our teens, constantly seeking attention from the opposite sex, texting our ex’s, getting drunk more than once a week, ending up in our overdrafts … the only difference now is that our hangovers last three days instead of three hours.

Getting older isn’t as exciting as I thought it would be, I can remember thinking in my teens that 25 was OLD, can we all just laugh at that together? Now I’m here just pretending to know what I’m doing.

But you know what, once you figure out that everyone is out here doing the best we can to not die of alcohol poisoning or undercooked food, you’ll feel better about your life. Everyone is at different stages and doing different things, especially in your 20’s. Some of my friends and married with kids and some of them are traveling the world, either of which is totally fine.

We’re all on our own journey and we shouldn’t be comparing it to other people’s.

The Almost’s

The hardest thing about loving ourselves is that we’re letting so many people have the power to give us reasons not to.

So many times we’ve given other people the ability to make us feel not quite good enough and we’ve ultimately led to our own downfall, even if we try blaming others.

But what if we took that control back? What if suddenly the power we thought other people had to make us feel wanted and valued actually belonged with us, we wouldn’t lose sleep over how we were impacting others because all we would be focusing on is how we’re impacting our own lives.

We all still seem to be healing from an almost relationship, a friend with benefits, a three night stand, or a summer fling. We keep searching for closure and looking for answers from the person that broke our hearts, when really we gave it to them before they even deserved it. A lot of us are struggling to move on from an old love like we were dumped, even though we were never given the label of boyfriend or girlfriend.

So what are we actually struggling to move on from? Because an almost relationship isn’t worth getting heart broken over and it definitely isn’t worth losing your sense of calm.

A very wise person in my life said something to me recently which has resonated:

“It’s bad enough that people we spend years with have an impact on our lives, but letting somebody I’ve known for less time then I’ve owned a toothbrush affect me, that’s not ok”

How many of us have been on dates that result in that person choosing not to reply to your messages, but will stalk your social media? All of a sudden it seems to affect your head way more than it should do, why has someone who’s relatively a stranger suddenly got the ability to control your state of mind? Let’s be honest, a month from now you probably won’t even remember their name anyway.

Or even that person you’ve been “dating” for a month or so, it was never official so you shouldn’t really have invested that much of your mental energy into it. But yet here you are wondering if you should message them, hoping they’re bothered by that picture you uploaded with another guy etc etc …. ultimately the only person who’s thinking about it loads, is you.

We spend hours deciphering texts, ranting to friends and over thinking message responses over someone who just doesn’t care. They’ve never introduced you to their grandparents or bothered to learn when your birthday is or in some cases even bothered to make plans with you more than once. So what’s the big deal?

If you take a second to sit back and think about it, it seems as though we’ve stopped entering serious relationships, but we haven’t stopped getting our hearts broken, or at the absolute minimum, we haven’t stopped letting it having a serious affect on the way we think about ourselves. It seems a shame that we’re letting others around us control our energy that much.

And on that note, I think we all need to try and focus more on our own actions and how they impact our moods rather than focusing on how other people are making us feel. Especially people who ultimately end up playing a very unimportant role in the story of our lives, people who are fleeting and unimportant, people who ten years from now when you recall the most memorable and important events of your life ….. won’t even make the top 100 things to reminisce about.

Next Year

Next year I’m not going to chase anyone.

I’m not going to let arse holes walk in and out of my life as and when they please. If you want me stay, if you don’t then leave. Don’t ghost for a month or so and then pop back up on my phone like nothing happened, I’m not down for that kind of attitude thanks.

I’m not going to stand for anyone giving me half assed efforts, either give me all of you or just sod off. I won’t be standing for time wasters, or people who aren’t sure what they want. Don’t be a cop out. Be sure about wanting me and if you are sure, then tell me there’s nothing sexier than confidence. I know far too many people who have told me too late how they feel, don’t wait for tomorrow or the next day. If you have something to say, then say it.

In all honesty, deep down everyone does really know who they want and who they don’t. They just get scared to tell the truth. But if you can’t be honest with me then I don’t want to know, honesty is what builds the solid foundations of a relationship, something which I didn’t learn from my last experience of being with someone.

Next year I won’t be going on second dates with people I don’t instantly feel a spark with, I won’t wait around to see if it’s something that could build into being beautiful or not, I won’t be wasting my own time like that again like I’ve done this year.

Next year, I’m going to try not to put the nice guys as second best, the ones that treat me with respect. I will not go back to dating fuck boys.

Next year will be different, next year will be a me year. When I get back into my fitness regime and looking after myself better, I’ll replace Wednesday night dates with Wednesday night PT sessions and late night last minute plans to early nights and more time spent at home chilling out.

I can’t wait for next year year.

*insert ironic standard new year new me quote here, not really … I’m not that person*

I Know You’re Struggling So Here’s My Crappy Advice

1.The people that can handle the ugliest parts of life are the people that deserve to share your victories. Those people that can see you at your absolute worst and still say, “I’m here,” are the people that deserve to make up your inner circle. There are a lot of people that will want to use your momentum when you’re winning, but those people will ultimately quit when you aren’t.

2. Whatever you call your personal beliefs, should bring peace and comfort in difficult times, not add to it. If it doesn’t reassure you when everything is going wrong, it needs to be reevaluated.

3. Answers aren’t always necessary, sometimes we just need to verbalize thoughts to help show how untrue they really are. Many times our own heads are our worst enemy, specifically in difficult times. It’s easy to blow things out of proportion in our minds and we don’t always realize that’s what’s happening until we hear it out loud.

4. Terrible things are part of life, but without them we can never truly understand the beautiful parts of life. We can’t appreciate light without darkness, heat without cold, love without lack thereof. It is never easy to experience difficult times, but it brings into sharp perspective the incredible things in our lives.

5. One of the most authentic signs of a mature and wise person is that they know and understand what they are truly capable of. Someone once said to me that a person’s greatest strength is in knowing their greatest weakness and that kind of self-awareness speaks volumes.

6. Everyone is broken; the strongest people are the ones who can admit that and know it doesn’t mean they are worth any less. Brokenness is part of the human condition. We have all been dealt blows and wounds, but the best of us understand that and know that neither our self- worth nor our value is tied to that brokenness.

7. Surround yourself with people who are authentic rather than people who pretend to have it all together. It takes nothing to put on a façade of perfection; any person can say the right things or posture to an audience. Real growth and healing comes from people that can empathize with you, but also push you out of your comfort zone.

8. For every low there is a high, but that doesn’t make the low feel any less infinite. On some level we all know that pain and hurt is temporary. However that doesn’t change the feeling, in the moment, that this is just how life is now and it is ok to feel that way for a time.

9. Tragedy has a way of revealing our true character. How we respond to pain and tragedy is one of the most honest reflections on ourselves we will ever see. Be aware in those moments, but also be gracious with yourself

Heartache and grief have a way of burning away anything that isn’t essential.

Maybe someone you love dearly has died or your boyfriend — who you thought was the one — just dumped you. Everything changes when you’re in this sort of pain that makes it hard to breathe. You don’t have the energy to hang out with friends you feel lukewarm about or go to a job that’s sucking your soul. Instead, you see clearly for a moment what is absolutely essential in your life. Your best friend shows up to hold your hand. Your cat snuggles you. Your brother helps pay your rent. You realize what matters.

When you have a great deal of experience with pain, you are more equipped when it inevitably occurs again. Buddhists consider people who look pain squarely in the face to be warriors. They see the process of facing pain while still remaining soft, as useful, because when the world throws another curveball your way, you’re less likely to totally lose your shit again. Instead, you have some more ground under your feet to stand on.

Allowing pain to soften you means you bring more joy to the world. Ultimately, there are two ways to deal with pain: let it harden you or let it soften you. If you let it harden you, there will be grave consequences to your well-being.

Plus, you will be uniquely useful to friends in the future who experience pain. You experience a devastating breakup that tosses you into a deep depression for months. You know what it’s like to be unshowered, living in pajamas, and not wanting to see the light of day. Once you’ve healed from your loss, you now have this experience under your belt.

I’ve Fallen In Love With My Possibilities

When you finally realise you don’t need to be in love with a person to be happy with yourself it’s genuinely the best feeling in the world, not relying on anyone else for your own happiness is amazing! I’m back to feeling confident without relying on someones compliments. So what happens when you fall in love with your career rather than a person …

1. You gain more perspective.

Your view of the world drastically changes. All of a sudden your world isn’t gray anymore. It’s more vivid and bright. Your world is now full of new opportunities and experiences. Your world becomes your oyster.

2. You become more independent.

You start to learn how to navigate your own life, in your own terms. You start learning how to do more by yourself, without asking for help. You become fiercely independent and responsible, without worrying about a significant other.

3. Your friendships grow stronger.

Because you have more time now (aside from your career), you value your friendships more. You learn how to spend your time wisely and choose to hang with your friends during free hours of your day. Your friendships start to blossom and grow more than ever before.

4. You gain self-love.

You have time by yourself now and as a result, you focus more on what makes you happy. You start to take better care of yourself and in time, will gain more self respect and love for your heart.

5. You start appreciating the little things.

You appreciate your friends more, your family more and find yourself growing genuinely more happy. You start growing more thankful as the days pass, happy your career is blooming and not having to worry about a relationship status.

6. Your goals drastically change.

Your goals change from finding a boyfriend or a girlfriend to excelling at your career. Your goals from years ago seems childish and amateur now. Now, you can focus on yourself and your success without anyone weighing you down. You become to driver of your own life.

7. You put yourself first.

You now have learned not to settle for anything less than what you deserve. You know your worth now, and you don’t need validation from anyone else. You make sure you don’t get taken advantage of, and always speak up for yourself.

8. You become less stressed.

Before you were too focused on your relationships and problems in your love life. Now, because you are single, you only worry about yourself and your career. You feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of your shoulders because you don’t have to worry about anyone else now.

9. You start enjoying alone time.

You don’t feel lonely when you spend time alone now. You crave solitude and totally enjoy nights in, spent alone. You’ve learned that you don’t need another person to make you feel full or whole. You don’t need to fill a void.

11. You learn more about yourself than ever before.

You learn about what makes your heart fill with joy. You learn more about what you need and don’t need in your life and in a relationship too. You learn that you by yourself, is good enough. You learn that your time is important, and you’ve learned to accept yourself for who you are now. You finally learn that you’re worth something. And you don’t need somebody to see that

He’s Not Your Forever Unless He Put’s Effort Into These 12 Things!

 

1. He should make an effort to plan dates. He shouldn’t expect you to come up with ideas every weekend. Once in a while, he should take you to a new restaurant or shop that he thinks you’re going to love.

2. He should make an effort to text back. And he should remember to tell you where he is and what he’s doing. It’s the easiest way to build trust. If he’s always open with you, then there’s no reason to doubt what he says.

3. He should make an effort to flirt. I don’t care if you’ve been dating for decades. He should never take your love for granted. He should still try to woo you, even though he already has you.

4. He should make an effort to give you an orgasm. You don’t have to “reach your goal” every single time you have sex, but you should climax the majority of the time. That means there should be plenty of foreplay and oral.

5. He should make an effort to save his money. If he honestly wants to spend the rest of his life with you, then he has to prepare for the future. He should be resisting the urge to waste all his cash on alcohol and should be working alongside you to save up money for a house.

6. He should make an effort to make you feel like a major part of his life. He should update you on what’s going on at work. He should invite you out with his friends. He should make you feel important.

7. He should make an effort to get along with your friends and family members. He doesn’t have to go on one-on-one brunch dates with your mother, but he should treat everyone you care about with respect. Even if your disapproving father is a little rude to him, it doesn’t mean he should be rude back. He should be trying his best to make a good impression.

8. He should make an effort to come to compromises. If you two disagree on something, there shouldn’t be a big blowout that ends with only one of you getting your way. You should find a solution that benefits you both. Otherwise, the resentment is going to kick in.

9. He should make an effort to cook and clean. You’re not his mother. He shouldn’t rely on you to do all of his chores for him. He should be doing just as much housework as you.

10. He should make an effort to look good. He doesn’t have to wear a suit and tie during every date, just like you don’t have to wear a skintight dress. But he should at least look presentable. He should keep that beard trimmed and wear that underwear that he knows his butt looks amazing in.

11. He should make an effort to keep himself healthy. If he loves you, he’ll take care of himself, so that you two can have a long life together.

12. He should make an effort to make you happy. He should think your smile is the most beautiful thing in the world, and he should aim to see it as often as humanly possible. 

Right Now

You cannot choose who you love but you can decide on how you love them.  And you know how I think, me and you are meant to be together. You being with anyone else is just a waste of your time. 

We will find our way back to each other, once we have finished growing. 

I would do anything for you, but what if that’s wrong right now. I never thought It was possible to love you as much as I do. 

What we have is a great love, and no matter what we do or how much we fight it keeps pulling us back in because we know it’s not over and I can’t even sit here and pretend I don’t like being pulled in by you and us, we’re magnetic and I know you feel that too, every time we are together. 

All I’ve ever done is love you and no matter what stupid things we fought about I still always loved you and you told me you wouldn’t go anywhere. But you have. And as I’m sure you can see, I’m surviving without you being mine. People aren’t supposed to give up when things get hard but you did. 

I love you, I’m in love with you. And as much as I’ve tried to stop I can’t and I don’t want to. I never want to stop loving you. You are without a doubt the love of my life and I can’t stand the thought of you with anyone else. 

I know you care about me and I know you love me, but you don’t want me enough to keep me to yourself. And I deserve better I’m sorry. 

I hope three months from now we can look back at this together and realise how crazy it all was because we have found our way back to each other after growing separately. I love you with all my heart and you are always supposed to be with me, just not right now.