The Past is Not Always Evil

It has occurred to me that in today’s society we are constantly looking for improvement, success, and most of us never feel good enough. We focus so much on what we are not accomplishing that we often forget to remember how far we have come.

As someone who writes a blog on positivity and moving up in life, I must admit that my life didn’t always have such a happy outlook. Two years ago I was in a very unhealthy relationship with someone who made me believe that I wasn’t good enough to deserve anything better than what he was offering. My boyfriend at the time was doing plenty of illegal things to take care of his family. I worked full time to help support them. I didn’t start college, even after finishing high school a year early with a semester of college done, because I was scared of my future and had no idea what to do with my life. I lived in a house that looking back on, I will just say, I am surprised I don’t have multiple diseases from living in for so long. My parents and I had completely unstable relationships, because I had let so many of my dreams die in order take care of someone else. I had nothing to my name. I was at my rock bottom.

We all have those moments we call our “rock bottoms.”  We have them in different varying degrees and we all handle them differently. There are many times in this blog that I have stated “It’s not about what has happened in the past, it is what you took away from your experience.”

Many experiences are not pretty. There is no reason to look back and think of yourself as a failure. At one point in your life you were your weakest. At one point in your life, you decided to get stronger (or are still working on it.)

When I look back, I don’t see how miserable I have been, I remember how far I have come.

In two weeks I will have an associates degree in Marketing and Advertising. And while, I know to some people that seems like nothing, for the girl who held herself back to give someone else a chance to shine, it means the world. I have friends who have seen me through hell and back and they will always be here for me. I recently purchased my first brand new car. I have a real career and I am finally pursuing my dreams because I deserve to do so.

Remember to always look for the positives in your life.

Have a great week.
<3 Racy

The Power of Letting Go

Laugh when you can,
apologize when you should,
and let go of what you can’t change.
Life’s too short to be anything… but happy.
– Anonymous

There comes a point in life where you realize that you can’t hold on to bitter feelings of resentment towards events that have happened in your life. No one lives a “perfect life.” We all have our own struggles, our own battles, and we all deal with them in our own ways. As hard as it is to admit, coming from someone who writes a blog on the power of positivity, I didn’t always have the best means of handling my bottled up emotions.

I’ve been hardened by relationships as many of us have. I have been through what I will leave at “interesting” relationships. I am a product of parents who went through a hellish divorce. I have harbored resentment towards my step family for seeing my father get married, because I was not there.  I have battled with self-esteem and my image, who doesn’t?  I dealt with my problems in so many ways that I can’t even believe them myself looking back. I was anorexic for months in high school, because in my own head I never felt good enough for anyone. I put a brick wall around my heart to keep anyone out as I grew up. No one was allowed to get close enough to hurt me. I learned to show no emotion and many of my friends would have said that I was heartless towards men. I stress ate until I was fifty pounds overweight and I turned to alcohol when I got stressed out, because drowning my problems was easier than facing them.

About a month ago, as I was writing this blog, I realized that I have a lot of things in my life I need to let go of. Holding on to so much of my past, would only hinder how far I could advance in my future. I sat down and told one of my best friends a few of my stories and told her that I felt as if I needed to just get them off my chest. If someone else could listen without judgement and try to understand where I was coming from, I might feel a little better. The moment I told her and I cried it out, I felt so much better. There was literally a feeling of weight lifted off of my shoulders. When you learn to talk about something instead of bottling it up inside, there is a power of enlightenment that accompanies it.

I spent the next week, honest to God, on my bedroom floor, listening to emotional music and crying my eyes out. I thought I was broken, I hadn’t cried for no reason in years! So I layed there, I let it all out and then by then end of the week I felt amazing.I guess I literally cried out years of pent up emotions. I’ve realized over the last month that I actually cry over things normal people do. I cried at a wedding for the first time ever, I opened up to my emotions towards people in ways I never could before. My relationship with my step family has changed, because I no longer hold any resentment in my heart towards them. I am truly a new person.

I have finally faced my fear of who I am deep down. I am finally okay with just being me. If you don’t like who I am, don’t be a part of my life. I am who I am and you can take it or leave it.

With that said, I think my entire point of my story is that if you are dealing with something you can’t let go of or if you are being self destructive as a way of running from your emotions, there are better ways to handle things. No one is perfect. Someone in the world has been through your struggle. Find someone you trust dearly to talk to about your experiences. If you don’t have someone or don’t want to talk to a personal friend, find a counselor, but don’t be afraid to face your past.

“Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go.” — Herman Hesse

Let go of your past and sail towards the future.

Hope you all have an amazing week.

<3 Racy

Special thanks to my best friend Sarah for always being there for me. You never judge me for what I have been through and for that I am eternally grateful. I love you. <3

Life Lessons

There is one incredibly important thing to realize in life and that is that everything is a lesson in some format or another. This came to me Friday morning while I was attempting to make my first sales calls ever. I don’t mean phone calls either. I mean driving to businesses, speaking with clients, and trying to introduce myself as their sales rep. When they say epic fail in video games, I now know the true meaning of that statement. I drove around for hours to businesses that had closed, people weren’t in the office, and I had the wrong addresses for some.

That story doesn’t really start my positive blog in a happy manner, but I learned a lot of valuable lessons that day. First, I realized that my sales strategy of the day, for lack of a better word, sucked. However, I had the attitude that I was going to learn from my mistakes, refine my plan, and not give up. I won’t make the same mistake twice.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again expecting different results.

So why is it that we always try to do things that failed in the same way they failed before and hope that they work? That’s illogical. If in life you find yourself constantly in the same position in a job, a relationship, or in life, you have to start asking yourself what you aren’t changing. I am not saying to change yourself by any means. Be who you are and be damn proud of it, but don’t put the blame on other people either. For example, if you find yourself in relationships that don’t work out and you end up heartbroken all the time, you should probably consider changing how you approach relationships. If your in a job you hate and you leave to go to a job that you are doing the same thing, just for a different company, you may not solve your problem.

Take everything in life as a lesson. Make sure you are constantly learning from where you have been. The path you walk down may not always be perfect, but it can be perfectly valuable to your future.

Happy Monday!

<3 Racy