Trembling In Front Of Everyone | Social Anxiety Awareness

I had an in-class presentation today and I COMPLETELY BOMBED IT. It’s not easy deciding which is more painful: trembling and shaking uncontrollably in front of the entire lecture or the fact that this presentation was just to be a one to two-minute presentation about yourself… There’s no point in trying to see what is more painful – they equally hurt my heart just the same.

It had been a long time since I have had such uncontrollable spurts of social anxiety – to be completely honest I think this was one of the worst times I had it.

I’ve taken pride in my ability to overcome a majority of the everyday worries that caused my anxiety. Although public speaking has never been my cup of tea, for some strange reason – maybe it being in how evolved I felt my mental health to be – I actually had a vision in my mind that it would have gone a lot smoother than it did.

I practiced everything I was going to say – and timed it too (multiple times), I even started looking up some tips and tricks on how to overcome fear of public speaking – AND FOLLOWED THOSE SUIT! Heck, I even dressed up to give this one-minute presentation because I remember someone telling me that if I looked my best, I would feel my best – though I now realize that is all just a bunch of bologna, I’ll be sure to insert a photo of this before my dreams were crushed.

Added in a few friends to make this a less awkward selfie.

It’s disappointing to realize that all you still have a substantial amount of progress to make in regards to mental health. It brings me back to when I used to google Generalized Anxiety Disorders and the google helper would always state that this condition can ‘improve with treatment but cannot be fully cured’. It’s really a huge blow to the heart.

The only thing left to do is get better. Take step after step in order to overcome social anxiety and my fear of public speaking. Forget about everyone’s face as they saw me struggling to tell them where I was from or what my hobbies are. Forget those stares of pity that the people sitting next to me as I sat back down. Forget it all – and start from square zero.

If you have any tips for overcoming social anxiety/public speaking, please leave them down below. They are something I kind of would like to hear right about now.

Sending you all lots of love, and until next time! ❤

Surviving A 14 Hour Flight and Traveling Tips As A Vegan

Traveling in and of itself is always a great idea. It lets you explore the world, learn about different cultures, and maybe even realize that people may or may not be so different after all. You spend hours upon hours walking around novel cities, risking an entire foot’s worth of blisters and gaze at the people that are walking past you, behind you, or next to you and try to take notice of all the places they are going.

This part of traveling is the easiest part – the one everyone looks forward to. Though in order to get to this escapade of euphoria, you actually have to get out of your house and go to the airport and travel – and this is the shittiest part.

In all honesty, traveling sucks. You spend loads of money to get somewhere amazing, yet you start your trip on the most stressful foot possible. You need to get yourself to the airport, go through security, find your gate and make it to your gate because more often then not there is always a change (right, YVR?). If you have a massive layover (one of three hours or more) then this torture is massively prolonged. You remain seated in an uncomfortable airport lounge and begin profusely sweating until your time of departure.

While everything in the above-mentioned sounds dreadful, it is almost 1000 times worse when you are vegan.

There is no denying that vegans and veganism, in general, have taken pride in how easy veganism really is – that is, easier than what most people expect. To some degree, they are right, though they are gravely mistaken when it comes to traveling. Airports rarely have a variety of vegan options available that are in any way cost effective (like $7 for a banana Seattle Tacoma? Really?). Not to mention, that when you arrive at your destination, depending on what time of year you choose to travel, your options for eating vegan may either be very available or very restricted.

With this being said, I now give you my Stag Approved Traveling Tips so that you may find yourself in a less hungry and less stressed position the next time you travel:

1. If your flight includes a meal, PLEASE BOOK YOUR VEGAN OPTION IN ADVANCE!

I cannot stress how crucial this step is to surviving an 11-hour plane ride with an upcoming flight following your arrival. Your body is put under a lot of pressure during a long airplane flight, so hydration and proper alimentation are imperative for you to reach your destination without developing vertigo or compromise your immune system. Reserving your meal can be easily done online and one has up to 24 hours before a flight to reserve a meal, though they do not always show the menu of what is available.

Photo by bruce mars on Pexels.com

2. BYOVS

Bring-Your-Own-Vegan-Snacks. There are a lot of pros to this, but unfortunately a few cons. The number one con is that you have to account for it when you travel. This means that easily 90% of your allowed personal item will be full of either homemade or store-purchased vegan snacks. Another con is being stopped by airport security and having your bag thoroughly searched because I guess their x-ray machines find food and packaging to be really odd-looking. The last con is, that when preparing food to take on a flight, you need to account for security regulations and cannot include most jams and spreads in your snacks. So you will be stuck eating a lot of dry foods on top of caring for a dehydrated body… fun. Remember though – dry snacks are better than no snacks – you will be less cranky for sure. (Comment down below if you would like me to do a blog post about vegan airport snack ideas!).

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3. Bring A Reusable Water Bottle

Water at the airport is a robbery, though this varies depending on where you live and where you are traveling. If you are going to a country that you have been advised that tap water is unsanitary to drink, please do not compromise your health – but if you are traveling to Europe, USA, Canada, Australia, and anywhere else that has clean water – a reusable water bottle will be your best friend. Just make sure it is empty when you pass through TSA.

4. Stay At An AirBnB

Even though staying at a hotel can sometimes include a delicious breakfast with plenty of vegan options, if you are looking to travel cheap or if you are traveling during the holiday season, I highly recommend staying at an Airbnb. This way you are able to cook your meals and not have to worry about restaurants being open. During the holidays, most restaurants close early or don’t even open at all – this is especially true for vegan restaurants because they are still considered to be “specialty restaurants” in many parts of the world. So having your own space to cook meals will save you from the Christmases and New Years of starvation.

5. Research The Typical Foods Of The Places You Travel

In most Asian countries, it is common to use fish oils, meat broths, and bone broths as well. In most European countries, they heavily drench their food with mayonnaise and cheese. If you cannot find open vegan restaurants and need to resort to eating in nonvegan restaurants in hope of finding a vegan option, please do as much research about what is customary for people to eat in this country. You might order a veggie sandwich with no cheese and have your waiter place a vegetable sandwich that is almost vegan except for the river of mayonnaise that is dripping out of the bread.

Hopefully, this helps you on your next vacation. Please let me know if it does!

I’m sending you all lots of love and until next time! ❤

 

 

Manifesting… Envisioning…And Still Not Getting It? The Main Reason Why the Law of Attraction Is Not Delivering and How Steve Jobs Understood This Better Than Anyone

So you’ve been thinking about something grand for a long time, ey? Whether it be a new car, a new partner, or even a luxury vacation, you’ve taken it upon yourself to do everything possible in order to attain these things, and through your quest, you stumbled onto the law of attraction – and it completely changed you.

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Some call it luck, others call it fate, but you call it the universe responding to your thoughts (which is something absolutely magnificent). You began to see changes in your life – maybe by starting to manifesting small things like parking spots, a motivational poster placed at a certain spot, or a stranger that told you exactly what you needed to hear. Then you started to ask the universe for more things – bigger and better things. You began monitoring all of your vibrations, always making sure that you were vibing on the highest levels (which is exhausting work), you began scripting scenarios as you heard this was also a powerful method, maybe even tried the box-manifestation method (or any other method that is out there – thousands exist!). After all of this hard work, expecting to see your manifestations come to life, you reign in disappointed. Disappointed because you still have not gotten your desires AND having been doing everything in your power to get them.

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We have all been there. This is completely normal and is all thanks to the universes’ delayed gratification. Although it sounds crazy, it is a true blessing that the universe has a system of not immediately completing every desire for every thought. This begs the question: Why is it a good thing that one does not get what they want immediately? 

The answer? Because one is not ready to receive it.

What does this even mean? For those that do not know or remember, there are three very concrete set of rules of the universe (or at least to see changes from the universe). These rules are 1 – Ask, 2 – Believe, 3 – Receive. The latter rule seems to be the easiest, yet is really the hardest rule to follow.

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Why is being able to receive hard? Maybe you think that you have no problems receiving, or you might be thinking: Heck, I am ready to receive! I have been and will be all day every day! But if you haven’t actually gotten your desires yet – then I hate to break it to you – but you haven’t been doing a great job at receiving.

What Does This Mean?

Although at this point, you may be a little discouraged, getting to the center of what is holding you back can only help alter your current state so you can actually get what you desire.

To better understand this, I will explain this with a simple example: Steve Jobs, the creator of Apple and all of its products, was interviewed in 2007 (I do not remember by who – but that’s beside the point) about Apple and the release of the new I-phone. During this interview, he was asked about the future of the I-Phone and how advanced it would become. His response really stuck out. He admitted that in 2007, the I-Phone 10 had already existed, was already planned, and fully designed – it could not be released at the time because the world was not ready yet. I remember reading about this a few years ago and thought: Yeah right, we are totally ready for everything. This man just wants to make a good buck. It was only after a few years had actually passed and the I-Phone 10 was actually released that I understood what he actually meant. At the time of the first I-Phone release, the world was not equipped to handle all the features that we know the I-Phone 10 currently has. In 2007, 4G had not been launched yet which only left 3G which would have made using Facetime, wireless headphones, and just about anything else on the I-Phone a drag. Also at the time, the world was still operating using flip phones and Blackberry phones, so leapfrogging from simpler phones to one that is much more powerful would have proved itself to be a lot less exciting for people and the I Phone itself would have become a distasteful gadget – leading people to dislike it and cause Apple to not be as successful as it is now. Tough this example can be seen as ‘hindsight bias’, its lesson is as pure as gold.

If you are not ready for something, then you should not receive it. Simple as that.

If you say you want something but you keep thinking “I don’t deserve it”, “It will never happen”. “Do I really want this?” – or maybe you do not invest enough time into actions that will get you to your goals. Like, it is easy for you to say “I want an A in calculus” but if you only study one hour a week and barely do your homework, then you aren’t ready for that A. If you want a successful online business but you only spend a few hours a week promoting it, then you are not ready to receive the greatness of achieving your goals. Another way to look at this is: If you were a toddler and you wanted a jawbreaker that your parents knew you could not eat because you didn’t have any teeth, you’ve never eaten something like this before, and you might end up hurting yourself by eating it, would you really want your parents to give it to you? NO!

So now that you know what is holding your desires back from manifesting – make the necessary changes that you need to (positive thoughts, preparing more, etc) and watch how your life quickly begins to change!

I hope this post helped you! If it did or if you have any additions, suggestions, or interesting opinions, please let me know down below! I would love to hear from you!

 

Organization Challenge

This is kind of part of my 2019 goals, basically getting-my-shit-together goals.

For the longest time, people have always looked at me and instantly had the impression that I am a very neat and organized person. I really do not know what gave them this impression, but it’s not like I ever did anything to disprove these people either. I actually kind of like being thought of as neat and organized and put-together.

Alas, this is the furthest thing from the truth. I am unfortunately a very messy person. I am sure I am not alone when I say this either.

I mean, for the most part, I do a pretty good job at staying on top some of the everyday household cleaning activities like laundry and dishes and weekly sweepings. What I struggle with the most, however, is my habit of literally getting home and throwing all of my stuff around my house and shoving stuff into drawers and leaving everything everywhere. This is probably a habit developed from years of naturally shoving everything under my bed when it came to cleaning my room.

Regardless, I am trying to survive in adulthood and will be an actual adult after graduating this May, so I think that it is for the best that I actually start getting my shit together and actually break some of the bad habits that have been ingrained in my system for a long time.

I’ve gone room to room in my place and taken notice of all the defaults that make disorganization easier than organization. These are a few that I’ve taken note of:

The Bathroom

All of my drawers do not have dividers for all of the items that I have there, which makes everything kind of clump up into a big mess. Also, my current system of dividing products out is not really working for me, since I do not take notice of the products that I use often and those that I do not (I literally have a bottle of Sun-In lotion that I have barely touched since I was in high school). My cabinets on the bottom need some TLC as well.

My Room

I am a self-proclaimed bookworm, hence I have an extensive collection of books lying around everywhere. Getting a bookshelf is not in the picture since my room is not that big and my current system of storing items underneath my bed is kind of impeded by literally every corner in my room. As for the actual bookshelves in my room, they are taken up by boxes that really do not have anything in them.

The Living Room

My living room is always a massive mess. After this sick spell, it actually looks worse. I have three sofas (really 2 and one seat). One of them is full of bags, the other always has a blanket lazily covering it with my laptop, and the smallest one has, ironically, an organization box from Ikea with nothing in it. Though the real tragedy is on my coffee table – it is easily like a desert of confusion which harbors both useful (electronic charges, school notepads, pens, and flashcards) and unnecessary items (empty water bottles, medicine, sunblock, my knife, and books).

The Desk Area

This place is going to be hard to really clean out and organized because 1) My parent shave dumped all of their unnecessary stuff in this area and 2) Some of it is way too big to move. I do not use this area of the house anymore because of this. My chair technically cannot go back because there is a bunch of stuff that impedes its way. I do not have a lot of hope for this area, but at least for my sanity’s sake, I will try to organize it so at least it looks semi-presentable when people come over.

The Kitchen

The kitchen itself is not too bad. The only thing I would have to do here is put all clean dishes where they belong and position some of my appliances better. One of my aunts always tells me that in order for your house to always look clean and be “mother-in-law approved” (not that I need to worry about this) is to always have the beds made, the dishes clean and put away, and have your biggest surfaces clear of any mail or anything else.

The Dining Room

Another room in my place that is in desperate need of some TLC. I get rather lazy in regards to moving all my spices and vitamins back to where they belong in the pantry, and every time I go and get the mail, I am bombarded with all of these newsletters, coupons, and bills (shivers). Definitely in need of a better system!

I will be updating later on some ideas and maybe even purchases that I have made in order to better fix my problems and succeed in creating an organization system that I can actually keep!

Do you have any organization goals this 2019? If so, please comment down below! I would love to hear from you!

As always, I am sending you all lots of love, and until next time! ❤

(I was having technical issues, and these were the only photos I could upload – sorry).

Trying Out Angela Liddon’s Vegan Borscht Recipe

If you are vegan, health conscious, or just an overall lover of good food, you have probably already heard of Oh She Glows by Angela Liddon. For those that haven’t, I highly recommend checking her website out. She has tons of fun and creative recipes for you to try!

I had first come across Oh She Glows when a few of our family friends sent me the Oh She Glows Everyday cookbook as a Christmas present about three years ago. I believe that they sent me this gift with an intention to learn how to properly cook whole-hearted plant-based meals after they witnessed me eating soggy french fries for dinner one night when they were over. After flipping through the pages of this lovely book, I began to start making some of my first ever successful vegan breakfasts. For this, I am eternally grateful.

Photo source: http://makingthymeforhealth.com/peanut-butter-lovers-chocolate-tart/

I had seen this borscht-inspired cabbage soup on her website some time ago. Normally I am not a huge fan of soup for some odd reason. So when I saw this recipe on her blog, I had to look for a reason to make it. If you read my last blog post, you would know that I have been sick with acute pharyngitis for the past week. So about a week ago, when I still had enough strength to stand for longer periods of time, I decided to make this soup, seeing as how I would need it. You can check out the recipe here.

What I really liked about this recipe was how little one actually needed for it. It was so perfect for me, especially since I was just starting to get sick and I was in no mood to actually go to the grocery store.

One thing I will never get over, however, is how my kitchen always looks like a crime scene whenever I try to cook something new, haha.

After I had copped up all the vegetables, I started following the recipe’s directions and already, some of the doubts I have had about this recipe were being brought to light. The recipe calls for the use of coconut butter to saute the vegetables. Dealing with coconut butter when not melted involves a lot of arm and wrist strength which I was not ready for, but I persisted and discovered that the coconut butter mixed with the onion and the cabbage gave it this savory flavor. It was a little better the caramelized onion, yet still sweet. So folks, please do NOT omit using coconut butter in this recipe.

Also, I used an average saucepan for this recipe, and at one point I felt that the pot was overflowing. Even though sauteing the vegetables decreased the amount of space the vegetables took up in the pot, I still recommend using a larger pot so that you have more room.

Next came the marinara sauce! As this recipe states, using the marinara sauce as a base for soups is convenient and bound to give whatever soup an explosion of flavor. I had gone to Whole Foods the other night and decided to be fancy and get some organic marinara sauce, though any marinara sauce will work well here. Do not omit using this sauce, it is what gives the soup a majority of its flavor.

I let that simmer for 1 hour and 40 minutes, well within the scope of time the recipe stated. All of my red beets and cabbage had been cooked properly and the soup tasted ‘just right’, so I highly recommend cooking this soup longer than 1 hour 30 minutes.

Here is the final product! Before eating the soup, I added in some dried dill weed to give it some extra flavor – and boy did it! The dill complimented the cabbage and marinara sauce so well – do not be afraid to add this to the soup!

One thing that really stuck out to me was how much soup this recipe made! Even though it was insanely delicious, by the end of the third day of being sick, I was already fed up with it. If you are like me and are not the biggest fan of soup, then I recommend halving the entire recipe so that you will end up with less soup overall.

Other than that, I really enjoyed making this soup and trying out something different. A special thank you to Angela Liddon for creating it! She is truly a master at creating delicious vegan recipes – and I will be trying more of her newer recipes out in the future!

Have you tried any Oh She Glows recipes out before? Leave a comment and let me know! I would love to hear from you!

As always, I am sending you lots of love, and until next time! ❤

 

 

Sick Days… What They Have Taught Me

As I write this, I am sitting here with a tower of used, booger-y tissues compiled right next to me. My nose is a slight shade of red-purple, my eyes are red and watery, and my lymph nodes are adequately swollen. My body has come to a  tragic conclusion: I am sick.

I am sick, sick, SICK. Honestly it has been a good minute since I have last been sick – in fact, I was actually keeping score. It had been a good 10 months since I last fell ill and I was finally looking forward to seeing my immune system strengthening. Ever since I went vegan, I noticed a lot of changes within my body, but one of the most significant changes that I noticed was dealing with my slightly weakened immune system. Even though veganism does have a lot of health benefits, the shortage of protein that my body had to adapt to in the beginning really lead me to get sick a lot more frequently. (As a note, my immune system is quite healthy and has fortunately always been healthy – veganism affects everyone differently. If you have more questions, I recommend that you speak with a dietician or your primary health practitioner).

This all brings me back to this post… What my body has forced me to learn.

After coming back from Europe, I had originally planned to use these next few weeks of vacation left to overcoming jet lag, going on small adventures, running more, hitting the gym harder, and living an adventurous life that I had dreamed of living for a long time. Yet, sure enough, as the jet lag had worn off and I finally had my first day back in the office, a massive case of acute pharyngitis came at me in full speed.

If you have been reading my blog for some time now, you would know that I am a full believer in the law of attraction and manifesting things with your thoughts, and I had been trying so hard for the last weeks in December and first weeks in January to put out as much positive and adventurous energy, and yet, I still got sick.

Bedridden and lonely, I had to come to one of the hardest lessons that I really did not want to learn, but I guess I am glad I did. The lesson was this: Sometimes the universe will give you events that YOU didn’t ask for in order for you to learn new lessons about yourself, or to relearn something that is important. At first, this signified something discouraging – that we really aren’t in control of what happens to us… but then again, this is also something that one learns when they decide to adventure out into the world. In a sense, that’s what makes life so unique – that things can go in so many directions to ultimately make life much more magical… It’s really a comforting thought.

This was the first lesson that I learned. The next few are kind of small – but still much needed.

I discovered that with a little boredom and a diminishing appetite that I knew I needed to sustain, I could come up with some quick, simple, and delicious recipes. One of my favorites was this breakfast oatmeal that I cooked up in less than 5 minutes.

Looks kind of gross, but it is totally delicious! The recipe is:

1 cup of rolled oats

1 3/4 cup of sweetened vanilla almond milk

1 banana

1-2 teaspoons of cinnamon

1 tablespoon of ground flaxseed

A dash of maple syrup

I made this in a regular copper cooking pan and it worked out really well. I pour the almond milk into my pan and waited for it to start boiling. In the meantime, I began to mash one banana and added that into the almond milk as well. I added a small dash of maple syrup to the wet mixture and began stirring until I started to see smoke and bubbles (about 1-2 minutes). Then I added in the oats, flaxseed, cinnamon, and another splash of maple syrup and stirred that together for about 2 minutes, stirring counterclockwise at first, then concentrating the mix toward the center of the pan.

I topped it off with a couple of strawberries – it turned out great! This breakfast is quick, easy, cheap, and (for most illnesses) sick-girl approved.

I also messed around with some rice…

This was a good mixture of brown rice, sesame seed oil, carrots, edamame, ginger powder, garlic powder, and salt. This took much longer than 5 minutes to make – but it was totally worth it.

I also learned that I am a huge fan of Telenovelas. I used to watch them when I was a kid with my mother (if you are Latino, you know what I am talking about), but quickly stopped watching them because they were way too much drama. Back then, I had drama literally almost every day at school. Now, as an illness-forced couch potato, any kind of drama, especially not my own, is more than welcomed. If I can’t leave my couch to find out that my best friend is also my long lost sister from another mister and that her boyfriend is really our cousin, then might as well watch other people do so (Again, watch a Telenovela, you’ll understand).

Lastly, I learned that my skin really reflects how well I take care of it as much OUTSIDE than what I put in my body. By this, I mean, I have monitored what I eat, drink, and limited how much greasy stuff that I put into my body to make sure that my skin can look the very best that it can. I mean, most people have always said that 70% of any health battle is diet. While this much is true, the remaining 30% of external work (face masks, exfoliation, and creams) are just as important. In the past, I would have deemed myself too busy to do any of these things, but now, I had ample time to focus on those bloody undereye bags.

As you can see, my skin may not be 100% blemish free, but baby steps amount to great results.

Those are just some of the few things that I have learned while being sick (more of the fun ones anyway). While it has been a trip, I am really looking forward to feeling better. Hopefully, this will be soon.

That’s all for this post, please let me know: What valuable lessons have you learned while being sick? How do you deal with your undereye bags? and if you try out any of the recipes that I listed above, please let me know if you like them!

I am sending you all lots of love…. and until next time! ❤

Why and How to Cut Ties With Bad Friends

It’s 2019, the start of a new year which always symbolizes the beginning of a purge in all aspects of your life. Whatever this purge may be (less junk food, less social media, less drunken nights), it is never easy (nobody said it would be), and we have all been there. Though, one purge I feel that I have both been putting off doing because of how difficult it is (and I am sure I am not alone here), is cutting all ties with toxic friends.

This is by far, the hardest change a lot of people have to make because it involves you having to literally banish another person from your life – and not just any other person, but someone whom you considered a confidant, a peer, heck – even your second half.

I am here today to show you how to pinpoint who these friends are, why you should cut ties with them, and how to do it. My goal in this is for you to analyze who your friends are, and facilitate a long-overdue, permanent goodbye.

Who Are These Toxic Friends?

Identifying who the people you need to cut from your life is possibly the second hardest step to this whole process, reason being, more often than not the people that you should be cutting out from your life are the people you feel you need around the most. They have been there for several years or maybe they are the kind of person you feel like you should be friends with.

BUT, if you notice that these individuals:

• Make you feel like your an outsider in group environments
• Bring up feelings of jealousy or discontentment when together
• Ghost you (completely stop talking to you) for long periods of time, then reappear when they either want/need something or just even say that they have been “too busy”
• All they do is complain
• Do not bother speaking to you in the language that you commonly speak when in a group with others that speak the language of your “friend”
• Make you want to lie in order to make yourself feel better or spare their feelings on an issue
• Make you enjoy events less – or you have less fun when they are around
• Only call you when they need something, or they are always in need of something every time they speak with you
• Have a hard time accepting that you are better at something than they are
• Say things to intentionally hurt you, but then laugh it off and tell you that you are “too sensitive” or that “this is how they joke”
• Make fun of others and speak about others behind their backs to you (odds are they do the same about you)
• Demand to have a certain amount of influence in your life on the basis of “being your friend”
• Backstabbed you

You need to cut these people out of your life ASAP. If there was someone that you had in mind when reading this, then this absolutely is a person that is not enriching your life but rather bleeding it dry. Anyone that I did not mention, or that makes you feel negative in some way is definitely someone that you do not want to have around. More often than not, you can feel who makes you feel good about yourself and who does not. As for the ones who do not, it may be difficult to come to terms with you no longer wanting to be around them, but you owe it to yourself and your happiness to rid your social circle of people who make you feel negative or odd. If you have read this list, but still have a gut feeling that someone in your life may not fit these criteria but still makes you feel bad, CUT THEM OUT. Truth is, if you feel this way about a person, it’s for a reason and it’s better to listen t this warning your gut is telling you versus ignoring it.

Why These “Friends” Need To Go

People that make you feel less than optimal will drag you down one way or another. While you may or may not believe in the law of attraction, the people that you surround yourself with will impact your vibrations and bring experiences that come along with this. This being said, if someone is making you feel bad about yourself or is always acting in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable, sooner or later, these people will shape the experiences that you have with them. These experiences will mimic their vibrations of negativity and ultimately affect yours.

How To Face and Cut Out Toxic Friends

This will never be easy, but it is necessary if you want to move on and achieve a life of higher vibrations and positive experiences.

How to SYSTEMATICALLY cut an individual from your life – this is how you would cut a friend off by “drifting apart”. This is probably the least direct and most likable of these methods. This requires you to literally communicate less with this person, reject their invitations, and practically fall off their grid. In a sense, it is kind of like ghosting, except you systematically leave traces of disinterest little by little. Why this works: Not only is this a bit of a direct way to show someone you are losing interest in them, it is also a way to get sweet revenge over someone that has either ghosted you before or ignores you every time you guys go out. This method also helps you slowly gain a little more confidence with every single step you take to get furthest away from this individual. It can start out by simply rejecting to get coffee and then build up to a direct “I do not want to be around you anymore”.

How to DIRECTLY cut an individual from your life – this is where you would approach your friend, sit down, and have a conversation about why you guys should not be friends anymore. Here, there are no confusions about your feelings towards them, they will get the message directly. Though I should mention, this method works best for individuals who can handle confrontation straight up. If you are the kind of person that either speaks indirectly or spares someone’s feelings when having conversations, then I highly recommend that you avoid this method altogether. Why this works: You will achieve desired results immediately – which is kind of like a double-edged sword. You will have gotten your point across with just one attempt – but that’s the thing – you only have one attempt to do this. If you cannot handle people being visibly upset or you know that you cannot communicate well – or if your friend is known to be highly manipulative – it might be best to go with the first option of drifting apart.

Remember To Keep In Mind…

That getting rid of people that make you feel negative emotions is really for the best in the long run. If there are people in your life that are disrespecting you, not appreciating you, or just straight up not treating you well, even though it sounds crazy, ridding yourself of these people will be the best thing that can happen in regards to those individuals.

With all of this in mind, I hope these tips help you confront and handle someone in your life that is better off not being a part of it.

I am sending you all lots of love, and until next time!

 

Christmas in Paris 2018

Hey there you!

It has been a while since I last posted on here – this time for a good reason – for the past two weeks, I had been on a little escapade with my sister in Europe to spend the holidays together, and it was by far the best thing I could have ever done.

Although Christmas and New Years are holidays one should spend with their ENTIRE family, the image of going back home to our parents who celebrate each and every holiday by doing absolutely NOTHING made us cringe. We knew we had to figure something out in order for us to have a perfect holiday season – and well, Europe is always a good idea.

This trip was also a long time coming – when we were younger, my family and I would spend almost every Christmas in Paris, and since this is my last Christmas as a student, We felt that going back to spend a Christmas by ourselves was the way to go.

Fast forwarding to the day of the trip: I had woken up to be mortified as I was greeted by a text message that informed me that my ride to the airport had just fallen through because my friend had WAAY too much to drink last night. Unfortunately, I inherited my mother’s neuroticism when it comes to traveling, meaning that even if everything is going okay, in my mind everything is a massive catastrophe. I had to act fast and ended up paying for a pretty expensive taxi ride to the airport – though I managed to get there in time and made my flight.

 After twelve long hours and several punches from a passenger who kept having nightmares, I had finally landed in London. One of the grimmest realities of purchasing tickets near the holiday season is how expensive they are – it will cost you a pretty loonie to fly to a destination directly, so I opted to find cheaper plane tickets at the cost of my time and psychological endurance. I used Skyscanner to book my tickets, and even though tickets on there are quite cheap, they also come with a massive amount of layovers – I have seen some tickets with as much as a three-day layover! In the past, this would not have bothered me, but now as a 23-year-old, I would be lying if I said that I felt as energized as I did when I was 21 and went backpacking all of Europe.

 Though on a more comical note, I discovered that London Heathrow has a Gordon Ramsey Restaurant referred to as “Plane Food”. Though I did not eat here because at this point of my trip, all I wanted to do was sleep, I can only hope to go back and see what if Chef Ramsey is as good as they say he is.

After a few hours more, I flew directly to Charles de Gaulle and was reunited with my sister ❤

We immediately checked into our hotel and began walking all over the streets in search of food. As we were walking, we saw some of the most amazing sites – so much more beautiful than I remember.

Seeing the Eiffel Tower light up at night was absolutely amazing. It really proved to me that no matter how well you may think you know a place, it can never fail at surprising you.

We later passed out, but not before setting our alarms for 7 a.m.

The next day came about, and it was December 24th, technically the day before Christmas depending on when you celebrate it. We spent most of this day site-seeing and stocking up on groceries because, come the next day, and we know we will not be able to eat literally anywhere. We went around and saw the Eiffel Tower in the daytime.

There’s yours truly at the end! The view was magnificent and it was surprisingly not too cold! Also, I did not realize this the last time I was on the tower, but they actually serve you Champagne while you are taking in all the views – since I did not see this during the summer, I believe that this is only something that pertains to the winter season (just a heads up!). We continued to walk around the Champs Elysees and visited more iconic sites like the Arc de Triumph.

 Though, I must admit, what really took my breath away, and is absolutely worth the visit if you ever have the chance to go during Christmas, is Galleries LaFayette. Every year during the holidays they decorate the entire mall in a spectacular way – truly unlike anything I have ever seen.

 I think these pictures speak for themselves…

December 25: Christmas Day

The day got started on the wrong foot due to a foolish argument that was started by our parents (will go more in depth in a different post). We were not going to let this get us down – I mean it was Christmas after all! So we quickly gathered ourselves and made our way to the only other sites that we have not yet visited in Paris: Notre Dame and the Montmartre Hearts Basilica.

We were lucky enough to sit in for the Christmas mass service – which even though we are not Catholic, was such a humbling and awesome (lack of a better word) experience. The reason being that Notre Dame was built in 1063 – which is such a long time ago, yet throughout history, battles, and disasters, this Cathedral has remained an important staple for people of faith. Also, Christmas mass has been a tradition they have had since the beginning of this cathedral. Though, I think the icing on the cake was seeing the Saint Joan of Arc statue in Notre Dame – this statue is the only female Saint in all of Notre Dame. Women like her and Catalina de Erauso always inspired me as a kid.

For the rest of the day, we were surrounded by incredible views of the city. Even though most of the city was closed, Halal and Baklava shops were our saving grace. We treated ourselves to some of the most authentic-tasting Baklava outside of the middle east – they were delicious!

As for now, I am back home battling jet lag, daydreaming about how much I wish I was there again. Writing this post certainly helped suffice this craving.

That’s all for now. Tell me, did you travel back home for the holidays? Or go somewhere new? Please comment down below!

Sending you all lots of love! I will see you next time!

Stag-Approved Tips that Work for Reducing Anxiety

Hey there you!

With exams taking up so much of our energy for these past few weeks, there is no doubt that your mental psyche has taken a hit. Or maybe it is not exams. Maybe you have been busy with all the holiday festivities and are constantly looking down a list of tasks that still need to be done. Though, deep down, you know that this list is practically a death sentence because it is humanly impossible to do every little thing on there. Or maybe you are just going through the motions of life – my boo boo, I feel you.

In fact, it is not uncommon to feel stressed out around the holidays. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, holidays – particularly holiday get together and parties – are typical and powerful stressors for a lot of people (Read more about that here). This had me thinking about how I used to cope with all of this pressure in the past – specifically, the days of frequent panic attacks, unstoppable tears, and overall uneasiness. As I thought about these rough patches, I started connecting the dots as to what my fears were and how I handled them. Surely enough, I came back with a few tips and tricks to reducing holiday/exam anxiety – and I am overjoyed that I can share them with you all.

Exercise

Even though it is the holidays, and its kind of cold outside – depending on where you are from of course, and working out seems almost impossible… but it does not have to be all bad. I really have found that I tend to stress less and manage stressful situations more. 

Whether it be walking up and down the stairs or 30 minutes, or doing some Blogilates at home, or actually going to the gym – exercise is something you should definitely prioritize and add to your self-care routine. It can only benefit you. 

Self-Care

Self-care – specifically treating yourself like you matter is often something that is over-looked this time of year. As a result, your mental psyche starts to wither away and before you know it – BAAM! A wave of anxiety crashes into you and its not like you can tell your parents, children, or friends that you can’t go to their ugly Christmas Sweater party because you are too anxious. So instead, try to act preventatively – you would be surprised with what a little attention to yourself could do. 

My best tip for this is to do something that makes you feel cozy. My favorite thing to do is to put on fluffy socks, grab a glass of spiced almond milk, and read a book that really makes me think. The current book that I revert to when I do this is Los Cuatro Acuerdos – or The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. Though, any book that can make you think about life in a different perspective tends to really work, since it forces me to get out of whatever situation I am having and instead focus on the present. It is honestly so rare to have moments like these when you are out living your daily life. If this really isn’t for you, you can always listen to podcasts, watch motivational videos, take a bath, moisturize, watch a show, or even take a nap. Just pamper yourself a little – because you really deserve it! 

Feel Free to Skip Out If It Gets to Be Too Much

We’ve all been there. A social gathering where everyone is talking, having a good time, crashing into you, and you do not feel even the slightest bit welcome or comfortable which makes you want to curl up in the corner and try to avoid speaking to anyone… until someone notices then mentions it to everyone and then suddenly everyone wonders if you are okay, and others start asking you why you aren’t more social and then everything from there on out is super embarrassing. Literally happens to me more than I would like to admit – and I am sure I am not alone here. 

There are several ways you can go about this. My most recent method has been to just not go. If your host asks you why you aren’t going or begs you to come, just simply state that you do not feel comfortable enough to go. In the event that this get-together is at your house with your close family, then I would try the band-aid method. 

The Band-Aid Method

This is by far one of the hardest things probably anyone will have to do in their lives ever, and this is: learning to embrace your fears (also known as ripping off a band-aid). This was really difficult for me to start doing but once I started to face my fears, I ended up feeling a lot better about myself.

An example of this was going out with a group of people that at one point, I considered my good friends. They had invited me to a restaurant, in which there were not a lot of options for me to eat as a vegan, then go out to a bar. Long story short, we went out and got a little drunk, not blacked out drunk but drunk enough for you to start talking louder and feel kind of dazed. It was a little worse for me since I did not really get to eat much because of that poor restaurant choice. At the end of the night, two of the people I was with acted horribly inappropriate to me and one even grabbed my ass. This really disgusted me – and rightfully so – no one should ever have to put up with that kind of behavior.

Some time passed after that and my birthday had come and gone. Though I could not celebrate it because I had an exam the day after, I was still able to celebrate right after. I was at work and my coworkers wanted to have some team member camaraderie and they ended up remembering that my birthday had passed by. We all wanted to go out to eat, and at first I thought it would be a death sentence since I have a restrictive diet, but these lovely people actually went out of their way to find a place where we could all eat and be at peace – they spent about 7 minutes doing so – which was a hell of a lot more than my supposed friends did. It was an amazing night filled with so much fun and laughter, I actually realized how much fun it was to actually be out and around other people. 

Fast-forwarding a few weeks later, the same friend that had invited me to that wreck of a get together invited me to go to see a movie with everyone – including those two horrible individuals to watch a new movie that came out. My friend kept repeating her usual mantra when it came to her convincing me to go out with her: I swear it will be different, I will always be at your side, I swear this farther, more luxurious location will make all the difference (literally an hour drive to a theater with food I cannot eat), etc. After comparing my coworkers with my “friends”, the choice was easy. I politely declined to go out with them, and even though they questioned why, groaned about it, and honestly IDK what else they did, my mind was made up – and I managed to stand up for myself. 

These people do not talk to me anymore – which I have learned to embrace as fine. Though, had I not chosen to avoid their other get-togethers, I would still be stuck in the same situation as usual. 

Though this may not apply to everyone exactly, standing up for yourself and overcoming your fears are synonymous with each other. So whether it be your totally cool friend that keeps begging you to be a better party guest, or a crude family member that picks on your weight, or horrible cousins that remind you of an awful past – learn to set your limits to what you can take. Sometimes direct aversion is actually your most powerful tool – and always stand by yourself no matter what. Rip that band-aid off, and I guarantee, you’ll feel better. 

Though this last one takes a hell of a lot of guts and practice – everyone starts somewhere – And its time for you to be free of whatever holds you back. Learn to love yourself, as well as the process of taking care of yourself. Your anxiety will never be able to crush you once you do. Maybe just one moment of band-aid ripping, exercise, self-care, or RSVp-ing “NO” will make all the difference for you this holiday season. 

I hope you found this helpful, and until next time, I am sending you all lots of positivity and love ❤

Thank you for reading! 

 

 

Countdown ‘Til 23

It’s official! In Less than a week, I will be 23 – still in my younger years, but one year closer to 30.

Although it sounds horrible, I have never been a particular fan of birthdays. This mainly stems from my childhood growing up in a strict Muslim country. Ever since I could remember, I hated when my birthday would come around since it also signaled the start of Ramadan – the holiday in which everyone fasts… not the best time for potato wedges and birthday cake hehe. I would spend the day that I came into the world trying to please people of a religion that I was not a part of. I do not want to get much into this but this left me scarred as a child, and I vowed to always celebrate my birthday on my own – my terms, my way.

This is what I have done for all my other birthdays for the past 12 years.

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Today, as my last class ended and I could not shake the feeling of being utterly defeated by my last exam, I had a realization – A life that is not being enjoyed, really isn’t a life at all. I felt a ping of guiltiness as I thought this because I do have several blessings in my life. My problem is not knowing what to do with these blessings going forward. After almost 23 years of life, it is quite sad that I still do not have a grip on this yet.

I also realized that there is no point in stressing out about this as well. So what if you do not have a grip on life? To be fairly honest, I haven’t been able to come up with a person who does! Not even Trudeau!

The whole point of focusing on mental health for me and this blog was to be able to show that your understanding of life and your understanding of yourself are the most important factors to obtaining peace of mind. More importantly, these are the only two variables that we do have any control over.

So with this new enlightenment, I am determined to make my last week as a 22-year-old be the calmest, most spiritually awakening week. This will be easier said than done since I have two exams and one project due the day after my birthday – but again, I trust the process and everything will turn out great! I certainly feel it.

Hope your spiritual journey is going well! I want to give a shoutout to all my Scorpios: Happy Birthday to Us! It’s our time to shine 🙂

I am sending those who read this lots of love and I wish you guys the very best this week!

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