Life Advice

Hakuna Matata

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I was thinking today about how much I used to worry about things. I worried constantly. about the weirdest stuff.

Here’s a list of some of the things:

Worrying about getting sick, even diseases that it would be very unlikely for me to get.

Worrying about a natural disaster occurring, even ones that don’t happen where I live.

Worrying about getting poisoned.

Worrying about ending up in the hospital.

Worrying about whether I was crazy or not.

Worrying about someone breaking into my house.

Worrying about villains from movies that aren’t actually real.

Worrying about criminals that are real.

I think that’s plenty, but there were more. As you can see some of my worries were irrational, and I knew they were. But one thing I’ve found out is that your mind doesn’t know the difference between a real threat and an imagined one. (At least the immature mind doesn’t. And your emotions never do.) But you know what? I’ll bet you’ve had some of those worries. Most of us do, or we have other irrational fears. If you don’t you’re very fortunate. My worrying was the result of my soul being enslaved to fear. To the point where if I wasn’t afraid of something, I was a little uncomfortable, because it was abnormal.

That was years ago, and it has taken me a long time to get free of fear. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can simply choose not to be afraid, if fear runs deep in you; the choice method only works if you are not a normally fearful person and your fear is on the surface. When fear is rooted in your personality, it has to be pulled out. That’s not to say it’s always painful. Often the answer is just to experience love. That wipes out a lot of fear. I know for a fact that until you’ve felt love, really felt it, you can not even begin to stand up to fear on your own. You might have a few victories, but you won’t really change your nature. Fear is not always something you can walk out of, sometimes you have to be pulled out of it.

Take Elsa from Frozen, she really wants to be free of fear, but eve though she sings an amazing song, and changes her image, and leaves behind her old life, the minute she has a reason, she becomes ensnared in her fear again. In fact she sings about it, with Anna:

Anna: For the first time in forever…

Elsa: Oh, I’m such a fool, I can’t be free!

Anna: You don’t have to be afraid.

Elsa: No escape from the storm inside of me!…I can’t control the curse….there’s so much fear…

Anna:…we can change this winter weather, and  everything will be all right.

Elsa: I can’t!!!

See? She can’t. There are probably other examples. If you’ve ever been so frustrated with someone who keeps backing down from challenges, even though they know they shouldn’t, they are probably afraid. If you have that problem, then you’re afraid of something. It’s okay, we’ve all been afraid.

But it’s not okay to live in fear. I think everyone would agree with me on this except people on TV. Have you noticed how popular it is to give in to fear on Television? It’s considered funny. People pass it off that way because they aren’t willing to try to be great. So they make mediocrity humorous. This is not to be cruel to people in the entertainment industry, most of them do it because it’s what is expected of them.

I was miserable as a fearful person. But I did not wake up one day and decide I would be brave. In fact, when I came to the breaking point, bravery was far from my mind. When I became a Christian, I had no thought of being brave. To be honest, I mostly felt sorry for myself, because its not like it was my fault I was cowardly. But there was just a little tiny part of me that finally said “Something is more important than fear.” At the time that something was not going to hell.( It’s a long story.) Since then I’ve decided other things are worth more than safety. But even one thing is enough to get you started. God does the rest.

The choice part comes in when you get scared again and have to keep making progress. It’s never your own power, it is only letting yourself be led.

This may sound nuts to anyone who does not believe in God. But I don’t believe there is another cure for chronic fear and worry syndrome. I will say that people have helped me as well, but you always have to be willing to open up to them enough so that they can help you. Worry is like any other addictive substance, it’s hard to kick, but once you do, you don’t want to go back. Here’s to being worry free!

Natasha

I’m in Control.

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I hope I won’t lose points if I admit that I do, on occasion, like to watch Barbie movies. Barbie annoys the heck out of me 90% of the time, but now and then the company comes out with a good movie. (Is there a hashtag for that?) In case anyone reading likes her, here are my top three: Barbie and  The Fairy Secret, Barbie Princess Charm school, And Barbie Starlight Adventure. The titles are the worst, I admit, but the content isn’t. Okay, now to why I am bringing this up. In yet another movie (The Princess and the Pop star,)045 there’s  a song that’s pretty good, and one line in it has always grabbed my attention. “I’m in control, I broke the mold, the girl you see is up to me.” (Here I am.) It’s a standard theme, being yourself.

But I always think of the implications. It’s one thing to be yourself, it’s another to think that means no rules, no boundaries. “No right, no wrong, no rules for me, I’m free!” I love Elsa, but I’ve never like that part of the song. But  the words “I’m in control” from the above song, those warrant a little reflection.

What does it mean to be in control? Especially of your career, your life, your self.

Well we all know one can’t be in control of one’s career, disaster can strike, at any time. We hope it will not, or we ignore the possibility, but it is there. You can make career choices, but you can’t control accidents, economy, or public zeal.

Being in control of our life is something a lot of us really want. If only we could meet all its demands, and still do something meaningful. If we could know we were making a difference. Well, we are, whether we know it or not. No one is inconsequential. On our own strength, I really don’t think we can balance all aspects of life. And that is because of thing number three.

If we can’t control ourselves, then we can’t control anything else. I heard the term Self-Control for years before I knew what it was. I’m still figuring it out actually, but this is what I’ve got so far: Self Control is the ability to keep your feelings and impulses from ruling your behavior. It is not banishing all feeling of pain or sadness, it is simply not letting those feelings ruin your life. Self Control means if you get angry, you can keep from blowing up at someone, even if they deserve it. Self Control means you’ll do what you intend to, and not get side tracked or succumb to temptation.

In that movie of movies, Frozen, Elsa thinks for a while that the key to freedom is having no rules to break. But no one has to tell her that’s not true, she realizes it pretty quickly after her sister informs her that she’s plunged her entire kingdom into deep winter; eternal winter they think. (I suppose there’s no proof it was eternal.) Elsa finds out that whether she’s around man-made rules or not, there are rules of nature. Fear does affect things. And she’d not gotten rid of hers yet. Fear is very hard to control, I’ll admit. Sometimes you can’t, the only time you can is when something else is more important than fear. I make this point because so many things in ourselves that we don’t control are fear-based. Anger is, panic is, stress is, binging is. The answer is, of course, Love.

Love is my favorite thing to talk about, because it’s all we need. Every need finds its root in love. God’s love is the cure for every fear, and human love can do wonders as well.

Before Self Control, comes love. So at best, the message that you can be yourself when you learn self-control is half cocked. You can be yourself when you know you’re loved. Bottom line. And I mean really loved, unconditionally.

All right, that’s all I’ve got for now. Next time–Natasha.

A stand?

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Whew! Election day is finally past. I’m not against elections, but all of them cannot have been as intense as this one was. I’m not unhappy with the results, but  I won’t go into that, I’m fairly certain everyone who reads my blog can guess my political positions. Anyway, what’s concerning me more is what to do now. Even when the person you wanted is elected, it’s not like some magic spell is going to suddenly give you a chance to do something with it.

I keep seeing and hearing about protests.

I remember when I was a few years younger, I might react like that.

It’s easy to react, and maybe the protesters honestly think they can help something by raising their voice.

I think that poses the more interesting question here. It would be easy to just shake my head at their antics, but what if they have a point? Isn’t it a free country?

This is where it gets more complicated. I like to say that freedom is not freedom without responsibility. A phrase I came up with to sum up my belief that unless you guard yourself, you’ll soon become enslaved to something, even if you don’t realize it. Like the words “I know I need to stop, but…” It’s denial. I support freedom in any area of life, but only if it’s used responsibly.

It’s a question I have to deal with a lot as I transition from minor to adult. What is just sass and disrespect, and what is a legitimate issue that I need to be more in control of if I’m going to learn. I don’t believe there’s an easy answer, because every situation is different when it comes to this. But I have some guidelines.

  1. If I am just raising my voice in anger, and fear, then it is not a stand; it is a plea. It may be a legitimate plea. I think people should be willing to listen to pleas, there may be a real neglect or abuse happening and it needs to be rectified. But, a plea does not deserve to be treated like a principle. A plea is, usually, simply what you, the plea-er, want. It’s not bad to get what you want on occasion, if it’s a good thing , but if you act like what you want is a law of life for the people around you, then they will laugh at you. And rightly so, because not a single one of us deserves that kind of preference
  2. Have I checked my facts? If what you are taking a stand on is something your really know nothing about, beyond what people have told you, the chances are you’ve been misinformed. The people I respect the most have sometimes given me faulty information, not intentionally , but because they were given false information, and so the story goes on. Even the best sources can have an incomplete picture so it’s good to go to more than one. I just had such an experience this past week.
  3. Am I considering the good of all? In  the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, one of them is “Think win–win.” It means you need to think about what’s best for everyone, yourself included, so that no one gets shortchanged. If we don’t practice this habit, someone is always oppressed, or just plain exhausted. Find things you can agree on with the other party.

If all these fail it may be the time to realize that not everything is worth making a fuss over. Some millennials are never told this, and some, like me, are told it but still have to really struggle to get it ingrained. It took me a long time to develop  thicker skin, I hope it takes other people less time. I am a sensitive person, but I’ve learned that I can’t use that as an excuse to get down every time someone does something I don’t like. And the miracle is, once you stop letting it get you down, often you stop noticing it period.

Since I’m running long, I’ll stop this here. If you have anything to add be sure and comment. I know I need this if nothing else. So maybe some meditation would behoove us all. Catch you later–Natasha.

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Bridge the gap.

Millions of flashing lights.

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I wonder what people are doing when they find this blog. Surfing through internet stuff to kill time. Or perhaps checking their own blog and then seeing what’s new on WordPress. Not that I’m ungrateful or think that’s a bad thing, I just wonder how much of it we do.

People say we are over connected nowadays, we’ve all heard it. Most of us probably agree with the statement to a degree, just not as it affects us. I have heard statistics, but I’m not going to list any about the subject at hand. There are no statistics  that can measure how connected you feel with the people around you. Can we take a moment to acknowledge that, good.

The truth of the matter is, nothing you see in front of you can make a connection with your heart of hearts if all it is is flashing lights. Why don’t we ever ask ourselves just what the substance of a text, or a post, or a picture is? It’s flashing lights, it’s not the sound of a human voice, or the touch of human affection, or a real face in front of us. It’s just an image. It serves about the same purpose as a photograph or a letter used to, conveying part of the person, as a way to remember them and get a small taste of who they were when they couldn’t be with us. The more you knew them, the more you could get out of such reminders. Pictures are good I think, and it’s fine to take them even on a phone, but can they substitute for actually seeing the person?

Three things that don’t have value in a culture of technology:

  1. Privacy.
  2. Silence.
  3. Seriousness.

For the first thing: Moments of being alone with your thoughts. Time to yourself. This is not seen as a good thing, by you or by your friends who keep texting you all the time, or who constantly post new things for you to read. Wanting time alone can only mean you’re tired and cranky, not that you want to stay SANE.

Secondly, there is almost no silence. When we’re tired we turn on the TV or whatever our preferred form of tech is, ( if you don’t do this, then you have my apologies,) but I’ve found I’m more rested after just a little quiet time outdoors or in my room. If a stay at home mom is reading this, I know it’s hard to get a break; if a working person is reading this, I know that it can be just as hard to. Frankly, if you go to school it’s even harder because half your day is taken up without your consent. But there are still hours of time that most of us have that we fill with distaction form how tired we are, instead of rest.

Thirdly, When your day is crammed full of things that seem disconnected with each other, it’s hard to give full attention to anything. Again, if you go to school it is not your choice that subjects are seperated by the hour, but an hour is too long for some things, and far too short for others. I can spend hours writing, I get frusterated if I spend one hour trying to figure out a song on the keyboard. I have to take it in little bites.  Our minds look for connection and patterns, we need them to make sense of the world. The whole world is one interworking system, nothing is independent of everything else, yet nothing is the same. Both sameness and irregularity play havoc with our ability to reason and think and feel.

Yet entertainment is becoming increasingly both same and irregular. People who play the parts in the media industry now utter lines that come out of nowhere, and whose very randomness is supposed to be funny. I laugh sometimes, but unless it is very well done, such humor shows less, not more, cleverness. And plots are cliched. Based on what sells, not on a good message. I have to give Disney and Pixar credit for sometimes being an exception to this, but only sometimes. By and large there are no exceptions beyond the least popular movies and shows.

More than movies though, is our hopping from computers to phones to tablets to ipads to computers again, in a cycle of boredom.

Let me now quote a show called “Girl meets world”I heard this on one episode and liked it a lot.

“Not until we switch off our computers, put down our phones, and look into each others eyes, will we be able to touch each other’s hearts..there is no connection you can make with any screen that compares with the moment you understand only human beings have souls.”

Note the word understand. If you’ve read this far, I must have your interest on some level, so please, attend. I cannot possibly state enough the importance of knowing human beings have souls.

Personal story: A while back my sister and I decided to stop watching movies and youtube clips on the weekdays, we wanted to spend more time reading, and doing other stuff, and getting our studies done. At first it was hard and it still is in a way, (although I’m currently on break for a week,) but I noticed a change almost right away. I was happier, I was more interested in things. My brain was more receptive, I could enjoy reading more. I could go outside and really look at the world around me. I had more time to pursue interests, and more time to just rest without watching a screen, or to listen to music instead of watch music videos. I am more awake. That, versus yesterday, when we watched things for hours on end, and at the end of them I felt cranky with everyone, bad about myself, and confused about where I was in my personal life. I might have felt all that anyway, but it seemed so much worse than of late, and I couldn’t even think as clearly. To be honest, I’ve noticed the quality of what I’m watching plays a part, you feel clearer after good movies, and sutpider after stupid ones. It’s just the way it is.

I have found myself more paitent with people, and more at peace. Because in the absence of a screen, I have to use real substance to feed my imagination, not sicken it.

This is very long, so I’ll save the rest for a later post. I think we all have plenty to consider, myself included.