I have always been told to do my best, be my best, and when you hear everyone’s growth stories, you see people rise out of the ashes to become some beautiful strong swan from the trenches of darkness.
That’s what it looks like.
But you miss all of the in between stuff. All the behind the scene stuff.
I have grown so much and I have had so many people change their minds about me and admire the growth that I pushed myself through in such a short period of time.
To them, it seems inspiring,
To me, it was a dark dark constant messy loud battle that I sometimes concede to, but end up getting back up and trying again.
I’m fighting thoughts in my mind, I’m talking to myself the whole time. You learn to recognize all your failures, insecurities, and weaknesses. Usually people can see them more than you can. And you face each one of them head on.
And you fail. You will. Don’t ask me how I know. You just will. And you will again. But you get back up, screaming in your own head louder to drown out your thoughts.
You keep going even though you don’t believe the change in decision is actually going to do anything.
You keep going and keep making the decision to take every next step no matter how much you think it wouldn’t work. No matter what anyone says about you. Because people don’t understand the steps your taking.
Because people only think life is one step. Before and after. So they don’t see the turmoil that you go through to get to point A to point B.
So they will see it. They will see you make decisions, and make conclusions, and change your mind, and make new conclusions and new hypothesis about life, until you see yourself as the person you always imagined yourself to be.
And even when you get there. Your still gonna fight battles. It’ll look strong to other people because they aren’t doing the work. They aren’t the one making the hard decisions to stand up again.
The strength is to keep going even though your mind feels like it’s hopeless.
When you reach the beautiful point you have always wanted to be. That strong person, it doesn’t mean you are never afraid anymore. Yeah, you may be able to endure a lot. But you are still fighting a difficult fight. Your just able to last through the turmoil and the storm and make it out the other side when it finally passes. It doesn’t mean the storm is any less strong.
Just know, being a beautiful strong person in the end can be great, but not always a free easy feeling you thought it was going to be. Expect that you will always have to get back up again, and last through the end. It’s being able to emotionally self regulate. It is to find hope even though it feels there is none. It’s to recognize that life is just a series of stories. That’s what makes you strong.
See yourself through. Just last through this story. Until you get to see and experience the next one. You don’t have to like this story, but you can use it to define who you really are in times of trouble.
I used to be very insecure about what people thought about me. What other people may have heard about me, what other people judged me for and what they shared with other people about their judgements of me.
Preface
I have almost lost a good group of friends because of rumors and assumptions about me that were not true. Which has made me paranoid of every conversation behind my back.
I did not know I was undoing a previous assumption about myself until I have pushed past my social anxiety to chat with some people, and I frequently got the response of “You are not like what I heard you were like”. Quite honestly, I have gotten that quite a few times in my lifetime, and it is a bit frustrating because as I am battling with social anxiety, someone else is free to share all of their assumptions about me to anyone they want.
Thoughts
So, for the longest time, I would constantly think about what people think about every action that I made and it was exhausting to me. I would hate living in my own brain.
Until I came to a point where I told myself, The way they decide to process and understand information is not my problem.
They are capable of making their own conclusions. And trying to control the way everyone decides to process and believe things is exhausting. You have to manage your own mind, but you are trying to manage everyone else’s.
If someone decides to assume something about you and proceed spread information about you, they are that kind of person and will proceed to think that way until they are ready to change. They will do it to you and will do it to others, and people will know it.
If someone easily believes everything they hear, they have a lot more than your rumor to deal with learning. If they easily share that rumor, they have a lot more than just their opinion of you to deal with.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, people are people, and they have their own lives and their own issues that they tend to reflect upon others when they cannot deal with and need to heal with it themselves.
Not to say that to put it in their face, but to say that to understand that it is not a fight worth fighting.
The way you should ease your mind is that you should keep holding true to your actions because you are only responsible for your own actions. The people who want to understand you, will take the time to understand you and will see who you are. The people who just want to fulfill a selfish need, won’t, and that is a problem far beyond you.
Keep being kind to others, keep being the best version of you, and your actions will be louder than someone else’s words.
I have felt inferior my entire life. I believed that I wasn’t good enough to be friends with anyone. That I was just an inconvenience in someone’s life. I believed that everyone was doing me a favor by just giving me a job, or speaking to me because they felt bad for me.
Where I got this from? I am not 100% sure but I can get an inkling.
If you are someone who struggles with being inferior, I want to give you some tips about how to get out of that mindset.
1. Understand that it is just a chosen mindset. It is not reality, it is not truth. Everyone should be treated as if they have something to offer and they should never have to fight for it.
2. The way you carry yourself is the way people decide to see you. If you carry yourself as if you know you are a burden to be around, people are going to feel burdened by you. If you carry yourself with confidence, people are going to feel confident in you. If you carry yourself knowing that you are someone who has worth and doesn’t need to prove it, people will sense that.
3. Give yourself exposure to those you want to feel closer with. Naturally people like us feel like we don’t feel good enough to talk to even the average person. But if you have a hard time getting out of that mindset, expose yourself to that person often. People naturally start to feel comfortable with people they are familiar with, and familiarity comes with frequent exposure.
Conclusion
It truly is mindset. There are a million different perspectives in this world and people are living in their different mindsets. Just change your mindset about social construct and where you stand.
You are worth the time. The moment you were born, you should have never had to fight for your worth. You already have it. And once you truly understand that, is when you are kinder to yourself, and you understand that everyone else could be struggling like you.
My entire life my dad has told me every single day, “Just do your best. Thats all you can do”. And honestly, for the longest time, I did not know what that meant, because I felt like it meant I had to be the best, and my best was not as good as being the best.
But as I got older, I started to understand that my best is enough because my best efforts is all I can do, and that means I put everything into it.
As I lived through anxiety and depression, and struggled with social anxiety and issues with people, yes, I was sad and suicidal, but at the same time, it was always ingrained in me to always just do my best. And that is exactly what I have done.
To me, my best has always looked like other people’s bare minimums, but I realized that it is because I had more inner turmoil to fight than others. Which frustrated me because I hated that I had to work twice as hard to live than other people. I always just assumed everyone was hiding inner pain, but not everyone is. At least not as dark as I thought.
Conversations
One day, I had a conversation with my friend, just updating her on my life, and her life, and she said some nice things about me, but also said that she admires that I just show up and do my best.
Which was crazy because I have never been inspiring or admirable in my life. I honestly feel like I just trudge through life just doing my best, and the best is still the bare minimum for me.
But the fact that someone saw my struggles, and saw my pain, and saw me showing up everyday and still doing my best in everything I did, really taught me something.
Realization
No matter where you are in life, no matter how much you have to struggle or what chapter you are in your story compared to others, people see the effort and strength you put into yourself to pull yourself out and try everything you can to become the best version of yourself. And it inspires other people to be their best self and be a better person in their life.
And honestly, it becomes a rippling effect. You just being a trooper and doing your best everyday can have a butterfly effect and help many people and you may never know it. Cause when I heard that, I was in utter shock.
Conclusion
No matter how unfair you think life is, and how much you struggle, you can still be impacting people in the small things you say and changing lives by you doing your best to be the best version of yourself everyday.
I would have never, in a million years, thought I could be someone that people would see me as strong and inspiring because I feel like a mess all the time. But I guess the very acknowledgement of my mess and the efforts to not let it hold you back from growing is the very thing that can help someone else get back on their feet again.
You may never ever know how you impact others, so be mindful of your actions.
So I was scrolling through Tiktok I saw this video of this teacher teaching her student’s some valuable lessons, and was touched by what she shared and wanted to talk about it.
She said:
You do not have to attend every argument you were invited to.
If you are arguing with someone you love, the goal should not be to win, but to find peace.
If you argue to win, you need to be okay with losing part of that relationship.
You are allowed to grow from your mistakes.
Unless you are finding a solution, the one who shouts the loudest is usually the greatest fool.
I loved the fact that this teacher shared all of these encouraging life lessons because it truly is difficult to live in this world. So lets talk about what she said.
You do not need to attend every argument that you were invited to–
If someone tries to pick a fight with you, and start something, you have every right not to join in that conversation. You have every right to not be a part of it and take yourself out. Yes, it may go on without you, but it is happening without you. Do what it takes to find your peace. And remember that your own actions speak louder than what people say your actions are.
If you are arguing with someone you love, the goal should not be to win, but to find peace–
The only reason you would fight someone to win, is if you care more about your ego and pride than the other person. If you truly care about the person that you are arguing with, your goal should be to figure it out, to understand where each other is coming from, and is to find peace in the situation.
If you argue to win, you need to be okay with losing part of that relationship–
If you are arguing just to win, it may be peaceful after, but the other person has made decisions. They could decide that they no longer feel safe to completely open up to you and they will hide it from you. If you are arguing to win, people may not feel like its worth trying to work things out with you and you will lose meaningful relationships. Arguing to win is purely out of pride and ego, and its not worth losing people over.
You are allowed to grow from your mistakes–
I think this is the hardest for me because I can be forgiving to my mistakes and others, but because I am also a people pleaser, I feel as though, if people don’t think I deserve to move on and grow, then I should not forgive myself until they do. Which is such a harmful way of thinking. It is nice to receive forgiveness, but at the end of the day, you need to forgive yourself and learn from your mistakes to become a better version of yourself.
Unless you are finding a solution, the one who shouts the loudest is usually the greatest fool-
What this really means is that, the person who goes around sharing and spreading all their rumors and opinions about someone, is the fool because they are the ones who is trying to convince everyone and themselves of their opinion because at the end of the day, they know its not true or they feel some kind of shame or want to hide something.
it’s okay to start over-
It truly is okay to start over and be different. If you don’t like yourself, don’t wait until everyone is ready for you to be different. There will never be a time where everyone will forgive you or think its time for you to be different. Or maybe there is. But at the end of the day, no matter what, you can start over and over and over again to keep trying to be a better person no matter what.
Summary
I know it is difficult to interact with people sometimes, and sometimes, its the hardest to forgive yourself because you are the one living with your mistakes, but you can forgive yourself and move on. You are allowed to start over and change. No matter who is ready for you to change or who will believe you.
Listen to this blog with more commentary on my podcast!
There were a lot of replies that had to do with taking care of your physical health, or treating yourself to something you love, or even a peaceful time. People felt at peace and happier when they spent time with their significant other and their pets that they love.
Most Common Responses
Sleep
Eat
Watch something
Spend time with loved ones (animal + human)
Read a book
Realization
More than just everyone having something to help them feel better, you notice that everyone had something they immediately do to take care of themselves, and most of these are very healthy options to revert your attention to when struggling with a bad day.
The entire world is struggling whether you can see it in their face or not, and the best thing we can do, is not act and make conclusions on our emotions, but rather, take time to take care of our current emotional state before we move on.
The fact that so many people already had their go to feel better choice, shows how everyone is just trying to keep going in this life, and has accepted that life just really sucks sometimes, but there are reasons to maintain your mental health and keep going.
Moving Forward
I am not gonna lie. I am not emotionally stable, ever. But as I take care of my physical health and surround myself with healthy genuine people, it has been easier to regulate my mental health, and learn the importance of a community.
I have been able to identify when my mind skews a situation and when I don’t need to feel anxiety. No, I am not perfect at all, and I am learning the basics of maintaining my mental health to keep going in my life.
Ending my life is not really an option, so my other option is to learn how to keep going.
Find your Self-Soothing Activity
If you feel similar to me, find your self soothing activity. And know yourself. That means, know what triggers you and why. What makes you happy and sad, know why you react the way you react. The wisest people know themselves very well.
So, you have social anxiety. And you so badly want to be a part of a friend group. I know it. This was me for the longest time. You spot a friend group and want to be a part of it and be comfortable for that matter.
But your social anxiety is what is keeping you away from it.
Mentally, if you are ready to attack this challenge and finally make friends with a group of people, this is what you are going to do.
1. First, find the right group of people
When you have social anxiety, the biggest thing you fear is the people around you. When scouting a group of people, look for a group that is accepting of differences, and open to more people in their friend group. Those are the kind of friends you want to open yourself up to. It is better to be alone than be with a friend group who is going to make your life more toxic. So be very picky when you choose a friend group.
2. Find something relatable to start the conversation
Listen, you have nothing to lose here. If they think you are weird, they were never the right group for you anyways. Compliment their outfit, or their hair, or ask where they got their shoes from. Something. Figure it out. Approach them and fake it till you make it. Act like approaching people is normal to you. They don’t know you. They have no difference to judge you for.
3. Ask them questions
People love it when you talk about them. When you don’t know what to say, just ask questions and react. “Wow! You have great style! Are you in fashion? Or do you just like it?” Then they will respond, and keep asking them questions. People love it when they feel good about themselves and will want to hang out with you more if they feel good around you.
Eventually, if it seems like you guys have had a great conversation that feels like a friendship, ask for their social. It is less intimidating than their phone number to hit them up.
4. Target the person
This sounds creepy, but it’s not. This is how I made all of my friends. They think our friendship happened organically but I honestly did all the work. Hit up the person on social media and strike up a conversation related to your previous conversation. Continuing with this fashion example, ask for their fashion advice!
Say, “hey! It was so great meeting you the other day! You have really great style, I was wondering if you could give me your opinion about my style. What kind of style do you think would look good on me? I would love to know!”
Strike a conversation. The more exposure they have with you, the more familiar they become with you. You wan’t them to be exposed to you.
If you don’t want to strike a conversation yet, start with liking their posts and eventually commenting a compliment on their instagram post. Then strike that conversation about an instagram post that you can easily start a conversation with in their DM’s.
5. After enough exposure, invite them to hang out
If they haven’t asked you to hang out with them, ask them to hang out with you to a place that has to do with the topic you bonded over. Maybe say, “hey! I saw this really awesome boutique the other day, I thought of you because of the style they had. I am thinking about going next Saturday, would you wanna come with?”
After that, if they say yes, make that plan. If they say no. Don’t ask for another hang out. They can ask for it. Don’t make it look like you are desperate to hang out with them. It becomes way too much pressure on them to become your friend at that point and nobody wants that pressure.
6. Keep up the communication once in a while
Match their energy. Keep up the communication just as often as they keep it up. I know, I know, it sounds like you are playing a high school game. But there is a reason to it. You want this friendship to be organic, and it does not look organic if you are trying too hard, and they may be disinterested in becoming your friend if you are not reciprocating.
Send a tiktok, instagram post, youtube video every once in a while and say it reminded you of them!
7. Build your friendship
Build your friendship with this person. Keep up the interaction with them and eventually they should invite you to their group. If they don’t, you can offer another hang out that is group appropriate, like an amusement park, or a city trip, and tell them that they can invite other people if they want!
This is at the point when you guys are already friends and feel comfortable with them. If it seems like they don’t want to put you in their friend group, it is okay. You still made a friend out of this, and you can keep going with this same process and make more friends, and build your own friend group.
Just invite one more friend at a time to your hang outs so that everyone is familiar with each other.
Remember, you can have multiple friend groups. It is very normal.
8. Group Chat
Whether you jumped in someone else’s friend group or you created your own by doing these steps over and over again, create a group chat to share a Tiktok or a meme of something that you guys have had a conversation about or experienced, and just keep it up. Then the friend group with naturally become a friend group the more that they get exposed to eachother.
In a friend group with a good dynamic that will last a long time, you should not be putting in all the effort. That means, other people should naturally just join in and chat with you. But do not put the expectation of keeping the friend group alive on others and be disappointed in them if they don’t. There is no expectation and it is not a true friendship to care about one another when you are getting mad at them for not putting in the effort.
Summary
Being in a friend group the way you want to, is not easy and it does not take a short amount of time. It could if the other person just invites you to their group and the entire group is so welcoming that they add you in their group chat and they love everyone, which is a gold mine. I experienced that twice actually. My social anxiety made it hard to drive to the hang outs, but eventually I got there, and when I did, everything was fine.
It could happen, but does not always happen. But there are always options. There is always an open door. You just need to be creative.
I love corny movies, so yes, I watched Tall Girl one and two on Netflix.
When the first Tall Girl came out and everyone watched it, the movie went viral on Tiktok because the tall girl was saying that there was nothing worse than being tall in highschool.
Then everyone started to come at the movie saying that cancer is worse than being tall, or poverty, or literally anything. There were so many Tiktoks spiraling around about it.
Then when Tall Girl 2 came out, they discussed it when she had her audition, and the director asked her, “what makes you think that your problem is bad?”
And she basically says that, yeah, all those issues are bad, but it doesn’t diminish her problem and her experience.
If your friend had an achievement and won an award, does that mean you don’t deserve to be proud of your B+? No, because we don’t need to be comparing ourselves to other people for any achievements or for any problems.
If you have an achievement in life. You should celebrate it, regardless of what anyone else is doing.
If you have an issue in life, you have every right to mourn your feelings, regardless of what else is happening in the world.
You are living your own life and experiencing your life. Should you just disregard your life and your experiences for someone else’s life? If you do, what is the point of you being a whole human being? Who chose them to have their feelings and experiences validated but yours aren’t allowed to be?
There is always someone out there in the world who has it worse than someone else, and there is always someone out there in the world that has it better than someone else. But everyone is living their own life and timeline. Every pain that you feel, and every joy, is validated. You don’t need to make it a competition.
The experience happened. You reacted for a reason.
That does not mean your actions are justified. You have every control over your emotions and actions, but what I am saying is, if you feel a certain way, it means something and you don’t need to disregard it because someone else out there is in the hospital.
Summary
Your feelings are validated regardless of anyone else in the world. Stop comparing your life to other people’s life. Everyone has a different story, and different circumstances. It does not make sense to compare your life to someone else’s.
You are 100% allowed to feel your feelings and feel sad about it. It may not seem as bad as someone else’s situation to you, but it does not mean it did not make you sad. And you are allowed to feel that way.
Yes, I am aware that literally everyone thinks they are an empath. But let me tell you what an empath is before you self diagnose.
Someone who is an empath, can sense the slightest of slightest shifts in someone. They can sense something is going on with someone before that person acknowledges it in themselves.
Everything can look okay but you can tell a difference in the eyes or the slightest change in someone’s laugh.
Being an empath is very exhausting because you naturally feel responsible for someone’s change in emotion and feel the need to find out and change it to be happy.
It is extremely exhausting and most of the time, you think it is your fault, even if you haven’t had a bad interaction with that person or even talked to them in a long time.
There’s always something in the back of your mind that thinks that it has something to do with you.
This typically arises from children experiencing a very emotionally unstable adult and the child felt responsible for every reaction and could not predict it. Therefore, you grow up trying to predict and sense everyone’s emotions to prevent it from happening.
Yes, traumatizing, but doesn’t always need to be a falter in your step.
So how can being an empath be a benefit if it is so stressful and exhausting at times?
…and most likely is not about you unless you actually did something that might hurt them.
And even in that case, you are able to see it and be able to confront them to hash it out with them and it doesn’t hit you over the head when you least expect it.
2. You are able to care for your friends in a deeper way
If you are an empath, you can sense when your friends are a little off. And ask them what’s wrong or even figure out what is wrong through just a normal conversation.
All it takes is someone to be there and listen to them and validate their experiences. Everyone is usually going through something and need a listening ear.
When your friend needs help, you know when and why because you can sense it through how they are expressing certain topics. That gives you a way to initiate a way to help them and show them love and care.
You can also spot when someone needs intervention quicker than others. Regardless of the kind of intervention it is. You are able to see it before it gets bad.
Summary
Yeah it is exhausting but with great power comes great responsibility.
Yes, you didn’t ask for this hyper sensitivity, but if you wanted to do some good in the world, use your senses to change the world, help someone out. Be there for someone.
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I love eyelash extensions but I will admit that they are pretty pricey. On average I have paid $75-$90 dollars for one eyelash extension session. They make bank. And it does look beautiful, but it just is not in my budget.
But as an Asian person, my eyelashes just don’t cooperate. My eyelashes never stay up, and it is just annoying altogether, so the extension look makes me feel so beautiful, but $80 dollars for lashes is just way out of my price range.
Also, with fake lashes, they take forever to put on with the glue on the daily, and I’m scared they will rough up my natural lashes on a daily.
But I have found some alternative lash extension ideas that I wanted to share!
ARDELL DIY EYELASH EXTENSIONS
I have personally used these DIY extensions and I will admit that they are not easy. You have to be gentle and stable with your hands to create a seamless lash look, but when you do get the hang of it, they look beautiful and real for literally only ten dollars.
If you personally like to get ready for fun, this is a great self-care night kind of activity. Just be careful not to poke your eye. It’s really not as hard as I’m making it sound but I definitely don’t want you guys going into it thinking it was a piece of cake. It took me time and patience. But definitely worth my money.
Disclaimer: It will fall off if you don’t glue it well enough though.
KISS ENVY SUPER STRONG LASH GLUE
So, if you are not as nimble, this may be a better option for you. You can get your favorite falsies or clusters and use this glue.
A girl on TikTok says it lasts her a week or maybe longer and that’s how she does her cheap long lasting eyelash extensions cause it looks the exact same. And another woman in the comments literally went through labor in those lashes and sweated, slept, and screamed through them. She was so amazed with how long they lasted!
I think because I don’t have the time or patience some days, this super strong glue might be my best bet.
MAGNETIC LASHES
You can always go with magnetic lashes in order to not damage your lashes but you will put them on and take them off on the daily. Which may be for you but I just wanted to show you an alternative to it lash extensions that last all week.
I don’t know if this was helpful. My blogs are more so tips for me to keep in the back of my head, so I hope this was helpful for you !
