Family Stress

I don't know about you guys but for the longest time my family was the biggest issue in my life. Now don't get me wrong, I love them dearly but...*sighs*...they just have a way of complicating things. I've grown enough to know that there's always a lesson to be learned in every situation but to be honest when it concerns family my first thought isn't always "hmmm, what can I learn?". My first thought is normally something along the lines of "F*ck, here we go again, let the stress begin".

I know everyone says that the way you think about a situation ultimately shapes the experience you have, and I completely agree. However, I also know that it can be really challenging at times to deal with the clusterf*ck of emotions that family brings out in us, and see things in a positive light. To be quite honest I spent a lot of my life blaming my family for most of my emotional issues. I was caught in a loop of "shoulds". They should've taught me certain things, should've been better role models, should've learned to deal with their own emotional issues so they didn't project that on to me, should've been more aware of the impact their words and actions have on the people around them...

These days when I go back and look at some of those emotional issues I've dealt with and try to get down to the root cause or remember the first time I felt a certain way, it does usually go back to family. And I certainly don't take back any of the thoughts I had about them in the past because I believe that was my truth at that point in time. But what I do take back is the resentment and the feeling of helplessness that I allowed myself to feel regarding my family. Blaming them really wasn't doing me any good, it only helped build up anger and resentment. Blaming them only made me less powerful, less in control of my own life and more unhappy.

It really all comes down to a feeling of helplessness. When you blame someone for your emotional reactions you willingly step into that victim role and become helpless. And helplessness is just not my cup of tea. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am truly a fierce creative and powerful woman, and allowing myself to feel anything less than that does not serve me or others.

So think about who you've been handing your power over to, is it family, a boss, a partner???
Well let me give you a word of advice...TAKE IT BACK!
from now on just own your emotions, don't hand that power over to anyone else. You're much too powerful to ever play that victim role believably. ♥

Fearful Stress, Stressful Fear

Can't eat, can't sleep, can't seem to focus.You know what that means don't you?... Nope I'm not smitten like a kitten, I'm stressed out of my mind! Stress can be a productive thing sometimes but in my case it was just driving me straight to crazytown, and I needed to catch a cab back to reality asap!

I don't know about you but I have a physical reaction to stress. It's a heavy feeling in my chest that almost makes it hard to breathe. It physically feels like there is something in my chest I just wanna rip out. My stress gets that intense and that awful. But this time while in my state of stress induced neurosis I had a brief moment of clarity and finally understood that feeling. It ocurred to me that intense feeling of discomfort we get when stressed is nothing more than fear growing and spreading roots in our hearts.


Fear is a tricky little thing, because it's rarely obvious. It likes to hide behind anger, stress, love and what we like to call cautiousness. And I've gotta hand it to fear because it's subtle yet paralyzing approach is almost fool proof, and pretty genius. I mean if fear were a character in a movie it'd be the stealthy mastermind that spent his whole life studying books like Sun Tzu's Art of War. That's just how serious fear is. And yes it can suck big time, but honestly fear wants to be your friend. Even though its methods are clearly flawed, fear is really just trying to protect you from the things you've made yourself believe you aren't strong enough to handle. But remember how I said fears tactics are ALMOST fool proof? That almost is important, it means there's hope for us yet.

Now I can go on and on about how to do something productive with your fear but I'm not going to. You  already know the possibilities are endless; you can do a shit load of positive things if you learn to channel your fear. Furthermore, you and I both know that the chances of you WANTING to do anything at all while in a state of panic are slim to none. So lets just be honest with ourselves for a second and agree that the only way to get out of crazytown is to hop in a car with your fear. Now let me be clear I'm not saying face it head on get aggressive and bring out your inner action hero to kick ass. Bullying your fear is not the answer, it'll just come back stronger. Instead take baby steps, start spending a little time with your fears, have a few deep conversations with it, really get to know your fear. Getting in touch with what your fears are all about and why they're there is the only way stop it's paralyzing side effects. So share a cab with your fear, meet up for coffee, or hell go to the gym with it but really get to know it. Take baby steps, lots of deep breaths and remind yourself you're strong enough to do this!