A kind deed

Today I was on my laptop at a coffee shop. I ordered my usual drink, sat down, took out my laptop and began to get work done. After waiting for twenty minutes, I politely asked the very busy barista, “Excuse me, I see that you are busy, but I was wondering when my drink will be finished. I ordered it around twenty minutes ago.”

Turning around, she asked her coworker where my drink was and they found it by the drive through window. She apologized and quickly handed it to me. I, of course, thanked her for taking the time to find it despite being so busy. An hour later, she approached me (I was still in the same spot, working) and set a fresh drink in front of me. Once again, she apologized for what happened earlier and thanked me for my patience, explaining the obvious of being “packed out.”

                 Her kind gesture made my day. In fact, it made my day so much that I am now writing a blog about it! Here is the thing: kindness goes a long way. One thing she didn’t realize was how much I needed that small gesture of kindness. I have had a beautiful but difficult few days. I believe every day is a good day and a gift, but some are a bit more of a challenge to get through without wanting to just eat a ton of cookie dough than others. This one gesture made everything that happened seem to be okay, and saved me a fortune on cookie dough.

                I want to take the time to encourage all of you to find the opportunity in your busy lives to do a kind deed for a random stranger. You never know how much of an impact you can make in someone else’s day. Let me remind you of this: an impact on a single day may not seem like much, but today is all we have.

 

Words

I am writing this blog about shining a little light in someone else’s day. Today, I did my daily coffee shop trip. (Yes, I admit I have a bad caffeine addiction, which is why I am always writing about what happens to me at the coffee shop.) As I waited for my coffee, a sweet lady in her 60s or 70s stood beside me, also waiting for her drink. As soon as the barista handed the beverage to me, she became curious and inquired about what I ordered. Of course I told her and expressed how amazing this drink was. She smiled, thanked me, and turned to leave but not before I had the chance to tell her how beautiful she was. As I said this, I saw every muscle in her face drop. She looked almost shocked, and I could feel her energy shift. After a short moment, she suddenly smiled from ear to ear and expressed to me how I just made her day. Giving me an unexpected hug, she said, “You just made me so happy.” Everything about her changed in that split second, and all it took was some kind words from a stranger about how beautiful she looked.

I want to encourage you to take the time to compliment someone who really could use it. Doing good or making an impact doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to volunteer at a shelter or take in a homeless person. It can be as simple as stopping someone in a supermarket, coffee shop, or gas station, and giving that person a simple compliment. Those few seconds you take to give this compliment can leave a long-lasting impact on a person.

Here is an example form my own life. A few years ago, I went to Goodwill, and I honestly looked rather unkempt that day. I was too tired to comb my hair, had broken out, wasn’t wearing makeup, and was wearing the most unflattering sweatpants that I could find. My self-confidence was in the pits, and, at that point in my life, things were very dark for me. As I was walking towards the doors, a man stopped me to tell me politely how beautiful I looked that day. He didn’t do it in a flirty way. He just smiled with the most genuine smile I had seen in a long time and said, “You are beautiful.” That was 6 years ago, and I find myself occasionally still thinking back to that time. Even now, I am smiling while writing about this. All it takes is two seconds of your time to say something kind. It may not seem like much, but it can make a much bigger impact than you realize.    

A beautiful age to be

 Until recently, I have been obsessed with the latest anti-aging crèmes and remedies that stave off the effects of time. This unhealthy fixation began at age 11, when I looked at myself in the mirror and was convinced that in order to be beautiful I needed to look perfect; and to look perfect was to be perfect. I was terrified of aging because of the media hammering it into our minds that aging is something that we should fight against. I was and still am constantly exposed to the latest anti-aging ads that read “Stay young and beautiful.” Finally it hit me… what the hell do they mean by stay young and beautiful?

Let’s face the truth-We are always aging. From the time we are born we are aging. Time marches on and we march with it. The media relentlessly hammers it into our heads that the only way that we will be beautiful is by looking forever young. The incessant drum beat is almost always directed towards women (who are sensitive and complex beings). Eternal youth is an impossible feat to accomplish but none the less society follows what media shows, and corporations cash in on our media created insecurities.

The media shows us that we need to fight aging in order to stay beautiful. It affects us even down to the way we view each other. How often do you hear “She used to be beautiful when she was young,” or, “Oh she looks old for her age. Yeah…she really let herself go.”  

So because we have it hammered into our heads, if you want to be beautiful, you have to look young, then we automatically say to ourselves, “Oh my goodness, I don’t want to age.” So we fight and fight to stay “young and beautiful,” buying the latest products that are beautifully displayed on the counters beside gorgeous photo-shopped models, longing to look like the unattainable standards that are shown to us.

This affects not only women, but also the way men view us. Youth equates to beauty, so when one gets old, upgrade to a “newer model.”  This honestly saddens me.

A sixty-year-old woman is just as beautiful as a twenty-year-old woman. She is beautiful and vibrant. No, she doesn’t look like a twenty year old anymore, because she isn’t twenty, she’s sixty. The fact that she has had the opportunity to live to be sixty, doesn’t make her any less beautiful than the twenty-year-old. She is JUST AS BEAUTIFUL!

I hate it when people tell me that I look older or younger than how I look. When I was nineteen, people guessed me to be thirty. Now that I am nearing thirty, I apparently look my age. Who makes the rules about how someone is supposed to look like at a certain age? Do we hold up an image of the average (blank) year old and say….ehhhhh…. your pores are a bit large and have four extra lines on your face… you look ten years older than this image?  

You look your age! Whatever age that is, it is a beautiful age to be. If I have the opportunity to live to be eighty, I’m going to be the proudest octogenarian you have ever seen and my God ,YES, I will be just as beautiful at eighty as I am at the age I am now. I’ll just be an upgraded version… Angelika 8.0.

To love or not to love?

Yesterday, I was at the book store in the self-help section. This is my favorite section because I love finding new ways to better myself. As I stood in this section, a woman in her 40's walks up to me and somehow we ended up striking up a conversation while searching for a good book. As we were talking, she begins to tell me that she is desperately searching for a way to make her husband like her again. She tells me that she has tried everything and finally she just asked him, "Do you just not like me?" In which he said in response, "Well you have gained a little weight and you are not as young as you used to be." Looking at me with sad eyes she pointed to me and asked, "You seem to have a lot of sex appeal. How do I become more like you?"

          As soon as she asked this, I wanted to cry. I was angry for her. I was angry that someone could be so cruel. I was angry at society for the unattainable standards of physical perfection they have brainwashed everyone to hold in their minds.

So here I am, writing another blog, being as raw as I possibly can be. So now I will write about what I told her and hope that if you are in a similar situation, you will benefit from my advice.

If you look at me now, you will see a confident woman who knows her worth. But that wasn't always the case. Several years ago I was involved in a severely abusive long-term relationship. I loved this person very, very much despite their anger issues and alcohol abuse. (I will discuss more of what I went through in different blogs, but for now I will stick with what is relevant to this one.) A couple of years into the relationship, I temporarily got on medication which cased my hair to thin and my face to break out. Although I didn't feel attractive, I still tried my best to look as attractive as possible but all of this was done in vain. My partner no longer wanted to touch me in any way. This includes holding me at night. Finally, one night, I turned to my partner and said, "Do you just not find me attractive anymore? Am I doing something wrong?"

The response I got crushed me. "No. I don't find you attractive anymore."

Turning around in the bed, I didn't respond. All I could do was cry. I already didn't feel attractive. Now I just felt like a monster. The hardest thing in the world for me to do was get out of this relationship. It took me a few years to finally believe that I was worth more than what I was getting. When I finally got out of this relationship, I felt so broken and empty and for all intents and purposes, I was. I picked up my broken pieces and moved but I swore to myself I would never allow myself to be treated like that again. This was the hardest and the best decision I have ever made in my entire life.

The confidence I have now is a result of YEARS of self-help books. I have taken every broken piece of me and created a beautiful mosaic. I have learned to love myself. I learned that I am worth being in a loving relationship where I am treated right, and I would rather be single than treated in a disrespectful manner.

Ladies, you are beautiful no matter how old you are or how much weight you gain. You are sexy, sensual goddesses that deserve the action of love. If the person you are with no longer sees it or treats you right, then they do not deserve you. YOU DESERVE TO BE LOVED AND RESPECTED.

If a person puts you down for physically changing, it's because they are broken and want you to feel the hollowness that they do. Learn to love yourself one step at a time. Learn to respect yourself and if no one has told you today, I am now taking the time to. You are beautiful.

 

 

 

 

The power of positivity

The power of positivity.

I used to blame my unhappiness on the circumstances that surrounded me. Until one day it finally hit me… I am the reason for my own unhappiness. See I was trapped in a mindset that I should always expect more in order to gain fulfilment in my life. I wanted more money, more love, more of everything! I kept looking at the “greener other side,” and never stopped to look and see how green my side was. Finally I began to read books on happiness and I found a few things that were consistent.

1.       Happiness isn’t bought or found in someone else, it’s found inside of yourself

2.       Positivity is key. When you are feeling like your world is crashing, take a step back and look at it in a different perspective.

3.       Live in the here and now

4.       Find beauty in little things

About number 1…. For so long I tried to find happiness in people and every time I did, it would crumble because they were not the key to happiness. I had to realize that I cannot rely on others to make me happy. I have to find it for myself.

Relationships shouldn’t be a “you make me happy,” it should be, “You share my happiness.”  Learn to truly love yourself. Do special things for you and treat yourself the way that you want others to treat you.

Happiness cannot be bought and the grass isn't greener on the other side so stop looking at it and start admiring your own grass.

2. Positivity is key. When something bad happens, think of it as a learning experience. Thank the universe for teaching you something new and continue with your life. If you don’t want to do that, then find one positive thing about this situation and hang onto that… It doesn’t matter if it is big or small! Then every time you feel low, gently remind yourself of that positive note.

 3. Live in the here and now. We are constantly moving around in our lives looking back and the past and anxiously waiting on the future to come. STOP! The only moment that you have in this reality is where you are at RIGHT HERE AND RIGHT NOW. Enjoy it. You are alive! That is a beautiful thing. I always say to myself when I feel myself getting too anxious, “The past no longer exists and the future will never come. I only have here and now.”

4. Find beauty in the little things. I want you to stop right now and look at something random. Now find the beauty in that object. (water droplets on a cup, the way the paper lays on your desk, a leaf from a tree, the green moss covering a single stone) If you keep doing that over and over, you will realize that suddenly your world is covered in beauty!   

Lastly, surround yourself with positive people and remove yourself from negative situations as much as you can. You can find happiness! Just take things one step at a time.

 

Off brand Furby

When I was ten, I went through a strange phase where I was obsessed with obnoxious electronics. The louder…the better. In fact, this was the same time where I had a giga pet for every (pants) belt loop hole. When one would start screaming at me, I would have to check every loop hole to figure out which one was hungry or just took a massive pixilated dump. I would get up all hours of the night to feed these bastard chunks of plastic joy. Needless to say, giga pets + me = ring + Gollum.

So when the furby came out, I about lost my mind. I wanted one so badly that I even went to the extent of pretending that I once again believed in the jolly man named Santa and handed my parents a letter to “give to him.”  But, since my parents had strong religious views and didn’t agree with something random about the makers of furby, they told me I wouldn’t get this hunk of obnoxious joy.

Christmas rolls around and I unwrap a small gift in the form of a box. As soon as the wrapping paper came off, I was torn between the emotions of euphoria and confusion. My parents got me an off brand furby. But this was no ordinary off brand furby. This furby was fat, white, had red eyes, and long ape like arms ending with tiny human hands. It looked like a mentally disturbed abominable snow man. Although creepy, I have to give my parents credit for effort. To this day, I still have no idea where they would even find such a strange looking thing.  

I remember staring at this demon doll as it greedily told me in a possessed sounding voice, “FEED ME! I’M HUNGRY,” while blinking its bright red eyes. Of course with my vivid 10 year old imagination, I began to envision this demanding doll suddenly coming to life and killing me, if I didn’t do what it told me. (I shouldn’t have watched Chucky.) It was like a bad relationship where I felt forced to do whatever this doll demanded, which consisted of constantly pressing down on its pink tongue to feed it. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and threw the off brand furby in the trash can with the same expression on my face that Frodo had before dropping the ring into the lava.

The moral of this story is- stick with giga pets.