Introvert

I have had many people (some even in my family) complaining about my personality. I don't talk much, I am a cold person, I shut everyone out of my life....for a long time I have been trying to figure out how to explain to them that they are just misunderstanding me. I found this and felt it took everything I wanted to say right out of my brain:

Myth #1 – Introverts don’t like to talk.
This is not true. Introverts just don’t talk unless they have something to say. They hate small talk. Get an introvert talking about something they are interested in, and they won’t shut up for days.

Myth #2 – Introverts are shy.
Shyness has nothing to do with being an Introvert. Introverts are not necessarily afraid of people. What they need is a reason to interact. They don’t interact for the sake of interacting. If you want to talk to an Introvert, just start talking. Don’t worry about being polite.

Myth #3 – Introverts are rude.
Introverts often don’t see a reason for beating around the bush with social pleasantries. They want everyone to just be real and honest. Unfortunately, this is not acceptable in most settings, so Introverts can feel a lot of pressure to fit in, which they find exhausting.

Myth #4 – Introverts don’t like people.
On the contrary, Introverts intensely value the few friends they have. They can count their close friends on one hand. If you are lucky enough for an introvert to consider you a friend, you probably have a loyal ally for life. Once you have earned their respect as being a person of substance, you’re in.

Myth #5 – Introverts don’t like to go out in public.
Nonsense. Introverts just don’t like to go out in public FOR AS LONG. They also like to avoid the complications that are involved in public activities. They take in data and experiences very quickly, and as a result, don’t need to be there for long to “get it.” They’re ready to go home, recharge, and process it all. In fact, recharging is absolutely crucial for Introverts.

Myth #6 – Introverts always want to be alone.
Introverts are perfectly comfortable with their own thoughts. They think a lot. They daydream. They like to have problems to work on, puzzles to solve. But they can also get incredibly lonely if they don’t have anyone to share their discoveries with. They crave an authentic and sincere connection with ONE PERSON at a time.

Myth #7 – Introverts are weird.
Introverts are often individualists. They don’t follow the crowd. They’d prefer to be valued for their novel ways of living. They think for themselves and because of that, they often challenge the norm. They don’t make most decisions based on what is popular or trendy.

Myth #8 – Introverts are aloof nerds.
Introverts are people who primarily look inward, paying close attention to their thoughts and emotions. It’s not that they are incapable of paying attention to what is going on around them, it’s just that their inner world is much more stimulating and rewarding to them.

Myth #9 – Introverts don’t know how to relax and have fun.
Introverts typically relax at home or in nature, not in busy public places. Introverts are not thrill seekers and adrenaline junkies. If there is too much talking and noise going on, they shut down. Their brains are too sensitive to the neurotransmitter called Dopamine. Introverts and Extroverts have different dominant neuro-pathways. Just look it up.

Myth #10 – Introverts can fix themselves and become Extroverts.
A world without Introverts would be a world with few scientists, musicians, artists, poets, filmmakers, doctors, mathematicians, writers, and philosophers. That being said, there are still plenty of techniques an Extrovert can learn in order to interact with Introverts. (Yes, I reversed these two terms on purpose to show you how biased our society is.) Introverts cannot “fix themselves” and deserve respect for their natural temperament and contributions to the human race. In fact, one study (Silverman, 1986) showed that the percentage of Introverts increases with IQ.

The 30 things I have learned in the last 30 years.

I will have completed 30 years of life this month and wanted to share some things that I have learned in these last 30 years. I am so thankful for every single year I have lived and am looking forward to the next 30 years. My 60 things I have learned in the last 60 years should be really interesting.
The 30 things I have learned in the last 30 years
1. There are people that stay in your life, people that go from your life and people that come back into your life...they all have a purpose in creating you and your perception of others.
2. The problems we have are only problems if we acknowledge them as such.
3. Never underestimate the power of a smile and giving a compliment.
4. We will never appreciate the destination if we do not learn from the journey.
5. Everyone loves differently.
6. Being strong also means asking for help when you need it.
7.We are all entitled to our feelings.
8. Sometimes saying nothing at all is saying enough.
9. hindsight is 20/20 with a slight case of amnesia
10. Everyone has insecurities, and the person that boasts the most is the one that is the most insecure.
11. Envying someone else's life is ignoring your own purpose.
12. We view the past on how we feel about our present.
13 Give to give without the expectation of getting something in return.
14.Women buy the expensive things to wear not to show off for the men, but to show them off for other women.
15. Make up can cover a lot of ugliness on the outside, but the ugliness inside will always surface.
16. Your perception of others is based on how you perceive yourself.
17. Love is in need of love today,
18. Lying is like a cancer. It starts small and then gets bigger until it kills...in this case, it kills trust, relationships and your credibility.
19.Some friends are best left in the past
20. Your reaction to someones action is controlled by you and only you.
21. Not every opportunity is a good one but it is sure to teach a lesson.
22. Being a parent is the toughest job in the world, but the best gift
23. Always assume the best.
24. Never worry about the things you cannot control.
25. If you want to know how someone really feels about you, get them angry or drunk.
26. Every decision we make will affect at least 1 person guaranteed.
27. Give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but know when to protect yourself from misery.
28. Bitches be crazy!!
29. If you don't take care of yourself mentally, it will eventually affect you physically.
30. The energy you put out is the energy that will bounce back to you. If you want love, give love.

COMPLACENCY

What is complacency? By definition, it is a feeling of quiet pleasure or security, often while unaware of some potential danger, defect, or the like; By example it is Nazi Germany, Occupation of Tibet by the Chinese, Rwanda Genocide of 1994, the Sudanese crisis, the "war on terror", the government corruption, the blind democracy we live in, the infiltration of harmful legal drugs by pharmaceutical companies, the WAITING on a savior....just a few examples. For most of us, it is much easier to trust the media, advertisements and political figures than it is to question their intent. It is much easier to believe we are the good guys than to understand we are actually not. It is much easier to look to your neighbor for the answer than to be the one to come up with one,it is much easier to gossip about what Kim Kardashian is doing than to do some research as to why we have 18 year old kids dying in Afghanistan for our country and the "war on terror", it is much easier to sit in church and be told a savior is coming than to ask your Church WHAT CAN I DO TO MAKE THIS WORLD A BETTER PLACE?! THAT is complacency! We are all guilty of it. It starts with the individual and spreads to the masses. If we are not educating ourselves, asking why, researching intent and applying what we learn we are all guilty of the consequences of complacency. It is not up to a president to help us see and make a change. It is a up to every single human being. However, if complacency is what you wish for, good luck to you my friend.

Free Will

Free Will

We are a society of victims. Whether you believe in nurture or nature, we often argue we are a certain way because of what has happened to us or because someone did something to us. We dig deep into our past to validate our current actions and accept our way of thinking as a permanence. Some of us seek therapy, religion, meditation and arts to understand and express our ways. Others may seek those to change our ways but have that never ending internal battle of "because (fill in the blank) happened to me, I am broken..." As I have continued my personal spiritual journey in understanding myself and others, I have been presented with an undeniable fact. I have been reminded God has given us a gift; and that is the gift of FREE WILL. We are free to make our own choices either to improve ourselves or destruct ourselves. We are free to believe what we choose to and we are free to put a version of ourselves out into the world that we feel appropriately represents who we are. Nobody owns your mind, thoughts, and beliefs unless you give them your consent. Nobody can control your actions unless you give them your consent, and that includes giving your past consent to control your life today. Your free will allows for you to decide to be a prisoner or as God made you, free. I am not sure where this happened, but we have given consent for something to take away the miracle that we are, to downgrade us to something is filled with doubt, malice, lack of understanding, ignorance, darkness and ugliness. We have given our free will away to the part of society that makes us a materialistic species, shallow without a core and afraid of living with a cracked shell. We have given our free will away to the demons that pester our minds and crave destructive behaviors like addiction, hate and egoism. However, it is important to remember, giving away something does not mean you cannot get it back; especially if it is a gift God planted inside of you. Frankly, it will always be there if you believe God is in everything that is alive. In order to find it, look within and let go of everything you accepted in exchange for your free will. Once that is done, you are no longer a victim, but a child of God who has accepted his gift and are an example to others on how to accept it as well. My wish for you, is to exercise your free will to do good in the world.

Prisoner

We are a prisoner of our thoughts. We limit ourselves to endless possibilities and opportunities and the criticism we give ourselves is the most hurtful, handicapping us to live a fulfilled life. We have not yet realized we are what we think, and the seed that we plant in our thoughts will bear fruit to how we choose to live. When we listen to a child, we hear the dreams we once had as children but lost it somewhere. We allow our mind to wander into the forgotten world we once desired and are awaken again by the reality we have chosen as our paths. We are prisoner of our thoughts. We force ourselves to take a journey which in the end, leads to a death bed full of regrets of the things we did not do. We torment ourselves with the thoughts of what could have been and swallow our disappointment only to convince ourselves that we did the responsible thing in life and we had no choice. We are a prisoner of our thoughts, but a prisoner can be set free if it finds a way to forgive themselves and gives themselves to that forgotten world they once desired.

Words

Words are Powerful. We can look at every corner of history and see where some one's words has made a huge impact. From Martin Luther King Jr and his inspirational words to Adolf Hitler and his dangerous anti-Semitic words. Words have created revolutions, it has instilled fear but also hope. It is incredible how this powerful tool can have such an amazing impact on our society and our individual lives. The unfortunate consequence of words is misinformation and most of all, misinterpretation. We read a story and often times interpret it based on our beliefs and/or traditions. This is very evident in how different religions have interpreted religious books which have been the foundation of wars and land divisions (Israel /Palestine). Evidence of misinformation is the irresponsibility of reporters and how they decide to report our news. Although reporting should be an unbiased activity, we should not assume everything we read in a newspaper or an online news site is unbiased. The news will report on what they feel the public will read. They will make sure the story sounds appealing enough to catch our attention and to hold it there until we are done reading their story.
While reading and listening to some one's words, remember who is speaking or writing them. Ask yourself, what motive could they have? We are all responsible for our words and how we present our ideas and opinions. Do not use this tool to manipulate or create hate. Words are powerful and if you must speak or write, please remember the following “I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.” -Mother Teresa

Powerless- A letter to God

Dear God,

As I sit here, I feel afraid. I feel afraid for what the future holds for this planet. I have lost my faith in humanity, government, medicine and business. I understand our advanced technology allows for us to be more connected to what is going on in the world, but in many ways, I wish it was not so advanced. The suffering, cruelty, greed, betrayal, shallowness, stupidity and craziness of our world bombards us every hour of the day. It creates fear and doubt and furthermore, leaves me feeling completely powerless in my desire to make a positive change in the world. I know I should lean on your understanding, rather than my own, but how do I do this if I do not see you in these times? I hear you talking to me, I feel you tugging at my heart, but I do not SEE you helping us change what is going on in our businesses, government, medicine and global instability. I know people claim they believe in you, but behave the opposite way from what they hear in church, I hear people use your name but doing terrible things in your name.
I know what you want me to do in my life. I feel it and I am trying to gain the courage to take that first step to trust you and do it. However, I need some help please and it is not a help just for me. Please help our world. Help it run away the greed that has taken over people who have taken an entire country (countries) hostage. Help us be kind to each other, help us understand the cure for cancer is more beneficial to our human race than the billions of dollars made with "cancer medication" (which have probably killed more people than helped them). Help us see ourselves and others as you see us. Help us plant more trees and actually feed the hungry and provide basic needs to those less fortunate without the people in charge taking advantage of those who are willing to give.
I will continue to listen to you and will ask you to please help me find my courage to do your work here.

Amen

Purpose

My grandfather is dying. He is weak and pale. He has already discussed memorial service plans with his pastor and is beginning his "transition". None of us know how many days or weeks this will take, but we will remain attentive and listen to his last requests. My sadness does not come from knowing he will die, but from watching his body suffer and also knowing in our medically advanced world, we still have not found a cure for cancer and that we may never "find" one due to the incredible amount of money pharmaceutical companies make from cancer care. That is for another blog post.
The purpose for this post is to bring to light our purpose, or rather, to understand why we have humanity. If you think about it, we are born to die. Or is it, we are born to live then die? Whichever it is, we are born and then we die. We have no clue when, but we all do. In between though, we are alive to live whatever life we believe we should live. It sounds very simple to me, but I am struggling to understand why. Why even exist if we will not after a certain amount of time? Why struggle, suffer, ride that emotional roller coaster if at the end, it is all over? Sometimes it feels like a cruel game. Where there are a couple of players who just throw humanity for a loop and see how they interact and react to whatever happens.
What is the purpose?? Can it be to just worship a God? Can it be to just BE? Today, I have no idea why. I don't know why we are born, live, have our own kids (or not) and then die. And does it really matter if we know? I would say no it does not, since we all know the final outcome. So I guess, for now, our purpose when we are born is to live; However one would like to.

Im not crazy, Im just misunderstood....

I have been called many things in my life and my favorite by far is CRAZY. Usually I am called this when I am not doing what someone else wants me to do. For me, I would rather be crazy than be like everyone else. What is Normal anyways? From my observation (and in my very humble opinion), normal is not talking about your feelings; Normal is doing the same thing over and over and over; Normal is running through the rain to get away from it, Normal is watching reality tv to get away from whatever your own reality is; Normal is looking for quotes to relate to; Normal is feeling inadequate because the person next to you has more money, beauty or personality; Normal is smiling in someones face and talking about them behind their back; Normal is worshiping each other; Normal is telling lies to cover up actions and self; Normal is loving but with half of your heart worried about being hurt; Normal is making promises and not following through.....So for the next person that calls me crazy...YES, I AM ONE CRAZY WOMAN!!! I am crazy because I will cry, laugh and scream to get my feelings across; I am crazy because I will challenge myself by doing something different; I am crazy because when it rains, I would rather dance and jump in puddles than run to get out of it; I am crazy because I would rather figure out my own problems than watch how people do it on TV; I am crazy because I love me, the ugly me, the poor me and the stupid me; I am crazy because I do not keep people in my life that I do not feel are genuine and If I smile in your face, I genuinely like and appreciate you; I am crazy because I do not worship the things or people of this world, I worship GOD; I am crazy because I am honest with people about myself and my intentions; I am crazy because I love completely and throw my entire self into the people that I love; I am crazy because I do not make promises I cannot keep and I am crazy because I am not afraid to let YOU, who is reading this, know that I am crazy! Now, who else is crazy out there??

Exhausting Awareness

I know many can relate when I express that being aware of the world can become extremely exhausting. As soon as we turn on the news, we see the cruelty, suffering and insanity that pollutes our society. Even in our personal lives, we hear stories about friends going through difficult times or we watch our loved ones lose battles against terrible diseases. Although we try to watch the sunrise and hope for better days, something awakens us to the reality of the day again.
I have yet to find a way to deal with the awareness of what kind of world we live in. I envy those living under that naive umbrella think it is all alright, or the ones that accept that nature is cruel and it is in our spirit that we find the morality of our lives. The awareness of it all is exhausting. I can see why people want to become numb to it all or try to seek out some kind of understanding through religion,meditation or therapy . For me, it is only faith and certainty. Faith that God hears my prayers for a better world and certainty that all of this is temporary.

Jesus

I don't like to discuss religion much, but this I have to get out of my head.

I am taking a journey to understand the concept of Jesus, the only son of God, who died for our sins. My current stand on Jesus is that he definitely existed, he was a spiritually enlightened man who we should strive to be like. He was a forgiving man who died for what he believed in. He had a strong relationship with God and he came to this Earth to show us all how to have THAT relationship with God. That has always been my opinion of Jesus. I know Christians would say I am completely wrong, but I cannot wrap my head around Jesus being the only son of God who died for our sins.

Although I have attended church, read parts of the bible and continue to listen to NPCC online, I still am not understanding the concept. More recently, I have prayed to God to please help me understand. I am hoping God's nudge to write in my blog will help.

So here are my questions about Jesus:

1. From my understanding WE are all children of God. So why do they call Jesus the only son of God?
2. Jesus died for our sins....we still sin, we even have the 10 Commandments to remind us not to. So how did he die for our sins?
3. Why are Jesus and God one in the same for Christians? God is the highest being, Jesus was a carpenter. Should we not only worship ONE God?


Ok God, now help me understand.