Category: Relationships

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Family Relationships

Making Memories

Life passes us by just with a blink of an eye. Our tomorrow’s are not guaranteed. Heart attacks, strokes, car accidents, and now Covid…are just a few of the various things can take a person away, changing so many lives unexpectedly. People grow up and apart as life has us all so busy in trying to keep up, leaving one another behind. So, we have one thing that we can look back on to remind us of better days that are now behind. Memories.

Memories are a way to look back at time and never forget the closeness we once had with those that meant so much to us during that season or period of time. Memories can be captured in so many ways. So, what is holding you back from capturing the time that you have been blessed with, with those who are valuable to you and still present in your life?

The question isn’t whether or not the day will come, but WHEN the day comes that you are no longer able to see someone you love so deeply, who impacted your life so tremendously, you will want something to remember their voice again, their being. You will want to remember what they looked like as their image in your head will begin to fade with time, slowly. One day if you are lucky, you will wake up older and will want to take a look back at moments that occurred in your life. These things that keep the memories alive are what will lighten your heart again.

Here are 6 Different Ways to Capture Memories

Take Too Many Pictures
So many have become shy around cameras, but little do we realize that those are the things that family and friends will be left with when we are no longer around. Not only that, but as I mentioned above, we become so consumed with the responsibilities in our lives that time passes us by. A picture is only a moment in which time is still, but tells a story that is kept within our hearts. Take those pictures and have something to look back on with a smile.

Video Recordings
When you see your parents dancing or your siblings acting silly, take the opportunity to make it a lasting memory. To laugh back at or just remember the simpler times. There have been so many times where my family and I pull out old video recordings from many years back and are just so grateful that someone captured that moment. When there are times that some people can’t be around family, such as today because of covid, that is when these recording will warm the heart. These recordings will rush you back to some wonderful memories that you forgot even happened.

Take Advantage of Voice Recordings
Thanks to Build-A-Bear, we can now record our own voices into teddy bears. These gifts do not have to be particularly for children, but husbands/wives, parents, friends, and your brother/ sister will also treasure these bears with great sentiment. Many times when someone passes away we often, not purposely, forget the sound of their voice. Even keeping a voicemail of a simple, “Hey, its me. Call me back.” is special. Oh, how so many wish they can hear the voice of a parent or spouse who has passed away.

Make Clay Hand Molds
These were a big hit a few years back and I never really thought about how special these clay molds are. They tell about a time when your child was small and could barely stand on their own. Years later, it will drift you back to memories of how their tiny fingers held onto yours as they slept. This can be done with an elderly Mother and her adult daughter holding hands. Time is precious and doesn’t keep those we love around for very long. An anniversary memory with Husband and wife clinging hands. Clay hand molds are such an amazing way to make a lasting memory.

Write Letters
Letters express feelings and emotions that we once forgot others had for us or we had for them. Many times a letter to ourselves is just as an important memory as the one to a loved one. These are great memories to have, because they shed light on the exact thoughts you once had. Our thoughts, there are millions, but when we write them in a letter that is one thought that we can actually remember. Not too long ago my sister pulled out a letter from my niece from 10 years ago, and though it took us so long for us to figure out what she had written (She had just learned to spell, haha), it reminded me of the phases she was going through at that time in her young age. Her message to me was, “I need Superman and Robin to beat up bad guys and save the universe.” At that time, she was into superheroes and I remember I always pretended to be Robin and her Superman. Letters are just as meaningful as pictures just processed differently.

A Valuable Object
When we think of something valuable we think about shirts, jewelry, gifts. But, that’s not so much what I am talking about when I say valuable objects. Though the ladder are also great things to keep and cherish. What I mean, however, are movie tickets from your first date. A flower you picked from the ground when you were on vacation with family. Perhaps even a cup from a football game you took your dad to for his birthday. You can add these into a memory scrapbook that you can look back on years down the road and share with your grandkids.

Capturing the Moment

No matter what it is you are doing or with who, there are always ways to make memories from that day with that person. We don’t have forever and as I mentioned, these are the things we are left with as time passes. I have kept so many things from my school years and though some of those friends and I have lost contact or have just moved on with life in a different direction, it is still nice to look through them and remember the times we all had together. The way to making memories is putting your pride and shyness aside and capturing the moment, in the moment. You won’t regret taking that picture or recording, but you will regret not having it when there is nothing else to look back on. Cherish the time you have and make memories. Every moment can be a memory.

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Relationships Self- Improvement Self-Care Self-Love

A Prisoner of Love

Being in love is painful ONLY when the one you love is the wrong person for you. The person that you choose to spend your days and nights with, the one you share your body with and connect with, the one who you think will protect you is the same person who is destroying you. That is a hard pill to swallow – to know that the relationship that means so much to you is the same one making you sick.

You see women who are stuck in physical, mental, and/or emotional abusive relationships and you can’t help but wonder, “Why won’t she just leave him?” She wants to, but she is scared. She knows she deserves better, but decides to give it another chance, because this time he just may change. Little does she know, she is deepening the sharp spikes of barb wires inside her skin and the pain will only worsen with time. The cuts will be so deep that her scar tissue will never heal affecting not only her body, but also her mind, heart, soul, and HEALTH.

Affects On Your Health

Yes! Being in such a bad relationship can LITERALLY make you sick. I mean nausea and vomiting, headaches, depression, anxiety, weight loss or weight gain, poor appetite, hair loss, and even cause illnesses to fall upon you due to the stress and misery that you are holding onto ever so tightly. Staying when you know it’s time to go will only prolong the pain.

Your relationship affects your health in ways that you wouldn’t have thought so. What we feel and think on a daily basis needs an outlet. Bottled up emotions find their way out, eventually. When you cannot handle your feelings in a healthy manner such as talking about the problems in the relationship and coming up with solutions or couples therapy, your cup of emotions begins to overflow and manifestations of ailments start to present themselves.

Emotions within our hearts sends signals to our brain and the quality of that signal determines what our brain does in response to that emotion. Therefore, if you constantly feel rage, jealousy, fear, and sadness in your relationship then that will cause disease, inner damage, and that state of resistance that is within you further disrupts your health.

Know When to Leave

Being trapped in a bad relationship is not only detrimental to your mental state and emotions, but also your physical health. And I do say trapped, because that is exactly how many feel. You have the choice to get out of an unhealthy relationship, but your feelings are tangled up in barb wire that it hurts to be in it just as badly as it hurts thinking about exiting. It really is like having withdrawals from the one person you love, but who is no good for you.

While in a bad relationship, your health is getting a beating every single day. Your body will, sooner or later, get weak causing your immune system to also weaken and attract illnesses. You will be left with no choice than to make some changes in your life.

If you feel that you are stuck in a bad relationship and have already seen the changes within yourself, then it is time to find your very own strength and pull those barb wire spikes out one by one, NOW. No matter the pain and suffering that you will feel while your skin is ripping off with those wires, you have to do it to get better. You just have to.

You Are Stronger Than You Think

You must remember that working on a relationship and suffering in a relationship are two completely different things. Don’t get yourself caught up and confused. You can rise from anything and completely recreate yourself. Nothing is permanent and you are not stuck.

You have to cut ties with that person who is destroying you and also cut ties with the version of you who allowed that to happen in order to be healthy again. I’m telling you, this does affect your health! Stop trying to dodge the process of letting the one who doesn’t deserve your love go, its the only way to grow. Get the strength to say, ” I love you, but you’re no longer worth this pain.

When you choose a life partner you are choosing someone who will affect everything in your life: Your mental health, your peace of mind, the love that lives inside you, how you get through life’s trials, and so much more…. Choose wisely. You cannot carry this baggage that is holding your health hostage any longer. Don’t be a prisoner of love.

Categories
Relationships

7 Signs That You Are the Toxic One

Everyone has had their share of toxic relationships at some point in their lives. When you part from an unhealthy relationship and enter a new one, months or even years down the road, you can still carry with you some of those toxic traits that had seeped into you during that time, dragging them into your new relationship. A new beginning should be fresh and easy, but having destructible characteristics will make that impossible .

Many deny having any unhealthy traits, but that does not mean that they are not part of their everyday behaviors without acknowledgment of it. Either you were in a relationship with someone who was toxic to you or perhaps you were the pernicious one. Take a close look at some of your past experiences in relationships and identify if you were the toxic one, your ex, or perhaps both. I made a short list of toxic patterns. If you recognize yourself in any of these, then perhaps personal growth is warranted before entering a new relationship.

Snooping Through Your Partners Phone
This is a very common impropriety in a relationship, especially one that is going nowhere fast. Maybe you have been cheated on before and found out about it in this type of way and now this is just what you do when you have a feeling that something is off. Though, this might have been your way of finding out in the past, it still is not healthy. If you cannot simply talk with your partner about what you are feeling and ask questions without thinking you aren’t getting a truthful answer, then this is a red flag that you are not truthfully happy and perhaps this is not the person for you. You don’t want to live this way, believe me on this!

Being Inconsistent
If your words and your actions are constantly inconsistent with each other, then there is a high probability that you have some toxic qualities that you need to work on. For example, you have some really good days with your partner, but on the days where you have disagreements you take off to a bar instead of sitting down with them and coming up with a solution to fix this bump on the road.

Not Trusting Your Partner
I know these days trusting people is difficult, especially if you have been hurt in the past, but this is not something that should be taken with you into the next relationship. If you are having trouble trusting people and do not feel like your heart can bear anymore dishonesty, then you need to stay single, focus on you, and heal.

Bringing up Past Behaviors/Mistakes
If you have been in your relationship for a few months and you are already throwing what they did to you in the past in their face, you are being toxic. If you chose to stay with that person after what they have done to you, then you should have forgiven him/her and moved on. Never bring up past mistakes or conflicts to relive.

Comparing Your Partner to Your Ex
Comparing your partner to someone you were with in the past is so belittling and disrespectful. No relationship ever improved by comparing what your now partner does to what your ex would do. You moved on so do just that and move on.

Lying and Sneaking Around
If you feel like you have to lie and sneak around then being in a relationship just isn’t for you at this point in time. Stay single and do whatever it is that you want to do. No one deserves to be lied to and sneaking around isn’t fair to the other person. If you are doing things that you know will hurt the other, it is better to let them go for their own sake.

Being Manipulative
Turning situations around and dumping your mistakes onto your partner is manipulation at its best. If you have been cheating on your boyfriend/girlfriend and get caught, but put the blame on them because they have been working “too much”, that is manipulation. To say you did something as payback because they did something first, is manipulation. Morbid mind games such as these are used to have power and control over another.

Whether one or all of these resonate with you, this is a brutal course in self-awareness that may be required for you to grow as an individual. The most important thing for you to know is that you are not the first or last person on this world to carry around traits such as these. Learn and grow from your mistakes. Take responsibility for your behavior and own up to your wrongs. Most importantly, be kind to yourself and to others.