Good News Day 32: Australian Tattoo Artist Offers to Cover Up Self-Harm Scars For Free

This young woman’s tattoos aren’t just incredibly beautiful – they’re also incredibly meaningful to people wanting to move beyond their past.

Source: Australian Tattoo Artist Offers to Cover Up Self-Harm Scars For Free

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Good News Day 5: America’s ‘Longest-Married Couple’ Wants To Give You Love Advice

Image Credit: The Betar Family

This couple  is so adorable. I love them! Happy Valentine’s Day, and here’s to 80 plus years of love for everyone! ~Tricia

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Meet John and Ann Betar. They’ve been married 83 years and have been named one of America’s longest-married couples by the Worldwide Marriage Encounter. They want to use their decades of marital experience and wisdom to help you this Valentine’s Day. Read more below!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/longest-married-couple-will-answer-your-questions-about-love_us_56bb4e72e4b0b40245c4c0a3?ir=Good+News&

 

Good News Day 2: A Kentucky Domestic Violence Shelter Helps Women Grow Food—and Confidence

I can attest to the healing power of nature. Sometimes just a simple walk outside can make a huge difference in my mood and outlook on life. I also have a close friend who has experienced positive mental and physical health benefits from cultivating her own little farm. This article is wonderful news! ~Tricia

 

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Many survivors of domestic violence have had their attempts at work and creativity sabotaged for years. On these 40 acres of rolling farmland, they’re being restored.

A version of this article originally appeared at edgeofchangeroadtrip.org.

As mist hovers over the rolling fields of Kentucky and the sun is still low in the sky, the women of Greenhouse 17 emerge from the house they share, clippers in hand. They spread out over a field and cut bouquets of fresh flowers.

The small farm and business on a 40-acre site outside Lexington, Kentucky, provides the women with both shelter and employment, giving them a chance to gain skills, confidence, and a renewed sense of self-worth…

Read the rest of this article at YesMagazine.org

For All The Childless Mommies On Mother’s Day | Owning Pink

A beautiful post from Owning Pink:

For All The Childless Mommies On Mother’s Day | Owning Pink.

Walking the Line

One of the things that I don’t always see addressed when I read about building self-confidence is finding the balance of self-confidence somewhere between no confidence at all and overinflated ego. I know that one of the things I worry about when I find the self-confidence to say out loud, “I’m good at that” is, do I sound confident or do I sound like an egomaniac?

Granted, the fact that I worry about it probably means that I will tend not to get too overinflated, but I think that people who are tentative about their own value, and working up to healthy levels of self-confidence may find themselves underselling their talent for fear of looking egotistical. You might say, “I have pretty good luck training dogs”, when in reality, you’re a highly skilled, successful dog trainer. You might tell someone, “I don’t have any professional training, but I take halfway decent photos if you need some,” when you actually take beautiful photos, training or no.

Highly sensitive people tend to be acutely attuned to the opinions and reactions of others, and may worry about offending people, or coming across as a “know it all.” It’s some of this sensitivity that tends to lend itself to encouraging us to downplay our confidence and talents. We may not be aware of it, but we may picking up on the person’s jealousy, or perhaps their own self-doubt or feelings of inadequacy. It can be difficult to separate out others’ feelings from our own, and also to not put so much stock in their emotions and reactions.

In addition, while it may in fact seem like the opposite is true, people who over exaggerate their own value, hype their talents, brag, and belittle the value of others are more than likely operating out of just as much poor self-confidence as the rest of us. An egotistical person can be a bit like a skunk, a whole lot of show, a big stink, and a hope that you’ll be distracted and not notice their weak spots.

A confident, balanced person is able to feel comfortable saying that they’re good at something without the need to show off, brag, or otherwise make a big fuss about it. Part of my own sensitivity, I think, is that I can tell intuitively when someone is feeling frantic about their own lack of confidence, as much as I can when they are quietly stewing in it, and it tends to put me off.

If you are also sensitive, you might feel put off or repelled by these people. If you further investigate the source of what you are feeling, you might sense a certain frenetic, frantic energy behind their words and actions. A sense that they are over explaining their worth. They (inadvertently or on purpose) belittle or trash talk yours or someone else’s work. (Which of course only serves to squash your fledgling confidence).

So then, the goal is to find a way to be opening and accepting of your own worth. You should be willing to share it (calmly and honestly), and refrain from shouting it out to anyone who’ll listen, loudly proclaiming your greatness and causing sensitive people to want to avoid being around you (further diminishing your self-confidence).

Well, how the heck do we do that? As I have often mentioned in this blog, the answer lies in part in being self-aware, paying attention to the words we use and the things we say about ourselves and others. Keep it simple. When people complement you about something, all you need to do is say thank you.

When someone says they need help with dog training and you know how to help, say “I have experience with that, I can help”. Offer references if you don’t feel comfortable explaining your skill level. If someone says they need help taking photos and you know you can do it, you can simply say, “I would love to take some photos for you.” And again, if you’re not so confident yet to say just how good a photographer you are, you can always direct them to samples of your work. No need to say “Oh my GOD, don’t use HIM, he’s SO expensive, and blah, blah, blah!” Over exaggerating yourself, particularly at the expense of others, is a big turn off, particularly if the person you’re speaking with is also sensitive to such things.

I find this all particularly interesting/challenging as a person who does a lot of things that require the ability to self-promote. Art, writing, even healing and psychic work require you to put yourself out there in order to actually work and earn a living. Which of course puts you out there to the opinions and criticisms of others, and requires a huge leap of self-confidence. Yet, you don’t want to come across as so egotistical and filled with hot air that you turn people off and lose their interest in your work entirely.

I suppose that like someone who loves dessert, you can choose to eat cake and cookies every day, or completely deprive yourself. Or you can find a healthy point in between, where you can eat the things you love occasionally without gaining 100 pounds. Like everything in life, be it food, finances, or self-confidence, it’s all about finding balance.

May you find your own balance and make it safely (and sanely) across the wobbly suspension bridge of life…

The Baby Dichotomy

I have to count myself as fortunate that most people who know my husband and I have stopped asking why we don’t have kids. Now that we’re in our 40s, and we still don’t have them, I think most either presume that we just don’t want them or they know the painful truth – that I have had four miscarriages. It took a long time to conceive, and they just did not last.

For each pregnancy, we were equally hopeful, equally terrified, and then equally devastated. In a society where amazing medical breakthroughs happen all the time, we are left with what minimal insurance we can afford through the Affordable Care Act. And even when we had decent insurance, the kinds of things that would help us conceive -and stay pregnant- are financially beyond our reach.

Now that I am in my 40s, other complications add themselves to the mix. How can a person who was a high risk pregnancy in her 20s and 30s pull off such a miracle over the age of 40? After the last one a few years ago I firmly decided I never wanted to go through that again. Since then, I have waffled back and forth on a monthly, weekly, sometimes even daily basis. I think about my younger self, raised in a society where little girls grew up, got married, and had babies. That part of me thinks of myself as an abject failure. The core sense of being a woman, of how I was supposed to be someone’s mom, is broken.

I spend a lot of time telling myself that now that we’ve been married 20+ years, living the “no kids lifestyle” for so, so long, that there is no way we could possibly even adjust to being parents now. Then I waffle back and think well, we adjust to my husband’s changing jobs and going back to college. We adjust to my own rather regular changes in career and life directions. We are not yet so old and set in our ways that adjusting to being parents would be impossible.

Then, I waffled back to, yeah, but holy crap each failure sucks so much, and I really, really don’t want to go through that again. Then I waffled back to yeah, but what if… What if I really am meant to be someone’s mom? What if this next time IS the right time? What if by waffling in the wrong direction, we are missing out on that important little person in our life? Then, I waffle back to, well, we don’t have very good insurance. How could we even financially afford the medical expenses that could likely result from the trying to make this one last effort stick?

Maybe we could adopt. This is something we’ve considered. But again, the financial uncertainty scares me. Other random fears like adopting a child with physical or mental/emotional troubles terrifies me. At the same time I realize that even a child of my own could have the same troubles, so that’s not really all that much of an excuse. Then, there is the decision of trying to adopt a baby, or adopting an older child, and all those different implications.

What is the answer? I don’t know yet. I suppose the clock really is ticking at this point and decisions should be made. I should, of course, better educate myself on some of my options. But naturally, we often find ourselves “too busy” for those things which are the really difficult, even painful, decisions.

Why do I even feel compelled to share this story with the unknown (and known) public? Many reasons, I suppose. First of all, I am fairly certain I not the first woman in history, or possibly even the only woman I know, going through this situation. I want to help others maybe feel less alone and dysfunctional, while helping myself feel less alone and dysfunctional in the process.

I was also intuitively compelled to share it. I’m not even entirely sure where it came from. Maybe one of those countless posts that go by on Facebook about the bond between a parent and child, or “share if you have awesome kids”. Maybe I’m not the only one sometimes tempted to share them because I think my fur kids are pretty awesome.

Maybe I share it because someone out there right now needed to know that they aren’t crazy for having the same waffling thought train.

Maybe someone else needed to read it and think twice before asking their friend or family member or coworker, for the countless number of times, why they don’t have kids yet.

Maybe someone else needs to see that a spiritual person working on walking a spiritual, awakened path does not always have their shit together as well as you might imagine.

Maybe it’s to help those naysayers who dispute continued efforts to improve and expand our healthcare system that it’s not just lazy, dysfunctional sponges that need help and access to better health and reproductive care, but every day, average, hard-working, loving human beings that could use a little more help preventing the massive financial burdens caused by health care expenses of every flavor.

Maybe it’s every one of these things, and more, that someone out there needs to hear. Meanwhile, I will go back to working on getting my shit together, while hopefully giving you a little more insight on your own…  (:

Love & Light

A Gentle Reminder: What You Create Has Value (and so do you)

You might have noticed in reading my posts that I have a bit of a pet peeve about watching what you say. I’m a big fan of “if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” And this doesn’t just apply to what you say about others, it applies to what you say about yourself and the things that you do/create/share.

I see this happen a lot with creative people. They produce a beautiful photo, brilliant art work, or incredible writing, and then, when they show it to you, almost instantly devalue their own efforts by adding “it’s not very good”, “I really don’t know what I’m doing”, or “it’s not my best work”. It makes. me. crazy.

Okay, I admit that it makes be MORE crazy because I used to do it – a lot – and I understand where their head is at. But it also makes me crazy because if it is something that you created, it comes from you, and from your heart, by saying that it’s not any good, you’re also devaluing yourself on a subconscious level. You’re holding yourself back, limiting your creative potential, and beating up your own self-confidence.

It may have started subtly enough. We might discover that by saying, “Oh, it’s not very good.” a friend might disagree and insist that the work is truly wonderful. Instantly, the reward part of our brain goes “Heeyyy… I say it’s bad, I get a compliment!” Soon we automatically unveil the fruits of our creative labor and simultaneously announce “it’s really not my best work”, while preparing for the freshly delivered reassurances and compliments from our audience.

While getting compliments is nice, this is really not the greatest way to validate the worth of your work. You create a pattern of constantly devaluing your creation and at the same time your own worth. This doesn’t mean that you have to go flying off in the other direction and declare to everyone who’ll listen how fabulous your latest work of art is. (Which may result in your friends running for the hills when you appear.)

The simplest way to stop devaluing your work really is, “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all” or “keep your mouth shut”. Oversimplified, maybe, but the idea is to get you to stop trash talking yourself and smothering your creativity and self-esteem. By all means, show friends and strangers your art work, but do not tell them how awful it is. We create art for art’s sake, what you have created is what it is, good, bad or ugly, but it is a part of you, treat it the way you want to be treated.

When someone compliments what you do, a “simple thank” you is the most powerful phrase you can utter. On a subconscious level, you’re validating that what you have made has value and so do you. It takes a conscious effort to stop whatever else you were going to say and just say “thank you”, but once you get the hang of it, it can be a truly liberating experience.

Those two small words can help grow your confidence, boost your creativity and inspire your faith in your own creative processes.

OMTimes Post–July 25, 2103

As we were growing up, most of us were taught the importance of saying please and thank you at the appropriate times in life. From a young age, children who are given something hear the echoing words, “Say thank you!” We say thank you for a gift, when given a treat, and for being passed the mashed potatoes, but over time, we kind of lose sight of an important reason to say thank you.

Read more on my OMTimes blog!

Getting to Know You

Sometimes people reach a point in their lives where they feel alone and neglected. Perhaps people they have always relied on are no longer with them. Close friends or family members have crazy schedules and life troubles that draw them away. Kids grow up, relationships end, and they find themselves feeling lonely and abandoned.

It is easy to build a life that is surrounded by other people. Many people grow up with close friends and family, move on to college and marry young, always surrounded by people; always depending on and being depended on for support, entertainment, love and attention.

Sometimes we spend such a huge chunk of our lives surrounded by people and responsibilities that we lose track of ourselves; that sense of what it is like to be one single, solitary person. It can be hard to find yourself suddenly alone and dependent upon no one but yourself. Mentally and emotionally it can be like suddenly being locked alone in a room with a complete stranger.

It doesn’t mean that you’re in as extreme a situation as being stranded alone on a deserted island, but perhaps a long term relationship has ended, a close friend or mentor has passed away. You may feel like you have been alone for a long time; trying and failing at relationship after relationship.

Chances are you are not destined to spend your life alone, but sometimes God, the Universe, Great Spirit, whomever you like to imagine is out there, intends for you to get to know yourself again. Learn about this stranger you spend more time with than anyone else. Get to know “I”, and become comfortable in your own company.

Learn who you are without a second, third or fourth person involved. Find out what makes you tick. Rediscover what brings you joy; what skills or hobbies you forgot you loved; try new things; learn what new adventures you can have.

Have a conversation with yourself. A journal is a great way to have a running dialog with yourself; writing it by hand encourages you to ramble on without worrying about spelling and grammar checks. Start simply; discuss the weather. Then perhaps talk to yourself about what has happened to get you where you are today. Ask yourself how you got there, what you’d like to do now. Grow bolder and ask yourself what you would do if you knew you could not fail.

Once you discover that you’re not so scary to spend time alone with, begin to understand who you are and how you work, and become comfortable with who you are on your own, you are opening yourself up to new and positive changes. Along the way, you are increasing your chances of finding new relationships, or perhaps rekindling old ones, that are happier and healthier, and will grow along with you.

Time to Fly

“Come to the edge, he said. They said: We are afraid. Come to the edge, he said. They came. He pushed them… and they flew.” ~Guillaume Apollinaire

What would you do if you knew you could not fail?

Here’s a mini post to get you asking yourself, is there a little something that you’ve always wanted to do, but have been afraid to try? Consider this your little push off the edge. Spring is in the air, and it’s a perfect time to try something new.

Have you considered changing your job or learning a new skill? Even if you can’t make a giant life change, take a couple of baby steps towards that cliff in the form of a college class. Sign up for a painting class or a music lesson, look for a group that shares the same interest.

When we build up a fear of failing at something, we also build up the consequences of failure. Most of the time the consequence might just be a little embarrassment, but somewhere in the back of our mind, we create visions of horrible death or dismemberment.

Our overactive imaginations can be our greatest gift and our biggest pitfall. Now it’s time to use your imagination to find your wings and step off the edge!