Month: February 2020

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I’m So Weird!

by JheniLeave a Comment on I’m So Weird!

Have you ever felt like a weirdo?  While writing my blog last week about Self Love vs. Selfish Love, I mentioned that I’m the oddball in my family.  I used to hate feeling like none of my family members understood me.  What I hated even more was when I was told by my classmates that I was weird.  On the outside, I would act like I didn’t care what people thought of me, but those three words (“You’re so weird.”) stung deeply.  By the time I was in high school, I learned how to cover up my “weirdness” by conforming to the crowd.  I became a social chameleon, and I thought I had it all figured out; but deep inside, I was suppressing my oddities more and more each day.

I’m not sure when it changed, but it seems like as I grew older, it became easier to let go of the pretenses that I was “normal.”  I didn’t even know what “normal” really meant!  I just knew that I didn’t want to fit into a certain mold.  The more I became comfortable with being different, the more I felt free to be me.

I recently watched the first episode of Carpool Karaoke on Apple TV+, and the two “carpoolers” were Will Smith and James Corden.  While they were chatting about their careers and Will’s rise to stardom, he said that during his Fresh Prince of Bel Air days, he felt so free to be whoever he wanted to be.  In fact, his famous head rotation in the theme song/video was totally improvised, and he didn’t feel embarrassed about it, and nobody questioned why he did it.   He became famous for his clean rap about everyday things in the midst of rappers who were known for rapping about their dangerous lives and rough upbringing.  Will Smith was willing to stand out from the crowd and be “different” so that he can be himself.  My friends and I were drawn to his music because he stayed true to himself.

I’ve grown more comfortable in my own skin throughout the years.  I like the fact that I’m one of the few suburban moms who color her hair whatever color in the rainbow (although I’m currently rocking my natural dark brown color to give my hair a break).  I like the fact that while some of my friends and family are doctors, corporate executives, CEOs, scientists and college professors, I’m a homeschool educator, yoga & meditation teacher, indie author, and a pilates instructor.  I like that I find ridiculous comedy like Napoleon Dynamite hilarious and that I make up songs about anything throughout the day.

You will always have to live with yourself, and it is to your best interest to see that you have good company – a clean, pure, straight, honest, upright, generous, magnanimous companion.”
— Orison Swett Marden, Founder of SUCCESS Magazine

Embrace your uniqueness.  Love what makes you YOU.  Give yourself a mental high-five (aka clap 😂) next time you think to yourself, “I’m SO weird!”  Image result for clap

 

With Gratitude,
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Lifestyle, Meditation, Self Improvement, Self-Discovery

Self-Love vs. Selfish-Love

by Jheni1 Comment on Self-Love vs. Selfish-Love

I love February.  I love how he is different from the rest of his family, and he flaunts his uniqueness by being the shortest month in the year.  And every four years, he decides to be one day longer (I’m using “he” because months are masculine in Spanish and French).  I think I identify with February because I’m also the oddball in my family in so many ways which I will go into in next week’s blog.

Whether February is also your favorite month or not, I’m sure you are influenced by him in one way, shape or form.  You can’t go into a retail store without seeing Valentine’s Day and anything relating to love being advertised and sold.  There are plenty of reminders to love your family, friends, significant other… but how often do you remind yourself to love yourself?

I’m not sure when the whole “Self-Love Movement” started, but it seems like every other posts I see (especially in February) are about self-love.  Loving yourself is absolutely necessary to live a happy life, but the reason for self-love — in my opinion — can sometimes get misinterpreted.  There is a difference in self-love and selfish-love.  Self-love is accepting who you are at the core and knowing your worth, and doing the necessary work to be the best version of yourself that you can be; and through this process, you’re able to love others greater than you’ve ever loved before.  Selfish-love — which is the complete opposite of self-love — is indulging in pleasure to fulfill your current (and temporary) desires with the end goal being all self-serving.

I’m not saying taking a day to get pampered or having “Me Time” is the bad thing; we all need a break to retreat and rejuvenate.  What I’m talking about is when taking care of yourself becomes a self-absorbed ritual where that becomes the end-goal instead of it being a tool to improve your mind/body/spirit for others.

I have experienced both self-love and selfish-love.  Last summer, I took a week-long sabbatical to work on writing my book.  I checked in to an AirBnB for that week and slept in every morning (being that I was in a city one hour behind, I was waking up in between 6am and 7am without an alarm), meditated, prayed, read my Bible, went out for meals by myself and spent majority of each day at a desk, writing my book.  It felt great to take a pause from my day-to-day duties to have some solitude, but I did not take the sabbatical to indulge in my desire to be lazy and be entertained.  As much as I wanted to binge-watch shows on Netflix, I took time to carry on my goal of finishing my book so that I can share my experiences and practicals of biblical meditation with the rest of the world.  This was a time of self-love for me because I took time to rest, enjoy slowing down, but it was with the intent of becoming a better version of myself for others and for me to accomplish my goal.

On the other hand, I remember when I was overwhelmed with stress from work and indulged in selfish-love (this was when I had a fast-paced, high-stress position in a Fortune 100 Company): I would come home, make dinner and spend a few hours with my family, and then I would lock myself in my home music studio for many hours to compose, record and edit songs.  I thought this “Me Time” would allow my stress level to go down and feel better, but my stress level and outlook did not change; if anything, it contributed to me becoming more self-absorbed.  Because I used creating music as an escape from reality, it neither improved my well-being nor get me closer to my authenticity.  I do, however, believe that this  was a necessary step in my journey to becoming more self-aware.

I say all this to encourage you to take time out for yourself in a way to use Self-Love as a tool and not as a goal toward your authenticity.

 

With Gratitude,
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Book, Indie Author, Meditation, Self Improvement, Self-Discovery, Self-Publishing, Yoga

Misunderstood? Me too!

by JheniLeave a Comment on Misunderstood? Me too!

As a kid in the 80’s, one of my favorite T.V. shows was reruns of Threes Company.  Being that I was a preteen and my English was my second language, a lot of the “adult humor” went over my head.  What I found so hilarious about the show was the physical comedy of Jack Tripper (played by John Ritter) as well as all the misunderstandings that caused 99% of the comedic drama among the main characters.  Of course by the end of the epidsodes, all misunderstandings were cleared up, everyone hugged it out and all was good in the world again.  In a perfect world, all misunderstandings would be cleared up in 30 minutes (minus commercial breaks), this unfortunately, this is not the case.

Last year, I wrote and published a book called, Be Still: The Power of Biblical Meditation.  It’s full of true stories from my own life as well as other people’s lives on how biblical meditation played a huge role in helping us heal from daily stressors, people-pleasing, childhood trauma, divorce, domestic violence, and death of loved ones.  The book also contains many techniques to help create stillness through scriptural yoga, pranayama (breath control techniques), and scriptural meditation.  I even recorded all of the techniques and provided links to each of them.  It took me six months to write/edit/design/publish my book (which you can read about in my previous blog, Indie-Author Do’s and Don’ts), and I was so excited to share it with the world!

The first month, I taught scriptural yoga and biblical meditation classes at a big women’s retreat in Asheville, NC where approximately 900 women from the southeast states attended.  I received many words of encouragement, gratitude and confirmation that I was doing exactly what God wanted me to do.  The second and third months were the same, where I was humbled at how powerfully God was using the book He commanded me to write.  But then January came, and I saw a one-star rating review on my book (you can read them on Lulu.com and Amazon.com).  I felt discouraged at first, not because I doubted the purpose of this book (which all glory was to God) but because I felt misunderstood.  There was a part of me that wanted to somehow contact the reviewer and say, “Wait a minute, let me explain and address all your concerns.  Let me explain to you all of my training and research on this subject.”  But then I took a step back to re-evaluate my heart.  I fully respect the reviewer’s opinions and therefore, I am completely okay with being misunderstood.

Everyone is allowed to have their own opinions whether they believe they are right and others are wrong.  It’s completely okay.  It’s okay that one person is a republican while their friend is a democrat.  It is okay.  It’s even okay that I use Yoga to get closer to God while a friend of mine believes that it is not of God.  IT IS OKAY.  It’s not my job to try to convince someone that what helps me will help them.  They have every right to their own opinions.  We waste so much time and energy on getting worked up about disagreements and misunderstandings.  There was a time when I would lose sleep over such things.  But at the end of the day, none of that matters.  Unless someone is asking me questions with the intention of wanting clarity, it is not my job to debate or provide proof of why I think “I am right and they’re not.”

There’s something freeing about living this way.  There’s such a feeling of lightness within the spirit when you’re not living to prove yourself to others but rather living to move closer to your authenticity.  So this week, I encourage you to practice being okay of feeling misunderstood.  Let other’s have their opinions about you because this does not change who you are.  Continue to shine bright for those who wish to be in your light.

 

With Gratitude,
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Lifestyle, Self Improvement

Good Job!

by JheniLeave a Comment on Good Job!

The other day, I was going through some old boxes so that I can get rid of things that I no longer need (I’m working on becoming a minimalist), and I came across four sheets of mini stickers.  I immediately recognized these as the “good job” stickers that I used to put on my daughter’s completed homeschool assignments during her 2nd and 3rd grade years.  She’s now a high school sophomore and the majority of her homeschool assignments and tests are online, so I decided to use these stickers on my exercise log.

That “pre-week” sticker was from Saturday, 1/4. Since that was not a complete week in January, I decided that it should not be included in any of the weeks. 🙂

I didn’t think too much about it at first, but I noticed that each day that I filled an empty space on my log with one of these mini-stickers, I felt a sense of accomplishment, like someone was patting me on the back saying, “Good job, Jheni!”  It may sound silly, but this kept me motivated to exercise more than 3 times per week which was what I was used to doing.  It became a personal goal of mine to fill up all of the spaces with these “good job” stickers until I stepped back and saw that by the end of the month, the entire log was filled in! 

These “good job” stickers got me thinking about our human desire to be recognized for a job well done.  We all have an innate desire to be praised because we’re relational beings.  We need relationships that build us up and cheer us on; however, we need to make sure that we are also our own cheerleaders because we can’t expect others to always be available and know the exact words to say to cheer us up.

Here are some ways you can motivate yourself to stick with your goals and feel that pat on the back:

  1.  Join a program.

    I teach classes at the local YMCA, and I feel a sense of community the minute I walk in the door.  The members in my classes know each other and are in each others’ lives.  Their positive attitude makes it so easy for me to cheer them on and be cheered on.

  2. Become an active member of your community.

    Volunteer for community service.  Serve the poor.  Invite a neighbor over for tea/coffee/dinner.

  3. Cheer others on.

    You will attract the kind of person that you are.  If you are positive and supportive, you will attract positive and supportive people.

  4. Pat yourself on the back.

    As I mentioned, my way of patting myself on the back was mini-stickers.  Seeing a visual “good job” encouraged me more than I imagined.

  5. Share your victories with others.

    Because my exercise log was posted on my refrigerator, my husband and daughter would cheer me almost everyday.  I was hearing, “Wow, good job mom!”  and “You go, babe!” pretty regularly… and it encouraged me and made me feel loved.

After you finish reading this, go look at yourself in a mirror and say to yourself, “GOOD JOB!”  Image result for thumb emoji"

 

With Gratitude,
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