I love me just the way I am! “When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.” - African Proverb

I few days a week I like to sing a love song to myself. Yes, you got it! To myself! Why? Because I love music, and I love to sing and whenever I sing I feel good. So I stand in front of the mirror and I look myself in the eyes and I sing to myself. And it makes me feel great. Usually I sing the song of the day more than once because it might take a while to get in to the mood and to really feel the words I am singing.

 

So what good does this do? Well, it tells me that I love me in a happy way, it makes me respect myself because if I am worth loving than, hey, how good am I!?? It makes me take a good look at myself with different eyes, like it is somebody else looking, and it makes me realise that I am pretty damn nice to look at. Even without my clothes on! (Yes, sometimes I am naked when I do it) It also makes me laugh because towards the end of the fifth time it gets a bit worn out and I start to make funny faces. And who better to laugh at me than me!!

When I sing I try to start by looking myself in the eyes, and then I try to list the good things about me and be grateful for those things, and I am talking about the physical things more than anything else right now. We are usually our worst critic and often tend to tell ourselves all the stuff we are not really happy about with ourselves and our bodys. When I do this I try to set a trend in my mind to see and to remember all the good things about me instead, because I know there is plenty of them. I just need to accept that and to be thankful for everything.

My choice of song today was Billy Joel and "I love you just the way you are". Brilliant lyrics to sing to yourself, or somebody else if you want to.

What do you do to make yourself feel better about yourself? Do you have a routine that helps putting you in the right state of mind to tell yourself how good you are? Tell me, maybe I can learn something from you.

I wish you all a good night/evening/day wherever you are, and remember to tell yourself how great and fantastic you are!

Love

Carina

"Our only security is our ability to change." - John C. Lilly

It's a fact that changes are a part of life. Find harmony in that fact and life will be easier.

I love changes! I think changes are what make my world go round. It's true that sometimes, at first glance, a change might not always feel like a good thing but in most cases there is usually something good coming out of it. This is another one of my attitudes towards life.

Without changes life, or I, have no chance of moving forward. And if I don't change I will have no chance of keeping up with the world that goes on around me.

When something we can't control changes, we need to be able to adjust. If the company we work for goes bankrupt we need to be able to alter to that situation and find a solution that suits us. When you are unhappy about something in your life you need to change that something into something you like and enjoy instead, or you will continue being unhappy for the rest of your life.

Some changes are worth fighting for, and if a change is really for the worse you should do your best to change it to the better again. But you should learn how to pick your battles. An example that is close to hand for a lot of people are the changes that facebook does every once in a while. There has not been a change that people haven't complained about. Now, it might not always be for the better, but is it really worth getting upset about? Just go with the flow of it and see where it leads, there might be an idea behind the changes that isn't showing at first sight. And if not, it's not going to ruin your life.

Changes worth fighting for are the ones that are close to your heart, like relationships and dream jobs. If your relationship is starting to change to the worse, than you need to fight for it to change direction again. This will, however, usually lead to another change but this time to the better. This is where my philosophy comes into action; all changes will in the end lead to something good. You just need to have the right attitude and fight the bad ones, in the right way and to embrace the good ones, in the right way. And always, always do the best you can of the situation, no matter what the situation is.

I love changes! Changes are what make the world go round! If I hadn't changed I would still be a new born baby. Think about that!

The reality is that changes are a part of life, and that is a fact. If you embrace that fact and find harmony in it, life will be a lot easier.

To find out more about John Lilly, look here.

Love
Carina

"Laugh at yourself first, before anyone else can." - Elsa Maxwell

If you laugh at yourself first, people will laugh with you instead of at you.

Sometimes in life you find yourself in a strange and weird situation, or you do something clumsy in a situation where clumsiness doesn't belong. How do you handle those situations? You laugh at it and you laugh at yourself.

I am going to tell you a true story out of my life as an example on how to handle a situation like that. A few years ago I was sitting in my favourite bar with a few people I knew vaguely, I was waiting for a friend of mine to come and pick up some money from me, and I was also waiting for another friend to come and join me for a drink. This was a Thursday night and I had been to visit my son's school earlier that evening. In Sweden we have a kind of tobacco that is called "snus" that you put under your lip. It comes in little round boxes that look a little bit like ice hockey pucks. The type I was using comes in small portion bags. Anyway, the three other people at the table also used "snus" and since I was the only one that had any, I shared mine. After a while my friend who was picking up the money called to tell me that she was outside, but she had her daughter with her so she didn't want to come inside. I went outside to give her the money and I came back in after about 10 minutes. A while later we saw a police car pull up outside, which wasn't that unusual since they dropped in from time to time to see that everything was alright. Except that this time they didn't come inside. There were maybe 10 other people sitting in the bar, of which I didn't know four. Two women sitting in the bar and a couple of men sitting at a table.

About ten minutes later the two cops came in, looked around and came straight up to our table. They asked me if they could talk to me and I said, in surprise and fear, that of course they could. Had something happened to my son? Was the thought that went through my head. They then asked if I would come outside with them, and I said yes. They asked me if it was my bag on the table and I said yes. They closed it and took it with us. They asked me to sit in the police car and one of them got in at the front and the other one next to me in the back and then they started to ask me all sorts of different questions. Name and address and such things, had I been at the bar long, how much I had to drink, what did I do earlier that evening, how well did I know the people I was sitting with and so on. By then I was sure it had nothing to do with my son, but probably with one of the other people at the table. My mobile kept ringing in my bag but they wouldn't let me answer it and after a while one of them got out and went into the bar and came out with the people at my table and talked to them. By this time I've given up trying to figure out what it was all about. The police woman in the car with me, asked me if I was nervous and I answered her that I wasn't because I didn't know what I was supposed to be nervous about. She asked me if I had done anything illegal and I said, not unless it's illegal to have a couple of beer on a Thursday night. She laughed and said that it wasn't. I asked what it was all about, and she said that she couldn't tell me until they spoken to "the woman". I had no idea who she was talking about. After about half an hour they let me out, and gave me my bag back and they told me that one of the women sitting in the bar had called in to say that I was dealing drugs in the bar and that she's seen me go outside to give someone money. I started to laugh when I realised that what she had seen was me sharing my "snus" with the others. I offered the cops to go through my coat and my bag, but they just laughed and said that it's ok; they didn't think I was a drug dealer.

Funniest thing is that I have never, ever tried a drug in my life, except for alcohol and tobacco and everybody who knows me knows that. When I came back in, everybody wanted to know what it was all about and when I told them they all had a good laugh. By then 10 more people was in the bar, all people I knew. The woman that called it in stayed and didn't even come up to me to apologize. Unfortunately I didn't have any "snus" left; otherwise I would have walked up to her and in a suspicious way asked her if she wanted to buy some.

Now, this is a small town where everybody gossips about everybody and I knew that this story would be out in a heart beat. To avoid the worst of it  I just laughed at it and I made it a point to tell everybody I met about it myself, I also made it into a joke and offered people to buy some “snus” off me, since apparently I was the big “snus” dealer in town. People still talked about it, but they did it in a humourus kind of way instead of a gossipy way. Why? Because I was the first one to laugh about it!!

As a waitress I have use of this method too, whenever I make a mistake with a guest I admit my mistake, apologize for it and then I laugh and joke about it. Who can be mad at someone that handles a mistake that way? Not a lot of people.

Laugh at yourself first; it makes life more fun and a lot easier. And it makes others think more highly of you. Don't take yourself too seriously, if you do, other people will find it hard to take you seriously.

If you want to learn more about Elsa Maxwell, follow this link.

Love
Carina

"Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself." – George Bernard Shaw

Your life is your creation.

There are so many ways to look upon life, and every person has their own view or views. I have more than one view and this quote states one of them. Those of you that have been following Quality Inside And Out knows that I am all about personal responsibility of your own life. It is all up to you how your life was, is or will be. You create it and you create yourself. There is no blame, only lack of knowledge.

So, who do you want to be? What kind of person do you admire? What would you like to do? What type of partner do you want to spend your life with? Do you want to spend your life with someone? What is happiness to you? Do you think you are lost in life? How much money do you want to have? What would you do if you had a lot of money?

These are all good question that are worth asking yourself. I can only help you answer one of them. Do you think you are lost in life? If you think so, you are wrong. Life isn't place where it is possible to get lost, because you control it. You control where you are and who you are. So stop looking for yourself and start creating yourself.

Personally I believe that as soon as you acknowledge the fact that you are in charge of yourself, who you are and where you are in life, you will start to change automatically and by default. You can't help not to. I believe that we all have an inner urge to be the best that we can be. Sure, there are some people that will fight that feeling because they are unsecure and scared of what might come out of it. Don't be. I don't believe it is possible for people to change into something worse then they are if they are striving to be better. The trip might not be straight ahead full speed the whole time, but at times it will be. Sometimes the road will be very bumpy and sometimes the road you're on will be closed so you will have take a detour. That is not a bad thing. That is when you will learn the most about how to create yourself into who you want to be.

I've been on this trip as long as I can remember, and I will keep being on it for the rest of my life. I change, the world around me change, my needs and wants change, my inspirations change, well, everything change. I love changes, because changes allows me to see and/or do something new, it will create new visions and new goals. Or it will give me a new way to get to my goal. What I do with it is all up to me, I will create the end result of it.

I am creating me, and I know I will love the end result. I know so because I love every step on the way, whatever it is that I want in life I am getting it because I only want what I love, so I will love the end result whatever it will be. Will you be pleased with the end result of you?? Or will you love it?

To learn more about George Bernard Shaw follow this link, or read here or here.

Love Carina

"I think the thing to do is to enjoy the ride while you're on it." - Johnny Depp

Make sure you enjoy the joyride while you're on it!

As I've mentioned before there a lot of great things going on, happening or about to happen in my life right now, and the other day I found myself a bit lost in all of them. Imagine you are on a joy ride that spins faster and faster, and even though you think, after it's all over, how much fun it was and how much you enjoyed it; all you could think of during the actual ride was how much it was spinning and how fast the world around you passed by. This is what happened to me the other day. I'm in this amazing part of my life, on this really enjoyable ride, and all I could think of was practical stuff and how many things that fell into place and how fast it all happened/happens and what to do next, and other things like that. What I should have been doing was to enjoy it all.

This is the reason why I didn't post anything new for a few days, I had to stop myself from spinning without control and I had to retake the control and make sure I actually enjoy it all when I'm in the middle of it. Not just after it all happened. If I don't enjoy it when it happens then it will be a waste of time, and I don’t like wasting time. Even when I don't really do anything at all, even when I spend a whole day watching television in bed, I don't feel like I'm wasting ithe time or the day, as long as I enjoy it. Life is supposed to be enjoyable and I believe, like Johnny Depp said in the quote, that you need to enjoy the ride while you're on it.

I am never bored because of that, even when I don't do anything or have anything to do I try to enjoy the moment. Who knows when I'll have the chance to not do anything the next time? When I am really busy and have a lot of things to do at the same time, I still try to enjoy myself because tomorrow I might not have anything to do. However, I do prefer the middle way. Being lazy is much more fun when you can't be lazy all the time. Being busy is only enjoyable when you can be be lazy sometimes.

I try to do things I know I enjoy doing, but it's hard to get away with that all the time (and I would probably be bored it I did), but when I have to do something I don't really like I still do my best to enjoy it. I used to hate doing the dishes and one time, many, many years ago I said that to my grandmother when she was doing the dishes after dinner. She told me that she liked doing the dishes because it gave her time to think about life. That stuck in my head and now I really enjoy doing the dishes and I often think of my grandmother. She taught me a lot about life, without me realising it at the time. I wish I had known back then how to enjoy the ride while I was on it.