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

10 Reasons Why You Would Want To Be You. “Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” – Dr Seuss

Society, parents, schools, friends and sometimes even you yourself try to fit you into a mold, form or shape of their idea of what a good human being is. This will make most people confused and might be the biggest reason for people being unhappy today. There are, however, plenty of good reasons for you to find yourself and to stay yourself throghout the rest of your life.

 Dare You To Move - Switchfoot

Here are 10 reasons why you would want to be you:

1. If you are your true self, nobody will be able to think of you as, or call you, a fake and be right about it. There will always be someone out there that doesn't like you, that calls you names or tells untrue stories about you, but as long as you are yourself they will never be right. You will always be the winner in those situations.

2. It is so much easier to remember your opinions and standpoints in different situations if they are your own. Lying is not being honest and not being yourself. If you tell a lie you will to remember what you said. If you are you you are truthful and it doesn't matter if you remember it or not, because it was the truth and you know it.

3. You can never ever be someone else better than they are themselves anyway so why put your energy on it. Not being able to be the best of who you are is painful, and if you are somebody else you will never be the best. It will always be painful in the end. At least if you are yourself you have a chance of being the best of who you are.

4. Nobody else can be you better than you can, so why not be you. Just as you can never be somebody else better than they are themselves, someone else can never be you better than you are. This means that if you are somebody else, you as you are meant to be, will never be.

5. You can never live your dream life if you are not you. You have a dream life somewhere waiting for you, but you will never live it unless you start being you. No matter what your dream life is. If you are not you, you will not live your dream life. You might live someone else's, but your life will never be lived.

6. When you achieve something, reach a goal it is so much nicer to do it as yourself than as somebody else. If you achieve something when you are not you it is not you achieving it. When you reach a goal when you are not you it is not you reaching the goal. The reaching and achieving might be nice, but it will never as great as it is when you achieving something or reach your goals as yourself.

7. It is impossible to know what your dreams and goals are if you are not you. What are your dreams specifically? Are they truly your dreams and goals or are they a product of everybody, or at least somebody, else's dreams and goals? You will never know what your real dreams and goals are in life if you are not you living your life. Why would you want to achieve a goal that isn't yours?

8. Being somebody else in your body will eventually be a complete mismatch and your body will start to revolt. Your body is your temple. You can not change your body and your looks into someone else's, unless you have a lot of plastic surgery done, If you are someone else, your body will still be yours and some time down the road your body will start to disagree with the fact that you are not being you living your life fulfiling your dreams. How your body will show you that will differ from person to person, but if you listen to it it will tell you. You are not supposed to be in pain, if you are something is wrong with the inner being inside you.

9. You only have one life, that you know of, and why would you want to live that life as someone you are not. Even if you believe in reinkarnation it is highly unlikely that you will remember it from life to life. You need to do with this life the best that you can, and you need to do it as yourself. Why would you want to waste your one life on being something or someone your not, living up to other peoples expectations and fulfilling other people's dreams when you can live up to your own expectations and fulfill your own dreams.

10. You will never ever be truly and deeply happy as someone you are not. Everybody wants to be happy, it is the essence of life itself, but how can you ever be truly happy if you are not you? If you live your life listening to everybody but yourself you might end up having a somewhat good and comfortable life, but on the day you die what you will regret mostly will be all the times you didn't follow your own wishes, feelings and dreams. Follow your own heart is being yourself, Being yourself is being happy.

Do you agree with me? Or do you disagree? What are your thoughts and feelings about this subject? Are you being you, living your dream life, fulfilling your own dreams? Have you got any other reason that I didn't list here? Please, leave a comment and let me know what you think. 

To read more about Dr Seuss follow this and this. 
Lyrics to "Dare You To Move"- by Switchfoot

Love
Carina 

"Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear." - Albert Camus

Respect is one of the keys to a fulfilling and happy life.

Respect. One of the most important words and meanings of life. Respect is of utter most importance if you want to have a good life. The big question is what respect is. I know a lot of people misplace respect with fear. In my own personal opinion fear and respect are two completely different things. I even believe that they have got nothing at all to do with one another.

After the riots happening in the UK last month I've had more than one discussion about the cause of them, more than one of my British friends have expressed the opinion that the problem is that people have no fear for the police. They also thought that the kids don't fear their parents these days. When they were kids they wouldn't dream about doing anything like that because they were too afraid of the cops but even more scared of their parents. To me that sounds just as crazy as the riots themselves. The riots happened because the rioters have no respect for themselves or anybody else. They have not been taught to respect other people and other people's properties. I didn't fear the police and I wasn't scared of my parents, but I was taught to respect my parents and the police, and everybody else for that matter. But most of all I was taught to respect myself, and I would never sink to disrespect myself that much. And I taught my son about respect too, he’s got no fear for me and never had. He never did anything bad to anybody else, or himself, because he’s got respect for himself and others. Also, my parents respected me for who I am, and was, and I have always had a great respect for my son for being exactly who he is. That is one of the keys, you can not be respected by someone you don't respect. It all starts with you!

I don’t think that respect can be based on fear, because fear is fear and respect is respect. There is a big difference. I respect myself, and I do it because I deserve it. I have fought hard and done my best most part of my life. I have not always done the best thing and I have made a lot of mistakes too, but at the end of the day I have come out with both feet on the ground always learning how to become a better person in all areas of life. I respect myself tremendously for that, and because I earned my own respect other people respect me too.

Because I can respect myself I also respect other people. I know how to differ between respect for a person or for a person's act. I can respect an act without respecting the person, and I can respect a person without automatically respecting every act of that same person.

I would never be able to respect someone that tries to demand respect by trying to make people scared of him/her. By making people fear you, in my opinion, you lose all rights to be respected. Respect yourself and respect others, for who you are and for who they are, and people will respect you. It is as simple as that.

To learn more about Albert Camus, read this, this or this.

Love
Carina