The 10 Truths I Have Learned About Life

This life is beautiful is so many ways. From the moment you meet the Love of your Life and the first time you look into your baby's eyes to the changing in seasons and watching a sunset. I feel like there are lessons in this life that are beautiful and wonderful and one of my favorite parts about life are the truths that I have learned and accepted as a guideline and help for living a better life and being a better person. If it were not for my mistakes, trials, tribulations and heartaches, I would not be who I am today. I would not be growing into a better human being and adding value to my existence. To me that is something beautiful that not many may see. You can struggle your whole life and resist the truth and spend your days playing tug of war and digging your heels in, or you can embrace life for what it is and take the opportunity to learn and grow. As I sit and reflect on all that I have learned in my short 28 years of life, these 10 truths come to mind. These are things that no matter how much I tried to change or control, I failed every time. Because they just are. These are things that I learned would never change and they were the same for all humans and they are truths to accept and live by. It has made life a whole lot easier since I stopped fighting life and just let it all be.

These are the 10 truths I have learned about life:

1. Everything Changes. Life is always and eternally changing. Nothing stays the same for too long. It is how we evolve as a species. We change. We adapt. We learn to adjust to new experiences and new surroundings. Changes helps us grow. Now just because I know that everything always will and forever change, does not mean that it is something I like. I am a creature of habit and even though I wouldn't blink at the chance to hop on a plane and travel across the world and learn something new everyday, I still like waking up in a familiar place and making my own coffee every morning. I simply accept it. There is no point in fighting it. I will not be the same person in one year than I am today. I will not have the same life in five years as I do now. I know this to be true and I embrace the change for the good and sometimes not so good. You've heard the quote "If life is bad, wait, it will change. If life is good, wait, it will change." Well it goes something like that. But you get the point. Life is always changing.

2. Life Goes On. No matter what we do and what we go through or how bad we feel for ourselves. Life will continue. The world will not stop and we can't do anything about it, except come to realization that we will survive and move on and everything will continue as it always has. I have been through some very traumatizing, hard and emotional events as well as losses in my life and they have tore me down to my bare soul, brought me to my knees in tears and humbled me all at once. There were losses that I never thought I would recover from. I wondered how I would pick myself up off the ground and ever have the same kind of life again. I wondered how I would ever be happy again. You know what? Time passed and I got better. I healed. I moved on. Life never stopped for me. No matter how bad life seems, it will change, it will get better. Life Goes On and we keep living!

3. Everything happens for a reason. I know not everyone believes this but for me it isn't a matter of believing that everything happens for a reason but it is the truth. I see it no other way. Just because I believe that everything happens for a reason doesn't mean that bad things don't still happen. Bad things happen that bring me to a good place and good things happen (at the time they seem like good things) that bring me to bad places. Regardless of what happens good or bad, I know it has brought me to where I am and where I am is where I am supposed to be. When my ex husband asked for a divorce and left, I thought I would never recover and it was obviously a bad situation. But as time went on I healed, moved on and realised that his decision to leave was a blessing in disguise. I kept the house, the kid and the car and I survived and grew independent and stronger than I ever knew I was and then met the love of my life. My sad loss ended up making me a better person and a better partner but brought me to a man that I deserved and that deserved me. I could make a list a mile long with events in my life that were rough and seemed hopeless and absolutely not what I wanted and then I realised I had to go through the bad to get to the good and everything happens for a reason. I can enjoy life and know that everything will work out the way that it is supposed to and for me at least, it always works out to be what I never knew I always wanted. It's funny how life works out! Don'tcha think?

Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.”  -Eckhart Tolle

4. The little things don't matter. In the grand scheme of things you can look back and reflect on your life and see what was really the most important things after all. It's never the cars, the houses, the boats and extensive wardrobes that matter in the end. It is always the people, the bonds and the experiences that impact our lives the most. In the end everything that was supposed to happen to you happened and the things that were not supposed to happen, didn't. Everything worked out the way it was supposed to and the world never came to end. So why do we spend our lives worrying about minuscule details and minute problems? Why do we worry about the little things and material things? Why do we spend our precious time that we will never get back slaving away at our jobs so we can buy a bunch of stuff that won't matter when all you want is to have more time with your family. If we can't control it (that's truth #7) then why do we spend time and energy, not to mention our health from the stress worrying about it. If you want to avoid a lot of unnecessary anxiety and stress in life then I suggest focusing on what is important and letting everything else take care of itself. Also if you don't want to have regrets when you look back on your life then don't focus on the things that won't really matter and focus more on the things or people that are really important to you now and in the future. In the end the little things won't matter.

5. We only have today. Be present! We can't change yesterday, but we can learn from it. There is no promise of a tomorrow, it could never come. We only have today and that is the only day we have for sure. It is okay think about the past and learn from it but don't waste your time dwelling there for too long. You cannot change it. The only thing you can do is to use it as a learning tool for today and for the future. Take from it what you will and don't waste anymore time feeling bad or sorry about it. Make your peace and move on. If you spend too much time on yesterday, you will rob yourself of today, of the present moment. A moment that you will never get back. Do not worry about tomorrow because it may never come and you spent today worrying about something that isn't real instead of enjoying what is right in front of you. There is no guarantee that something, anything could happen today that would prevent the sun from rising tomorrow. That is not meant to be dark or negative, it is simply a fact. It is the truth. If we know that, then why do we dwell in the past and worry about tomorrow instead of enjoying what we have today? You can't go back and watch your baby take his first steps again (unless you recorded it) but that's not the point. You can't watch your daughter walk down the aisle or walk across the stage again. So instead of feeling bad about what we missed or could miss, we can live today like there is no tomorrow and enjoy what we have now. We can do today what is important, we can forget about yesterday and not worry about tomorrow because we only have today.

6. You can only blame yourself for your choices, consequences and circumstances. It is so easy to blame everyone but ourselves when we go through rough times or suffer a negative consequence for one of our bad choices. It is easy to blame our parents. It is easy to blame society. But if you are truthful and honest with yourself and take responsibility for your own actions then you know that you have no one to blame but yourself for where you are today. There are of course always a few circumstances that may be considered out of your control but those tend to be extreme cases and that's a whole other topic. What I am talking about is situations when we make certain choices and don't like the consequences, so we blame our parents. We have free will as humans for the most part. Regardless of what happened to us as children or how messed up our parents may have been, we still have to choose the right choices and make the right decisions as adults. Just because mommy babied you all your life, folded your underwear and made your meals, doesn't give you the right to be a worthless, co-dependant, no job having, no bill paying adult and blame it on her. You have to take responsibility for your actions at some point and say "ya know what? I am not going to be a grown adult without a work ethic or any integrity and I am going to be a grown up and take responsibility for myself." My parents got a divorce before I was five and I don't blame anything in my life on that event. If anything I strive to learn from it and be a better partner so I don't end up in the same situation. Sometimes we do end up where we don't want to be. I ended up divorced anyway. I can look back now and see the responsibility I take for the ending of my marriage. I got married too young, too fast, to a man I didn't know well enough, even after I was aware of the so-called red flags. We got pregnant right away and took on a lot of stresses in our first year of marriage which took it's toll and I wasn't perfect and I was ignorant to a lot of stuff. I can't blame my parents being divorced on that. I can't blame it all on my ex husband. I take responsibility for my actions and I learned from them and I try to be a better person because of them. When you feel the need to point fingers and place the blame on another, try taking an honest look at your situation and how you got there. If you are truly honest, chances are you will find the bulk of the blame in your court.

7. The only person you can control is you. A lot of problems we have as humans usually stems from not being in control. A lot of times when I get angry about something and take the time to figure out why, it is usually because I wasn't in control and couldn't control the situation I was in. I personally always like to be in control, so this is extra hard for me. Once I realised how often that was the root of my problems, it sure put things into perspective for me. I used to get upset with people at work for various little things that would do or not do and I would get so worked up that it almost ruined my day. The anger could affect me for hours. Who was I in control of. I obviously wasn't in control of them but I didn't even have control of myself. How could I let other people affect my mood so easily and deeply? Once the truth set it, it made dealing with others a lot easier and I got upset a lot less often. I came to terms with the fact that the only person I could control was myself. I had to control my anger and my reactions to others. I couldn't change how other people did things or control the people who barely did anything. I realised I had to focus more on my reaction and controlling myself and not focus on those that I cannot control. It is counterproductive if you don't. Learning this truth not only helped me deal with others better but It saved me from a lot of stress and anger. I see people get so upset over the littlest things now and I have to laugh to myself because that used to be me and I don't have to live like that anymore. I don't let people and things that are out of my control affect me anymore. I took the control back by not trying to control others. It was such a waste of time and so exhausting trying to control everything. Let the stress and control go and accept that the only person you can control is you.

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude." -Maya Angelou
This quote applies to much of life and many of these truths.

8. Good ole Bill Shakespeare said it best when he said, "expectation is the root of all heartache." I still to this day allow myself to get sucked into the ole let down trap. I expect a lot of others. I expect others to be as caring and giving as me. I expect that when my husband is helping me fold clothes that he will fold them the way I want or wash dishes the way I do. I continually set myself up for disappointment and I am greeted with it almost every time. I imagine this lavish party and plan for months and then when no one shows up or maybe a different crowd attends than I had expected, I feel like the party was a bust. It's not that the party was bad or not fun, it just wasn't what I had expected. But if i would have gone into the process with an open mind that whatever happens that night will be fun, then maybe I wouldn't get let down and I could enjoy the party. We allow ourselves to get let down every time when we expect things to go a certain way. Nothing is certain. People won't always do what I want them to do or how I want it done. I have to remember that no one is perfect, including myself. I could save myself a lot of heartache when I expect my husband to act or respond a certain way and then he doesn't if I could not expect anything. Or expect that he would wash the dishes that have been piled up in the sink all day just because I have done so much. I expect he feels how I feel and will take it upon himself to wash them and then when I get back from the store and see them sitting there, I get mad. How can I get mad when I never told him or asked him to do them. He can't read minds (I think) and he obviously doesn't think about things the same way that I do and that I think he should. But i can't get mad about that. I let myself down for not only not communicating what I expected but for expecting him to do what I would have done and feel how I would have felt. I only have myself to blame for my disappointment and at that point it is a good time to communicate with your partner or whomever, so that maybe you won't be let down or hurt in the future. I try to go into every situation with an open mind, expecting nothing and taking in everything. I try to hope for the best and prepare myself for anything. When we except things for what they are and allow things to happen naturally and not expect so much from everyone, we will suffer much less.

9. You have to choose to be happy. Being happy is an attitude. A choice. There is a quote by Charles R. Swindoll that pretty much sums it up. A great quote.

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company...a church....a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past...we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude...I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you...we are in charge of our attitudes.”

No matter what our circumstances may be, we have to choose to be happy if we want it. You can't blame others for your unhappiness or count on others to always make you happy. If you are unhappy then change your attitude about the situation or make the proper choices to change your situation. Being happy isn't always a matter of circumstance or how much money we make and how many toys we have. Being happy is a choice, and attitude, a way of life. If you are unhappy, ask yourself why and take the proper steps to change that. Choose to be happy. If you can't be happy with yourself, than how can you be happy with others?

10. Love, non-judgement and acceptance will set you free. It is challenging to be happy in this world when we are consumed with hate and judgement towards others. When we express hate towards others it comes back on us, from the way we are judged in return to the stress of being angry all the time. When you go around judging people, you really have to look inward and ask yourself why am I so much better? What am I doing in my life that isn't prefect? I never like what I see and I immediately repent for judging others. I immediately feel like a hypocrite and feel bad about myself. I don't like feeling that way, so I've tried to stop judging other people and try to put myself in their shoes. It is almost as natural to judge people as it is to brush you teeth. I do it all the time and don't even realise i am doing it. I try to accept people for who they are and love them regardless of what I think I know. The truth is I never really know anything about the people I am judging and I am almost always humbled when I learn how wrong I was. I love when that happens, because I need it. I need to be humbled when I put myself on a pedestal and point fingers at everyone else. It is a consequence for judging. Instead I try to love others for who they are and in spite of their shortcomings and I always try to encounter people without judgement and with acceptance. It has changed my heart and allowed me to see life and people in a different light. My relationships are better when I simply accept and love. My life gets better every time I choose to love and not hate or judge. We are all the same. We are all sinners and always will be. Not a one of us is perfect and we all breathe the same air, have the same body parts. We are all created the same way. We all come into this world the same way and leave it the same way. Not a one of us has the right to judge another. Love and acceptance will set you free.


These are the 10 truths I have learned in life. They may not be the same for everyone but they are for me and I am sure most people can relate. Being honest with yourself and trying to be a better person with these truths will make life a lot easier. Living by these truths can make you a better partner, a better communicator and a happier person. At least it did for me.

~ Blessing

The Secrets To Losing Weight, Maintaining A Healthy Lifestyle And Living Longer: The Truth

Let me start off by saying THERE ARE NO SECRETS to losing weight, maintaining a healthy lifestyle and even living longer. Surprise!!! But something tells me that you already knew that. That does not mean that there are not certain keys and variables to attaining all of those wonderful things. What that does means is that you have to stop making excuses, be honest with yourself about your goals and expectations and what you are doing and what you are NOT doing to achieve your goals. It means that you have to put in an effort to lose weight and be healthy. I know. It's a tough pill to swallow.

Okay, let's get to it. The best way to be successful is to take it one step at a time and make small easy to follow kind of changes in your life. You have to adopt a lifestyle of healthy habits. This does not come easy for everyone. In fact this isn't easy for most people. We are humans after all and humans tend to be rebellious and imperfect by nature. Accepting this truth will help you on your journey to a healthy lifestyle.

DIET PILLS! We all know to well the giant corporations of mass producing promises in magical little pills, that we simply swallow with a full glass of water and all our dreams will come true, all while not changing a thing in our lifestyle, like exercising and eating healthy. That sounds almost to good to be true, doesn't it? You are wasting your money on any kind of over the counter pill that promises to help you lose weight. There is and never will be such a thing. Now, if you are one of those people, like me, who are thinking to yourself, "Oh wait, there most certainly are magical little pills that will help you lose weight" then you are absolutely correct. With that said, the only kinds of pills that actually work are governed by the FDA and are generally controlled substances (or illegal street drugs.) Those kind of pills are called amphetamines. In case you aren't familiar with that term, let me refresh your memory. Speed. Adderall. Phentermine. Meth"Amphetamines." I think you know what I'm talking about. Not only do you need to go see a doctor and get a prescription for some of those items, but do I even need to mention what any and all of those do to your body and brain? I don't think so! While diet pills may seem like the answer to your prayers of weight loss and fulfillment, I can promise you that not only is it not the answer but chances are very likely that If you did lose weight with any diet pill, prescription or street drug, you would gain the weight back as soon as you stopped taking it. Hell, you might even lose some teeth along the way or damage your liver. That's the glamorous life of pill popping and taking drugs to achieve a goal that can only be achieved successfully through healthy lifestyle habits. Period!!!

Now that we have the ugly stepchild out of the way, let's talk about taking responsibility for our own choices and actions and being honest with ourselves. You and you alone are in control of your thoughts and actions. If you want to lose weight and you want to live a healthy lifestyle, you have to take back control of what you say and think and what you do and what you don't do, stop making excuses, be honest with yourself and take action. Start off by figuring out what your goals are and what you hope to achieve. That's the easy part, implementing is the tough one. Once you figure out what you want, then you have to start DOING! If you want to lose weight, you have to work for it. If you want to live a longer and healthier life and feel good, then you have to make healthy choices. You have to change your way of eating, thinking and doing. Once you come to peace with that, it will make the transition so much easier. You are in control.

It is very common for people to start a diet or start an exercise routine and commit for a good week or two only to slide ever so quickly back into their old, busy, exercise free, fast food filled lives, not shortly after. There are a number of reasons that this happens to us. Yes, we do get busy with kids and hectic schedules and for some reason the first thing to go is our healthy habits. We slowly stop exercising and making healthy food choices and before we know it, right back to where we started. An even bigger culprit of the sabotaged resolution to be a healthier you, is the way we think and how we talk to ourselves. Our mental state can affect our ability to commit to a lifestyle change like no other. It seems like If people mess up once then they feel like the whole effort is lost and then they quit, or if what we have envisioned in our minds doesn't work out the way we wanted then we give up. It is okay to mess up and to get off track, because you are going to from time to time. We have to give ourselves permission to mess up and not be perfect. You can't be so hard on yourself or talk negatively about ourselves. The effort is always more important than nothing at all. I feel like if you allow yourself room for mistakes, allow yourself to be flexible to change and only think positively about yourself, then It will make any effort to be a better you that much easier. You know the saying, "You get more bees with honey", well that goes for the way we treat ourselves too. Talk nicer to yourself, allow yourself to make mistakes, but don't dwell on them. Accept the fact that you might have missed two days of working out this week and ate a few extra cookies instead of a carrot and do better tomorrow, but just don't quit. Tell yourself you're beautiful, smart and that not matter how many times you fall, you will get back up and keep on, keeping on. Once you change the way you think and talk to yourself, everything will change and make your success a lot easier an attainable.

Be realistic about your abilities and what you expect from yourself. Don't go out and try to run a mile tomorrow if you haven't ran in years and then get let down and quit when you can't do it on the first day. Have realistic expectations of yourself. It isn't all or nothing. Start small. If the thought of eating vegan or becoming a vegetarian scares the crap out of you, then join the club. You don't have to transform yourself over night and that is okay. It takes time to change your lifestyle and your whole way of thinking, eating and doing. You could start by doing something as little as giving up red meat at first. You could add more vegetables to your diet or cut back on your sugar intake, eat smaller portions or make better food choices. These are all little steps that you can take that in the big picture, will change your life. Once you start small and incorporate these small changes into your everyday lifestyle, they will start to add up. Before you know it, a year will have passed and you will have transformed yourself by taking small steps, not quitting and feeling better and better, everyday.

WATER WATER WATER!!! Need I say more? Water is essential to all life form and survival. The body can go weeks without food but you can't survive 3 days in the desert without water. Your skins begins to shrivel and crack when you don't drink enough of it. A lack of water in the body causes headaches and fatigue among many other issues. Drinking more water will treat a vast number of ailments and make you feel all around better. Water helps digest your food better. Water makes up 70% of the human body. We need water to not only survive but to help us stay healthy and also, yes, you got it, lose weight. If you are working out and sweating, then you have to replace that lost water with more water. The water will keep you hydrated and help to flush toxins from your system, which is crucial for weight loss, working out and general health. Drink more water. Period! Whether you are working out or not, you need to be drinking 6-8 (8oz) glasses of water a day, if not more. That is the golden rule and probably the most important. Because weather you are working out or simply doing nothing, drinking more water will change the way you feel from head to toe. If you don't believe me then do a little experiment by drinking a lot more water for even as little as a couple days and see how it transforms your body. Then take that water away for a couple of days and watch as your body cries out to you in desperation to "please, give the water back!!!" It's Magical!

So, I think you knew this was coming soon. Exercise!!! It's simple. Get off those buns and get moving. Adopt an exercise routine of any kind. There are so many activities, sports and exercise trends out there that is almost impossible to find something you enjoy doing that gets you moving your ass. Let me just name some in hopes of sparking an interest, yoga (a personal fave), dancing, running, hiking, kayaking (another favorite), building large structures with your hands (trust me, you'll be hurtin'), walking through the park and enjoying nature (you're moving, aren't you?), swimming, sports, playing with your kids (they have a lot of energy). I mean, come on. The list goes on and on. The point is that the more active you are, the healthier you will be. That is just a simple fact. Once you start moving and get some blood flowing through those tired limbs then you will want more. I promise you, the more you do, the better you feel. The better you feel, the more you want to do. I have been every size of the spectrum from a size 20 at my biggest to a size 4 at my smallest. I know what it is like to be so heavy that I am tired all the time and don't feel like doing anything and it is a vicious cycle that has to be broken. But the cycle works both ways, you see. Once you begin to lose weight and slowly get your energy back, you won't ever want to feel helpless and worn out all the time. Even if losing weight isn't important to you, the energy you get when you exercise is enough to want to get your body moving. We were meant to feel so much better than most of us actually do. We can be the change. It's easy to feel good when you work for it and take care of yourself. Did I mention that statistically people who are active get sick a lot less than those without an active lifestyle? The pros just keep adding up.

Take some me time. It's a okay to be an individual and to take time for yourself to recharge. It is important to get away sometimes and clear your mind and recharge your energy systems. Take a walk and lose yourself in thought. Meditate (if you can find a quiet place for a few moments.) Practice breathing techniques. Take the time to self reflect and remind yourself of all the things you love and love to do. It helps to focus on positive things and people in your life to get the strength and energy that you need. It is important to have me time because it can keep you grounded when life gets crazy. It helps to remind ourselves of who we are, why we are important and basically it can really prevent one from losing their mind. (Oh, is it just me?) It is okay to have moments to yourself and you deserve it. We all do and it is important for human growth and development. Take some time for yourself and reflect on what is important to you, write down goals and take the first step to feeling better. One step at a time and one day at a time is all you should focus on.

Cut out the crap! It's pretty simple, if it is processed and is not natural, organic or of this earth, then chances are it is NOT good for you. I know you hate to hear it, but it is the truth. We have been given everything we need to survive on this earth, from fruits and vegetables for nutrition to plants and herbs for medicine and wellness. The things that are from this earth were meant for the human body. Our bodies were meant to break down organic foods, not McDonalds, sodas and the mounds of packaged foods we consume. When you start putting unnatural materials into the body, the body starts to respond and not always in a positive manner. The mass amounts of processed foods that we consume are now starting to catch up with us and you see it everywhere from the now very common, celiacs disease (gluten intolerant), to asthma and peanut allergies. There is a lot of diseases and illnesses out there now that were not there 100 years ago. We can thank our diets for that. Our diets of unnatural processed foods that our bodies were never meant to consume. Eat clean, eat healthy and your body will reflect that and will most definitely thank you for it. You will feel so much better and for some, more importantly, the pounds will fall off once you get rid of the chips and soda. Again, try it and see what happens.

I know. I know. You were hoping that I was going to say that I discovered this amazing revolutionary pill that will melt your fat away and you won't have to change a thing. You can keep eating crap and sitting in front of the TV and ta da, you will be healthier and have more energy than ever before. Well, I am sorry, I had to let you down. We all know what needs to be done. No one can do it for you. You have to want it bad enough and it only takes one step at a time. I hope that you will take this information that I have shared and be honest with yourself and take some time to make realistic goals. This is about being healthy and fit, not being skinny. This is about you living longer and stronger. This is about a lifestyle change. This is about feeling great and being happy and being a better person. Do it for you. You deserve it! That's the truth.

A mantra to remind you of why you work hard. Repeat this to yourself , "I do it to feel good, to have energy, to be healthier, to be happy."