All Posts in Category: (07) The Medicine of Life
Seven Ways to Stop Breaking Our Own Hearts – Part 3
This article is specifically directed to women. However, the principles are applicable to all persons. I don’t agree with everything here asserted. But, “eat the fish and throw out the bones.”
Dina Strada is an L.A. based Event Planner, Author, and Certified Life Coach specializing in relationships and empowering women. She has most recently been featured as a Contributing Author in the powerful new book, “Simply Women: Stories from 30 Magnificent Women Who Have Risen Against the Odds”.
I’ve lost count how many times my own heart has been broken. I could argue that the breaking of my heart was done to me by another person. I could easily make myself the victim of my stories of heartache and loss. But I’ve come to realize that in each situation, I had a choice. And my choices were the cause of many broken hearts.I am in no way suggesting that we won’t sometimes have our heart broken by another person when we do everything right, even when we make the best choices for ourselves. Because that’s part of life. Our hearts are fragile and vulnerable to the actions of others.
5. Always honor your real feelings. Some of us try so hard to fight our real feelings—whether they’re toward a person, a relationship, a situation or a decision somebody else is pressing us to make—we go one way when our heart and intuition are screaming something entirely different.
We live in a society that dictates a lot of “shoulds.” I should be strong. I should be attracted to this kind of person. I should do the responsible thing and not pursue this passion that is calling to my heart every single day. Not honoring our most authentic self and desires will always break our hearts. Every single time.
6. Love yourself. That’s right. Love and accept every single thing about yourself. The good, the bad and the ugly. The perceived flaws and weaknesses. The things about yourself you think (or others think) need fixing. This is what makes you, you.
Trying to be someone you’re not. Trying to mold yourself into something you think you need to be, or hating yourself for the way you are—whether it’s sensitive, impatient, gullible, moody, too short, too fat, too loud, whatever it is. This will break your heart every time.
We are all unique, special and incredible to the people in our lives who truly love and care about us. So surround yourself with those people and love on yourself more than anyone. Because you can’t expect other people to love you if you aren’t doing the same.
Author: Dina Strada
Image: Lauren Treece/Flickr
Editor: Catherine Monkman
Seven Ways to Stop Breaking Our Own Hearts – Part 2
This article is specifically directed to women. However, the principles are applicable to all persons. I don’t agree with everything here asserted. But, “eat the fish and throw out the bones.”
Dina Strada is an L.A. based Event Planner, Author, and Certified Life Coach specializing in relationships and empowering women. She has most recently been featured as a Contributing Author in the powerful new book, “Simply Women: Stories from 30 Magnificent Women Who Have Risen Against the Odds”.
I’ve lost count how many times my own heart has been broken. I could argue that the breaking of my heart was done to me by another person. I could easily make myself the victim of my stories of heartache and loss. But I’ve come to realize that in each situation, I had a choice. And my choices were the cause of many broken hearts.I am in no way suggesting that we won’t sometimes have our heart broken by another person when we do everything right, even when we make the best choices for ourselves. Because that’s part of life. Our hearts are fragile and vulnerable to the actions of others.
3. Don’t put your happiness in the hands of another person. We all intellectually know this. Happiness is an inside job. Nobody and nothing outside of ourselves can make us happy. Yet we go into different situations in our lives and most of our relationships throwing the monumental task of making us happy onto another person.
Don’t give anyone else this power over you. We’re all responsible for our own happiness and that includes our choices to stay in relationships or situations that aren’t bringing us what we truly want. If the relationship, job, or situation we are in is no longer serving us or in alignment with what we truly desire, we have the choice to let it go to create space for something better.
4. Don’t make everything about you. This one is incredibly hard because we make so much about us. When people treat us poorly. When someone doesn’t choose us. When our partner is unfaithful. When we don’t get a job we want…we make it all about us.
It’s never really about us. It’s about them.
People’s choices are simply that—their choices. Just as we choose what is best for us, other people choose what is best for them and sometimes their choices hurt us.
When someone I cared deeply about ended the relationship with me, the first place I went was, “Why wasn’t I enough?” This seemed like a logical thought at the time. If I was enough, he wouldn’t have walked away and then immediately dove into a relationship with somebody else.
But that’s not the whole truth. When people choose something else, it rarely has anything to do with us and more to do with them. They simply chose something different. Different doesn’t mean better. It just means different. It’s like when we’re perfectly content eating the same thing for breakfast every day until one day we see something else that captures our attention—and it looks a whole lot better than what we’ve been eating. We want to try it.
The same thing happens with people. Sometimes, people just need to try something different. Don’t make it about you.
Author: Dina Strada
Image: Lauren Treece/Flickr
Editor: Catherine Monkman
Seven Ways to Stop Breaking Our Own Hearts – Part 1
This article is specifically directed to women. However, the principles are applicable to all persons. I don’t agree with everything here asserted. But, “eat the fish and throw out the bones.”
Dina Strada is an L.A. based Event Planner, Author, and Certified Life Coach specializing in relationships and empowering women. She has most recently been featured as a Contributing Author in the powerful new book, “Simply Women: Stories from 30 Magnificent Women Who Have Risen Against the Odds”.
I’ve lost count how many times my own heart has been broken. I could argue that the breaking of my heart was done to me by another person. I could easily make myself the victim of my stories of heartache and loss. But I’ve come to realize that in each situation, I had a choice. And my choices were the cause of many broken hearts.I am in no way suggesting that we won’t sometimes have our heart broken by another person when we do everything right, even when we make the best choices for ourselves. Because that’s part of life. Our hearts are fragile and vulnerable to the actions of others.
But there are things we all do that lead to heartbreak and I think awareness of some of these things can possibly spare all of us from breaking our own damn hearts in the future.
1. Don’t have expectations. I know this is like saying go into a five-star restaurant and don’t expect the food to be good. Of course, we expect the food to be good…it’s a five-star restaurant!
But our expectations of the exact experience we must have with someone or something are what lead to the disappointment and heartbreak, not the actual experience itself.
This is so hard not to do but I promise that if you have expectations of a person, situation or relationship, you’re going to break your own heart. Go into everything with no attachment to the outcome. Allow things to unfold into what they are meant to be. We may be disappointed by the experience or let down that it’s not what we had hoped for, but our chances of actually being heartbroken are a whole lot less.
2. Don’t expect someone to show up differently than who they are. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been disappointed or devastated by the way someone treated me, even after I watched them treat everyone before me the exact same way.
If a man was emotionally unavailable to every woman before me, I would still allow myself to believe I was special enough to make him open up and be emotionally available to me. If he had a pattern of running when relationships got too serious, I believed he just hadn’t met the right person yet and maybe that person was me.
Want to break your own heart? Keep doing this. People show you who they are right up front. As Maya Angelou says, “Believe them the first time.”
Author: Dina Strada
Image: Lauren Treece/Flickr
Editor: Catherine Monkman
Mental Health Monday – Seeing Drug and Alcohol Addiction in a New Light
My soul, praise the Lord!
Every part of me, praise his holy name!
My soul, praise the Lord
and never forget how kind he is!
He forgives all our sins
and heals all our sicknesses.
He saves us from the grave,
and he gives us love and compassion.
He gives us plenty of good things.
Psalm 103:1-5
We need to stop blaming addicts and start treating them.
Right now, our treatment options are severely limited and often misguided.
In this talk, Ed Stevenson passionately describes why we desperately need more treatment centers
and better treatment options if we are to help our friends and family who struggle with addictions.
Mental Health Monday – Failing at Normal: An ADHD Success Story
Jessica McCabe tell us the story of her life.
Once a gifted child with bright future,
who later lives a life of a constant failures,
because one thing – her ADHD diagnosis.
Until one thing changed everything and she realized,
that she is not alone.
Her Youtube channel HowtoADHD is dedicated
to help not only people with ADHD,
but also their parents, partners a teachers
and to remind them, that they are not alone.