Embrace

Your Scars…The Ones Others Can’t See

/ jmfelicjan / Leave a comment

Experience is a great teacher; unfortunately, experience leaves mental scars, and scar tissue contracts.

William James Mayo

I hope everyone had a great Easter and was able to make the best out of it. Hopefully if you were in any of the areas where some tornadoes struck, I hope that your all right and your friends and loved ones are all right. If you or anyone you know was injured, I hope you have a speedy recovery. Injuries heal with time. The are injuries that will heal and it will be like the injury was never there. Sometimes there will be injuries that will leave a scar. It might be a noticeable scar and it might not be. Those are just physical scars though. There are those scars that no one sees or knows about except you. Maybe a few select number of people know about them or maybe everyone in your circle of friends and loved ones know. There are people out there who have more mental and emotional scars then they do physical ones. Your not the only person who is like this. I also have more mental scars and emotional scars than physical ones. Your not alone.

The View on Scars

Scars over the course of history have been seen as an imperfection, a symbol of weakness, guilt, shame, and mistakes we have made for example. We do things to cover them up and act like they aren’t there. People will go to great lengths hide them. This isn’t just physical scars, but also the mental and emotional ones as well. We get the idea in our head that we need to be perfect for this situation, perfect to be friends with this person, perfect in our marriage, relationship, and to our parents. So we interpret scars as being a bad and negative thing. We also try to hide our scars with an “I’m fine”. As time goes on, we can get better at saying that and meaning it. Yet the scars are still there and they still may be bleeding metaphorically. Outside we look happy and all right, but on the inside we are hurting. We’re afraid to say something to anyone even our friends and loved ones or especially them. We don’t them to see us as someone who is damaged and broken. So we close ourselves up and put walls around us as another way of hiding our scars. These are some of the things we do as a way of not being vulnerable to others. If we are hurting, we fear that will be hurt again, so we do different things as a way of not getting hurt again.

Here it’s some advice on how to deal with your scars:

  • Your scars don’t make you less of a person. Some people have more scars than others, but that doesn’t mean that these people are weaker. Some people go through tough experiences in their life, sometimes one after another where some people don’t. The ones with more scars may have more life experience to offer to others. These people who go through rough times and come out on top have great mental strength.
  • Embrace your scars because even though they represent a hurtful or rough time of your life, they show that you survived defeats in your life. They show that you’re one of a kind. This reinforces the idea that you are unique in this world.
  • Your scars can also be seen as lessons you learned in life. These lessons are most of the time tough lessons. They show that you fought when you could have given up. You went through a tough experience, but you got a great life lesson out of it and that’s a plus.
  • A scar could have also have come from a lie you were told that took root and maybe you didn’t realize it. You first have to find that lie. Then see if anything in your life supports it. If you can’t find anything, then you have to work on dismissing it. These kind of scars can take time to work through because maybe you believed in it for an extended period of time and you have to train your mind to not think like negative anymore.

Here is a video of a young woman named Shayla. In this video she talks about overcoming her mental scars in regards to her skin and learning to love herself through acceptance.

Wrapping Up

None of your scars make you less worthy or lovable. Your scars make you who you are. You can say that you are alive. When it comes to embracing your scars there is a period of acceptance that you have to go through which can take time. When your done, you can hold your head up high and not feel ashamed of that scar anymore. Hopefully this brings some clarity some scars you have, scars you’re working through, and you can begin to not feel ashamed of them and embrace them.

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Live and Learn Right

/ jmfelicjan

Life doesn’t come with instructions. You may make mistakes, but you live and learn.

When we are born, we began to experience different things. We begin to experiment with our five senses. We hear sounds words, smell all kinds of things, we see different colors, shapes, sizes, objects, people, animals, etc. We touch various things, even tasting them. As we get older, we began to think and behave in various ways. We do things that are fun. We do things that we should and shouldn’t do. We wind up making mistakes and sometimes we get in trouble for them, but we continue living and we hopefully learn our lesson and not make those mistakes again. If your someone who has made mistakes, yet you continue to live your life, you’re just like everyone else in this world. Therefore, you’re not the only person in the world who has made all kinds of mistakes.

Your Always Learning Something

You’ve probably heard the phrase live and learn at some point in your life. Whether it was in a song, from a parent, a teacher, an actor in a movie or TV, those three words can be described as the concept of life itself. Everyday we learn something whether it’s about ourselves, about someone else, a new skill, acquire new knowledge about science, learn a new recipe, lyrics about a song, a new dance move, etc. While were learning all this stuff, we continue to live our lives. We learn something even if we don’t wanna learn something at the moment or if we’re not seeking new knowledge or experience. Our lives can get better from learning something new or we can go through a rough time.

Making Mistakes

Now let’s be honest with ourselves, we have all made all kinds of mistakes in our lives. I know I have made big and small mistakes in my life. Those mistakes probably made us feel bad about ourselves and probably affected other people in our lives as well. Our mistakes may have hurt someone’s feelings, started an argument, caused a fight, or messed something up. We are human, so therefore we are not perfect. Since we’re not perfect, we’re going to make mistakes one way or another; it’s just human nature. Even if we try our best to avoid mistakes, sometimes our best won’t be good enough. The overall moral is when we do make mistakes, we hopefully learn from them so that we don’t repeat them. What we do after we make our mistakes is what makes the difference. If you’re not making mistakes, chances are you’re not doing anything or not living a full life.

Learning From Our Mistakes

When we make a mistake is one thing, what happens after that is where the learning comes in and is the important part. A mistake tells us that something didn’t work out or was wrong. So we go ahead and correct it afterwards. We also learn from other peoples mistakes. We see or hear about their mistakes, and we hopefully don’t do what they did. We figure out what went wrong and come up with a solution so that it won’t happen again. We learn what we did wrong, fix it if we can, then move forward in our lives.

Learning is a Life Long Process

As I mentioned we learn something everyday, even if it’s something small. The learning process shouldn’t be rushed. We are going to be learning new things about ourselves, other people, our culture, and other things in life as we get older. Sometimes life’s greatest lessons come to us bits and pieces at a time. We don’t learn the full lesson at once. We just have to remember to be patient and not be hard on ourselves. If we want to grow as a person we have to continue to learn. Whatever our passion is, we have to follow it. Curiosity is the gateway to learning and exploring new things.

Embrace Life One Day at a Time

These days you may think how could we really embrace life when were busy with work, going to school, or raising in a family. Well you just have to stop and do some self-reflecting. Consider what matters the most to you on a personal level. Sometimes we get so busy with things we forget to prioritize what’s important to us. When we forget to prioritize the important things that our lives that help us thrive and bring us joy, we can get stuck in a rut and we run out of energy to do anything. Find what’s important to you whether that’s going on a hike, playing with your dog, building new things, reading, meditation, yoga, or painting. Any kind of personal reflection carries great meaning to a person. This is what adds value to their lives.

Finding the Right Balance

One of the big ideas of living and learning is finding balance in your life. You can spend years trying to find the right balance in your life. You try to balance your work life, school life, social life giving one or two of them more attention than the other and not letting one take full control and throw you off balance completely. Life can change so fast that one side can have more weight in seconds. It can be hard to keep up with things when life takes a sudden turn. I found it hard to do that many times myself. So once again you’re not alone in that department.

Final Thoughts and Sum Up

The lesson of living and learning is a lifelong process. We learn one thing and then another and another and another. We make mistakes, but the idea is to learn from them. We have to learn to find balance in our life so that we don’t get overloaded with one thing. It may take us longer to learn some things than others and that’s fine. Everyone learns at a different pace and that’s another thing we may need to learn about ourselves. Going back to my first post about not comparing ourselves to someone else, we have to figure out what we thrive at, what are passion is, and how we learn. How we learn is different than how someone else learns. Live and learn, it’s the best way to grow.

Change = Growth…True

/ jmfelicjan

Have you ever gotten so comfortable with something that you didn’t want to it to change, but it did? Have you developed a routine that you got so used to that you did it every day, every other day, then all of sudden something happened and you had to change the way you operate and move things around? Well your not the only one as I myself have had to deal with this dozens of times in my life.

We all experience some kind of change in our life at some point. The change can be very exciting because something new can happen, but change can be scary and difficult because something new can happen. Any kind of change can be described as an upset in your life that can shake your world up, a new beginning, and an opportunity for growth. When we hear the word ‘change’ or the phrase ‘there are going to be some changes around here’ are attention is quickly drawn to whoever said it and our adrenaline peaks up. One of the first things that goes through our minds is that this change is going to be something bad and/or unsettling. Down the road reality can kick in and we find out that things didn’t turn out as bad as we thought or they weren’t bad at all. Sometimes change can be scary, but only if you see it that way.

Change can be an opportunity for growth. As we get older, we need to be able to expand our horizon of interests, skills, and add to preexisting things in our life. It can be easy to get stuck in a rut or routine just out of sheer habit or because you went into survival mode due to something bad that happened to you. The longer your in that rut or routine, any kind of change that happens to you will be bigger and more alarming compared to being in a rut or routine for a short time. Recently, I have been experiencing new things which have helped me grow more as a person. Experiencing new things, meeting new people, and going to new places are opportunities for growth.

In order for people to grow into healthy and functional people, we have to embrace change. Embracing change can help us in several ways. For example:

  • Our confidence builds up
  • Our self-esteem increases
  • Were more open to what people say
  • Were open to try new things in our lives
  • We learn to control our fear (Courage is fear controlled)
  • Expand our knowledge and creativity
  • We become more mature
  • We understand ourselves better

The more we embrace change and see it as an opportunity to grow and learn new things, the easier it becomes to deal with and it’s not as scary. There are people who thrive with change. They want to challenge themselves over and over. Now I’m not saying go full throttle, you have to go at your own pace. Some extroverts (people who are out-going) go full throttle because that’s who they are. Some introverts (people who are more reserved) take things slow. It’s important to stay true to who you are because that is what makes you unique.

Here are some ways you can better embrace change and see it as growth and understand the concept of it:

1. Learn and Experience Something New

To elaborate more on this idea, change can be scary, but look past the fear and see change as to better yourself. As you learn something new or experience something new you may get clarity on something you have been trying to figure out. You can connect with someone better because you both shared the same experience.

2. Look Past the Fear

Change has a way of setting off our alarm that something we may not be able to control is going to happen whether we caused it or not. We get scared and sometimes avoid the change entirely. Well we can’t always do that. Change can be scary if we see it that way. Positive self-talk can be helpful because it helps us to see what we can benefit from the change, ignore the fear, and gain the confidence to move forward. We break it down and see it for what it really is. Again, we need to look past the fear and see the benefits and opportunities for growth.

3. Change Happens at Different Times for Everyone

Change can be right in front of you, but maybe not for those around you. If there is some kind of change that is happening to you, but not your friends, family, co-workers, or those around you, don’t ignore it. Change happens at different times for everyone. You may go through a change now, but one day your friends or family members will go through a change and you won’t. Just be supportive toward them as you would want the same thing yourself.

4. Change can Lead to Openness

Change can lead to growth, but it can also lead to being more open to new things. As you grow, you expand your interests which can lead to embracing new opportunities and learning new things to expand your knowledge. You can become more open to hearing other people’s ideas and opinions. You get to see other peoples perspectives which does lead to connecting with someone and improving existing relationships.

5. Change can Increase Creativity and Curiosity

When you open up to change, your curiosity goes up. You begin to want to learn why things are the way they are? You may get curious about someone’s life story or the origins of something. This can lead to your creativity increasing because you’re open to new ideas which can spark ideas of your own.

Here is a video about change is growth from Nik Miller who is a veteran who served in the Marines and became a US Para-canoe representative. Here he talks about how he viewed change as a way to grow and to challenge himself.

Change is inevitable, but growth is optional. I believe change is the bridge that can lead to growth; it’s up to you if you cross that bridge or not.