We Made It!

    It's the six month mark, meaning we have made it to the half of the year! I'm celebrating, because I was really depressed and just couldn't think of a better life for myself. However, this past week I have been bombarded with a list of positive things that can help anyone feeling depressed about themselves. Here it is:

 

The Draw My Life videos are inspiring, because it shows the journeys of certain people and how they have overcame their battles to be where they are now. I have seen a lot but this Youtuber DeStorm Power is by far the most inspiring from dealing with jail, homelessness, and death to become successful is...wow! 

 

This Draw My Life video is about social anxiety, which i feel from time to time. The video has two parts so make sure that you see both of them by MrAk101786 , even if you don't suffer from social anxiety.

Oprah Winfrey just got an honorary doctorate degree from  Harvard University! Is there anything she can't do? While she received this prestigious award, she gave a commencement  speech for the graduating class of 2013. Oprah shares her thoughts of wisdom about success and failure, and I encourage anyone to see this video whatever stage you are at in life.

     Also, over at xoJane, I read an article about a woman who was greeted by her dentist that thought she was dead. It just brings another perspective of this world, and that people really do care more about you than you might think. I am determined to keep going strong for the remaining of the year, and many years to come and I hope everyone else does as well!

What is Beauty?

                                      
    Hello, guess what? The Mayans were wrong, which is  spectacular depending on who you ask. I just recently read an article on The Frisky titled "Mirror, Mirror: You ARE Pretty Enough to Find Love". It is all about accepting yourself and not worrying about being "beautiful" because there is a type of love for everyone. You know, all the stuff our elders try to teach us. However, I have been reading Iyanla Vanzant's book "One Day My Soul Just Opened Up" and it is a daily self-help book that is meant to be read in 40 days. I am on my sixth day, and the day is titled Creativity.I don't want to give you too much details, but   in this chapter I learned that I can always change my mind.

         I have always had a very negative way of thinking, maybe I inherited that from my dad. Anyway, this negative thinking stems mostly from my physical looks. You see I have sickle-cell anemia, which is a serious illness. It  can cause me to get physically weak,  have excruciating pain and has caused me to spend most nights in the hospital as a child.

      Besides the frequent hospitalizations I received, I had a creepy,green, slimy appearance that used to make me shudder whenever I saw it. It was in the whites of my eyes, you know, the ones that people first notice in other and it's called jaundice. Jaundice appeared right in middle school ( not a good place to start), and I remembered the guy I had a crush on back then make fun of my  eyes and it caused me to cry severely in front of him. I also remembered  in my last years of high school some kid would always ask me if I had drugs. It wasn't in a nice way, but very harsh and taunting. Those weren't the only two, for other followed suit and made sure I always new my eyes were a yellow greenish color.

                                    
      I never understood why people made fun of me, I was shy (still am)  but very nice to others. However, in those years of bullying I stood up for myself once, which resulted in a fight. But other times I just stood there taking my parents advice, which was ignoring them, but it did not help at all. So I thought that I soon as a graduated from high school that there would be more mature people and bullying will have no avail.

     I was wrong in fact the first year of college was spent worrying about what others were thinking of me. I still get teased and bullied, in fact the other day I was at Walmart and someone busted out laughing saying that "I look like a stick" . But guess what? It doesn't bother me now. Because I have a positive mind that loves every inch of me. It's hard, and it is not overnight that you will wake up loving yourself like that. I still struggle from time to time, but I just pray to God to hinder my negative thoughts and to love everyone instead of hating everyone and everything like before, and it helps.