Be More Optimistic

Life could also be a lot worse than what it is right now. The future is so bright and there is so many magnificent things in life that still have yet to come. Make sure to see the good in people and focus more on the good things in life. Be the best that you can be.   XO, nessa. 

Let Love Grow.

Love those who surround you. Appreciate them for all that they are and more. They are priceless and one of the best things about life. Accept the love that you deserve. Be happy <3

-Nessa

More Self Love

Recently I have come across several very compelling articles and videos online regarding "self-help" topics. As i've mentioned before, there are times where I look down on myself and feel as if I can be more than who I am today. Being unhappy isn't a choice that I choose when I first wake up. It just sort of happens?

Now, the world is constantly moving and changing and its going to keep moving whether we're ready or not. As each day passes by we learn from everything that we come across. The person that I am today is not the same person that I was yesterday and even tomorrow i'm not going to be the same person that I am today. Ingrid Nilsen put up a YouTube video today for her 1 year anniversary of coming out (watch it here) and what she was saying hit hard. She talks about being open to new possibilities and to not live in such a tight bubble. How living in the world of "I should's" and "I dont's"makes it so much more difficult to be who we are. We shouldn't feel obligated to be the same person for the rest of our life. We go through so many phases and we should accept all of those phases, move on, and have more self love.

When you don't love yourself other people have a hard time loving you too. It's really hard to fight off that inner voice inside of your head that is telling you what and what not to do and how you should and should not look. But you know what, you can do it! It takes so much bravery to choose to believe in something good. When we don't let ourselves be loved, we're denying ourself from happiness. Why would anybody do that to themselves? I'm not sure but i'm trying to figure it out as well. Only we can love ourselves as much as anybody else can. We are in charge of our lives and our own happiness. We are in control. It may not be easy and it may take a lot of work and self care but it is achievable. We'll have to make sacrifices but, we will make it.

I'm still learning. But i'll get there one day.
-Nessa

Where Are We Headed

I believe that I'm finally starting to accept the fact that I'm home for a good amount of time (only took me 8 months).It's been a very rough transition as you all may or may not know but I'm getting somewhere. I constantly ask myself who I want to be and where I would like to be in the next year, five years and sometimes even ten years. When I was younger I never truly understood why teachers would have us write goals down on a sheet of paper and keep it to ourselves to look over, but these past couple of years I've grown as a person and I've also learned a lot to finally realize just why exactly they have us do that

Creating a vision for ourselves helps us figure out just exactly what we want from life and what exactly it takes to achieve it. All it takes is 15 minutes with a pen and paper to jot down our goals. By doing this we are able to determine what exactly it is that we need to do to reach those goals. It will help keep us accountable to follow through with those tasks and not get lazy! Thinking into the future is a pretty scary thought. I honestly freak out every single time I think about it because it's full of uncertainty. However, if we set out goals for ourself, we will always have something that we're working towards. As long we take action towards reaching our goals we will always be moving forward. Reviewing our goals regularly can help us realize what your next step will be. Life is hard and it gets very frustrating when we don't see any progress towards your goals. The goals that we have written down is just like a stepping stone, it is a reminder as to how far we've come from to get from point A to point B in life. 
 As of right now my goals are a blur. I'm working towards them and I'm terrified of what comes next but I'm just trying to take it one step at a time. I would like to finish school, get into an OT program, move out of my parents house and start my life with my dog and whoever else is still with me at the time. 
 One last thing, make sure to never settle! We as humans tend to settle because we're simply afraid something better won't come along. We fear that were not good enough. Realize your worth and believe it or you won't attract something better. Inspire those around you and treat everybody with equal love and respect.


 Thanks for reading! See you all soon! -Nessa    

Escaping Materialism

Money can't buy you love and it can't buy you happiness either. Todays materialistic world has everybody itching to buy the latest technology, the trendiest clothes and whatever bigger and better things there may seem to be. It's so difficult for a lot of us to find joy in other aspects in life rather than materialistic aspects. It also doesn't help that everywhere we look there are messages about a certain item or a certain brand. They are either on the internet, billboards, television and even on blogs.

Anywho, what made me write this was that i've been noticing as I browse through Instagram, I have been noticing that plenty of people I follow post about their new trendy clothes, their newest technology, where they've been recently and so on and so forth. My question is why? Why must we share with the entire world what we're doing or what we bought ourselves? Why must we feel the need to get likes for everything that we own/do? It just makes no sense to me. Is it impossible to be happy alone? 100 likes versus 25 likes doesn't make you any better of a person. Just because you posted yourself in your new yeezy boosts lets say ... doesn't make you any cooler than the person sitting next to you.

Think back to when you were 10 years old. What made you happy then? There wasn't much materialistic influence on us quite yet. We'd probably get excited about going to the park and playing on the swings or even seeing a cute puppy across the street and probably wanting to go to the petting zoo at the farmers market. Think about the simple and small pleasures in life. It's okay to be "basic". I'd like to share a quote I came across a few years ago.

“Dreams shouldn’t be about what you can buy — they should be about what mark you leave in the world." -Claire Cross

Just do you boo boo. Also don't forget to be kind, love others and stay healthy. Thats all for now. Bye friends!

Unplugged and Unwind.

There has been so many beautiful days out here in California. I've been taking time to unplug from the world by turning my devices off and simply enjoying the day out. I bring my yoga mat onto the balcony, bring a book and a pillow and just lay there. Listening to the wind blow, watching the clouds pass by me and listen to the birds chirp away as the sun starts to set.

I believe that taking the time to relax is a very important part in life. Life is a big rollercoaster with plenty of highs and lows that we're constantly adapting to. We juggle responsibilities, fit a million things into one crowded work day and stress out about different factors throughout the day. Its just a constant go..go..go. We tend to just push stressful things aside and continue to let it accumulate until we come crashing down with side affects. Lack of sleep, muscle tenseness, excessive hunger and some anxiety (:

So go on and unplug from the world. Take a moment to relax and enjoy the beautiful life you live and enjoy the little things.

What Makes You Happy?

On a real note answer this question for yourself. What truly makes you happy?

Ever since I have moved back home I've had a very very difficult time getting back into the swing of things. I mean I have my bachelors degree, I'm taking prerequisite classes for grad school, I found a job within a month of moving back home and I now live with my parents...again. It doesn't sound too bad but things just really don't feel right. I have never felt more lost and confused in my life before and I can't seem to get a grip on what exactly it is that I need to do to feel somewhat better about things. I'm at a crossroad.

I feel like while I was at school I was just constantly moving forward in life and now that I'm back home I feel like i'm stuck or that i'm going to fall back in life or that I'm just going to get caught up. Obviously I don't want that to happen. Now the questions that I've been asking myself all come down to one thing. What makes you happy Nessa? And to be entirely honest, I'm not quite sure what makes me happy. I have a very strong feeling in my gut that I need to get away and just go live life somewhere far away from what has been known as home for my entire life. Home just doesn't feel like home anymore. Home is somewhere else and it's waiting for me to come and find it.

There will always be two different options throughout our lives. You either do it something or you don't. So cheers to figuring out life. I say do what makes you happy regardless of anybody else's opinion. If they think that it's a dumb and stupid idea who cares! That is one person out of billions of people in the world. Do you and don't let anybody throw you off track. Enjoy your life. Make sure to stand up tall and prove to the world just how amazing of a person you can be. Choose to never be average but to always be extraordinary.

**photo doesn't belong to me**

So you had a bad day... lets conquer it!

Bad days suck! But, they happen and all we can do is take the rest of the day by one thing at a time.

Today I had a pretty bad day which led to a full blown panic attack. I just got so overwhelmed with all of these little things until I just blew up. Throughout the day I just wanted to keep crying. I mean it wasn't really helping me deal with the bad day but thats all I really wanted to do. The more I kept crying the more I couldn't breathe and well that always sucks.

Anyways, the point of this post is to help you conquer your bad day!

1. Just keep breathing because everything is going to be okay
2. Even though things feel so crappy right now just try and make the best out of what you have
3. Drink some fluids and make sure to eat (don't over eat though hehe)
4. Take on tasks one thing at a time.
5. Find something that makes you calm and do it (I usually listen to music and ignore the rest of the world)
6. Don't dwell on the bad, but look at the positives. 
7. If you need to cry. DO it and OWN it!! I believe that crying helps.
8. Tomorrow is a new day to conquer. You got this!

Stress n.

stress - noun - a state of mental tension and worry caused by problems in your life, work, etc. (Merriam-Webster)

I decided to take a break from all of this studying to take a moment and just rant/discuss stress. [(I really should continue studying but my brain hurts) I have three tests tomorrow]. 

So, as you know I am a college athlete. Being a golfer in college requires you to miss a lot of school (LIKE A LOT OF SCHOOL). I don't remember the last time I was in one of my classes for the entire week. But, geesh am I behind. I don't really have a clue what is going on in my classes. I'm doing my best to keep up but it's just so hard. Having three tests tomorrow blows. 

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Stress affects everybody in the world. Some people are able to manage their stress levels better than others. I for the other hand have a difficult time every now and then (especially when it comes to school work). Despite that, you should try to keep your stress level to a minimum. If there is something that you can do to help reduce your stress in the near future then do it! Don't let the stress just continue to build up (like I do). Take action now on the things that you can control so that you're more prepared and less stressed. This kind of ties into my emotions blog post about letting your emotions out. There are so many emotions going on in your head when you're stressed. Bottling up those emotions don't help so let it out. Try managing your time better also. I myself am working on that. However, I have gotten a lot better since my freshman year of university though. Also, learn how to take care of yourself before of others. Once you're able to deal with unnecessary stress and alter your situations you'll then be able to adapt much better to stressors. Another thing that can help you deal with stress is to adjust your standards, look at things from a different point of view (the bright side) and just stay positive.
Don't forget to also give yourself some (me) time for some fun and relaxation. But not too much that you avoid everything in the world. haha. Eating a well balanced diet and exercising regularly can also help lower your stress levels!

carpe diem

I need to listen to my own advice. geesh.

--xo Nessa

Emotions are tough.

Coping with certain emotions is quite a task for many people throughout the world (including myself). I'm not saying that I myself, have mastered the skill of handling certain emotions but I sure have learned a lot throughout my lifetime and I feel like I can give a bit of advice to others.

There are so many emotions that an individual can go through. But being able to process, and understand our emotions can help us develop as an individual and also manage our emotions more effectively. However, by using unhealthy ways to cope with certain emotions, it can affect ones relationship, lifestyle, and health.

One of the most difficult emotions people often tend to struggle with include being sad or depressed. But why is that exactly? We as humans tend to dwell on the most negative aspects in life and hardly ever think about or remember our positives in life. I don't really know why; but, that's just the way we as humans behave for some odd reason. humans are just plain out strange.
Holding onto negative thoughts in our lives just puts a little damper onto our lives. Think about the positives. Stay positive. Just be happy! Yeah, you can't control your emotions. But, you as a person can control the way that they affect you as an individual. There are so many different ways to cope with certain emotions. You can sing it out, write it out, dance it out, draw it out, scream it out, or just discuss your feelings with someone you're close with or even a stranger. Letting out your emotions are a great way to help cope. Although, it may sound silly and I'm sure a lot of you think that "nahh, I can keep it to myself... it'll go away eventually..." (at least I do sometimes). Letting your emotions out really does work. trust me! I have learned the hard way.

My mom has taught my siblings and I to be very head strong. We know how to take care of ourselves pretty damn well. So when it does come to a rough patch in life, I use to always bottle everything up. I would put on a smile for the world and convince everybody to believe that I was feeling 100% happy. But, whenever I got home, I couldn't help it but lay in bed hide under my covers, and just cry my eyes out until there were no more tears left to be shed. It took me such a long time to get out of such a depressed/sad stage!
One day, a good friend of mine was able to just crack my tough little shell and finally get me to spill out my emotions. I can't thank him enough for what he taught me. Not only did he teach me to trust people, but he also taught me that letting out your emotions is very beneficial (i miss you, RIP). Somehow by having someone listen whether its a living being, or an inanimate object: It literally helped out so so so much! Not only was I out of the depressed/sad slump stage much quicker, but I was able to view the world in a more positive aspect.

So next time you're feeling down in the blues. Pick yourself up off of that dirty floor and think of some positives. Talk to someone, write a song, dance till your legs are about to fall off. Just let go of whatever it is that is bringing you down and move forward! We as individuals can't grow if we're stuck living in the past. Life is tough, but we were placed on this world for a reason. Keep your head up, and just keep swimming!

-- xo Nessa

p.s. If you need a friend to talk to, I'll gladly be your friend (:! I'm a great listener and from what I've been told. I'm pretty damn great at giving advice also.