Tag Archives: feelings

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Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy

So this song has been pretty popular the past couple of months. There’s a rumor that Pharrell tried numerous times to get this concept off the ground before the movie actually picked it up. The song is super catchy and the music video(s) involve people singing and dancing to the song at all hours of the day and night. There’s a website that plays the music video 24/7 and you can also watch it in one hour increments. While I am someone who gets easily annoyed after the first 5 minutes of a song (with the exception of classical music), I’ve actually listened to three hours of this song over and over again. We all know people who appear to be happy all the time. I don’t know anyone who actually IS happy all of the time (unless they are happily psychotic, but that really doesn’t count). While songs like this would traditionally be way too “happy” for me, it’s a song that can put you in a better mood. Despite the fact that in no way am I a poster child for being in a constant state of euphoric happiness, I’ve learned to genuinely enjoy and appreciate the moments where happiness sneaks up on me and surprises me. This song just talks about being happy without there being an apparent reason. Great concept. Good melody. Pharrell made a great song that embodies a feeling that most people want to have, and, (totally unrelated), he does NOT look 40.

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Love is a choice

To love is to be vulnerable. So we’re back in February which is also known as the month of love. Not too long ago, I watched a movie (can’t remember the name) where one of the characters told the other that the first person to say “I love you” to their significant other loses. I also watched the episode of New Girl (love that show) where Nick finally blurts out to Jess that he loves her and she totally freaks out. In no way am I anti-love, but I can understand the vulnerability that comes with being the first one to use the word “love” directed towards a significant other. Scary stuff. One thing that grinds my gears is when couples say that they aren’t in love anymore and that their feelings have changed toward each other. True love isn’t based on how we feel at the moment. It’s more complicated than that. So many people are under the false assumption that you have to be with the person that you love. Loving from a distance can take more guts than being with the person that you love. Sometimes loving someone means that you respect their choices–even if you don’t agree with it or know that they would be better off with you. It involves putting your feelings to the side because at the end of the day, feelings can come and go. A genuine interest, respect for someone, and a desire to do anything necessary to ensure their success are some of the many aspects of true love. So what if your feelings change? Love has to go deeper than that. One of my Facebook friends posted that when you love someone you don’t ever actually stop loving them, you just learn how to move on. You can still love someone after letting go of them because your love shouldn’t be dependent on their actions. Love is a choice. It’s a choice that should be made wisely because if you really love someone you don’t stop loving them. Even if you don’t agree with their decisions. This, by default, puts you in a position of vulnerability and you had better hope that the other person is in a similar spot of vulnerability because it’s never fun being in love alone. Ever. Because to love is to be vulnerable.

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Love Languages

Love Languages

Learning or knowing someone’s love language has been something that I’ve always encouraged my clients to do for themselves and their partner. Especially when both say that “communication problems” are the reason why they’re in counseling. “Communication problems” are usually just the symptom of a bigger issue going on on the relationship. I usually encourage my couples to take the test and then discuss the results with each other. Then I’ll encourage them to start to learn their partner’s love language and let that show in their actions. I took the test myself and discovered that my love language is Physical Touch. I talked about it a little in the “Meaningless Affection” blog post. I’m the kind of person who likes things that are tangible. I enjoy activities that use one of my five senses. I’m not as excited by abstract things. Ironically, my second love language is quality time. I’m pretty particular how I spend my time. Mostly because I know that I can’t get back time that I’ve lost. I’m a big fan of self awareness because the first step in change is knowing that you actually need to. Discovering your love language can be really helpful as you navigate through your friendships and relationships.

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My Favorite Non-Optimistic Song

I’m somewhat of a music nerd that occasionally holds personal emotional listening parties in which I listen to music that depicts the emotion that I’m feeling. Happy, sad, angry, content, tired, or even annoyed. I think that most people have a go-to song that they use for motivation. Athletes sometimes even have a certain playlist of songs that they play before they have to go out on the field in order to get them into the mindset they need. This song is my absolute favorite song for when I’m feeling overwhelmed or upset and I want some empathy and also motivation. This song is perfect for me. I think that we’ve all had a “you can’t win” day. It’s a part of life. Whenever I have a day like that, I play this song and I instantly feel better. While the message of the song may not be the most optimistic, it’s a great depiction of how I feel when everything is going wrong. There’s no “everything will be ok” feel to this song but despite this, I still find it to be encouraging. We live in an uncertain world and sometimes life throws us curveballs that require us to regroup and adapt to unexpected changes. I like this song because it doesn’t pull any punches. There’s no rosy assertion that the sun will come out tomorrow. It’s pretty blunt. And sometimes that’s nice to hear when you’re upset or frustrated. It’s just an acknowledgment of how you feel. For me, it’s just a therapeutic intervention that never fails to cheer me up and helps me feel a little better on those days where nothing goes right.

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Money, money, money

Growing up, I was taught the verse that admonished me to not love money because it was the beginning of evil. No truer words have even been spoken. Human greed is a powerful thing and millions have died as the result of the selfish decisions of a few. With millions of people chasing the “American Dream” with hopes of one day becoming independently wealthy, one has to ask, does money buy happiness? Depending on who you are (and how much money you have) your answer to this question will vary. I’ve always been told that money doesn’t buy happiness, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve grown to disagree with that statement. I humbly submit that money actually does buy happiness. In the world today there so much emphasis on doing what makes you happy and being happy in life. I for one, don’t particularly subscribe to that perspective. Over the course of my life, I’ve bought things that have inadvertently brought me happiness. With money. I’m not a genius but I know that the having more money in my particular situation would increase my quality of life and also allow me to travel more which would translate to happiness. Happiness is fleeting and doesn’t last for an extended period of time. It’s not necessarily something that you can hoard and save for a special occasion. While money may buy happiness, it doesn’t bring lasting peace or joy, it won’t buy you good health, it won’t solve your family problems and it won’t save you from dying. But it comes in handy in times of stress, can improve your quality of life if used wisely, and consequently, can buy you things and experiences that bring you happiness. Not peace of mind. But definitely happiness.

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The Beauty of Optimism

I’m a halfway believer in the power of optimism. Thinking positively can change your outlook on life and help you be a happier person. However, I’ve met people who have taken this positive outlook stuff to another level. As someone who works with depressed people almost daily, I know what a difference having a positive perspective can have on one’s mental state. However, as someone who is more of a realist, one thing that I’ve noticed is how often life doesn’t go the way we want it to. We live in a world where we are told that if we do something specific we’ll get specific results. If you go to college, you’ll get a decent job. If you study hard, you’ll make good grades. If you help enough people get what they want, one day you’ll get what you want. If you act like you have some sense, you’ll marry well. But none of these things are necessarily guaranteed. I’m often reminded of how often life doesn’t always go my way. There’s a saying that says we should hope for the best while planning for the worst. I like this perspective because it’s balanced. I think that optimism can be a source of false hope for some people and while that can be very comforting, I prefer a more straightforward approach that may not be as rosy, but depicts reality. I would rather experience a harsh truth than a comforting lie because at the end of the day, I want to be able to be prepared. Hope can be such a powerful emotion but I’d rather focus my energies on whats going on in the here and now instead of being disappointed at the outcome of my hope. I love optimists; they make the best friends.

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It’s been HOW long?

I’m going to keep this pretty short and sweet but this song has been running through my head a lot in the past few hours. I was exposed to all types of music growing up but quality R&B is something of a lost art form. This is why I like Brian McKnight’s music. Granted, I may have more of a vested interest than most people because I’ve seen him numerous times and he went to my alma mater. But that’s neither here nor there. I’ve always admired artists who can convey a message of such deep human emotion through an equally moving set of chords and progressions that just fit. Brian has that gift. Recently I had the opportunity to see him perform live and it was an incredible experience. “6,8, 12” is one of my favorite songs ( I have many) because Brian does such an amazing job (as always) of capturing an experience that many people have felt at one point or another in their lives. The song talks about the process of letting go after being close to an individual but realizing that it won’t work out in the long run. Logic and experience both say that this situation should have been resolved a long time ago, but emotions and feelings say the opposite. So as a result, you’re stuck in a place of missing this person for an indefinite period of time. Or rather, 6 months, 8 days, and 12 hours. That place of limbo between being over someone and actually being with them. Definitely not the most comfortable place to be, but sometimes that’s just where we end up…

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Traveling Thoughts

Here I am, sitting at one something in the morning. I’m sleep deprived, exhausted, and worn out but yet I’m actually pretty darn happy. The reason for this is that I’m not in Colorado and the icing on the cake is the fact that I’m enjoying weather in the 80’s. I grew up traveling with my family and now as an adult, I still travel as much as possible. I’ve gotten the chance to come to one of my favorite places in the world, Miami Beach, Florida. While I can’t really exactly say why I like it, I just do. Traveling gives me the chance to get away from it all. This is especially true as I have so many things to do but I’m ignoring them because I’m out of town. My homework is looming but will not be done tonight. I have calls to make but they will have to wait till Monday. It’s been a great trip and while I absolutely positively do not want to go back to the snow and cold of Colorado, I understand that it’s necessary for what I want to do in my life long term. A necessary evil. We all need a chance to escape and take a break once in a while and I’m glad that I had a chance to do it. It’s raining cats and dogs, I have a twelve hour drive to catch my flight and a total of over 2000 miles to travel until I’m back in Colorado, but coming here was so worth it. Miami has some sort of appeal for me and I love coming here year after year. For some reason, traveling is an indication of normalcy for me and it’s something that I love. If I could get a job just traveling, I’d probably take it.Right now I remember that all good things have to come to an end at some point so it’s back to life and back to reality for now.

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School Woes

Recently I have come to the conclusion that I really really really hate school. At least the regular kind. This epiphany comes on the wake of realizing that I have total of over 29 pages to write in the next week or so. While I prefer these 12 week quarters to the 10 weeks that I had in graduate school, I still don’t want to do the work. One of the challenges of distance learning is that you have to be so disciplined because you don’t attend class every week. I think that my irritation with school comes from the fact that this is only my 5th consecutive year of traditional education. Being homeschooled, I had the freedom to learn what I wanted to learn without any restrictions or guidelines on how it should be done. My high school education was done through a correspondence course that included many of the typical subjects but all the tests were open book. No big deal. It was only in college that I actually had to learn to study in order to learn the information required to pass tests. However, after a certain point, tests were obsolete and all methods of examination were by essay. I remember a final exam that was six blank pages with one question per page and it was the expectation of the teacher that each page be full with writing as you answered the questions. I’m sure that my annoyance with school is partially due to the fact that I have a slight problem with procrastination. I say slight because although I don’t usually wait to the last minute, I still put it off more than I should. I have a lot of respect for people who have completed a doctorate and now I understand why so many people insist on being called by their title of “doctor.” That being said, I’m taking a break from school after this doctorate. A very long, and a very much needed break. That being said, let me return to this very large, endless, and pretty much pointless pile of papers to write.

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In your feelings

One thing that I’ve noticed recently is how many of my fellow Twitter peeps (and myself included) have been all up in our feelings. Now this could definitely be either a good or bad thing. I think a lot of it is situational in nature and is largely dependent on some unexpected stressor that has crossed our path. Or, in my case, it just comes from the wonderful but also very uncomfortable mix of being emotional, analytical, logical, and a hopeless romantic all blended together. There’s nothing wrong with having feelings but one thing that I’ve realized is that we can’t allow them to rule our lives. While life is no fun being predictable and dry, there’s a need for balance between being realistic and emotional. Let’s face it, emotions aren’t always logical. Just because you “feel” a certain way does not mean that it’s realistic or even makes sense. Feelings can change as easily as the direction of the wind and while they may seem trustworthy, usually they’re not. At some point, good old common sense and responsibility have to trump how you feel. I read somewhere this week that one sign of a well disciplined person is that they wake up in the morning and just like they decide what clothes to wear, they decide how to feel during the day. That way, they can remind themselves if they ever deviate away from the decided on feeling and can change their thinking to come back into alignment with the day’s goal. While I can see the logic in doing that, I’m don’t know if I could ever do that. What’s life if you don’t feel various emotions through the day? We need some daily reminder that we’re human and having feelings definitely provides that much needed dose of reality.