“Why? Why Does What Was Beautiful Suddenly Shatter In Hindsight Because It Concealed Dark Truths? Why

“Losing your appetite because you’re sad is the worst feeling ever.”

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The fact that you can feel so strongly for someone but they never have to feel the same. The fact that you can love and want only one person and they don’t have to feel the same. The fact that you can miss someone so much your heart aches for them, yet they can be fine without you

Journal Prompts

All the following questions were found from PsychCentral in the article 64 Journaling Prompts for Self-Discovery. I’m going to be using them in my next following posts

Who do you trust most? Why?

What are your strengths in relationships?

How do you draw strength from loved ones?

What do you value most in relationships?

What three important things have you learned from previous relationships?

What five traits do you value most in partners?

How do you show compassion to others? How can you extend that same compassion to yourself?

What are three things that work well in your current relationship? What are three things that could be better?

What boundaries could you set in your relationships to safeguard your own well-being? (*****This is particularly going to be a challenging one for me. I’ll get into that later.)

What do you most want your children to learn from you?

How can you better support and appreciate your loved ones?

What does love mean to you? How do you recognize it in a relationship?

List three things you’d like to tell a friend, family member, or partner?

What values do you consider most important in life? How to do your actions align with those values?

What three changes can you make to live according to your personal values?

Describe yourself using the first 10 words that come to mind. Then list 10 words that you’d like to use to describe yourself. List a few ways to transform those descriptions into reality.

What do you appreciate most about your personality? What aspects do you find harder to accept?

Explore an opinion or two that you held in the past but have since questioned or changed. What led you to change that opinion? 

List three personal beliefs that you’re willing to reconsider or further explore.

Finish this sentence: “my life would be incomplete without….”

Describe one or two significant life events that helped shape you into who you are today.

When do you trust yourself most? When do you find it hard to have faith in your instincts? (***Interesting. See to post 1).

What three things would you most like others to know about you?

What difficult thoughts or emotions come up most frequently for you?

Which emotions do you find hardest to accept? How do you handle these emotions?

Describe a choice you regret. What did you learn from it? (***)

What parts of daily life cause stress, frustration, or sadness? What can you do to change those experiences?

What are three things that can instantly disrupt a good mood and bring you down? What strategies do you use to counter these effects?

What are three self-defeating thoughts that show up in your self-talk? How can you reframe them to encourage yourself instead?

What go-to coping strategies help you get through moments of emotional or physical pain?

Who do you trust with your most painful and upsetting feelings? How can you connect with them when feelings low?

What do you fear most? Have your fears changed throughout life?

Describe your favorite thing to do when feeling low.

What three ordinary things bring you the most joy?

List three strategies that help you stay present in your daily routines. Then, list three strategies to help boost mindfulness in your life.

How do you prioritize self-care?

Describe two or three things you do to relax.

What aspects of your life are you most grateful for?

How do you show yourself kindness and compassion each day?

Write a short love letter to some object or place that makes you happy.

What place makes you feel most peaceful? Describe that place using all five senses.

List 10 things that inspire or motivate you.

What are your favorite hobbies? Why?

What parts of life surprised you most? What turned out the way you expected it would?

What three things would you share with your teenage self? What three questions would you want to ask an older version of yourself?

List three important goals. How do they match up to your goals from 5 years ago?

Do your goals truly reflect your desires? Or do they reflect what someone else (a parent, partner, friend, etc.) wants for you?

What helps you stay focused and motivated when you feel discouraged?

What do you look forward to most in the future?

Identify one area where you’d like to improve. Then, list three specific actions you can take to create that change.

How do you make time for yourself each day?

What do you most want to accomplish in life?

List three obstacles lying in the way of your contentment or happiness. Then, list two potential solutions to begin overcoming each obstacle.

Obviously there are not 64 questions listed here. I’ve eliminated any regarding work. Just not the topic of conversation that I’m wanting to have right now.

Since that fateful day in 1492, Columbus has been seen as a hero in the eyes of Americans. Recently, the horrible crimes that he committed have been the topic of a national conversation. Columbus Day is certainly a hot-button issue, but there is only one morally sound decision: America must abolish Columbus Day and replace it with a day to honor his Native American victims.

As his explorations have become a staple of U.S. history, Columbus has been molded into a symbol, not a real person. Many supporters of Columbus call him a “symbol of American success”, but he was more than a symbol. He was a complex human being, and idolizing him lets us ignore his flaws. Columbus has come to represent heroism and exploration. These are important values, so why should we taint them with Columbus’s name?

Columbus does not deserve to be honored for making a navigation mistake. On his expedition, Columbus was attempting to sail to India, not to the Americas. He ended up landing in Caribbean Islands through no effort of his own. This mistake resulted in Native Americans being called Indians for centuries, an inaccurate label. 

Columbus is often credited with discovering America. However, he didn’t discover America, because the Native Americans were already there. It’s impossible to discover a region that’s already occupied with millions of people. Furthermore, Native Americans were extremely knowledgeable about the climate and ecosystem of the Americas, and deserve honor much more for their contributions to our understanding of geography. 

Columbus enslaved the Native Americans, seeing them only as a means to profit. This wasn’t his first time trading slaves, though. Before his expedition, Columbus made a living selling African slaves in Portugal. Through his ventures in Native American slave trading, he created the Transatlantic slave trade, setting in motion our country’s most shameful and horrific piece of history.

Columbus was responsible for Native American genocide. He committed the first mass genocide of Native Americans, a massacre of 8,000,000 people. Within one generation of Columbus’s arrival, about 15,000,000 Native Americans were killed. By time Columbus left, only 100,000 Native Americans were left, and by 1542, there were only 200.

Columbus day isn’t just not “politically correct”. It’s a holiday that celebrates one of the most evil, genocidal, and racist people in history. His kill count is on par with everyone killed in World War I, and yet America still idolizes him. It’s the responsibility of legislators to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day.

This mere chaotic peace between wanting to be the greatest and wanting to rot in the room all alone for the rest of eternity.

#DiaryOfAGirlMisunderstood

The Letter I was Afraid to Send

It wasn’t that the feeling for you wasn’t there. It wasn’t that the love I have for you was momentary and based on temporary stimulations - I just wasn’t ready.

Thank you for being who you are, for the man you are. I wasn’t ready for the direction you were heading in. I wasn’t ready to hold your hand and be your eyes when you lose your way. I wasn’t ready to be part of a storyline that I felt I felt I had no part in.

Parts of me were scared of you, scared of the depths that exist within you. My own biggest fear was that my own inhibitions would throw rocks on your path and slow you down from getting to your destination. I was scared my flaws hindered you from being the man you want to be. I was scared that my own shortcomings would become your shortcomings because pain has a way becoming contagious when you’re in a relationship with someone who feels as deep as you do.

At that time, I felt that I was being considerate. Now I realize how selfish I was I can admit I should’ve been better and that you definitely deserve better

Sometimes I think this world is cruel and unjust but then I remember how I dropped my wallet when I was on the bicycle 8 years ago and a homeless man ran 6 blocks to return it to me. Sometimes I think this world is lonely and grey but then I let the rain touch my body and hear birds make their way home at evening and for a moment, just a moment- I understand why Prometheus stole fire and laid it at man's feet, why dying stars leave a trail of wishes, why I still love 6-year-old Erica I met on a summer trip a decade ago, even though I never saw her again.

Sometimes I think this world is a bad place, but then I look around me and in all its chaos and mosaic of bodies and souls and dreams, I see beauty and goodness hidden behind kind eyes and rough hands.

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire

“Hiding your hurt only intensifies it. Problems grow in the dark and only become bigger and bigger. But when exposed to the light of truth, they shrink. You are only as sick as your secrets. So take off your mask, stop pretending you’re perfect and walk into freedom.”

— Rick Warren

I have cried more than a few times today and we both ask myself, what is wrong?

Well, I am looking at myself waiting for the answer, I seem unable to conceive that it is I who is supposed to speak, I who is supposed to know.

I don’t know.

I look at myself expecting an answer but the mirror doesn’t flinch.

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I have to be smart and I have to be different or nothing will have meaning, but already nothing means anything so why this desire to be apart from everyone while crying out: why am I apart from everyone?

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I don’t know if I like the things I like or I just think I do, if who I am is who I really am or who I think I am supposed to be.

I am my best friend but that is only because I have no other friends.

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I feel light years away from everyone else but I feel galaxies away from myself.

I want to be everything so much that I end up being less than nothing.

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You can’t replace all the blood in a person.

Do you know what that means?

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I burst into tears at signs of tenderness and I live a new life every day, I feel more the character than the actor, I feel more the actor than myself.

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I cry at fictional scenarios and I joy in thoughts of strangers, yet I cannot call my friends back or reply to a single text.

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It seems instead of finding love I find new colors of sorrow, new ways to cry and new languages in which to say it hurts.

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Do my words mean something even if I don’t?

I don’t. I don’t.

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I am tired of categorizing my emotions as symptoms.

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Everything I’ve ever written is the same thing, repeated.

You can guess it by now.

““When I ask you about your first love I am always secretly hoping that you will say your own name. Now, wouldn’t that be beautiful – to above else have a heart that was proud of itself.” - Bianca Sparacino”

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