Tag: life

Mental Health Self Awareness Self Development

Despite all the luxuries you possess there are times you feel this certain void in your heart, a hollow emptiness which everyone feels at some point but cannot figure out why they feel what they are feeling.

At this point, to assure themselves they lie and blame it on lost love, failure, lack of friends, a broken relationship, boredom or some other reasons which are merely a shell on the real problem.

This feeling of falling in an endless hole with nothing to hold on just makes you lose yourself in melancholy.

The lies which you told yourself to assure yourself of being aware of why you feel this doesn’t take you near to the actual problem. It just casts a shadow and hides the real issue. This feeling of emptiness doesn’t just affect an individual but the whole of mankind.

There is so much chaos and destruction in this world because people in order to fill that void go on seeking confirmation from the outside world and to empty their bottled up frustration which ends up hurting others.

However, none of this solves the problem because the core issue has not yet been addressed. Despite having a good job, decent spouse, all the materialistic possessions you still feel the emptiness, why?

The lack of love for yourself is the answer. There is only one thing that can fill the void, Love. No, not the love of someone else but your love for yourself. Only the love for self can fill that emptiness.

Now when we have diagnosed the problem, let take a look at the cure and treatment, shall we?

1. Gnothi Seauton (Know Thyself)

Take a look inside yourself, dig deep down within yourself to understand your feelings. The reason to feel empty lies within you so if we are to solve the problem we need to understand our self, first. If we were to be self-sufficient and satisfied with our self we would never wander in search of outside confirmation.

Losing a loved one or some tragedy surely makes us feel empty but the constant feeling of emptiness is a sign of something going on deep within you.

While you’re at it, you will have to face your demons and biggest of them all your ‘ego’. Go ahead and show them some love. Once you win over them they dare not take anything more from you.

Want to know more about filling that emptiness in your life? Read Emptiness Inside: Why You Feel Empty In Life & How to Fill It

2. Let Your Emotions Out

We as humans are endowed with various emotions and while we are at our low these emotions take their toll. We can just move on and keep these emotions bottled up inside us. This practice is unnatural and unhealthy.

We shouldn’t be afraid of how society will look at us when we let our emotions out and express ourselves, society will look down on you anyway. Do whatever that makes you happy. You like to draw, write, sing, dance, drive, just do anything that makes you feel whole, let this be your outlet for the emotions stifled inside you.

3. Love Yourself Beyond Boundaries

When we love someone we go off-limits for them, we ignore all the flaws and set our love free knowing no boundaries, now do this for you. I know this is the most difficult thing to do, when it comes down to loving ourselves self we start counting our flaws. We belittle our self every time by comparing our self with others and constantly seeking societal conformation and trying to fit in their definition of perfect.

It is difficult but you need to walk away from this and commit to loving yourself unconditionally. Everyone makes mistake and so do you, accept them and forgive yourself and learn to enjoy your own company, there is no one who knows you better than yourself, now is the time you get committed to yourself.

Looking to know more about how you can stop feeling empty on the inside? Read 11 Simple Ways To Feel Less Lonely In Life

4. Treat Yourself With Happiness

Now what you normally would do to make yourself happy is by giving yourself things but that is not exactly what I meant, yes you should treat yourself with gifts, dinners, trips but these are temporary feel goods and the most important one is the act of kindness and compassion.

There are plenty of people hungry and homeless out there, there are plenty of people who need your help, your act of kindness will not only help them but also heal you while you’re at it. There is no other satisfying feeling as good as that of giving. The selfless acts of generosity are the medicine that heals the soul and fills that emptiness. Give yourself real pleasure, real happiness by helping others, letting their smile color your face, and leave a long-lasting, satisfaction inside you.

You can choose to be stuck in a situation and lose the balance of your life or keep moving and maintain balance, we aren’t meant to stay at one place, if we were we would have roots instead of legs.

While boredom and idleness are allies of emptiness, momentum and action are its worst enemy. When taking a step and inching closer towards joy, you won’t even notice emptiness. No matter how hard it seems, believe in yourself, and keep moving towards the light to feel alive again.

If you want to know more about how you can fill the emptiness in your life, then check this video out below:
Uncategorized

I’m not very good at making specific plans. Just meet me under the sky somewhere and be alive with me.
– Victoria Erickson
Inspiration and Motivation Self Development

Do you believe in yourself, and have ample confidence about who you are? If not, then it is vital that you build your belief in yourself to be truly happy.

How To Build Your Belief In Yourself… and leap the biggest hurdle between the life you have and the life you want.

“Andy” entered my office seeking help for his depression. But after a few therapy sessions, the root of his problems became clear: He had a deep-rooted belief that he wasn’t good enough.

He’d started believing he was inadequate during childhood, and he held onto this belief throughout his life. His assumption that he would never amount to anything led him to be an underachiever. Because he concluded he wasn’t smart enough, talented enough, or motivated enough to do much of anything, he’d created a lifestyle that reinforced those beliefs.

He had worked an entry-level job for years. He didn’t bother to manage his money well because he assumed he’d always live paycheck to paycheck and be deeply in debt. He rarely took the initiative to meet new people. And he never established new goals for himself. His depression was simply a side effect of the lifestyle he’d created.

Much like Andy, many people create lifestyles that reinforce their self-limiting beliefs. But, quite often, those beliefs are inaccurate and unproductive, and they cause people to live a life far beneath their potential.

How You Develop Negative Core Beliefs About Yourself

You develop many of your beliefs about yourself during childhood. Perhaps you grew up always feeling like an outsider. Or maybe you had a parent who was verbally abusive. Those types of experiences could lead you to believe you’re a loser or a failure.

Those types of conclusions will cause you to subconsciously seek evidence that supports your beliefs. Every time you fail a test or get rejected by someone, your negative beliefs will get reinforced.

Whenever you discover evidence to the contrary—like you ace a test or land a promotion—you chalk it up to external factors, like luck. You ignore your accomplishments and magnify your mistakes. That’s just how your brain works when you so wholeheartedly believe something.

Because you believe those things about yourself, however, you won’t recognize that you’re doing this. Instead, you just think your failures and problems serve as more proof that you’re not good enough.

Want to know more about how you can inculcate positive belief in yourself? Read 5 Ways You Can Practice Self-Compassion And Be Kind To Yourself

Your Beliefs Turn Into Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

Just because you believe something about yourself doesn’t make it true. But there’s a good chance that you’ll make it come true in a subconscious manner. What you believe influences the way you interpret events, how you feel, and how you behave. And much of the time, those beliefs turn into self-fulfilling prophecies.

If you believe you can’t handle stress, you’ll be less likely to step outside your comfort zone. Then, because you never practice doing anything scary, you’ll struggle to handle discomfort when it arises.

If you believe you are socially awkward, you’ll be less outgoing. The less you talk to people, the less likely you’ll be to make social connections. The fewer friends you make, the more you’ll believe you’re incapable of forming healthy social connections.

The list of examples could go on and on.

How to Give Up Self-Limiting Beliefs

If you’ve spent 30 years believing you’re a loser, then simply telling yourself, “I’m a winner,” isn’t likely to be helpful. You can’t unlearn deep-rooted core beliefs that easily. Instead, you have to challenge your beliefs by testing them to see if they’re really true.

Conduct a behavioral experiment by challenging your beliefs. If you believe you’re too socially awkward to make friends, ask yourself, “What would I be doing if I were socially savvy?”

Then, use a skill called “acting as if.”‘ Behave as if you are a socially savvy person. That doesn’t mean you need to be a phony; instead, behave in a way that brings out another side of your personality.

If you believe socially graceful people start conversations with others, try doing that yourself. Set a goal for yourself when you’re at a social event; for example, introduce yourself to five people. Rather than sit in the corner worrying that you look awkward, branch out and strike up conversations. You might find that behaving in a more outgoing manner leads to more social success.

In addition, look for evidence that runs contrary to your self-limiting beliefs. Write down the reasons your belief might not be true. Look for exceptions to the rule and take notes. Simply raising your awareness of the fact that there are times when you are more capable than you give yourself credit for can help chip away at the belief that you’ve held so strongly.

Want to know more about how you can believe in yourself more? Read 60+ Carl Jung Quotes On Finding Yourself

Challenging Your Beliefs Takes Time

Your mind can be your best asset or your biggest enemy. If you’ve drawn inaccurate conclusions about yourself, your self-limiting beliefs could prevent you from reaching your greatest potential.

Everyone has a few self-limiting beliefs. To discover yours, spend some time thinking about your potential and assessing the assumptions you make about yourself that keep you from living your dreams.

Your beliefs, rather than your lack of ability, could be the biggest hurdle standing between the life you’re living and the life you want to live. But the good news is that with a little time and extra effort, you can develop the mental strength needed to overcome the self-limiting beliefs that prevent you from reaching your greatest potential.

Written by Amy Morin
Originally appeared on Psychology Today
Published with permission

It is not always easy or possible to be optimistic and confident all the time. But, neither is being self-deprecating. If you constantly feel that you are not good enough, then you need to stop and look deeper, and give yourself that love and compassion, that you probably give others. In order to be truly happy, you need to love yourself first.

If you want to know more about believing in yourself, then check this video out below:
Abuse

“I have felt the sharp sting of abuse. sexual, physical, mental. And it’s felt like shame for so many years and to speak the words into this world makes me want to howl and hide. But I say them out loud anyway so my sisters know… they do not stand alone…”
~ Salmaelwardany

As an abused child, I learned to keep secrets.

The heart of an abused child is laden with them. We carry the abuse as our fault, somehow we are to blame, somehow we deserve it. Our voice is taken from us; silent and powerless, we protect the ones who should have protected us. This is how we keep our secrets safe.

Often, even when we expose the abuse, we are dismissed. We come to believe it is us against the world. We are on our own, there is nobody we can trust.

We become the keeper of secrets.

I reflect upon this as waves cavort with the shoreline and salt air adheres to my skin; upon how the heart of an abused child looks much like the heart of an abused woman.

This, I came to understand when, as a woman, I was abused.

And kept it a secret.

The keeper of secrets.

Broken shells scatter around my feet and in them the disorder of the last year reflects back at me. The gift of time and distance has offered me perspective, I find myself often in moments such as this; outside my body, detached from the experience yet desperate to put order to the chaos. To feel whole again, to mend, to grasp at some sort of closure.

I’m positive this is why women stay in abusive situations for so long. Because we believe for the happy ending promised in the fairy tales of our childhood. We are nurturers, healers, fixers, empaths; it goes against our very nature to abandon that which is so very broken, until invariably, it breaks us.

Hindsight leaves me to wonder how an intelligent, educated woman like myself allowed this to happen, allowed myself to be verbally and emotionally abused for so long by someone I trusted. But here lies the key. I trusted him. Respected him. Admired him. Not only did I, but so did my husband, my children, my friends. He was welcomed into my home, into my family, into my life.

Into my secrets.

And then, he took my secrets and turned them into his power.

You fucking whore. You fucking slut. You are nothing but a fucking whore who fucks around. You make me sick you fucking slut.

Messages like this continued for months, enabled by my silence. There is no physical proof with this kind of abuse. It is oh so easy to be the keeper of secrets, to pretend it isn’t happening, to delete the messages and pick your kids up from school and make dinner and kiss your husband goodnight as if your heart hasn’t been ripped from your chest and obliterated by words that will forever be seared on the back of your eyelids.

I consider why I didn’t reveal the abuse the first time it happened, and can only concede that his abuse was tied to my shame. The two were inseparable. To tell of his abuse would be to admit I believed his words were justified.

After all, he knew of my past, my pain, the choices I had made out of the places I had suffered. And he threw these things back at me, made sure I was smeared with the filth of them, made sure I knew how worthless that made me.

I was no longer a grown woman, but once again a child, betrayed by someone I trusted, someone who should have protected me. Confused, scared, ashamed, I believed it to be my fault. I had made it happen, I allowed someone too close. I had been too vulnerable, too trusting, too naive. I deserved it.

As if any woman deserves to be abused. As if any woman deserves to be shamed. As if there is any justification for destroying another human, ever.

He apologized, of course. He never meant to hurt me, he knew he was wrong, knew that’s not who I was, promised it would never happen again. I forgave him, of course. For not only had I been raised by generations of women who exemplified the female doormat, but had also been subjected to years of religious teaching on how we should love others. If someone slaps you on the right cheek? Offer him your left. How many times do I forgive the one who hurts me? Seventy times seven. My heart cracks wide open for the women under this teaching who stay in abusive relationships, who are told, if you love him better, he’ll come to understand love and will no longer hurt you.

No dear woman, he won’t.

I no longer believe in a love that must suffer for the cause of another. For months I suffered. More months that I would even care to admit. I suffered for my own fear and shame.

I suffered out of love for our mutual family and friends. I suffered for him, to protect him, because I wanted to believe the best of him, I wanted to believe he was a good man who operated from a place of his own pain, and maybe with more compassion, more love, more understanding, maybe he would heal. Maybe he would become the person I thought him to be. Maybe there would be reconciliation, restoration, a way for closure.

Overhead, seagulls circle and I pick up a stone, feel the smoothness of it between my fingers, trace the outside of it. I ditch it toward the waves but like everything of late, the effort is halfhearted and lacks conviction.

I had learned about pretence in my childhood, about the masks we wear and the words we say to ensure there is never questions of what lay behind the falsity. In fact, I reached beyond a level of skillfulness to complete mastery of such impression. To many, this could be construed as deceit. To the rest of us, this is a tool of survival we have carried into our adulthood, one we are disinclined to trade for the perils of honesty when we are so accomplished in our secret-keeping.

To keep the secret of abuse, whether as a child or an adult, is to learn to live two different lives.

There is your outer life, the one where you hold yourself together for your family, where normal is rehearsed and practised, where you go about your life and hope the people around you don’t notice the tiredness in your eyes and the way your hands shake when you pick up your phone.

Then there is your inner life.

The one where your husband leaves for work and you are finally alone and can fall apart right there on the bathroom floor. The one where you cannot find the energy or motivation to get dressed, where you haven’t showered for days, don’t answer your phone, and find every reason not to leave the house. Where your work suffers, your health suffers, your spirit suffers.

Secrets destroy us. They eat away at our flesh and rot our soul and soon we begin to decompose, and all that festers inside our putrid body can no longer be hidden.

We see it in our anger, our addictions, our depression. In the way our bones ache and our joints hurt. In our mood swings and outbursts and the way we do not sleep for days, weeks, years. In our fear, anxiety, isolation, numbness, irritability, hyper-vigilance, disconnection, self-destruction. We see it in our crushed spirit and dried up bones. In the way we turn away from life, turn away from ourselves.

My secret stayed hidden within the darkest places in my soul until it almost destroyed me. This is the power of shame. But what I have come to understand is that shame can only survive in the darkness. The moment shame is exposed to the light, it loses its grip over us.

My shame allowed his power over me, as did my silence.

My shame almost destroyed me, until the moment I said no more.

No more will I allow this to happen. No more will I believe I have done something to deserve this. No more will I allow another human to destroy me. No more will I hide in the dark. No more will I be afraid.

No more will I be ashamed.

No more will I be silent.

No more will I be the keeper of secrets.

It is over.

The sound of children’s laughter from across the bay arrives on a warm gust of wind. I breathe the air deep into my lungs, hold it there, allow it to fill me anew with life, for breath is life and I have been dead too long. My warrior heart beats again, the one he tried to destroy. The one he almost destroyed. But not quite. Here, in this place, I once again find life.

I will not speak his name out loud. I carry no bitterness, for this will only destroy me. I am instead thankful for the way this struggle has transformed me. Through this, I have become aware of the parts of my childhood not reconciled. I understand more of the human condition, of the way we operate out of our unhealed wounds, and project them onto other people and other relationships. I understand more about the hearts of women who live with abuse, the reasons they stay, the reasons they cannot leave. I am wiser, stronger, braver. I have found my voice, and I will be the voice for my sisters still trapped in their silence. I will spend the rest of my life fighting for the rights of women. For them, for me, for my daughters.

There are reasons people enter our lives, reasons they become part of our journey.

Sometimes those reasons are to break us wide open.

I walk deeper into clear water, feel the sand squelch between my toes. The shock of cold awakens my soul and I run, dive, break through the surface, plunge beneath, deeper, deeper still, until I lift my face to the sun and rise back to the surface. I emerge, and I am weightless, washed, made clean.

I am born again.

Much has been broken; there is much to be healed.

But sometimes, brokenness carries its own kind of beauty.

Originally appeared on Kathy Parker

Published with permission
Uncategorized

I’m not impressed by money, social status or job title. I’m impressed by the way someone other human beings.
Lifestyle

Life Is Short To Be Awkward

Life is short to be awkward with your friends.

Put your phone down and have authentic conversations with them. Think about any topic you’re interested in and see for yourself if you’re on the same page with them. Ask about updates in their lives, or what’s happening with your common friends, or how’s it going with the pets they love to talk about with you before. If you’re still feeling awkward and clueless with what you’re supposed to talk about with them, go to Google and type 50 questions and you will have endless options to store up in your sleeves. The thing is, you don’t always get to see them. Everyone loves to excuse that they’re busy with their lives and barely have time to catch up, so why not focus on what is in front of you and stop texting someone who is not there?

Read Why Your Friends Are More Important Than You Think

Life is short to be awkward with your family members.

Admit it; you have your few moments when you’d rather spend time with your best friends than with your family — we’re all guilty about it. It’s a lot easier to have fun by surrounding yourself with people who are in the same age group and the same level of craziness as yours. But there’d be a time when you wish you knew how depressed your sister was when she first had her heart broken. There’d be a point when your brother becomes successful in what he’s doing, but you never asks and don’t know what drives his passion. Don’t be a stranger to your family, because wherever part of the world you end up or whatever situation you fall into, your family’s comfort is the only place you’ll ever feel home.

Read 5 Ways to Beat Holiday Stress and Bring Harmony To Your Family Gatherings

Life is short to be awkward with the person you’re dating.

It doesn’t matter if you’re the first person who texts first or greets good morning or says I love you. It’s not embarrassing if you’re enthusiastic in your relationship with them or if you’re always joyful when you spend time with them. Love is never supposed to appear like it’s a game of “hide and seek”, in which whoever shows up a romantic feeling first is somewhat declared as the loser. Life is short to conceal what is inside your heart and not say the thoughts that are itching to get out of your head. Don’t take time for granted just because it seems like you have plenty of it that you can bathe and soak with it. Say what you want and say what you will, now that you still have the luxury to do so.

Life is short to be awkward with strangers.

Ask for direction when you’re lost. Help someone as much as you can. Smile back when a stranger smiles at you on the street. Engage in a deep conversation with a person who looks harmless and shows interest in you. Fly abroad and attempt to communicate with individuals who don’t speak your language. There is still good left in humanity, and the best people in life are the ones you meet in the least expected place or situation. Don’t hold back and be scared to put yourself out there and build connections with strangers. You can learn to improve your confidence and bravery more by rising to uncomfortable social settings.

Life is too short to be awkward.

Reach out to the people who love you while you still have time to share with them, while you still have the energy to drive to their place, while you still have the chance to see them around you. Appreciate every single thing that your parents have done for you and tell them how thankful you are for always being there to support you, even though it sounds corny; even though it takes all your strength to be sentimental. Offer the loveliest words to the one who captures your heart despite the risk of fallouts. Open up a little to the people you don’t know and share something silly about yourself to them then laugh hard with them until you’re running out of breath already.

Life is too short to be awkward.

There is only one shot, a limited timeline, which is given to you to live the life that you wish; to run a life that is wild and free. Life is short not be you, not to have fun, not to be loud, and not to be different in this world full of pretentiousness.
Lifestyle

Moments That Make You Say – Go Me!

1. When you cross off one New Year’s resolution on your lists in just a matter of 2 weeks.

2. When you jog for over an hour in what seems like forever and feel as if a huge weight is lifted off your shoulder. Then, you begin to plan for going back to a healthy lifestyle again.

3. When you finish baking a decent pastry out of only watching tutorials on BuzzFeed and impress your friends with your “restaurant quality” dessert.

4. When you help a stranger, who appears like he/she needs assistance, and you feel lighthearted afterwards because you know you have done something great for the day.

5. When the kids you walk pass through on the street high-five you because you wear something cool, or they think you’re relatable, or they simply see you as someone they want to be when they grow up.

6. When you tutor your cousin on his assignment that he, later on, gets a good grade, and you can’t help but become proud of yourself for being his mini-teacher.

7. When you finish a project you have been putting behind for a really long time.

8. When you marathon a TV series and don’t notice that it’s already dark outside.

9. When you drink more than 8 glasses of water in a day.

10. When you complete your target hours of sleep on a weekday.

11. When you finally work up the nerve to talk to the person you have a big crush on.

12. And you get to ask them to hang out with you.

13. And eventually be Facebook friends with them.

14. When you have a conversation with your boss without stuttering the whole time and feeling relaxed and confident while answering your boss’s important questions.

15. When you never touch your phone during your catch-up coffee dates with your friends.

16. When you receive good news through text or email and you know you deserve it after working too hard for it.

17. When you say sorry/forgive someone you have a misunderstanding with.

Read Understanding The 4 Stages Of Forgiveness

18. When you stop driving or walking or doing anything just to see the sunset and marvel the beauty of it.

19. When you become an adult and drop that item you’re itching to buy because you have grown to be the kind of person who’s good at distinguishing needs over wants.

20. When you let go of your past.

21. When the people who hurt you before don’t matter to you anymore.

22. When you find the courage to trust someone again.

23. When you get to say I love you to your parents or kiss them on the cheeks even though it takes all your energy to do so.

24. When you decide to leave your small town and live in a big old city.

25. When you survive a social gathering that makes you feel out of place or awkward, and go home without being involved in any embarrassing or trouble situation.

26. When you learn something new; be it a new language, a new hobby, or a new tradition outside your culture.

27. When you pray to God all your worries and achieve a peace of mind after that.

28. When you volunteer in charity works and know that you have contributed a goodwill to the humanity.

29. When you spend your last few ITunes credits on an album you have no idea about and it turns out that you have purchased something that becomes your new favorite.

30. When you make someone happy and special on their birthday celebration.

31. When you finally clean the clutter in your clothing cabinet.

32. When you change for the better after receiving constructive criticisms from people you look up to and respect the most.

33. When you earn (X) number of likes on social media. And although it should not be a legitimate reason for you to be proud of yourself, you still can’t help but be glad that people love what you share out there.

34. When you concede in an argument with someone you love because you’re matured enough to realize that it will only cause your relationship to fall apart.

35. When you give up your seat on public transportation for someone who needs it more.

36. When you’re no longer the kind of person who hides in the toilet to cry, or sob yourself to sleep at night.

37. When you prove to yourself that you made the right decisions in life and stand up for what is right.

38. When you patiently listen to a friend who’s going through hard times in their life.

39. When you avoid eating fast food take outs, junk foods, soda, and chocolates for one straight month.

40. When you discover the reason why you are put in this world.
Videos

Steve Jobs’ Last Words

I reached the pinnacle of success in the business world.

In others’ eyes, my life is an epitome of success.

However, aside from work, I have little joy. In the end, wealth is only a fact of life that I am accustomed to.

At this moment, lying on the sick bed and recalling my whole life, I realize that all the recognition and wealth that I took so much pride in, have paled and become meaningless in the face of impending death.

In the darkness, I look at the green lights from the life-supporting machines and hear the humming mechanical sounds, I can feel the breath of god of death drawing closer…

Now I know, when we have accumulated sufficient wealth to last our lifetime, we should pursue other matters that are unrelated to wealth…

Should be something that is more important:

Perhaps relationships, perhaps art, perhaps a dream from younger days …

Non-stop pursuing of wealth will only turn a person into a twisted being, just like me.

God gave us the senses to let us feel the love in everyone’s heart, not the illusions brought about by wealth.

The wealth I have won in my life I cannot bring with me.

What I can bring is only the memories precipitated by love.

That’s the true riches which will follow you, accompany you, giving you strength and light to go on.

Read : If You’re Looking For Change In Your Life, Start With Yourself

Love can travel a thousand miles. Life has no limit. Go where you want to go. Reach the height you want to reach. It is all in your heart and in your hands.

What is the most expensive bed in the world? – “Sick bed” …

You can employ someone to drive the car for you, make money for you but you cannot have someone to bear the sickness for you.

Material things lost can be found. But there is one thing that can never be found when it is lost – “Life”.

When a person goes into the operating room, he will realize that there is one book that he has yet to finish reading – “Book of Healthy Life”.

Whichever stage in life we are at right now, with time, we will face the day when the curtain comes down.

Treasure Love for your family, love for your spouse, love for your friends…

Treat yourself well. Cherish others.

Steve Jobs’ Last Words Will Make You Change Your View Of Life Completely!
Interesting Life Lessons Self Development

Have you ever asked the question “why do bad things happen to good people?” Or (even more confusingly) “why do good things happen to bad people?”

Often we just throw our hands up and say “life’s not fair!” However, this is an incorrect statement because life indeed is fair. We all create our realities using the same rules as everyone else. It’s just that the rules have nothing to do with being good or bad!

Related: Why Do Good People Suffer?

To understand these rules, the first thing we should keep in mind is that many of us have been raised to believe that good deeds are rewarded and bad deeds are punished. We are programmed to believe that if we act as if we are “good,” good things will happen, and if we act “bad,” bad things will happen.

Now, this type of programming is used to manipulate our actions so that we will behave the way our parents, teachers, and governments want us to behave. However, even though our parents, teachers, and governments believe that good and bad can be defined and receive consequences, the universe does not.

The truth is, the universe isn’t punishing or rewarding anyone. Again, I’ll say it again for more effect: the universe isn’t punishing or rewarding anyone.

Related: This Is Why You Attract People Who Are Not Good For You (But You Don’t Need To Blame Yourself)

The universe is only ever responding to your thoughts through the Law of Attraction. You get what you expect, regardless of how good or bad you are. That’s it. If you expect that “good” things are going to happen to you, it doesn’t matter if you are mean or nasty. Your expectations will still yield positive results.

The same is true in reverse. You may be the nicest, kindest and most helpful person, but if you have negative expectations about how things are going to turn out in life, that is what you will get.

So, although we have been taught that we should be good and do good by others to get good things, what really matters is what we think will happen to us. This is why we all know a few “bad apples” who have the best luck, and a few “good apples” who are always getting beat up by life’s circumstances.

If you don’t believe me, look for evidence in your surroundings. Check out your friends, relatives, and coworkers, especially the ones who seem to have particularly good or bad luck. You will find that it isn’t how “good” or “bad” they are that determines their realities, but rather it is their expectations.

For example, I have a personal friend who is one of the nicest, kindest and most generous people I know. She’s absolutely wonderful. However, she always seems to be getting sick, she has money problems, relationship issues, and problems at work.

Why does this friend suffer so much? Well, she’s always talking about her bad luck and her problems. She’s always worried about the future. She’s always concerned about how things are going to turn out. Therefore, the universe delivers her a reality that is chock-full of bad luck, worry, and concern.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, I think back to a manager I had several years ago who was rude, arrogant, and irresponsible. She was hated by just about every member of the staff. However, she was given promotion after promotion, and good things just seemed to drop into her lap.

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Why did this manager do so well? Well, she was always talking about how great she was, and how much everyone loved her and how deserving she was. None of the rest of us agreed, but what we thought didn’t matter because we weren’t the ones creating her reality-she was.

Now this doesn’t mean that good deeds are irrelevant.

For many of us, being kind to others and helping our fellow man help us feel good and lifts our spirits. If you feel uplifted by helping others, helping others is a great idea because it makes you feel good about you! Feeling good about you will definitely help you receive good things from the universe.

Spreading love and kindness are great ways to raise your vibration and make you feel good about who you are and what you are deserving of. So keep doing that, because it absolutely can help.

Related: 7 Reasons Why Highly Intelligent People Can’t Find Happiness

Just remember, though, that the most important thing is that you have positive expectations for yourself. Ultimately, your expectations are what dictate what you get and what’s held away from you. Without positive expectations for yourself, no amount of kindness, generosity, or helpfulness will ever deliver you a positive reality.

What happens to you is ultimately an inside job. You don’t have to run around trying to prove how good you are or how deserving you are based on anyone else’s rules or expectations. What matters is how you feel about yourself and how you feel about the things you want.

So be as “good” as you need to be to feel good about yourself, and take measures to be as optimistic as possible about the things you want. Talk up your strengths, and speak about your desires as if you expect them to manifest in your life. This is how you create reality the way you wish it to be.

I hope this helps to answer the question “why do bad things happen to good people?” If you have any thoughts on this subject, please let me know below in the comments!

Written by Andrea Schulman
Originally appeared on RAISE YOUR VIBRATION TODAY

Published with author’s permission
Uncategorized

The mouth should have three gatekeepers.

Is it true?

Is it kind?

And is it necessary?

― Arab proverb