First Step. Do a Happiness Project

I just finished reading the book The Happiness Project and it recommends making resolutions instead of goals. The difference between a goal and a resolution is that a goal, once you do it its done. But a resolution is something you can stick to for the rest of your life, or for how ever amount of time you'd like.
So this is my first resolution: post on my blog every Tuesday & Thursday, and write every Monday & Wednesday that way I have time to edit.

As part of my new Leaf on this Blog, I want to start it off by doing my own version of the Happiness Project as a means to discover more aspects of myself and to enjoy life more.
I will start planning for it now and start the project in January 1st, 2011 until December 31st, 2011.

What do I want to accomplish with my Happiness project?
I want to be able to not get so upset when a stranger shows no patience toward me, when they are rude and nasty on the street. Currently when this happens I feel the urge to curse back, although I never do anymore, and this holding back of emotions causes my chest to tighten and pressure builds up and I get pissed. Like today, I was writing on this diary & I reached the last stop on the train. I was not paying attention so I stayed on my seat. The lady train conductor screamed: "Last stop! Hellooooooo?!" Pa' que fue eso! It got me SO pissed! In the past there have been times when I've fallen asleep in the train and in that stop a conductor would yell: "Last stop!" and this would wake me up, I would get off the train and that would be the end of it. But the hello at the end made me feel like the woman was saying to me: What are you an idiot? Don't you see that the train stopped? Didn't you hear me say Last stop before from the other train car? I guess what I want to work at is at not hearing the unsaid insults of other people. Because every time I get angry it is because I hear these insults even though no one is saying them. So in essence it is me who's insulting me.

My second resolution is: Do not take things personally. Do not say to myself insults that other people have not said.

This is a good start. My original idea for this blog was it to be a journey of self discovery, something that would help me to discover my True Identity and help others find theirs through my experience. But identities are harder to come by than say a year long happiness project. I believe this is a good start to my much longer True Identity project. So the first step to my true identity project will be to do a happiness project. Now i have to do some more research and start working on my happiness project. Hope you join me for the ride.

Starting Over, Turning over a new Leaf.

Ok, so here we go. Starting once again. I took a break from Blogging since March, and now I'm ready to start. This is a brand new direction I'm going to be heading, so I hope you join me for the ride.

For the upcoming months I'm going to be writing about a few different topics, Family & Marriage, Celebrities, Health and Fitness and some topics of inspiration.

I'm going to do new articles on Tuesdays and Thursdays, like the website www.bethesmartwife.com which I have recently discovered and started to follow.

I am really grateful for the new connections I have made recently thanks to my new addiction to Twitter and I believe this will be a much better Blog thanks to that.

Well thank you very much for joining me into this new path for self discovery and exploration to live the best life we can ever have.

New Beginings!

I haven't written in two months! A big No-no in the Blogging community. But since I have no readers yet, I guess it's not as bad....

A lot has changed since last time I wrote. I feel like I do have a map now. Yey!! And I have Momasphere to thank for that! Free advertising here!! LOL They don't know it yet but they have changed my life. I suggest you guys check them out too!

Through Momasphere I have been inspired by meeting many other women who are very similar to me, women entrepreneurs, women who make a living helping other women find their creativity, to find their voices, women who do what they love and are moms too! And through Momasphere I have been able to realize that, I too can be a Mompreneur and help other people, and be happy. I know that it takes time and effort and I have to take this one step at a time, but I believe that it is possible and I will take all the inspiration I can from all these wonderful women around me.

What would your life be like?

I have been thinking that I wish my life could be somewhat different than it is right now. I feel like I'm in a transitional period, and that at some point I will be able to do something better in life, be more productive...

Do you ever feel that way? I want my life to be more meaningful. I want to be there more for my daughters and help more people than my boss. I want to be able to inspire, to give back to the community, to make this world a better place by doing little things or big things...

But I feel like if I'm just waiting...and waiting... I don't see progress and it freaks me out. I would be OK if I felt my life was going on a direction, like when you want to go from NYC to California, on a Road Trip. You get a map, you plan the route, you get your supplies, and you start. Sure there must be stops on the road, to eat, enjoy the scenery, sleep and bathroom breaks...you might even get lost or make a wrong turn at some point, but with your map you will be able to re-route yourself, and the ending is always the same. It is necessary for one to visualize their destination. It is necessary to know where you are going.

I feel like I'm going on a road trip, I have no map, and I have no destination. Somebody just told me to take my car and drive it doesn't matter where, just drive. Sure, I see some nice things along the way, and there are a few stops I would like to make, but I have no map, I have never traveled before so I have no knowledge of the geography of the place I'm traveling through. And it is not a small area either. I feel like I've been driving for 1/3 of my life and I have yet to find a map...It's so frustrating...

I wish I could do different things, I wish I didn't feel like I had to stay on a job just because I needed the money, I wish I didn't have to feel like I'm trapped, at the mercy of others, with no control over what I do or where I go. But life makes us be scared, because if I made a conscious choice to quit my job and go find a screen printing place where I could learn how to screen print, and then after a while I could go and be a tattooist apprentice and once I learned how to tattoo I could maybe learn how to make ice cream, or maybe I could bake cookies for a while, later I could work as a editor of a book publishing company, maybe I could make some children's books, or I should learn how to be a better writer or a better artist, a better dancer, a better cook. Maybe I could volunteer, learn how to swim, be a school counselor, or the assistant to a therapist, or some other thing I haven't thought of yet. I want to be able to be free to be allowed to change and at the same time have some sort of stability for my daughters.

Does this make sense??

I need a map!!!! Do you know where I can buy one????

If I don't start I'm never going to start it!

I haven't written in a while, I've been studying, remodeling my house, etc. I've been thinking and re-thinking about all the things I want to put into this website. All the things I want to write about. About all the things that get in the way of people's true identities and of the things that can help find it. But it's so much info that I'm also just recently learned and that I'm still trying to digest that I feel overwhelmed and don't know where to start. But the same way that I started my very first Blog entry I just had to say: Just DO IT! (and I'm not referring about sneakers here :P)

So, not so long ago, I would say less than a year ago I noticed how my oldest daughter who is now 8 seemed to get overwhelmed easily, how she would throw tantrums when tired or hungry, how she gets bored easily and over stimulated easily as well. I kept thinking: Is this normal? I kept thinking she was highly sensitive but had no clue that High Sensitivity was an actual thing. I kept thinking she was sort of empathic as she was able to feel deeply other people's feelings. I felt like I needed to help her learn how to deal with her trait, and felt really unprepared to do it. So I went online and searched books on high sensitivity and discovered the book The Highly Sensitive Child by Elaine Aron I bought it right away and as I read the book I kept seeing myself in the things it described, and I started to wonder if I was highly sensitive too. So I went and bought The Highly Sensitive Person and I started to notice that I was highly sensitive. I haven't finished either book because every time that I was reading about something a topic came up in the book that would make me want to seek more info on the subject. I knew that Elaine Aron had written a book called The Highly Sensitive Person in Love but I kept thinking that I wasn't really in love (even though I've been married for about 11 years) so I thought I didn't need it at all. However I kept feeling like I needed more info, I needed to know how to deal with people who don't seem to "get" my sensitivity so I started to find out more about this book and I read that it not only helped with romantic relationships but many aspects discussed in the book also applied to other kinds of relationships like same sex friends or family members so I decided to give it a try. And let me tell you that I have learned so much about myself through reading the pages of these books and I know there's so much more to learn. By discovering my High Sensitivity I have been able to discover the entrance to the path I want to take on the journey that it is my life. I always felt like I was supposed to go somewhere, do something I felt like I was walking through life with no direction, no purpose and I felt so empty. I had no goals in life, no where I wanted to go, so I never felt like I had to work toward something. I was just living an empty life of surviving and providing for others but not for myself. But by discovering this about myself and my child I have found a clue to the path I want to take in life, and that is a very good thing after all.

To find out if you or your child are highly sensitive try the Highly Sensitive Person's Self Test or the Highly Sensitive Child Self Test.

About Death...and other things.

I have not written in a while... because I said that I was going to give this Blog a purpose other than healing myself from my fear of writing and expressing my feelings. Well, I do have a purpose of this blog, however I realized that I am still afraid of writing because in the past few days I had to deal with the loss of my step dad and I've been sad and angry and many feelings came out that I was so terribly afraid to put in writing. I tend to swallow my feelings and make them get dissolved into my body and then I tend to loose contact with them. Is like they disappear. The story with my step dad is very long and I'm not sure I want to re-tell it all here, but at the time of his death I started to feel bad that I never got to send him the father's day card that I bought him. That I wasn't there at his funeral, that I didn't send him the latest pictures of my kids or a letter or anything in the mail. But I was glad to know that back in April I was able to spend 2 days with him and the kids and hang out for several hours. I was glad that he got a chance to come from PR into NY and spend a few days with me and my family and that he was able to attend the graduation of the College where he worked in for over 25 years and that he was able to see all his friends and live the happiness of that. I was glad that I was able to wish him a Happy Father's Day even if it was just over the phone and I was glad to hear his happy voice telling me how happy he was that he got to see us in June and that the pictures I gave him where beautiful and that he loved spending time with us.
I am sad that his family and mine are in such a feud that I feel that getting close now will cause more problems than not. And I feel angry to know that his will was not accepted by his family and that he was not cremated as he desired, and that his organs where not donated, and all that.
There's a part of me that wants to get his will and follow it through and fight for what he wanted, but I also have to think that I live very far away, that I have 2 wonderful daughters that need me, that I have to keep my job in order to provide them the best that I can and with this economy I can't afford to risk loosing my job by flying to PR and fighting this off, and causing a feud with his family. I don't know.
I wish I still had my dad with me. But I know that he was a church going man and I'm sure he is in heaven now having a better life. Papa! I love you soooo much! We miss you! You'll always live in out hearts and your legacy will live on!

PS: I called his lawyer and told him that he was not going to be cremated as he requested on his will and then he went and got his family to cremate him. At least some of his wishes got respected.