It's taken me a few days to get back to you, Squirrel, due to work and
stuff and I wanted to give my reply justice so here goes:
.
I don't control my environment. I have to fight my environment to even
begin trying to control things like diet...it seems insurmountable. I
am not good with temptation, and all the time the house is full of
foods bad for me.
Sounds like you are talking aout your family and that you live with
them.
These may be some silly questions but I think you wiil need to answer
them to yourself to do better in the long run. Are your folks into
controlling you or ditating what you do and what you eat and stuff?
When you try to change do the people you live with act unsupportive,
threatened, and try to do things to make you 'come back into line' and
try to sabatoge your efforts you try to change things for the better
for your self or to try to improve yourself?
How do they talk to you and treat you and your dreams, hopes,
oppinions, and plans? Do they try to help you try for them and get nice
things happening your way or do they talk trash about them, put them
down, and try subtial stuff to keep them from happening? Are they
happy positive accepting people or negative critical frustrated
poeple? If you had a choice and you met them for the first time would
you want to be around them? Do the poeple around you help to make you
feel better and help to pump you up, or are they putting things down,
draining you emotionally, and making the bad things in life seem all
they much harder?
My attempts to change this largely fail. I can not
eat what I feel I should eat without cooking entirely separately.
If you have some allergies or a wonky metabloism that is what you may
need to do to get what you need to feel better and do better in the
long run.
Often feels like too much trouble. I need food that pyschologically
supports me as well as nutritionally,..foods like ginger etc so that
when I finish eating I feel satisfied, not like I need something more.
Guess what nobody else here eats ginger.
What's to stop you from geting a peice of ginger and adding it to the
stuff you eat, especially if you think it will help you do and be
better? I'm not sure about your way, but ginger root is not that
pricey my way and I'd say give it a try if youthink it will help.
Maybe those around you will like the ginger once they have it a round
and give it a chance to taste it in their food too.
It was that way with the garlic for my son and me. I now take at least
1 or 2 cloves a day and Will takes at least 1 himself and I put a ton
in my cooking now and he likes it and asks me to add it in many of the
dishes and will chop it up himself to put in the stuff he is making
too.
They can't try it unless it's in the house and once they try it they
may like it. If by chance they don't there's no reason that you can't
keep using it if you like it and feel that it's helping you. I have
relatives that really like things I don't like to eat and things I love
to eat and they don't like the taste of and won't touch and that's fine
all around as I let them eat what they like and they let me eat what I
like and we respect our different tastes. I even make a point of
getting things for Will that I know he likes, like coffee ice cream,
hot pepperoni, and hot peppers, which I don't care to eat and he lets
me eat my fresh tomatoes, honey mustard on meats, and pickles in peace,
which he doesn't care for.
Not a big potao fan. Potato
is a staple food here. As is bread which I also am not fond of.
How often do you have the potatoes? If you have the every day you may
be tired of them and need a break from them or a change in the way they
are served. You could also make your portions smaller for them so they
are not taking over you meals and taste buds.
What kind of bread are you eating? If it's white bread it's small
wonder you are tired of them as they are much lower in taste and
nutrition than whole wheat bread or mixed grain breads. The other
things is that you may have an allergy to wheat or some other protiens
in your diet and culd use with a break from them for a bit to help you
system do better.
Am
thinking miso soup might be good for breakfast, how do I convince my
family that is not weird.
Is it possible to try it some week end morning?
Just tell them that you thought it would be a good idea and that you
heard that it was a diet trick of some popular star or famous person,
that helped them and you wanted to see if it would work for you. Most
folks wouldn't think it was weird to try something that helped someone
else do and look better.
I would like to heavily reduce
carbohydrates in my diet which as a food group has never been my
favourite apart from crisps (though not hot potato chips) and noodles.
Noodles not very popular with family.
You could try upping your intake of vegatables and fruits and lowering
the amount of carbs you take and tell them that you are trying to get
more nutrients and factors found only in veggies and fruit to look, be,
and do better to help improve your image and your chance of doing well
in life and on the job front.
You could also check out the Atkin's diet, and do a modified form and
tell your family that you are on it for your health and to do better.
Every part of my life is an
uphill battle.
Life is only a battle if you choose to make it one. How you choose to
see things, choose to take how things are going around you, and chose
to react to what is going around you is how things will react in the
world to you most of the time
.
I do not know how to start. Thought earlier in year had job sussed so
would have more energy to concentrate on other areas, even stopped
eating butter for a while( a love of mine). Guess what those free hot
cross buns at work over easter started me back on butter and have not
been able to stop again. So hard to start so easy to lose that
success. All belly-up again.
It's only belly-up if you choose to let it be that way. so you had a
few road blocks, set backs, and failures, like most people have on the
way to getting on to better things. Most of the most successful and
famous people have had some pretty major failures and set backs on the
way to getting to where they are now. Every child that learns to walk
ends up on their back side a ton of time before they master the tricks
of how to walk and later how to run.
From what you had happen to you you now have some experiences that you
can draw on and learn from if you choose to learn from that. You
probably now have a better idea of how you want to be treated at work
for starters. You now have a much better idea of what kind of work you
want to do and the level you want ot be at to start with while you are
doing it. You also know a ton about how to design kitchens and
bathrooms and such and what mistakes to avoid, and once you get into
doing that kind of job again the new place will not have to train you
up all that much and can get you out there work for them as the last
place did that job for them. I don't know about how things are your
way but my way if a person has some training in an area, especially a
niche area like kitchen and bath design, and like the work then they
are a better bet to take on for that area of work than the person that
knows absolutely nothing about the job and isn't sure if they'll even
like it. It's means less turnover in the long run and a quicker rate
of them getting up to speed.
As for the butter thing, if you like something there'snothing wrong is
saying that you do and to still have it but in smaller amounts and/or
to balance it out by doind a bit mor exercise and activies to help burn
off the calories from eating it.
I have never been able to control my
life because for most of that time I've had almost no income. Just
enough to live on. Not enough to plan to a future on.
Even when things have been rough financially, you've still had control
over your life and choices on what you could do from the options
avaliable. Sure money will give you a few more options but you still
have choices and options and always had. Often, like most people, you
just haven't seen them and that's the hard part seeing the options
avaliable to us and finding the way and courage to act on them. That I
can try to help you with and that is being a good friend. :)
Not enough to
gain sufficient independence to control my home life. Having a space I
feel happy in and in control of makes me feel so much more able to
manage, but to have had any money at all in last few years, needed to
move in with family.
That was a choice too, and at the time a very logical choice that you
hoped would help things go better for you. There's nothing there to
beat yourself over.
Sounds like you'd like to have your own place and space and more money.
Those are all worthy goals and very reachable goals. they are also
goals that are one or more good pay checks away, as you well know.
Keep looking for a new job and at also other ways of making an income
for yourself. If you can't find a job maybe you make a job for
yourself that will pay you a decent regular wage, maybe you could
approach the suppliers you know and see if they need someone in their
organizations as a rep or in some other capacity that you can fill and
enjoy. Maybe you can take some of your hobbies and interests and use
them to getting a part-time income too. I know you have skills and
ablities that you can use in many ways to helpmake your life a better
one, and not just on the financial level either.
Now I do not even have any income, rapidly
zeroing savings, vanishing dreams, and I do not know how to support
myself or change anything in my life. My dwindling faith in the
possibility of anything getting better has dwindled even more.
Things seem very bad for you right now but pressure build diamonds and
some how you'll find a way to make things work for you in the end. You
might have to take a few stepping stone to get to wher you want to be
like a part-time job of two or a temperorary job or tow to get wme cash
to help cover the bills for a bit while looking for somewhere you can
be for a longer time. But make now mistake that if you keep with it
you will shine in your won special way. And because you've had other
jobs in the past and id very well at them, then yoknow that you will be
ablt to do another job and should be able to get one. It's just the
finding part that you have to deal with for now.
I
honestly don't have any close enough friends to talk to. The folks
here are the only ones I feel I can talk to and I know this is not a
good forum for it on air. I know you are too far away to help. I just
don't know what to do.
I bet that you had a lot more friends at the job before this one before
the place closed down, and that you lost track of many of them and feel
isolated now. That's normal when you loose a social and support
network, even an informal one. Maybe you can get in touch with some of
them if only to touch base and help feel a bit better about yourself.
As for my not being much help to you, I may be half a world away but I
am listening to what is going on and am trying to be supportive, give
you some ideas to help your situation, and help up your mood so you can
get out and do the things you need to do to get things happening in
your life.
Some times all a pesron need is someone to listen to them and bounce
things off on them, to hel them sort things out so they can find those
options they didn't see before and to get past a ton of emotions so
theycan act in their best interests rather being frozen by anger, fear,
depression, or a bunch of other stuff
Your attitude and mental state can have a big role on how things go in
your life and what you attract to you. a cruddy, desperate, or
miserable attitude will attract those things to you whil a positive,
happy, friendly, cheerful attitude will attract those things a people
to you too
.
True but I feel that is lying to people.
It's not lying to people if you keep thinking about the things in your
life that make you happy and that is what has you smiling. It may only
be a small thing but if it makes you happy then it's a start and all
that matters. If you choose to smile and someone asks you why you are
smiling then you can tell them why, be it that it's a sunny day or the
sky is blue or you just had a treat or you feel someting good will come
your way or the flowers in your front lawn is in bloom or you saw a
cute pet or a happy child. Any reason that makes you feel good is a
good reason to smile and not lying to anyone. besides, unless they can
read minds or practice telepathy with any degree, they won't know much
of your business or what's going on in you head unless you let them
know.
I heard a study that had people 'put on a happy face', smile and
pretend to be happy even when they did not feel happy. What was found
was that after a while the people in the study that were pretending to
be happy and smiling where actually smiling and feeling happy beacuse
they were able to start thinking of and finding thing to be happy
about. they just borroed an attitude for a time and it honestly became
theirs to keep.
I feel that means they don't
really care about me though that is probably true. Certainly not so
long ago this year when I was working I noticed perhaps because I was
that people were a lot friendlier, friends were calling and wanting to
spend time with me, everything was much improved.
See what I mean. You were happy, doing better, and feeling much better
about yourself and your self-esteme was much higher and other could
sense that in your and wanted to be around the happy squirrel that was
more open and out going then.
It is true as the
song goes...nobody wants to know you when you are down and out. For
some reason they think it is catching. That people will think less of
you by association. If I don't smile readily at people maybe that is
because I feel bad and can't face people. A friendly face and spending
some time having fun with someone certainly would make a good deal of
difference, but nobody thinks you want to have fun when you are down.
People tht are down have a way of putting other folks down and nobody
wants to feel down. People also don't care to ba around folks that are
putting themselves down. It's sound like you let exterior things
dictate you level of self-esteme, and value and those exterior things
really don't have any true long term value on who you are or your value
as a person when it's all been done and said.
On your last day are what are you going to wish you did more of :
working for some company, or with people that mattered to you, doing
things to please some boss or doing things to please your friends and
family, running around a shop or running on the beach, in a forest, or
in the mountains, doing other peopel's stuff or doing your own stuff,
crafts, and interests? Like all things in life the choice is yours.
Sure you need some resources, some income, some cash to live, but maybe
not as much as you think you do and money and things are not everything
in th final analysis of what truly matters. Think about it a bit and
you'll see.
Things happen for a reason, often on a level we don't understand at the
time but are greatful for afterwards. What may seam like a curse at
the time may turn out to be a blessing when seen in the full picture
and in hind sght after things have played themselves out
.
Leaving the job wasn't a bad thing. The problems in the job would
have got worse and I have heard that they certainly haven't improved in
my absence, which is as I expected. I'm just really afraid though
that the shortness of my duration in the job and the knock to my
confidence and energy has seriously damaged my chances of getting
another job.
It'll matter only if you let it. Let any new employers the truth that
you left a bad situation and am aiming for something better. Those in
the field will have some idea of what is going on in that place and
shouldn't hold it too much against you, especially when you show them
that you really want to work in the field and learn and try you best
inspite of the nonsense you got in the past.
I think I'm seriously having to look at something quite
different, much lower paid and just hope I get that.
Sounds like you low self-esteme is talking again. You really need to
give that downer a boot and tell it you deserve better and am going fo
it.
If you go for less make sure thatit's only part-time and tmeporary
while you are trying to get into somewhere better and more like what
you want to do.
But how do you
get ahead in life on low wages? I have no assets how do I become
independent? Finance my dreams? Actually get onto what I should be
doing in life? I have already learnt I have little courage, and
nothing to bolster that courage with.
It took a lot of courage to stay in that past situation when things
started to get real harry with a little experience as you had then, and
to do your best to fix up a ton of mistakes from past employees you had
no part in making in the first place, and to stay there when they got
a new mananger and it was a sure things that things would be changing,
and to walk out of there with no job lined up or anything when they
wanted to put you in some low paying slough job you knew you'd hate and
out of what you really wanted to do and felt you were good at.
You say you don't have any courage, but I don't see that at all. You
do have courage and guts when you want or need to find them.
Perhaps I should start drinking.
Please don't do that. You need all your wits to help you now and
drinking only turns off your higher brain functions. Save those drinks
for when you do get that new job to celebrate, which I know you will in
time.
Life is too short not to be happy and to be doing those things that
matter and give meaning to our lives
.
People I think give meaning to life. There is no one I feel close to.
I cannot even get a pet.
Small wonder you are feeling depressed. You need some people in your
life that matter to you and you can relate to and stuff. Maybe you can
hook up with old co-workers or old friends.
Or perhaps see if you can get into some part-time volunteer work to
help keep you busy, make a few friends, make some connections in
finding a job or income opportunities,
and just helping may help your self-esteme do better.
There is usually a way to get some good out of a situation and to find
a way to get things going in your favor if you just give it some time
to think things out
.
Life is full of karma, and folks will get what they deserve in good
time without our needing to work on it
What did I do that was so bad to deserve this?
Nothing that I can think of, but maybe you are paying off a karmatic
debt from a past life of you own free choice to be free of it for good,
or are using thee experience you are going thru now as part of the
learning experiences you chose for this lifetime.
Only the powers that be and your soul knows for sure, but either way I
hope that things come around for you soon and better things come your
way.
Deal with your own stuff and
let the powers that be deal with the rest and things will work out in
the long run.
Everyone has a prupose in thier life and it is one of their jobs in
this life to figur it our and nobody can do it for them but themselves
.
I don't know, I kinda felt mine was to hold the magic in life...to stop
it fading from our lives so we would still wonder and feel our lives
have meaning. I kinda hoped I would know what it was like to be happy
as an adult as well.
Funny thing, when I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up I
remember saying that I wanted to be happy. If nothing else back then,
I had enough sense to know that I was still tooyoung to settle on just
one career and set it in stone. There was just too many possiblities
staring out at me and I had much yet to learn before I could decide on
any one or even any group of them. Drove the career councillors crazy
then, but it worked out for the best as I continued in school, taking
the higest accedemic classe I could and aiming for the highest and best
levels I could so that when I started to get some ideas I was able to
follow the pathways to get to them.
It's good to want to be happy in our lives and it's good to want to
have magic and wonder in it and to share that happiness, magic and
wonder we are blessed with. The real trick is to find a way to keep it
and to share it at the same time and to get the resources we need to
live during it all. Maybe that's another test and learning lesson for
this life too. :)
Perhaps you writing will help you find a way to share it and a way to
help you live too. That is, if you can find the courage to share it
with others and to treat it with the value it deserves.
When things are meant to happen they will.
Desperation in folks can be smelt a mile away and will be very
off-putting to most folks
.
Yeah, but how can I ever trust or feel fond of false friends. If
people will only be friends with me when I am wonderful but keep
distant when I am not when they needn't, then I will only smile at them
and hate them. I do not want to be surrounded by people for
appearances sake and hate them. I want friends who will look me in the
eye and say I know your sadness, I realise your pain, I want the best
for you and will support you at least in thought to be the best you can
be, but if you can't manage, I'll still be there and help you if I can,
or at least know you.
Nobody care to be around phonies that are only into appearance, and
that's not the kind of people I'd want to be around you at all.
At the same time folks don't care to be around folks that are always
down as it's draining to deal with that all the time and after a while
thye'll pull back, not because they don't care, but rather out of
self-preservation and frustration as they feel they can't spare any
more of their energy on a person that only seems to be taking and whome
they can't seem to help do better even when they truly wish they could
help them do better.
It's a balancing act of being able to both give and take as each person
you're dealing with needs it and not to end up too much on only one
side of the equation in life.That's what friendship is about. Being
ther for each other and being able to both give and take, and being
able to listen even if there is nothing you can do and just being tht
sounding board and letting the other folk know that is exaectly what
you are.
Manners will help you much in life as will an attitude of gratitude for
what is around you and what is in you life
.
I admit my manners have slipped in life. I stopped caring about others
when I realised they didn't care for me. Not an excuse...esp not for
those who do have manners and consideration for others who certainly I
should try to be better to.
Think of manners as a mirror that if you treat others as you'd like to
be treated then folks will notice and they'll do good things back in
return and the good you've put out will, in time and in ways you won't
expect will come reflecting back.
Gratitude is something I'm not good on.
However gratitude for small things like a smile or a kind word from ...
Even the small things are worth being grateful and glad for. Be it a
good day with wonderful weather to head out the door to run your
errands instead rain and stuff then, having thins stay good until you
get home, expected storms happening at night when your sleeping so you
don't have to be out in it during the day, flowers blooming, an animal
greeting you in a friendly manner and passing your journeys, a kind
word or action from a stranger or a friend, running into a friend when
you least expected it and are most glad for it, a child's smile that
cheers up a rough period of your day and makes it seem a bit better,
finding a rare treasure or treat you've been wanting and weren't
expecting to find, a lead on something good that works out and was not
on your plans for the day.
There was a real rough period in my life when I never thought I'd get
anywhere to where I'm now and I'd make some lists each day. One would
be what things I had gotten done that day, and another would be what
good things had happened to me or had I saw or heard. It was amazing
how much better I felt after I actually made those lists each day and
went over them, and the list of things I wanted to get done for the
next day. I also would make a list of things I wanted to do in my
life, and the things I'd like to see, and the dreams I wanted to follow
at some point in my life.
Each day those lists got longer as I got better and stronger and I
gradually got back in control of my life and got it back on track.
I still have a ways to go but it is coming, and when I find the time I
still try to make those lists and update those lists, and say thanks
for the good things that do come my way.
May some good come your way too. :)
I'm still working on the car but it will come in time, maybe longer
than I thought it would, but most likely at the right time for what is
meant to happen.
Hugs, tugs, and better days.
-Jo
It's all in how you see things.