Why settle for less?

I talk all the time about how women need to be strong and that they should not let people treat them bad. I really hope that my message is getting out there especially to those women who think they don't deserve better due to low self esteem. But I also want my message to get to me. Due to some crazy things that have happened in my life, I will admit my self esteem has never been very great, but the thing is I know that I am an amazing woman so why do I let stupid people make me feel like I am not just because they are too selfish to see it?

I know another girl who has low self esteem and I see her making the same mistakes I made and it kills me. I would love the chance to talk to her and let her know she deserves better, but I think some women just need to learn things on their own. All I can do is sit back and wait for it to happen and then hope that she finally sees that we as women are amazing, but only if we make ourselves amazing. Settling for less just because we think that is all we are worth is sad.

I have had people in my life since I was a child making me feel less than I am. Some did it to make themselves feel better. Some did it out of pure selfishness and some did it just because they are sick.

No matter why people hurt us we can't keep giving them the power to hurt us more. I have seen women return to abusive husbands because they think they can't do better or because their husbands swore they would change. The thing about abusers though, they don't change. I'm not just talking about physical abuse either. I have a few friends who have or had emotionally abusive husbands. Their husbands controlled them with fear and mind games. Every time the woman would start to feel strong in who they were the husbands were there to knock them back down or lie to them so that the women would give them another chance.

It is men like that that have me worried for the future of my daughters. I don't want them ending up with some jerk who treats them bad or makes them feel less than amazing, but how do I train them up to know they deserve better? I have seen parents who never really lifted up their kids or told them they loved them and just basically let the children raise themselves and learn from life. I have also seen the flip side of the coin though. I have seen parents go over board and tell their child how wonderful and great they are non-stop to the point where the child had an over inflated sense of self and those children grew up to be selfish people.

So where is that happy medium? How do we raise strong women who have a good sense of self, but are not selfish? I don't want my girls growing up thinking that it is ok to be with someone who is a jerk. I can't always be with them to protect them from outside influences so I have to trust that God will protect them. I know they are going to see and experience things in life that could have a profound impact on what they think is ok. I just have to do my best to counteract that influence so that they know they are beautiful, strong girls.

God will be there for my girls as they grow up, but it is up to us as parents to be the godly role models they need to see so that they can be godly women. God doesn't want them settling for the not even next best thing. God wants to give them His best. I will teach my girls what to expect out of their future husbands and how to be good wives, but ultimately they are going to take from everything they see and hear and make their own choices. I can only hope that what they see and hear is what is best for them in God's eyes and not our own.

So my take away challenge this time? Don't settle for less than God's best for your life. Be the strong, beautiful women God created you to be and get away from the people in your life that are not God's best for you.

You're Beautiful, its true

I'm going to start this blog by saying something directly to women. Women YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL! You are amazing, you are strong and you are worth a good man. I say that because I see so many women out there who for some reason or another just don't seem to think that they are worth a quality relationship. They stay with a guy that treats them like garbage for years out or fear of not having someone or simply because they don't think the can do or deserve better. They date a married man because..., ok I don't know why they do that, but they do. These women all seem to be under the impression that they don't deserve better.

I'm here to say to all of those women, you deserve better. I have seen a quote on facebook many times, not sure who it is by, but it rings true not matter what, "Don't make someone a priority in your life, when you are only an option in theirs." If a guy treats you like garbage or is seeing you while he is married, you are not his priority. He is his priority. He is looking to feel better about himself. If he is treating you badly then by you feeling bad it allows you to feel better about yourself. If he is married to someone else then he is trying to feel like he is desired again. I know that in the married situation sometimes the wife has not shown him the attention he thinks he deserves, but it is not your place to give it to him. That is between him and his wife and God.

We live in a time where we are constantly being bombarded with images of the "perfect woman" She has to be thin, have large breasts, straight teeth, perfect eyes, nose and mouth, but if you look around at the real world you will see that women just don't look like that. The women in Hollywood don't even look like that. The pictures are airbrushed or they had surgery or liposuction. A good man isn't looking for perfection from his woman. A good man is looking for a woman who gets him, loves him, respects him and completes him. If he is looking for something superficial like how you look or the type of attention you give him, well then he is not a good man. Sorry to have to say it ladies, but there are a lot of jerks out there.

Now I know that the jerk to good guy ratio is making it harder for women to find good men, but that doesn't mean you have to settle for the first guy to show you some attention or even the second or third guy. Set your standards high. Look for that guy that will treat you well. Look for the guy who will protect you and that wants you and only you. Ask questions about his past relationships. You don't ask because you want to be hurt by his past, but you ask so you know how he treated the women in his past. Chances are if he treated them badly or didn't respect them, then he isn't going to treat you right either. Sure you may get a few years of him treating you right, but then life will happen and he will see you with the flu or hear you throwing up and if he is the kind of guy who gets bored easily then he is going to go find a new girl that hasn't thrown up around him.

I really want women to realize that they can do better if they just stop settling. I am not saying to any woman than you should leave your husband if he is not great. I am saying to all those women out there who are dating jerks to let them go. So what if you have a big nose, swinty eyes and a big butt, you can do better if you will just realize that you are worth more than what he is giving you. Stop settling! Look for the good guys. If you are in a bad relationship then get out. If you are seeing a married man, even if he is leaving his wife, get out. That is no way to start a relationship and you will always be wondering if he gets bored with you if he will look for someone else.

Realize that you are worth more than the sloppy seconds or harsh treatment these guys are giving you. I don't know what your childhood was like so I don't know what made your self esteem what it is. If you have good self esteem then great. Take that and find a man worthy of you. If you have low self esteem then first off stop that, second off look at yourself through God's eyes and see that you were beautifully and wonderfully made. Just because some jerk in your past made you feel unworthy of love doesn't mean you are. Just because your mother had low self esteem doesn't mean you should. Take pride in who God made you and see the beautiful woman you are. Sure it may take longer to find the guy that will treat you right, but in the long run you will be happier and you will save yourself a lot of heartache. I really wish more women would have this philosophy when it comes to finding a man. Maybe if women will only start dating the good guys then the jerks will see that they have to be good in order to have a good woman and in the process of natural selection all the jerks will die out. After all, if there are no jerks to raise jerk sons or daughters with no self esteem then only the good guys will be raising kids and the over population of jerks can go the way of the saber tooth tiger.... Hey a girl can dream can't she.

Say Anything

Do you have that friend that just gets you? You know the one you can say anything to and they get it. Do you have that friend that you have inside jokes with? Do you quote movies and TV shows or repeat something one of you said a long time ago just so you can remember the fun of that day and laugh?

I have almost that friend. I have the friend that gets me and that I can quote things to, but I have different friends that I can say anything to and they get it. They used to be one in the same, but somewhere along the way the friend that I quote with became the person I couldn't say anything to.

I love having friends that I can be real with. The ones I can show my warped side to or my gross side. I think we all need that. I also love having the friend that I can quote things to. That friend has been there through a lot of stuff in my life and understands when I talk about college night because they were a part of it with me. This friend was there with me through some amazing times in my life and I enjoy remembering those moments with them. I wonder though why did we stop being able to say anything to each other. That friend was my best friend for a lot of years. That friend was the person I called when something great happened and that friend was the shoulder I cried on when something bad happened. I still find myself when something great or funny happens wanting to call them and tell them, but rarely are they the person I call when something bad happens. I rarely call them if I am hurting or sad, that's what the other friends have become for me.

Why do we let our friendships fall away like that? Why do we stop saying what we are thinking? Chances are those friends would not have judged us had we just been real with them. Chances are those friends are thinking the same thing sometimes. They were that friend for a reason you know?

We live in such a transient society these days. By the time my youngest daughter was 4 1/2 she had lived in 4 states. Where we are now is the longest she has ever lived somewhere and in two months it will be the longest my oldest has ever lived somewhere. How do we keep up with our friends when we don't even live near them anymore? How do we keep that bond strong? Facebook helps to a point, but sometimes it is just a distraction from living our real life. I know I have been guilty of sitting home all day long on the computer with no real contact with anyone. Even when other people were in my house I was sitting at the computer. Have we become such a tech mesmerized society that we no longer have the ability to have real interactions with each other?

I don't want my world to be wrapped up in my next status update or reading everyone else's status update. We rationalize that we keep up and talk to more friends because we have facebook. Yeah, I have talked with people I went to college with, high school with and even people I lived across the street from until I was 7. It is great catching up when we first find them, but then really do you talk to them anymore or do you just read and comment on each other's statuses? Do you basically facebook stalk and never really keep up with their real life? I KNOW I am guilty of that. If you think about it though we only put snippets of our lives on facebook, well unless you are an over sharer, and well that is for another blog. So if we only put snippets out there then we really are not doing life with each other, we are just being nosy.

I have had a few friends message me occasionally if my posts seem sad or dark, but overall we are not interacting. Social networking seems to be a must these days. You have to twitter, or facebook or blog to keep in touch with the world and as great as it can seem at times I really think it is making us more and more anti-social. We don't get together for coffee to hang out anymore. No, we chat on facebook or we text. We don't laugh out loud with our friends anymore. No, we LOL or LMBO. No wonder there are marriages breaking up because of social networking. We are so used to speaking in status updates and chats and texts that we don't know how to have face time anymore.

The reason I can no longer say anything to my friend is because we quit saying anything out loud. Our conversations started consisting of texts and emails. Heck we couldn't even pick up the phone to talk. Sure I can send a funny quote through a text, but where is the satisfaction of seeing them literally laugh out loud? I want to say "PIVOT!" and actually see a smile and well "Narkey" just doesn't come across in written word. Chances are anyone reading this has no idea what either of those quotes mean, but my friend does and that is one of the reasons we are friends. Will we ever be able to say anything to each other again? Well I hope so. No matter what this person is my friend, but I also need to take the time to actually use my voice not just for this one friend, but for all of those that I know I can say anything to.

So my challenge this time is to stop living in a cyber world so much and take the time to use your voice. We really do have something to say and no I am not missing the irony that I am saying this all online, but hey baby steps right?

Runaway Bride

Have you ever seen the movie Runaway Bride with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere? If you haven't here is a brief summary. Richard Gere is a reporter who goes to this small town to do a story on Julia Robert's character who has been deemed the Runaway Bride because she has run out on quite a few weddings to various guys. There is some more stuff that happens, but if you want to know more than I am telling you then go rent it.

Anyway, one of the parts of the movie that really stuck with me was him asking each of her former fiancées how she liked her eggs and each one of them telling him that she liked them the way they liked him. It was a small thing with great significance. The guys all thought she liked her eggs like they did because when she was with each one of them she changed to be what she thought they wanted her to be. She did not know what she wanted.

In many relationships women tend to become who they think the man wants them to be. They don't do it consciously usually, but over time they lose a piece of themselves. When I met my husband I did not like football at all. We met in February so football season had just ended. We had six months of the getting to know each other part of our relationship before NFL Preseason started. He began to get all excited and I kind of sunk at the thought of loosing him to football for the next six months. He was smart enough to ask me why I didn't like football and I told him because I didn't understand it. He then took it upon himself to teach me football so we could watch together. I became a Tennessee Volunteer fan because he was and that was the games he was teaching me through. I had grown up in the middle of Alabama/Auburn Football as an Alabama fan, but after meeting students from that school I could no longer make myself be an Alabama fan and really I only cared who won the Iron Bowl anyway so it wasn't like I was giving up a huge part of who I was to change teams.

Over time I have become a huge football fan. I still cheer for the Vols, even though they have not been great over the last ten years and after having lived in Nashville as the Titans were starting I became a Titans fan as well. I will admit that now living in Indiana I don't get the chance to watch the games like I would like so I sadly do not know the players like I used to, but I still watch when I can and hope for the best.

So what's the big deal about football? Well, me beginning to like football was just the start of me changing myself for him. I was never a big music fan other than the Beatles. I had honestly learned to tune most music out after having dated a guy that constantly listened to heavy metal. My husband, however, was a musician and music was his life. So I began to expand my horizons and learned all new genres of music and I found that I did in fact like most kids of music. Jazz being one of the few that I cannot tolerate at all for any length of time.

There were other things I was exposed to due to him and I will not say I am not thankful to have learned about them, but I do regret giving up the things I was into in order to have the time to do the things he was into. Shopping was a huge one, but I will get back to that. My point is I gave up my passions for his.

Now you may think that he learned some of my passions and I taught him things. If you think that you would be wrong and he would not be the only man that has not made that effort. It seems most men don't take the time to learn what the women in their life are passionate about. I don't know if it is because they think it is too girlie or what, but it is quite common for the woman to learn to like what the man likes and the man to not care about what she like. Then ten plus years down the road the women are not the woman they were when they first met and then comes the fight of "you have changed". First off, we all change so that is a stupid fighting point. Second, she changed so she could spend more time with the guy.

Before I met my husband I would save up my money and go shopping. I would usually drag my mom along, but sometimes I went with a friend or alone. I would spend hours looking at clothes and trying them on until I found the best outfits at the best prices. Then I met my husband and he hates to shop for anything but music or electronics. Where I could spend hours in a mall looking at clothes, he could spend hours in a record store going through vinyl. When he and I would go to the mall together he would drag me into a music store and I would be bored out of my mind so when I would go in a clothing store I didn't want him to feel the way I had felt in the record store so I learned to walk in take a quick walk through and if nothing jumped out at me right away I walked back out. My whole shopping pattern changed. His on the other hand did not and so eventually he got to the point where he would only go to music stores without me which I was fine with.

So what is the point in telling you this? Well, I am here to stand up and say I want me back! I want to go shopping and take my time. I want to sit down with a book even if there is football on and read. I want to go out with my female friends and laugh and make fun of things and I challenge every other woman out there to do the same thing. Don't wait until there is something wrong in your relationship or you have a fight about how you have changed. Do it now! Be that girl you were before you had a man in your life. You don't have to go off to some hippie commune to find yourself, just remember yourself.

Men are great to have in your life, but I can almost guarantee that they don't want to look into sad eyes that have no clue of who they are. It is a process. You won't wake up tomorrow and suddenly be who you want to be, but by taking that first step you are on the road to finding her again. After all isn't that who they fell in love with in the first place? Why does getting married and having kids have to mean that you have to lose who you are? Get out there and find out how you like your eggs.

What we leave behind

Have you ever thought about what you will eave behind when you die? I'm not talking about just your personal belongings, although feel free to throw me into your will at anytime :) What I am actually talking about is your legacy. What will your friends and family say about you after you are gone?

I for one wonder what they will say. I know some will say I was funny and sarcastic and rarely neglected to give my opinion. I know some will say I was a "b" word because I will admit to some people I have been. But I would also hope that they would say something about my caring heart and how much I don't want others to hurt. I've taken those spiritual gifts tests so many times and mercy is always at the top of the list for me, but I don't know that many people actually see that side of me. Sometimes it gets hidden behind my own pain and sometimes, I will honestly say, I get lazy and don't let it show. I would also hope that I would be remembered for my ability to forgive. I have forgiven a lot of people in my life who have hurt me in many different ways. I don't say that to toot my own horn, I say that because it was something I had to learn to do in order to get through my depression. I found that holding grudges and holding onto hurts didn't hurt the person I was hurt by, it only hurt me.

So what else do I want to leave behind? I just read an article about people dying and their facebook and/or twitter pages being part of that legacy. I had not really thought about that until then. I mean what does your last post say about you? Would you be happy with whatever your last post was if you died right now? It really made me think that I need to try harder with my posts. I mean I really don't know how I would feel about my last post talking about the new lipstick I bought. Not that I think I will be thinking about that once I am dead, but it is the principle of the thing. Your facebook or twitter page will become a memorial to you for awhile after you die. Do you really want a complaint about the service at McDonalds to be the last thing people hear from you? Now if the food at McDonalds killed you and you had complained about that, maybe that would be ok, but other than that, I don't think that is the last words I want of mine to be about.

What does all of this mean? Well, I don't really know. I can't guarantee that every post I make from here on out is going to be deep and thoughtful, but maybe I will be less inclined to post that complaint about the BMV... Nah, who am I kidding it is the freakin BMV of course I will complain about them. But then after that I will immediately post something a little deeper :) Besides those who know me well, know that I have an opinion about everything right?

I guess what I am trying to say is to try to be more positive with your posts and maybe that picture of you drunk dancing on a table is not the best thing to have as your profile picture. But you don't have to be all deep to leave that legacy. I think I want my last post to be something that makes people laugh and I think I need to post a few more pictures of myself having fun so just maybe my final post will be one my girls can smile at and say, "Yep, that was my mom."

Why we should not make life choices at 20

When I was 20, I thought I knew everything. I was living on my own. I was in college and I had my whole career and life before me. I knew what I was going to be and do. Can I go back and slap that girl now?

Seventeen years later I have to say 20 year olds should not make life choices. They think that every promise they hear will be kept and they romanticize life as a grown up. At the age of 20, while there are some responsibilities that are had, they are nothing compared to what they will be responsible for in 15 years. Most 20 year olds don't have kids. Most 20 year olds are not supporting themselves 100%. Most 20 year olds are not married and most 20 year olds can not even fathom what life is going to throw at them.

I can look back at myself at 20 and laugh now as I think about how I thought I knew everything. I was sure of my future and I really did believe in the fantasy of growing up and living happily ever after. I believed the lie of all those movies there everyone road off into the sunset with all of their dreams come true.

I see 20 year olds today and I see them making the same exact mistakes that I made. They believe the fantasy. I know they probably won't listen to me, but maybe those of us who have been there done that got the t-shirt should ban together and really help these poor kids. Maybe we can have an intervention for all of them. Sit them down and tell them all the things we have learned since the age of 20. However, I also know my wisdom comes from having lived through it myself. I have to admit a little part of me gets a small amount of joy from the thought of those immature little 20 year olds experiencing life and realizing that life is not all candy canes and lollipops.

But just the same I still have a list of things I have learned that I would like to pass on to those unsuspecting 20 year olds out there.

1. Someone is going to break your heart.

2. That dream job will not pay you what you think you are worth.

3.The career path you thought you were going to take will not happen like you thought it would. 4. Kids will change your life in huge, good and bad ways.

5. You will get wrinkles.

6.You will gain weight.

7.You will get grey hair.

8. At some point in the future you will have regrets about choices you made.

9. Someone will lie to you and you will believe them.

10. Someone won't appreciate you.

11. The happily ever after you dreamed up will have its ups and downs and it is how you deal with those that will decide whether or not your happily ever after will actually happen.

12. Promises will be broken.

13. Someone is going to fail you.

14. If you are not flexible in what you want or expect out of life nothing or no one will live up to your standards.

15. Life is not about YOUR happiness.

16. Selfish people exist and you will have to deal with them.

17. It is easy to see other people's flaws, so just remember they are seeing yours too.

18. If you have unrealistic expectations you are setting yourself up to fail.

19. No one respects that old person that never grew up.

20. The world is not here to meet YOUR needs and wants.

There are plenty more, but I think we all need to learn some things on our own. I mean after all, even though many of today's 20 year olds have been given every thing they ever wanted, they will have to learn the hard way that life does not owe them anything.

So I say to all the 20 year olds out there, don't believe the lies, grow up and please listen to those of us who know what we are talking about. Trust me, some day you will admit we are right.

Daddy issues

So you went through something bad as a kid or teen; maybe it was from a parent, maybe it was another family member or some random person. What are you doing about that?

I say this to myself for a few things that I have been working on over the years, but I also say this to other people that I talk to on a regular basis. I see people who use their past as an excuse for their current behaviors. "Oh, I did this because..." I'm calling it as I see it people, that's a cop out.

Yes or past shapes us, but are you going to let someone else make you do something you hate, or make you do something you shouldn't? Well, we shouldn't and yet, we do.

It really kind of ticks me off. It is giving power to someone else if we let what they did to us make us be less than our best. Why should they get that kind of power? People in our past made bad choices that affected us, but if we in turn make bad choices because of that then we are affecting someone else and it becomes a vicious cycle of hurt.

I know that for my own girls I don't want my mistakes to make them one day make their own bad choices. Everything we do affects someone, but we have to choose to affect them positively rather than negatively and end the cycle.

It has taken me many years to figure this out so I am hoping by putting this out there I can help someone else avoid the long journey it has taken me. We really all should be learning from other people's mistakes and making better choices. We also should learn from our own mistakes so we don't repeat them. It hurts me to see people hurting due to their own bad choices in life. I want to do what I can to help them avoid them or at least go through the repercussions of their choice and come out on the other side hopefully without having to loose something in the process.

I've taken the spiritual gifts test multiple times and empathy always ranks high on my list. I didn't understand that at first because when I first took it I was young and selfish, but someone explained it to me. He had noticed that even in my young selfishness I still was able to see things from others perspective. That ability to see things from others perspective and in effect care about how they felt has shaped my choices in life.

When I see someone making bad choices or making mistakes I try to see things from their perspective and figure out why they would make that choice. Time and again it comes back to their own personal hurt from the past. Maybe we all need counselling to get through the junk we have been carrying around with us. Imagine how much lighter you would feel if you truly let your junk go. The coolest part of this is we don't have to go through it alone. God is there for us and he also put other people in our lives to help us, but we have to accept that help. Shutting people out and turning our back on people who just want to help us is not the answer. God wants us to ask for help. He is waiting for it, but we have to let go of our own pride and ego and admit that we can't do it alone. We also can't go looking for someone who will back us up in our bad choices. Anyone who supports your bad choice is not looking out for you or your best interest. God did not put them there.

God wants the best for you. Does it stink that we were hurt in the past? You bet it does. Does God want you to wallow in that and hurt others in the process? Uh, NO! And yet everyday, that is exactly what we do. So I say to you now, stop letting your past define you!!! Do the right thing and be the person God wants you to be. You will be better for it and in turn others will be better for it as well.

I'm sorry if Daddy didn't hug you or tell you her loved you or some kid on the playground told you that you were ugly, but that is their issue not yours. "You are beautiful, you are treasured, you are sacred you are His. You were meant for so much more than all of this." (Mercy Me)