As a kid, you experience a whole lot of feelings growing up, from finding comfort in long-term friendships to experiencing your first rage breakdown: a rush of newly discovered emotions which you are not familiar with dealing. In the summer of 2018, my mom introduced me to a new genre of books that revolved around upbringing, mental awareness, and a dictionary of all my unexplainable emotions. I remember as I got into reading, I was less interested in that knowledge and more focused on how I learned so much and got the advices needed, as a teenager, from the internet instead of my mother.
Here are some of my favorite pieces of advice I’ve learned over the years from the internet that I wish I had learnt from my mom.
Loving yourself
Loving yourself and feeling comfortable in your own body is one of the things I struggle with, especially with social media being around. It’s becoming harder to accept your features, but here is some advice I’ve learned starting with spending more time with yourself allowing you to get to know her more and understand her. Surround yourself with love, and positive affirmations and stop the negative self-talk.
As humans we aren’t born perfect, we have flaws and missing pieces that we should learn to accept and live with. My favorite advice is love yourself the same way you want others to love you.
Some days getting out of bed is an accomplishment.
Since I was a little child, I’ve felt the need to be productive or helpful at all times, even on my worst days. when on some mornings, the only thing I had to do is get out of bed and breathe. I’ve learned that you must give yourself the permission to unwind and move slowly when your body demands it.
Put your mental energy first, listen to your body and understand that the productivity of others shouldn’t trigger your path toward your own goals.
It’s okay to say no
I never thought of myself as a people pleaser until I realized how I put other people’s feelings first instead of my own. I would hang out with people that I wouldn’t feel comfortable around and stay in friendships that would drain me mentally because I was too scared to say no.
Until I stumbled across one of Emma Chamberlin’s videos where she talks about how being a people pleaser partially comes from being insecure about your relationships especially if you feel like it’s always on thin ice and anything can make it fall apart and that’s funny because it made me think that if I feel like my own well-being is a threat to my friendships, that means that there is no friendship to be concerned about at the first place.
I don’t always have to say yes especially if it comes against my wishes and that should be respected and understood from people around me
Gut feelings are guardian angels
Have you ever met someone and got this really bad feeling or a vibe and you just weren’t comfortable to be around them and a few more days you find out that this person is just not it or when you introduce a friend to your mother and she warns you about them before they even do anything.
Some people call it the mother instinct and others call it the gut feeling more specifically, it’s the voices in our head telling us what to do and where to go. If you are struggling to make a decision, just let the thought of it go and then wait for what follows. Our mind knows so much better than others do. we just need to listen to our instincts and allow it to show us around.