tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40753702287247091612024-03-06T00:53:21.064+11:00Welcome to My Brainn...A potentially controversial blog of random thoughts on philosophy, religion, society, observations of daily life and a dash of personal anecdotes.
If you don't like raw and honest writing, proceed with caution.Melissa Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08746801252344782846noreply@blogger.comBlogger91125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4075370228724709161.post-55801794262543335172021-02-02T18:31:00.002+11:002021-02-02T18:31:34.615+11:00Is Privilege Really A Privilege?<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcILTz1ZxN8tuv7Ol3d8FVOiYKdNKqcabdkxPvWrzhjGrtm5Ro9Y2EK09a_Yy3DtFLKqUSdBK_MX106XQU2mUvjVHo9Zto1rO86ZFgUJmw0chsgLGdZsdIUjJedg9Pdh9XRq_wCKcWUgXL/s1220/privilege-1220x763.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="763" data-original-width="1220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcILTz1ZxN8tuv7Ol3d8FVOiYKdNKqcabdkxPvWrzhjGrtm5Ro9Y2EK09a_Yy3DtFLKqUSdBK_MX106XQU2mUvjVHo9Zto1rO86ZFgUJmw0chsgLGdZsdIUjJedg9Pdh9XRq_wCKcWUgXL/s320/privilege-1220x763.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">(Photo credit: https://politicsofpoverty.oxfamamerica.org/should-we-be-ashamed-of-privilege/)</div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">According to Oxford Languages (read: Google search), privilege
is "</span><span style="background: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a
particular person or group."</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">I've always considered privilege to be associated with, or connected to
riches, wealth and things only the 1% have.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Expensive private schools, luxury items, having a massive
house/penthouse apartment on the water or acreage, frequently travelling first
class overseas on a whim, or maybe for business, etc.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">As I've delved further into adulthood and met people from all walks of
life, I've noticed that the divide between privileged and non, really isn't as
big as I once thought. At least not when you look at various situations from a
lens of humanity. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjxREFDK98FXQiXfxY0SFtIwNkMUBL1a9uFzR2ZoGBV3VngxlKnHZ5_3bHRa_11AXQcH1Jb-BzQ06GB0pFDFTvtbi14lnMhSiIifqGqv4jNPXFiXiFclUXBX05vB5Ds8UhHcMS-0L3xLg9/s710/How-Does-Privilege-Separation-Improve-IT-Security-Small.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="710" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjxREFDK98FXQiXfxY0SFtIwNkMUBL1a9uFzR2ZoGBV3VngxlKnHZ5_3bHRa_11AXQcH1Jb-BzQ06GB0pFDFTvtbi14lnMhSiIifqGqv4jNPXFiXiFclUXBX05vB5Ds8UhHcMS-0L3xLg9/s320/How-Does-Privilege-Separation-Improve-IT-Security-Small.png" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><div style="text-align: center;">(Photo credit to: https://www.lepide.com/blog/how-does-privilege-separation-improve-it-security/)</div></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">I went to a personal development event a few years ago, and during the
dinner afterwards I was talking to a few different people and mentioned how, as
human beings, we're really not that much different from each other, regardless
of our living circumstances.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">One of the people I was talking to agreed and told the story of someone
she once met who worked on a popular TV series and seemed to come from an
affluent family. They, or someone they knew who associated with similar
circles, had gone to a clinic to learn more about reproductive health and the
person who told me the story had been blown away that someone who came from
wealth and privilege, knew as much about sexual health as someone from a third
world country, or just a lower socio-economic area. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj08GQ-5Kk00d5v7HN4Aq91ICtMREteOBcIB7N4miUyBaRdcTZGtEjmESWgHM6kui41JeKpf89p8t4KY46TaPSo44vAHITzI9fsDoi_hx_Ik5ATE6ZUsQdTmn8TGhxDkT7ssuoDX4IBX7ts/s1400/personalized-1516413278.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="567" data-original-width="1400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj08GQ-5Kk00d5v7HN4Aq91ICtMREteOBcIB7N4miUyBaRdcTZGtEjmESWgHM6kui41JeKpf89p8t4KY46TaPSo44vAHITzI9fsDoi_hx_Ik5ATE6ZUsQdTmn8TGhxDkT7ssuoDX4IBX7ts/s320/personalized-1516413278.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">(Photo credit to: https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-01-21-personalized-learning-is-a-problem-of-privilege)</div><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">A year or so ago I was an assistant for a dance concert and was talking
to one of the other assistants during the lunch break. She told me about her
living situation and how she was renting a place her mother owned and at one
point had had to kick out a former housemate who's cleaning habits were
non-existent.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">She told me how said housemate would leave half eaten bowls of food in
her room for days, maybe weeks, until they couldn't figure out where the dishes
and cutlery had disappeared to and the effects of having food sitting around a
bedroom for so long further impacted the rest of the house.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">The housemate's mother complained when the housemate was asked to leave,
and insisted that they hadn't done anything wrong. The mother came over one day
and when asked to vacuum, asked how the vacuum worked.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">I was astounded when I heard the story and wondered what kind of wealth
this person had come from that they had no idea how a vacuum worked, or
apparently what cleanliness was.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">It made me question whether privilege as I knew it to be, really was a
privilege. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy1JIQa8uIyZUrvzpqWBIMGjkRKGkU3lJmt1Ioj6fpSCATkwo5lpa5UORV0VAASXOR48yC3FGq4XehVEcvZ7hsTLr-B5lkVjdIqSNguTMCx1MHSXZbVYa-Ipw_EDnTCDCge_fdmbi4EM_X/s600/1_X0oG0Z-Ady4myWbh1wyQNw.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy1JIQa8uIyZUrvzpqWBIMGjkRKGkU3lJmt1Ioj6fpSCATkwo5lpa5UORV0VAASXOR48yC3FGq4XehVEcvZ7hsTLr-B5lkVjdIqSNguTMCx1MHSXZbVYa-Ipw_EDnTCDCge_fdmbi4EM_X/s320/1_X0oG0Z-Ady4myWbh1wyQNw.jpeg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">(Photo credit to: </span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">https://medium.com/hackernoon/the-network-effects-of-privilege-ba254d5385c0)</span></span></span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Does having the best of everything really make you privileged, or just
wealthy? What would happen if that was all taken away? </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">I don't typically consider knowing how to do basic chores a privilege,
but is knowing how to be self-reliant better than having no idea and everything
being done for you? </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Is being privileged as I, or you know it, really a privilege?</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Don't get me wrong, luxuries are great and if you're someone who grew up
with the silver spoon life, good for you. I think many of us would strive for that
kind of lifestyle, while the rest think it's unachievable, or just don't care
and are happy as they are.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Is having more that you could possibly want, really the greatest thing
in life? Sure it opens far more doors than not having it does, but my idea of
privilege comes with great responsibility, pressures and an image or reputation
to maintain, with a side of somewhat limited life skills because there's people to do
that for you. There's not really any room for emotions, feelings, or the things
that make you human, and I personally couldn't live like that.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 107%;"><o:p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFvtYgzqm_qDAIZomTGdXoyWCCWOp69-2ELG6Ojm0SWU2bGwuQErXptjkMlpbh3PGQemASF1Uy4HDTxC6KnELD2werZHlwOPyD6aUsUZtULXfV3N-xUVyy6Z3wbULZ_bLqXY-4jPxk3Q61/s940/dbcab7344d50f83c77c9c6c1f18608d9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="940" data-original-width="680" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFvtYgzqm_qDAIZomTGdXoyWCCWOp69-2ELG6Ojm0SWU2bGwuQErXptjkMlpbh3PGQemASF1Uy4HDTxC6KnELD2werZHlwOPyD6aUsUZtULXfV3N-xUVyy6Z3wbULZ_bLqXY-4jPxk3Q61/s320/dbcab7344d50f83c77c9c6c1f18608d9.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">(Photo credit to: https://www.vogue.com.au/culture/features/what-is-privilege/news-story/dec611027eb7cc390fb90c57f99bd858)</span></div></span><p></p><br />Melissa Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08746801252344782846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4075370228724709161.post-4317482330698232442020-05-17T23:20:00.000+10:002020-05-17T23:20:57.182+10:005 Years Later...Today marks the 5th anniversary of mum's passing. 3:24am, to be exact.<div><br /></div><div>I unintentionally stayed up past that time, and just like I did on the morning in question, looked at my phone at the exact same time, not knowing back then, that mum had just taken her final breath.</div><div><br /></div><div>I started to reflect on the differences from then, til now, and while many things have moved on during that time, some things haven't changed at all.</div><div><br /></div><div>Her handbag is still on the chair where it was last left. All of her clothes and shoes are still in the wardrobe. I've relocated some of her jewelry to my bedroom so I can wear some of it, but her art supplies are still under the table next to the piano, now covered in cobwebs, dust and whatever else.</div><div><br /></div><div>I think one of the biggest things I've noticed in that time is that the pain has reduced. </div><div><br /></div><div>When I looked at my phone (also changed) to look at the time early this morning at saw it was the exact moment of her passing, I remembered how I felt back then and wondering was going to happen, and how I personally was going to get through not only each coming day, but the rest of my life, now that it had been changed forever. I knew as I was driving into the hospital car park that day, after praying for the first time in possibly years that I'd make it there in time, that whatever happened, life wouldn't be the same, I just had no idea what that meant.</div><div><br /></div><div>The shock took months to subside. I'd never cried so much possibly in my entire life, and I resented the fact that not only was the world continuing on as it always had, while I was left to figure out what my life meant without a mother, but that every new person I'd meet for the rest of my life, I'd need to rip off the band-aid of telling people that she'd passed on, and dealing with the residual grief that came up as a result.</div><div><br /></div><div>The first birthday without her I was fortunate enough to have a great group of friends around me who joined me for a low-key gathering at my old apartment. The birthday after that, I was hit with the sobering realization that she was really gone and wouldn't be calling to excitedly wish me happy birthday, ask me what I wanted, both for presents and dinner, and to check when I'd be over to celebrate with the family. I cried constantly for the whole week.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO782amqadlm8ypkG6SS8PbgmoR8G9_cCIzWX8UNCMuPzTZAmTxWuiEneSn84Xy25HOmBaKAth-5xI5VNL003HUpN1KeXU6jpfpNXyYLXlJ1oWyBIrPdBGVQQBUBTATqB_WfzklZUq2JdB/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO782amqadlm8ypkG6SS8PbgmoR8G9_cCIzWX8UNCMuPzTZAmTxWuiEneSn84Xy25HOmBaKAth-5xI5VNL003HUpN1KeXU6jpfpNXyYLXlJ1oWyBIrPdBGVQQBUBTATqB_WfzklZUq2JdB/s320/wpid-wp-1437727739947.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">(Credit: <a href="https://vishakhabhela.wordpress.com/2015/07/24/most-moving-damon-salvatore-speeches/" style="text-align: left;">https://vishakhabhela.wordpress.com/2015/07/24/most-moving-damon-salvatore-speeches/</a>)</div><div><br /></div><div>In the days after her passing, I started doing research into what happens to bodies after a person dies, and often found myself wondering what she would look like if I were to dig her up now. The same thing I wondered several years after my paternal grandmother passed on. (I was 9, and she was the first family death in my lifetime)</div><div><br /></div><div>I'd been told by family friends that the hardest part about the loss of a loved one is the little things, I didn't realize how true it was until those little things started coming up. Not being able to call her when I got out of an exam at uni, not being able to update her each time something new happened, like when I grief-bought new clothes and couldn't ask her opinion on them, instead turning to dad who had absolutely no clue how to respond. </div><div><br /></div><div>One of the biggest things are the occasional, but incredibly vivid dreams where she's still alive. Even though I not only witnessed her taking her last breath, but also saw her body in the coffin, then being buried, it's like my conscious mind knows she's not here, but my unconscious mind is still trying to reconcile the information and hasn't fully processed it.</div><div><br /></div><div>The first dream was the two of us arguing in the kitchen, as per normal. She was adamant she hadn't died, but I knew she definitely had, and couldn't understand how she'd come back to life. The rest of the family just acted like it was completely normal, which just made it even weirder.</div><div><br /></div><div>Other dreams were of a similar nature. Mum seeming off, but definitely alive, and me wondering why no one else had noticed, and being completely baffled as to how she was there in the first place, until I woke up and it all made sense.</div><div><br /></div><div>For me, the hardest part is not having a mother who's present. We didn't have the greatest relationship when she was alive, and between the cancer, other physical ailments and her gradual memory loss which would have likely been more devastating to experience that the cancer, she wouldn't have lasted much longer anyway, but it's knowing that she's not here. Her stuff is, and anytime it's been moved, I've had a mini meltdown at the change, but there's nowhere I can go and see or be with her. Her physical body is in a body in the ground of a cemetery. Her legacy is in the memories of those who knew her and were personally affected by her, in some manner or another, but she isn't here.</div><div><br /></div><div>Over the past few years, I've developed a stronger interest in spirituality, supernatural and paranormal phenomenon, and I think that's helped me to deal with her loss a bit better. Believing that while she's not physically here, her soul or spirit lives on elsewhere and she's watching over and guiding me from there, and as I like to imagine, spending her time socializing with all those who passed on before her, makes me feel okay about not having her physically here. Her body had been through enough and she had to let it go, but she taught me what I needed to know in the time she was here, and the rest I just wait for signs of, as crazy as it may seem to others.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5IcQpohSyLOaNEKqc5swamd89juyrFychYauUcUOwG1izf8IWcJFPhfwQMoiq-n4s3p4qkF3wUwGsWDW7Q6fTzf6iq21QwWXwF5iaRRlRlFJyg2eeIon-9JavYMx_2E9CUdrRAIj54z73/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="307" data-original-width="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5IcQpohSyLOaNEKqc5swamd89juyrFychYauUcUOwG1izf8IWcJFPhfwQMoiq-n4s3p4qkF3wUwGsWDW7Q6fTzf6iq21QwWXwF5iaRRlRlFJyg2eeIon-9JavYMx_2E9CUdrRAIj54z73/" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">(Credit: Pinterest)</div><div><br /></div><div>Life has continued on. I've graduated university, changed jobs a few times, moved back home again, and really started to reflect and appreciate the life I had with her, even if it wasn't long or full enough. </div><div><br /></div><div>I started to pursue acting and modelling, which is something I've always wanted to do, but that she'd never have approved on, and as dad told me as a child, the one rule was not to upset mum. But I've also started to share my story of growing up with a mentally ill parent and how that's affected me, and continues to affect me.</div><div><br /></div><div>I intend on making a documentary one day about her life, and showing what it's like for someone who has mental illness, but also detailing the stories of those who knew her, and of my own family's experiences in dealing with her (with permission of course), so I can help to shine a light on, and work towards breaking the stigma around mental health, in the hopes that more people become aware of it's existence, recognize the signs for themselves or someone they know, and get the help and support they need, without feeling ashamed or judged for doing so.</div><div><br /></div><div>As bittersweet as it is to not have her here, she's left me with an amazing story to tell, memories that I can cherish for the remainder of my life, and knowing that just like she was throughout my life, when it's my time to go, she'll be there waiting for me with the rest of my departed loved ones. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIRB4JKQxnoESdM8Rb07BFQAA9e22bOhP_h5wam-Q-CWqBNxGvxR9-Pbw7rZbDroTpjQ8HCTq3KPmo6k-K_n8NW3J010MeTDkHowPAPMLDnmIU0SLQWjRlT-iMiRgRj0mCT1gEpLMeW7qW/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="452" data-original-width="452" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIRB4JKQxnoESdM8Rb07BFQAA9e22bOhP_h5wam-Q-CWqBNxGvxR9-Pbw7rZbDroTpjQ8HCTq3KPmo6k-K_n8NW3J010MeTDkHowPAPMLDnmIU0SLQWjRlT-iMiRgRj0mCT1gEpLMeW7qW/s320/9663768734ef0b4d260aa3d34965f5da--annie-lennox-ringer.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">(Credit: Pinterest)</div>Melissa Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08746801252344782846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4075370228724709161.post-56337502361623280832020-02-23T20:11:00.001+11:002020-02-23T20:11:34.542+11:00Making the Right Choice for You<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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A few weeks ago I made the tough choice of terminating my employment when I'd just started a new job.<br />
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It was difficult because I'd been unemployed for most of the previous year, until some Christmas Casual opportunities came up, but then went back to job searching come Christmas day.<br />
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The job I'd applied for seemed interesting and I was excited to get a call shortly after applying, saying that they'd like to bring me in for an interview.<br />
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During the chat, I got to know a bit more about the company and the role, and figured at the very least it was worth a go.<br />
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The role was a sales consultant for a loyalty card where I'd essentially be a telemarketer, one of the most disliked people on the planet.<br />
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The interview was slightly different to what I'd done before, where it started off as a group of 3, including myself, then done individually, then a phone roleplay where we'd be selling a similar loyalty card to one of the interviewers so they could get an idea of our phone manner.<br />
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After leaving the interview, I'm not sure whether it was self-doubt or my gut instinct telling me it wasn't the right job for me, but I felt sure that I wasn't successful, and had even considered what I'd say when I got the call the following day telling me I wasn't going ahead.<br />
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I felt kind of excited at the prospect of not being picked, even though it meant that I'd have to work for the dole, but I'd had a look at the activities on offer and one was for arts and crafts which was perfect for me, so while money would be a continued hurdle, I'd be doing something I was really excited about and would presumably enjoy.<br />
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Much to my immense surprise, the call I got the following day was to say they'd love to have me on board and the training would start the following Monday, if I was still interested.<br />
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(Image credit: <a href="https://www.thebluebudha.com.au/the-challenge-of-making-the-right-choice/" style="text-align: left;">https://www.thebluebudha.com.au/the-challenge-of-making-the-right-choice/</a>)</div>
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Given that my job search contract that I'm required to sign every month in order to keep getting benefits and assistance, states that I need to apply for jobs that I can do, and not just ones that I want to do, I figured that I didn't have a choice in the matter and I could at least try it out, knowing that I was getting paid to be there.<br />
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I felt a lot of hesitation through the whole process, from reading through the on-boarding documents which had been sent to the wrong email address, to being in training and learning about what we had to do for the job. Nevertheless I persisted, thinking that it was just new job jitters and they'd eventually pass.<br />
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The first week was practising the script within the group and I'd gotten great feedback from everyone for being able to read so clearly, which I attributed to a combination of self-development course and the tools taught on affirming language, as well as acting classes I'd taken and how to use my voice to bring different tones to a character's lines.<br />
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The second week was starting on the phones, and given my level of flexibility in timing, I was rostered on from Wed-Fri, which mean that I was the last one to start their first shift for that week, and was absolutely terrified about it.<br />
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The first part of my shift was just listening in on calls with staff members who'd been there for at least a year, to get an idea of how the process worked. I felt calmer after doing that, although a subtle sense of dread at knowing that at some point, I'd have to be on the phones and doing what they were doing, but would need to follow the script exactly, at least until I was an established staff member.<br />
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The second part of my shift (at least from memory), was being paired up with another new recruit that I'd done training with, and continuing to practise with them, ahead of my manager's call, following which I'd be jumping onto the phones and the real work would begin.<br />
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The manager's call got pushed back to the next day due to time constraints, and I was relieved for that, but also terrified because I knew what would await me when I got into work the next day.<br />
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Upon my arrival, the training manager advised me to continue working with the same recruit from the day before until the manager was ready and we'd each be having our calls, with her going first because her initial call hadn't gone as she'd hoped.<br />
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Eventually it came to my turn and I was eager to get it over and done with. My anxiety was high and I just went through the script as taught, but felt more pressure on myself to absolutely nail it on the first go. I'd be told by another recruit who was part of the training that the manager's call was more daunting than actually being on the phones and I was nervous because I'd never done one before, which made perfect sense.<br />
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I managed to get through the call, then the manager called me to his desk and we went through the script and the parts that he highlighted for me to focus on. Much to my surprise, all the emotion I had pent up, came out when I started talking to him and I started crying saying that I was being hard on myself and wanted to get it right the first time. He was lovely about it and said that there was no expectation for me to get it right, especially on my first go. I'd make mistakes, but just needed to keep going and it was all part of the learning process.<br />
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I was appreciative of his support and understanding, but couldn't stop crying about it. The worst of it was over, so it was time to move on to the next stage, yet when he suggested I take a few minutes to get myself sorted, I went to the toilet and sobbed all over again, even though I knew I only had a mere minutes to pull myself back together and head back into a full call centre room where it was painfully obvious I'd been crying.<br />
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When I got back in, one of the other recruits asked me if I was okay, and I had to fight the urge to break down in tears again, casually indicating that I was so-so, and hoping that wearing my glasses would shield at least some of the redness in my face.<br />
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The training manager called me aside as well and suggested we go through the script again before I got on the phone. I deliberately avoided looking at her, even though I was sure she was aware that I'd been crying, and broke down again a little bit whilst talking to her and saying that I wasn't sure if it was just that the role was so different from what I was used to and that she wouldn't have hired me if she didn't think I could do it, but also that I wondered if it was the right job for me to begin with.<br />
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When I started on the phones, I still felt a lot of apprehension about contacting people, and while part of me wanted the calls to be either disconnected or no answer, I knew that it just meant I'd have to make more of them until it was time to finish for the day.<br />
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I was immensely relieved when I was told we'd be doing training the following day which would take half the day, and hoped that the morning group meeting would drag out so I wouldn't have to spend any time on the phones until after lunch, which only left me with maybe 2hrs or so of call time.<br />
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Much to my dismay, the training started later than I'd thought, so there was about 15mins of calls to make, and I knew I'd just have to get on with it. Hearing the manager tell us new recruits that we wouldn't have the pressure of sales targets just yet, only added to my misery. Where I was seated was right next to the sales leader board, and while the ambitious side of me thought it would be awesome to get to the top of it, my physical and emotional state wanted to be anywhere but there.<br />
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Throughout the training I felt a feeling of dread knowing that I'd have to go back to the desk and resume making calls when it was all over. I constantly checked my watch hoping that time would go faster and the session would go over time so I'd have less time until the day ended.<br />
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Much of the training was around company values and reflecting on what they meant to each of us, which for me felt like what I already knew within myself as a person and what I was looking for. If anything, it helped solidify for me that I wanted a job in customer service, talking to people and helping them, as opposed to selling them something that they may not want or need for very valid reasons and pushing them to hang up if they weren't interested.<br />
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As soon as I'd arrived at work, I'd gone straight to the toilets and cried again. When lunch time came, the feeling of immense dread saw me do it again and I made feeble attempts at enjoying the break and talking to other employees in different departments about their experiences.<br />
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I noted that the overall vibe of the place whilst friendly, seemed to be meh and like people had settled into their positions. Some of them were great at their jobs, whilst others just seemed to do it because it served an immediate need or purpose.<br />
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The people were nice, at least the ones that I talked to, and they'd become a family team during their time working together, but it just didn't feel right to me.<br />
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I pushed through for the rest of the day and was called into a meeting room with the training manager at the end of the day with the rest of the recruits who were on the same shift and we were told that she'd sit down with us on our next shift to work out of personal sales plans, or something like that, and I felt even more apprehension about the week ahead.<br />
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We'd been trained to reading basically word for word from the script and that the end result would either be that they hung up on us, or we got the sale, we just needed to be persistent about it.<br />
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My approach had been to just take it on face value if they gave valid objects and made it clear they weren't interested, to thank them for their time and close the lead on the system. I'd also been told more or less by one of the permanent staff members that the people we were contacting had stayed at a hotel that was covered by the card, but didn't necessarily consent to be contacted by marketing, which I thought was wrong.<br />
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The sales approach was to start off with the pitch, then add in deal sweeteners some of which they were already getting in the membership, but we weren't to mention until the very end if they were still objecting to it. This further cemented the belief that the role wasn't for me. I'd prefer to be upfront with the person and only sell to people who were interested, although in this context, that would be the equivalent of taking the easy way out.<br />
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I noted to myself that I had persistence and determination, but it was for things that I really wanted, like pursuing a career in acting and modeling. Arguably things that also required the same amount of tenacity that an outbound sales job did, also the same level of rejection too.<br />
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I agonised over the weekend as to what I was going to do if I felt like such an emotional wreck at just the thought of going into work and how I'd be able to shift my focus. I was listening to a video by Manifestation Babe's Kathrin Zenkina on my way home as part of a 5 day challenge she was running, and recalled her pointing that that we always have a choice in everything that we do. If we're in a job that we don't like, we can choose to leave. If we're around people we don't like, we can choose to not be around them, etc.<br />
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It occurred to me the following week as I emailed my energy healer for support, that I could choose to let go of this job that I clearly wasn't enjoying, and just trust that something else would come up in it's place.<br />
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The thought of emailing the training manager to let her know of my decision was the first time I'd felt peace since I started the job. It was like the sun had come out after heavy storm clouds had been weighing everything down, and that was the biggest indication to me that it was the right decision for me, and I wondered if that was what my instincts had been telling me ever since the job had been offered to me.<br />
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I planned out the email, remembering that the manager and training manager had told us during the interview and in the initial phone call that the job wasn't for everyone, and it seemed like they'd already given us permission to leave if we didn't want to be there, something that I've always felt like I needed.<br />
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I wrote and rewrote it for maybe 30 mins, until I was happy enough with the final edit where I mentioned that it was impacting my mental and emotional health, that I felt I was more suited to customer service roles (knowing that I wouldn't be able to change departments until I'd become permanent, but that would take at least 6 months), and ultimately thanking her and the manager for everything.<br />
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It was nerve-wracking to send it and I constantly wondered what the response would be and when it would come through. Would she refute what I'd said and tell me they were just objections? She was trained in self-development modalities herself, which made her ideal as a training manager in that role. Would she call me to discuss further and I'd have to fight to stand my ground and try not to cry again, because I felt like a little kid that didn't want to go to school and was potentially being told off by a parent or teacher? What other possibilities were there?<br />
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Much to my shock I guess, she didn't respond at all. I ended up texting her to see if she'd received my email, as much as I wanted to just cross it off my to-do list and move on, I also didn't want to get a call from her at the start of my next shift and have to explain why I wasn't coming in. She responded back apologising for not having done so before, acknowledged the email, and wished me well. That was it. All done with.<br />
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I felt a sense of relief, mingled with peace and excited for what was to come next. I also felt proud that I'd made the difficult choice of leaving what would have eventually become a stable job, because it just didn't feel right for me, and that was okay. It gave me clarity around what to look for in my next job, which is a huge step in the right direction.<br />
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I did wonder what the rest of the recruits would think when I didn't return, and occasionally still do. I wonder if they're still at the job and doing well, or if the recruit who was constantly mirroring my own doubts and being down on herself had ended up staying or moving on as well.<br />
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I also wondered whether the whole thing had been some kind of ploy to get noticed and attention from people, at least on a lesser level since I knew by the constant emotional turmoil that it really wasn't for me.<br />
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Part of the reason I didn't want to be there was because I felt triggered by seeing two of the other recruits who were both in committed relationships, being so buddy-buddy all the time. I wondered if it was just that they were on the same wavelength as each other, or whether it would possibly turn into an office romance of sorts, neither of which admittedly were my business.<br />
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I'd hit it off really well with the guy during training and felt comfortable around him, but a sort of third wheel when the girl had joined our group during roleplays. I didn't like feeling jealous of their connection or of seeing it every time we were in, but knew that it was yet another thing for me to work through.<br />
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I asked the therapist I was working with about the situation prior to leaving and she pointed out that whatever I didn't deal with there, would just come up again in the future until I'd dealt with it. I felt okay with that, assuming that the next situation was a more nurturing environment that I was excited to be in, and then the issues that came up wouldn't feel so heightened on top of everything else I was experiencing.<br />
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It's been a few weeks now and I've had an interview, but mostly a lot of rejection notices from jobs I've applied for. I don't feel particularly phased about it though, because I know that something good is coming up that's perfect for my next stage, and as long as I keep the faith about that and don't get discouraged, I can't go wrong.<br />
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On the plus side, after I left the job, I joined with a talent agency within walking distance of it, and got a text the next day checking my availability for an extras role on Home and Away, which I'd grown up watching. It would be my first paid professional job and a step in the direction I really wanted to go towards.<br />
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Everything is still in motion, but I'm doing what I can each day to keep things going and to remind myself that as long as I trust my instincts, I'll always make the right choice for me.<br />
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Melissa Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08746801252344782846noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4075370228724709161.post-18025958616488242912020-02-23T19:54:00.000+11:002020-02-23T19:54:00.458+11:00Somewhere I Belong<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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(Image credit: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Somewhere-I-Belong-1012054032181483/" style="text-align: left;">https://www.facebook.com/Somewhere-I-Belong-1012054032181483/</a>)</div>
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I came up with this blog post idea a year ago (~Feb 2019), but didn't get around to actually writing it until now. Maybe because I'm still figuring out where it is that I do belong.<br />
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At the time of conception, I was in the midst of consecutive life changes and figuring out where I fit in with everything that was going on.<br />
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In the space of just a few months, I'd gone from working in a job I didn't love, but had been at for 7 years, to being unemployed for a month, then undertaking a short-term contract which was abruptly cut short the week before Christmas.<br />
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During the time of the contract job, I'd received an email from the property manager of the unit I was renting and had lived in for the previous 6 years (5 with my cousin as a flatmate and just over 1 as the sole occupant which I'll possibly create a blog post about later), that the owner wanted the unit back and as required by law, they were giving me the 90 days notice.<br />
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Finding myself yet again unemployed and struggling to meet the demands of being a sole occupant, saying it was a stressful time would be an understatement.<br />
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I had welfare payments coming in, but that was enough to cover a week's worth of rent and a few other expenses, within reason.<br />
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I was determined not to move back home, as it'd taken me SO long to get out of there in the first place, so when a lady (who I was close with) from the church my family goes to, was desperately searching for a house and dog sitter, I jumped at the chance. Even though it meant I'd suddenly gone from needing to be out in over a month, to moving out in a week and having to condense down 6 years of living in a 2 bedroom apartment with internal laundry and garage in such a small time frame. Also, 'clean' and 'tidy' are words rarely used in my vocabulary, so it was far from an easy task.<br />
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Through sheer determination the move was done in time (much like every time I'd left an essay to the last minute, but since the cut off was midnight, submitting it at 11:50pm or thereabouts, still felt like a massive achievement), with the incredible help of family and friends, and I was able to take it easy for a few days in my new residence.<br />
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It was nice to have a new home of sorts to myself for a few weeks, although it still felt like I was in between.<br />
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I knew it wasn't a permanent solution, and this was brought home even more so when the owners returned and resumed their daily life.<br />
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While both are lovely people, and I'm grateful to them for opening their home to me, it just wasn't 'it'.<br />
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I wasn't part of their family or how they did things, and the only other alternative was going back home, which, as it turns out I was essentially forced to do a few weeks later due to the room being needed for other guests they had coming.<br />
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It's such a strange feeling to not really know where you belong, and more so, very unsettling to not feel like you belong anywhere in particular.<br />
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I think it's a much bigger issue than just having somewhere to live. It's about who you connect with and who your 'tribe' is. Something I think I've always struggled with throughout my life.<br />
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I grew up in a devout religious environment which I left when I was 18 because it was the youngest age I could legally leave at (my parents knew they couldn't make me go when I was legal age, but any younger and I had no choice in the matter). I loved watching music videos on Saturday mornings and TV shows like Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Most of the kids I grew up with didn't have TVs or weren't allowed to watch or engage with the things I was, which made me the outcast.<br />
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As I got older my interests changed to include Harry Potter, and later again, spirituality, which was vastly different from the religion I'd known, yet I felt a really strong pull towards it, and still do.<br />
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While I'm aware that there's a huge Harry Potter fanbase and community, as well as with spirituality, there's something really unique about finding the one that best fits you, and that usually takes time to do that. Just like it takes time to find your thing, and ultimately yourself. Something I'm still in the process of doing.<br />
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(Image credit: <a href="https://quotefancy.com/quote/64567/Linkin-Park-I-want-to-find-something-I-ve-wanted-all-along-Somewhere-I-belong" style="text-align: left;">https://quotefancy.com/quote/64567/Linkin-Park-I-want-to-find-something-I-ve-wanted-all-along-Somewhere-I-belong</a>)</div>
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It's been nearly a year now since I moved back home and one of the things I've realized is that everything I was fearing was based on the circumstances of how I left. Mum had passed on, so our complicated relationship was null and void. My brother had moved out a year or so beforehand, so it just left dad and I to our own devices, and admittedly a lot of emotional and psychological baggage.<br />
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I acknowledged though that I'm also not the same person I was when I moved out. I've done years of personal development, moved 3 times, traveled overseas a number of times, had a long-term and short-term job, both of which taught me a lot and allowed me to grow further within myself. How I handle things now is different, at least in some ways, but the situation is different overall. I have all the freedom I always wanted to have and I'm making it work for me, at least for the time being.<br />
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I'm not sure that the family home is where I belong though. I'm not sure exactly where is, but I think that's all part of my life's journey, or at least this particular part of it. As a number of people have said to me, I'm back home with dad for a reason. Maybe that's to heal things, to learn how to respond better, or just not respond. Maybe it's for me to learn and grow, or to show dad by example all the things that are possible but not the norm, I guess I won't know until it's time for me to.<br />
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In the meantime, I'm growing more and more content with just surrendering and going with the flow, knowing that whatever is meant for me won't pass me, and to gradually release the baggage of the past so that one day I'll truly find somewhere I belong.<br />
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(Image credit: <a href="https://www.difrusciaphotography.com/shop/somewhere-i-belong/" style="text-align: left;">https://www.difrusciaphotography.com/shop/somewhere-i-belong/</a>)</div>
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Melissa Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08746801252344782846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4075370228724709161.post-79229962369301779482018-08-30T17:31:00.000+10:002018-08-30T17:31:04.400+10:00My Story: Being a Child of a Mentally Ill Parent<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Prior to uploading this, I felt a deep sense of fear around what people were going to say and how I'd be judged for doing this video in the first place.<br />
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Much to my surprise, I've been contacted by a number of people who completely resonated with my story and experiences, so I've decided to share it further in the hopes that anyone who needs to see this, will find their way to it.</div>
Melissa Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08746801252344782846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4075370228724709161.post-43134273467298299692018-05-22T13:14:00.000+10:002018-05-22T13:14:51.762+10:00Never Enough<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I think it's probably safe to say that a vast amount of us have seen 'The Greatest Showman'.<br />
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I personally held back from watching it despite so many people raving about it, because I thought it was a 'Water for Elephants' kind of circus movie, and I couldn't get into it.<br />
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When I finally watched it (after repeatedly hearing the anthemic 'This is Me' and wanting to know the context of this glorious piece of musical history) I didn't really know what to make of it. As in, it hit me in so many different emotional places that I couldn't give an accurate summary of it without turning it into an emotional tangent the size of intricacy level of an oak tree.<br />
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Credit: Youtube</div>
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One thing that stuck of the most for me was the theme throughout the whole movie of just constantly pushing to go that one step further because nothing you've achieved ever seems to be enough.<br />
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The scene where Barnum is confronted by his in-laws who made him constantly feel like he'd never be good enough for their daughter, or seen as an acceptable member of their level of society and yet he goes out of his way to essentially show them up, as though all of the success he achieved with the oddity circus, and all the good that had come as a result, still couldn't fill that void deep inside him.<br />
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While I still think it was a huge dick move to bar the circus members from joining in the party because he was about to make something big of himself and he didn't want them to basically ruin it for him, I can understand on some levels, the sense of shame that comes from the metaphor that they represent.<br />
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When you've got a chance to finally be that person that you always wanted to be, the last thing you want is all your proverbial skeletons to come out of the closet and deeply shame and embarrass you, despite the fact that everyone has them, to varying sizes and degrees.<br />
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The song 'Never Enough' pretty much summed up Barnum's experience, and dare I say it, mine.<br />
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Credit: Youtube</div>
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It doesn't matter how much success, fame, accolades, glory, etc that you achieve, if you've always felt like an outsider, no amount of fancy parties and the 'good life' are going to change or fix that.<br />
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On a personal note, I've been holding onto stuff for most of my life, usually beliefs that I'm not good enough or worthy of a lot of things, so Barnum's need to keep aiming higher and higher, despite his wife telling him that 'You don't need everyone to love you, just a few good people', really just doesn't seem like enough.<br />
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In a similar fashion, you've got the forbidden romance between Anne Wheeler the bi-racial trapeze artist, and Phillip Carlyle, the white male next greatest showman, in a time when interracial romance was a big no-no (although I legitimately thought their romance was frowned upon because being a circus performer wasn't a suitable profession for a woman).<br />
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Just like with Barnum needing to get the approval of all the higher society people (mainly his in-laws), Anne wasn't ashamed of who she was, but the getting looked down on by people who thought less of her on the basis on her skin colour, that was enough to break anyone.<br />
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It's funny how Barnum's wife and Carlyle seem to have the same view: why does the opinion of these people bother you/matter to you so much?<br />
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<img src="https://78.media.tumblr.com/000f32d40a91729fee70dbc2442b6be3/tumblr_p5wtptJdtq1uwxqjxo1_r1_540.gif" /><br />
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Credit: http://quellfalconer.tumblr.com/post/172082751422/the-greatest-showman-2017-dir-michael-gracey</div>
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When you've come from privilege/high society, you can't possibly understand what it feels like, and why it matters so much to not have it.<br />
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(Semi-unrelated side note: I love it when Carlyle finally stands up to his uber white privilege parents and defends Anne's honour. It shows a whole other side to Zac Efron as both a person and an actor, plus he's fully clothed in the entire movie! About damn time!)<br />
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<img alt="Image result for how dare you speak the greatest showman" height="400" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DZ-VVs-U0AAO8Xx.jpg" width="400" /><br />
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Credit to: https://feedyeti.com/hashtag.php?q=PhilipCarlyle</div>
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So what can we take from this cinematic masterpiece of music and emotion?<br />
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I'd say to own all the parts of you that you'd happily keep outside the door of the fancy party. Easier enough to say, sooo much harder to do. But realize that we're all human, just in different shapes, sizes and packages, so no one is immune to dodgy skeletons.<br />
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I guess the greatest question is, when will it be enough?!<br />
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(I'll let you know when I've figured out the answer for myself. But in the meantime, you do you!)<br />
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Credit to: http://zendaya-inspired.tumblr.com/post/170404460655</div>
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Melissa Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08746801252344782846noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4075370228724709161.post-73543034683976772302017-02-17T14:15:00.002+11:002017-02-17T14:15:50.981+11:00When Change is a Little Bit More Than a Holiday<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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(Image credit to https://gothinkbig.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/holiday.png)</div>
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So it's been a while since my last post, primarily because I've been swamped with uni work and just completely exhausted the time I come to flesh out a new idea I want to write about.<br />
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Now we're halfway through February of 2017 and there's a sense of change that's coming up for me, both a feeling of who I am as a person, as well as my external environment. I'm shifting things up a bit.<br />
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I've decided, and agreed with my boss, that I'll be finishing up my current position at the end of the year. October will mark my 6th anniversary in the company and I daresay it's time for a change.<br />
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(Image credit to http://pearlsofpromiseministries.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Change-Courage.jpg)</div>
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I've also decided I want to go down the self-employment route so I can do what I really love and get paid for it. After all, isn't that the ultimate employment dream...?!<br />
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But in all seriousness, my heart just isn't in it anymore. I guess it never really was, but I made it work because I needed a job and there were things that I needed to experience and learn that only the people I've worked with and the things I've done during that time have allowed me to glean from.<br />
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(Image credit to http://iancleary.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/5-phases-of-change-e1442210202285.jpg)</div>
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I told my boss the other day that I just needed some time off to collect myself and figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I'd pretty much just been dividing my time between work and uni for most of last year, so when I finished the semester, I was completely buggered. In fact, I'd been pushing myself so hard to keep up with everything that by the time week 11 of 13 came along, I was burnt out.<br />
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After completing everything study-wise, I just spent more time at work to get in extra money before the Christmas period and because my boss wanted to utilize the extra time I now had available to me and by extension him.<br />
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The Christmas period was all about running around to make sure everything was perfect for Christmas Day. Being the second one since mum passed on and it being the holiday she usually over-prepared for, I saw it as my duty of being the only female in the family, to step up and try to emulate what she'd done for most of my life. Needless to say, it was exhausting and disappointing in the end, but at least I acknowledged where I'd gone wrong: I was trying to make up for her not being there by trying to overdo everything and block out the emotions I felt so intensely. Lesson learnt for next year.<br />
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After Christmas came the preparations for the cruise dad and I were going on (my brother had to work across the 10 day period and wanted to save up his holidays for an overseas trip next month).<br />
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Having never been on a cruise before, I didn't really know what to expect or what to pack and whether I'd have enough of whatever I took on board and since I wasn't sure what the shops were like, I didn't want to leave anything to chance.<br />
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(Image credit to http://www.pixelstalk.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Summer-holiday-wallpapers-HD-free-download.jpg)</div>
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Upon return from the cruise, I had been crash-tackled with the flu (thanks dad!) and spent what was meant to be the first week back at work for the year, sleeping the contagion off at dad's place and intermittently enjoying the sibling time I had while my brother was home and not preoccupied with his fancy hi-tech computer setup, or the latest phone he had.<br />
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Being back at work for the past month or so, I've really started to think about what it is that I want from life and work.<br />
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I started making candles at the end of last year in order to reignite the creative spark and have since become hooked on it, so I'm toying with the idea of turning that into a business and combining it with my love of writing and helping people.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXACPL5InCyAfHaWcuNeu6Mg2RdKhyqIlYKUqJt26PHoFqnFZSxCqKTxusfWAaluiscZy9RjjjSGFGSUI4WYb19kZAhP3cD1mwgPCoUrvTSclN8y8BiP2zB1Qg_hlywRoxTLNpaJ3k-HDP/s1600/organizational-change.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="131" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXACPL5InCyAfHaWcuNeu6Mg2RdKhyqIlYKUqJt26PHoFqnFZSxCqKTxusfWAaluiscZy9RjjjSGFGSUI4WYb19kZAhP3cD1mwgPCoUrvTSclN8y8BiP2zB1Qg_hlywRoxTLNpaJ3k-HDP/s320/organizational-change.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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(Image credit to http://thisisagoodsign.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/organizational-change.jpg)</div>
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I've also entertained the thought of getting my own place. Don't get me wrong, I currently live in a great home, it has everything I could possibly want and need, my cousin is an ideal housemate in that we can easily be independent or enjoy outings together, but don't typically cramp each other's styles and there's a general lack of judgement between us. If I do or order something absurd, she'll acknowledge my comment and congratulate me on whatever it is, and continue on her way. If she gets completely drunk at dinner and gets home in the early hours of the next morning, I just make sure I see or hear from her within 24 hours from that moment.<br />
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Some other things that are changing include my belief systems around a lot of things. I've been seeing a new therapist for the past 3 or 4 weeks now and have taken a break from my existing one to see how I cope without her for the foreseeable future.<br />
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It's been fun and challenging to branch out and try different things which I'd been curious yet fearful about in the past.<br />
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It's also interesting to see what happens when you make change a little bit more than a holiday.<br />
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Melissa Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08746801252344782846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4075370228724709161.post-38594283514010785772016-09-25T19:08:00.000+10:002016-09-25T19:08:30.797+10:00When Ish Hits The Fan <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
"Secrets make you sick"<br />
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This is probably one of the biggest and simplest take home messages from To Write Love On Her Arms (<a href="https://twloha.com/" target="_blank">TWLOHA)</a>.<br />
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For those who haven't seen it, it focuses on Rene Yohe and how, with the help of her friends, she overcame drug addiction. Although that seems like a really simplified or watered down explanation of what really happened, because what you learn at the end is that it's a daily battle. She comes home and writes 'Day 1' on her bedroom mirror, because essentially, every day is day 1, over and over again until you don't need to think about the number associated with the day anymore.<br />
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The most inspiring thing that I took from it is to own my story. I may not have been sexually assaulted or suffered deep depression, I may not have anything more serious than Generalised Anxiety Disorder, but my story is still one worth telling, if only to make myself heard and so others know that they're not alone.<br />
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So hi, I'm Melissa and I'm a love addict who also suffers from anxiety and possibly depression.<br />
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I grew up in a family that, due to a family history of mental illness and not knowing how to cope with it, saw me lacking in my own psychological and particularly emotional needs being met.<br />
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As a child, I didn't understand what was going on and took it personally when one or both of my parents would yell at me because I genuinely believed that it meant I wasn't worthy of love, attention, affection or any of the other things that I craved.<br />
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Throughout high school I sought out quite possibly the one person that couldn't give me the love I so desperately wanted, which only make me want to fight harder for it, much to my own detriment.<br />
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I was also diagnosed with severe Idiopathic Scoliosis at 12 which saw me undergo two intensive surgeries just before my 14th birthday. Despite this huge hurdle and the impact this had on me at the time and has since affected me and helped shaped my life, I don't consider myself a Scoliosis survivor. It's a condition that I have and was corrected as best as the surgeons possibly could, but it in no way defines me, who I am, what I do, or what I want to achieve in my life.<br />
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Anyway, with my love addiction seeking a new target after spending 4-5 years hopelessly trailing after a guy who was becoming less and less appealing as a person the older he got, I met a teacher when I was 16 and became completely obsessed with him for about 3 years. I'm really not proud of how I acted during this time and how relentlessly I pursued him despite him making it clear that he couldn't give me the kind of attention that I wanted and trying to get me to stop what I was doing, but I understand why I did what I did and have subconsciously vowed to never behave in the same way ever again.<br />
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Everything came to an absolutely crushing halt when the teacher got married. It was like my entire world had been completely shattered and I was left with two choices: either stay where I was and revel in the pain and misery of what my life had suddenly become, or ask for help and keep doing whatever it takes to get myself out of the intensely grey pit I'd found myself in.<br />
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It took a few weeks along with trial and error of counselors, but I finally found someone who was just right for me and help me get past the first hurdle of pain, find the core of my problem and helped me rebuild myself and my life, one step at a time.<br />
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I've now been seeing her for nearly 7 years and my life, as she reminds me as well, is completely different from when I first started seeing her. I've got a stable job, a happy home life, great friends, am halfway through an Arts degree, finished paying off my car a few months ago, and am finally learning to love and accept myself exactly as I am.<br />
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During my darkest times, namely around the age of 15 when I hated everything about my life, was sick of fighting for a reason to keep living and often thought about running away or taking my own life, I couldn't have fathomed I'd be able to create the kind of life I have now. It's not perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better than where I've come from, which means that where I'm headed it going to be better still.<br />
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So that's my story in a nutshell. I'm sharing it because I feel like I need to and that others need to hear it.<br />
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So tell me, what's your story? What do you do when life messes with the fan?<br />
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Melissa Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08746801252344782846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4075370228724709161.post-17261854939251392952016-06-10T16:32:00.000+10:002016-06-10T16:32:03.008+10:00The Culture of Rape<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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(Photo credit to www.longislandpress.com)</div>
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Culture: </div>
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<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #3b3e41; font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.64px; line-height: 24px;">the beliefs, customs, arts, etc., of a particular society, group, place, or time</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #3b3e41; font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.64px; line-height: 24px;">a particular society that has its own beliefs, ways of life, art, etc.</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #3b3e41; font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.64px; line-height: 24px;">a way of thinking, behaving, or working that exists in a place or organization (such as a business)</span></li>
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Rape: </div>
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<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #3b3e41; font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.64px; line-height: 24px;">an act or instance of robbing or despoiling or carrying away a person by force</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #3b3e41; font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.64px; line-height: 24px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.64px;">unlawful sexual activity and usually sexual intercourse carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against the will usually of a female or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent</span></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #3b3e41; font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.64px; line-height: 24px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.64px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.64px;">an outrageous violation</span></span></span></li>
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Does it bother anyone else that we're joining the two?</div>
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I'm as aware as the next person that rape occurs worldwide in a whole host of different situations and scenarios. I'm also incredibly aware that it shouldn't. Period.</div>
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I get the feeling or rather the message that's being sent by there even being a 'rape culture' is that it's permitting it to happen and continue happening. It's not okay that it's happening, but since it is, it may as well be glamorized in the way that 'party culture' is, right?!</div>
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I completely understand how sensitive a subject it is for a lot of people. You don't need to be personally affected by it or know someone that has been in order to feel sensitive towards it. </div>
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Whenever I'd heard the word used, it's made me feel incredibly uncomfortable, regardless of the context that it's in. But I think for a lot of people, it's a common feeling, so it ends up just not being talked about when it really should, and not be attached to a 'culture' of any kind that would appear to be accepting or even promoting (however passively) it's existence.</div>
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(Photo credit to www.theodysseyonline.com)</div>
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During a discussion in one of my Philosophy tutorials this semester, there was talk about freedom and if viewing pornography was a breach of that. While people have the right to view pretty much anything they can get access to, the question was around the freedom or rights of those taking part in the filming of it.</div>
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One of my classmates pointed out that when it comes to shows like Game of Thrones, where nudity and the like are all part of it, it is expected that people can tell the difference between fantasy and reality. Another classmate argued in response that ill-educated people could easily watch Game of Thrones or even just porn, then go out into the world genuinely believing that this kind of behaviour was commonplace and acceptable.</div>
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A different classmate pointed out to the first that a lot of women are still terrified to walk around alone at night, and there's emphasis on walking in pairs. Why are the women talk to protect themselves when there doesn't appear to be any courses or part of the school curriculum that tells males that they can't just put their penis in wherever they want. If there's no consent, if the person says yes then changes their mind at any point, no means no!</div>
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It should also be pointed out that rape isn't only male to female. This is something that I'm sure a lot of people aren't or weren't aware of. I know I wasn't until I heard a statistic about it several years ago.</div>
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While the cases are significantly less, they're still significant.</div>
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There's also something to be said for the false accusations of rape. This is not okay either. Accusing someone of something out of spite or jealousy or whatever motives you have not only makes a mockery of those who've actually experienced sexual assault, but it creates emotional and financial distress for the accused. This may be what was intended by the accuser, but there are doubtless other things to spend time, money and energy on, rather than trying to ruin people's lives and reputations.</div>
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Going back to the ill-education argument, I was watching Murder by Numbers the other night, and the janitor was watching what was presumed to be porn based on the sounds being emitted from the TV. As he got up to check something for the guy he was selling drugs to (played by Ryan Gosling, in case anyone's interested), he made an offhanded comment about how the sounds the woman was making as she was being spanked indicated her enjoyment of it. "Look at her, she's loving it!" he said.</div>
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If the only things an adolescent or even mature male knows about sex and women is limited to what he's seen in porn, it explains a LOT, but it most definitely does not excuse his actions!</div>
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(Photo credit www.brasandbodyimage.com)</div>
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For those of you who can't fathom how a person's knowledge of the outside world can be limited to only what they've seen on a screen, this is essentially how I grew up. Aside from my lived experiences in high school, I understood the general idea of it to be exactly what I'd seen in TV shows and movies, nothing more, nothing less. I went to a religious private school in a semi-rural area where the only public transport I ever saw was the odd taxi, but even that was a rare occurrence. I also attended church every Sunday and dance class on a Friday for 45 minutes. </div>
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When you combine all of that, there's really not a lot of real-life external influences to broaden my perception and understanding of the world. I didn't associate with anyone else outside of these areas and was too scared to even try since the fear of the unholy and unknown had been drummed into me from an early age.</div>
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That has changed significantly for me not only since finishing school and pursuing further education, but by moving homes twice after the age of 21 and gaining employment in an industry where I have to engage with people on a daily basis.</div>
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Bringing this back to point, I'm sure everyone has heard of the <a href="http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/to-girls-everywhere-i-am-with-you-women-read-viral-rape-victim-impact-statement/news-story/fdccc358384b42d559dcb24c400ee5bf" target="_blank">Stanford rapist story</a> by now, as well as the <a href="http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/true-stories/this-is-the-full-statement-read-out-in-court-by-the-woman-brock-turner-assaulted/news-story/88fd97dadede453fbde82609893fa29b" target="_blank">open letter</a> the victim wrote about her harrowing experience. As you read through, you become incredibly aware of how the perpetrator seems to be incapable of taking responsibility for his actions or how they've impacted the victim. He continually blames alcohol and the 'party culture' for what he did, even though the numerous readers throughout the world have pointed out that they've been completely drunk or at parties and managed to not sexually assault someone whilst under the influence.</div>
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'Rape culture' always tends to focus on women and how they were 'asking for it' or as with porn and what Brock mentioned in his statement 'she loved it'. </div>
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Unless a woman who is in full control of her cognitive functions and aware of her surroundings (not under the influence of alcohol or any other substances) actually says that she wants to have sex with you and doesn't change her mind or lose consciousness at any point during the act, do not have sex with her. </div>
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She's not asking for it. She's not loving it and you should not proceed.</div>
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It doesn't matter what she was wearing, what she was doing, saying or thinking, where she was or why she was there. If she did not consent, she doesn't want sex, regardless of what your genitalia is telling you or what it is that you want. </div>
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She is a person, not a thing, not a piece of meat, a person and she should be treated with nothing less than the respect a person deserves.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisEv9MqMy0tu_ZCAUNKRaka69DkgTNV_w7tx7URK7QnCY_oufs12TQf55P8kH45ZNTWcwV5yL2JCj86d3rGcaFw8OJL_TxWfQIx9AelsXM5N8lS_STDsCzvjKIt_0AFmsFPocLHwQwSRmj/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-09-24+at+12.04.19+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="117" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisEv9MqMy0tu_ZCAUNKRaka69DkgTNV_w7tx7URK7QnCY_oufs12TQf55P8kH45ZNTWcwV5yL2JCj86d3rGcaFw8OJL_TxWfQIx9AelsXM5N8lS_STDsCzvjKIt_0AFmsFPocLHwQwSRmj/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-09-24+at+12.04.19+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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(Photo credit to www.motherjones.com)</div>
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Melissa Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08746801252344782846noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4075370228724709161.post-86046795765631804272016-01-22T15:26:00.000+11:002016-01-22T15:26:17.234+11:00The Price of Gold<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2cAHO2rUk0O98b6MpgOUUtRSxDZBf22qYYlw7Q74Ru5qJ4c0CplyOfAGMDM6Wh523lWCnhGzKq9XN7A7oBE4HEOIa7wWxJcxt5vEPj_NugsEkbx9lEN3MxZDorB7dt3eS_fVCDcGwA0Nk/s1600/true-value-quotes-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2cAHO2rUk0O98b6MpgOUUtRSxDZBf22qYYlw7Q74Ru5qJ4c0CplyOfAGMDM6Wh523lWCnhGzKq9XN7A7oBE4HEOIa7wWxJcxt5vEPj_NugsEkbx9lEN3MxZDorB7dt3eS_fVCDcGwA0Nk/s320/true-value-quotes-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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(Photo credit to www.relatably.com)</div>
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It's amazing how valuable something is or becomes when it is a finite resource.<br />
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I was going through my inbox the other day noting that I had just over 2000 emails which had accumulated over at least 3 years with a few stragglers from earlier than that, when I came across emails from old friends that I no longer communicated with for whatever reason as well as emails from both of my parents.<br />
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There was a time back in 2012, a few months after I moved out of home that I was processing a lot and essentially cut off contact with everyone in my family except my brother.<br />
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For a period of about 3-6 months I had the barest of contact with my parents, still reeling from a lifetime of hurt and other emotions, having been so sheltered and finally being able to adjust to life on my own, it was a lot to come to terms with.<br />
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During this time I deleted whatever I could of theirs that came through if I REALLY didn't want to see it, otherwise I just viewed and ignored it so I wouldn't have to focus on it. I decided when I moved out that as much as I was hurting, I didn't want to be the kind of person that slams the door shut out of pain and anger, then regrets it terribly a few years down the track when they realise how much they've missed and how, with enough time and space, things could really have been forgiven and built up from.<br />
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Skip ahead 4 years and now going through my inbox, I'm treating those same emails like some kind of treasure Nicholas Cage would star in a movie about saving.<br />
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I can now completely understand how, after a popular person dies, whatever they've made becomes the most precious treasure because it is now a finite thing.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFLOQVN4uCR_hoRGvJhC2L4l8N1r9eOthVNcbTOWIBCOeZ3tHZ3BGzlnQzplp8-7vZqb0dt02a-l45Gw-zXsl2qSg0CIsoXjVfY8f5ymCjDMu26-kAFFzMoYXUOUhKm6AqHC30SJ0QDH8w/s1600/values_sign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFLOQVN4uCR_hoRGvJhC2L4l8N1r9eOthVNcbTOWIBCOeZ3tHZ3BGzlnQzplp8-7vZqb0dt02a-l45Gw-zXsl2qSg0CIsoXjVfY8f5ymCjDMu26-kAFFzMoYXUOUhKm6AqHC30SJ0QDH8w/s320/values_sign.jpg" width="254" /></a></div>
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(Photo credit to www.startofhappiness.com)</div>
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The few emails I had from my mother which I normally would have rolled my eyes at, I'm now mentally and emotionally clinging to like a kid with a security blanket. Her main method of contact was via phone call which unfortunately now looking back I didn't record. Luckily her ineptitude when it came to technology meant that quite a few photos she took with her camera are actually videos with her asking dad or someone else if the photo had been taken.<br />
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It's been 8 months since she passed on and it still doesn't feel real, I'm not sure if it ever will. It's like you start new routines and they help you get through the hard times which you just keep on going with, but then you look back and realise just how much has changed even though it feels like yesterday in a way. Now whenever I say 'about 6 months ago' I do a double-take a realise that the benchmark for things occurring is around the time that she passed so I can definitely tell whether it was a certain vague time frame or not. It's a strange thing that.<br />
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The period of time around her demise and the emails that came in were harder than others to reread, as you can imagine.<br />
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All of the artworks mum made are still scattered around dad's place, the home I lived in from age 10-21. It's not that I don't want to touch them, it's more the struggle to fully comprehend that what we've got is all we'll ever have. She'll never make artworks or anything else ever again and that sucks immeasurably.<br />
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Have you noticed how much more special and meaningful something is after the creator of it has passed on? Those photos, that whachamacallit, the thingamebob, the doodad become the most valuable things you now own. Sure it's not about the money, but they're as good as gold and there's no conceivable price you can really put on them because the person that made them or that you associate with them is no more.<br />
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What do you consider the price of gold? Is there even a numerical amount?! What is gold to you anyway? Maybe it's the literal sense of money or jewelry, or maybe it's the sentimental sense of the perfume someone wore or the brown jacket with the fur trim, the red handbag still sitting on the chair in the kitchen where it was dropped one day and never picked up again.<br />
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One thing's for sure: the price of gold goes up exponentially the moment it becomes a finite resource and there really is no true substitute for it.<br />
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Melissa Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08746801252344782846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4075370228724709161.post-42364248976963942522015-11-10T16:47:00.000+11:002015-11-10T16:47:09.843+11:00Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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So yesterday I had another Tarot card reading done after seeing a voucher on one of the multitude of deal sites for a 30 minute reading for $29. Bargain I say!<br />
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I was curious to know two things: what was a meant to learn at work so I could finally move on from a job I'm not passionate about to something I would thrive in, and what was stopping me from being in a relationship.<br />
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Straightaway the tarot reader told me there were definitely guys around me and I just wasn't paying attention (haven't we all been there?!).<br />
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She did the first reading with a focus on career choices and told me what I already knew, that I had an emotional attachment to my current job and despite talk of leaving for greener pastures, I wasn't really making any moves to do so. Guilty again.<br />
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At the end she told me within the next 6-8 weeks I'll shift to know exactly what I want in a new job and then I'll create an action plan to go with it. Solid enough advice and something I've started working on by doing a 'wish list' of what I want in a new job, it's something at least!<br />
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When she moved to focus on relationships and confirmed again that there were definitely romantic interests around me but for whatever reason I just wasn't paying attention, I felt fear intermingled with excitement and was torn between paying attention to what she was saying and trying to work out who of the few guys I knew or was around frequently, she was referring to specifically.<br />
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I asked her my question of what was holding me back with the belief that there was something more sinister blocking me from moving on rather than just fear of the unknown and taking a risk to find out it didn't work. Again she confirmed that I was the only person standing in my way. I want love and to be in a relationship but don't believe I deserve to be or that I'm beautiful enough to have someone in my life so I'm appearing as unavailable.<br />
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I asked then asked her how I get past this and allow the love that I truly want into my life. Her answer was relatively simple: I cut out some time in my week to do things that show love towards myself. I have a date night just by myself so I prove to myself that if I can love me, someone else definitely can!<br />
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It sounds so simple, yet it's amazing just how hard doing self-love related things are, especially if you haven't grown up with positive reinforcement or certain freedoms.<br />
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She also told me that I should do whatever makes me feel sexy to build up the confidence to meet someone, even if I'm not going to just yet, I'm making the effort to do so and that counts for something.<br />
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Along those lines she asked me what makes me feel sexy. I couldn't think of something immediately but pondered it on the way home. She suggested a pamper session, waxing, buying lingerie, whatever suited me personally. All I could think was how I'd been taught that sexy was bad. Every time I watched something where a female was skantily clad, my mother would tsk tsk at how terrible it was and say she wished the female in question would put more clothes on before it gave everyone the wrong idea. I disliked my mother's take on a lot of things, but being a parent, I kinda had to adhere to what she was saying even if it didn't align with my own personal views.<br />
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So the question remains, what is sexy? How does one go about creating this feeling within themselves? What do I think is sexy or what would or could make me feel sexy?<br />
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When you Google 'sexy' you get a plethora of images of toned, slim photo-shopped women in barely there bikinis and suggestive poses. This may be what the world considers sexy, but I'm of a differing opinion.<br />
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I'm more inclined to believe that sexy is a state of mind rather than an article of clothing. When you're comfortable in your own skin and have unshakable self-esteem and ultimately know your worth, that's pretty damn sexy!<br />
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As for what I can do to make myself feel that way, I'll let you know as soon as I figure it out ;-)<br />
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Melissa Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08746801252344782846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4075370228724709161.post-66671688071714513632015-10-06T17:15:00.000+11:002015-10-06T17:15:17.348+11:00That Space/Time Continuum Thing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to go back in time? I mean of your own personal history, not like in Blackadder or every episode of Dr Who.<br />
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If you were given the chance, would you do it?<br />
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I've been pondering this on and off for the past week or so and wondering if it actually is possible to do, and if given the chance, I actually would do it.<br />
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I've heard people say that there are various dimensions or 'planes' and the one we're currently on is the physical, or something like that. It makes me wonder if there is some kind of alternate universe where our past exists playing reruns and if we can find a way to access it, we can go back in time to a certain point and redo things. It'd be kinda cool to do so and not necessarily have it affect our current lives. To relive a particular point where we say that thing we'd always kicked ourselves for not saying, buy that thing we'd always eyed but figured it would be there next time. Whatever the reason.<br />
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It's funny, in the kinda sad sorta way, that the person I most wanted to be during my youth is the person that I am now. Sure it's happened the way it has for a reason that I'm semi sure of, but it doesn't stop me from wondering what it would be like to go back to a particular day in my past.<br />
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I'm guessing we've all seen some movie or TV show where the characters have gone back in time so there's a younger version of themselves that they need to keep an eye out for, for fear that doing one thing different could cause a ripple effect and change everything about their lives as they became.<br />
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Knowing the kind of person I was as a teenager, it would be close to impossible to do the things I do now without going through and learning the things I had to in order to get to that point.<br />
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As a teenager I was a quiet, polite and seemingly shy person who was made to feel insecure not just by peers but by parental figures, namely my mother.<br />
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As an adult who's been out of home for 4 years, changed jobs 2-3 times since graduating and completed a year of university education, needless to say, a fair bit has changed in all areas of my life.<br />
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Knowing what I know now though, would it be worth the risk to change everything that I've learnt? If I were able to go back in time, would I still have all the memories and experiences I've acquired or would I be the exact same person I was at that particular time and just looking in as if it was my own personal TV show?<br />
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When I really think about it, I imagine going back to a certain period in high school, confronting people that I always wanted to but didn't have the guts to for fear of what my parents would say. I'd stand up for myself and believe that I truly deserved better because that's what I've come to learn and fully appreciate.<br />
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I'd stick it to my crush and disentangle myself from his thrall that he almost seemed to enjoy having me under at various points. I'd tell my best friend to get real and be honest about things I knew she was hiding and taking out on me, I'd also demand a better friendship and terms of treatment because doormat and punching bag weren't working for me anymore. I'd confront the guy that liked me, maybe tease him a little as an icebreaker and see what happens after that. Plus it'd be kinda fun if I went back in time and still retained all my knowledge to play psychic and see what comes of it.<br />
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I'd learn to appreciate my family more knowing how much things change in the future. Granted as a teenager with a semi dysfunctional family, appreciating them is one of the last things on my mind, the first being get out alive!<br />
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How much would my experienced attitudes affect the future though? I know that everything can change in an instant and in some ways we're following a script without realising it. If you went back in time you'd be following the storyline of that particular era with limited information available and presumably trying not to out yourself for fear of changing the future. But what if it's meant to be changed? One might say if that were the case then the opportunity would present itself and the technology would most likely be available to do so.<br />
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For now it all seems like a crazy fantasy, a pipe-dream to keep me entertained until uni starts back and I feel more fulfilled and happier with my life knowing that I'm doing something meaningful that really makes me happy.<br />
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Seriously though, if you had a chance to go back in time and change something or just do something differently, would you? Bearing in mind where not doing that thing has brought you today. Would it really be worth the risk?<br />
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Wonderment aside, I really believe that everyone is exactly where they need to be. As much as I'd like to undo the wrongs that I perceived to be done against me, without them I probably wouldn't be where I am today or on the life's mission I'm following and I don't think that would be fair.<br />
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I also believe that karma is real and if something is meant to happen, it will be, maybe just not in the way you expect it to.<br />
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What say you?<br />
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Melissa Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08746801252344782846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4075370228724709161.post-23298303183946919802015-08-14T14:11:00.000+10:002015-08-14T14:11:57.658+10:00Feminist is I<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Feminist. It's such a dirty word isn't it?!<br />
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As soon as you say it or claim to be one there's a hush around the people nearby as if you've just admitted to some heinous crime. Males start flaring their nostrils and preparing for war because you've just said one of the most hated words in their particular dialect.<br />
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I jest of course. But really, what does being a feminist mean?<br />
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(Photo credit to www.feminist.com)</div>
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With Emma Watson's speech from last year inviting people from all around the world to join the #HeForShe movement and claim that they are feminists, there's a continued debate amongst people as to what exactly it means to be one and how it has an impact on today's society.<br />
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There's several anti-feminist women's groups which completely baffle feminists and a lot of women in general saying if it weren't for feminism, we wouldn't have come as far as we have.<br />
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(Photo credit to pinterest.com)</div>
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I was discussing this with a close friend of mine ages ago when we were talking about makeup and other girly things. I told her I was torn between my need to oppose the beauty industry and everything it stands for, but at the same time I saw it as a rite of passage to wear makeup, especially in my 20's.<br />
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She told me that feminism means whatever you want it to mean. Ultimately it means equality for all, recognizing that women are people not objects like the media has portrayed and led us to believe over the years.<br />
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(Photo credit to raginghag.wordpress.com)</div>
For me, feminism means being able to be comfortable in my own skin, my own clothes, my own life, without thinking or feeling like I owe anyone, least of all a male for everything that I have or that I've achieved.<br />
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In the religious society I grew up in, it seemed the message was the complete opposite. So often I heard or was told 'Wives, submit to your husbands'. The example of that for me was mum doing everything she could for my dad, and him just being happy with it that way. From the outside it seemed all give all the time and there was no reciprocation involved, well none that I actively saw.<br />
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(Photo credit to izquotes.com)</div>
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In my household, mum believed that she had to be the dutiful wife and mother that hers was before her, even if that meant putting herself last in everything and not complaining about it because that's what she was taught.<br />
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My brother seemed to take full advantage of this and didn't oppose to her doing his laundry or cleaning up after him even though she told him off for it time and time again.<br />
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(Photo credit to www.sociology.org)</div>
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Many times she would have just finished the washing up and was glad to sit down again when he'd call out for a sandwich or some kind of a snack. Having just seen her sit down and look completely exhausted, I'd ally myself with her and call out to him that he should get it himself since he was closer to the kitchen than mum was. He'd yell something back disliking my attitude towards him not getting what he wanted from mum and mum would intervene telling him it was fine and she'd get up again to make something for him. It frustrated me endlessly that she was treated like a personal slave and she never stood up for herself even though it tired her out. On occasion if I was standing in the kitchen when a request was made for a snack, mum would ask if I could make something for him but I'd counter saying that he was more than capable of making food for himself (he was a teenager at the time) and I didn't know how to make whatever it was that he wanted and preferred the way that she made it anyway.<br />
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Don't get me wrong, I love my brother dearly and this isn't to slam him or his treatment of mum, I've heard from lots of mothers that boys prefer to let their mothers do the work for them whereas girls tend to do it themselves, or something along those lines.<br />
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(Photo credit to www.pinterest.com)</div>
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More recently though (6ish years ago) I had a boss from a Middle Eastern background who had certain expectations that because I'm a female I'd wait on him like his wife and other females in his life did. He came into work one morning when I was doing an invoice or whatever I had on my to do list and he made a point of saying that I hadn't asked him if he wanted a cup of tea that morning. I just looked at him blankly. No male, hell, no one had ever said that to me. My brother didn't drink tea or coffee and my dad either made it himself or mum made one for him if she was having one. Sometimes I'd offer, but no one had ever commented that I'd hadn't gone out of my way to ask if they wanted one. Nevertheless, my boss made himself one and sat opposite me drinking it and glimpsing at me every now and again almost as if to say 'nevermind, I made one myself!'.<br />
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I remember getting home from work after that and telling my dad about it, he was amused when I exclaimed that if my boss had two legs and beating heart, there was no reason why he couldn't make one himself. Maybe he thought it was in my job description that I'd automatically make one for him even though I'd never done so unless he'd specifically asked for one, in that case it was just another task for my to do list.<br />
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(Photo credit to girltalkhq.com)</div>
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A friend of a friend posted a Tweet screenshot about a year ago on Facebook which was sent by a guy getting up in arms about feminism and declaring that he didn't want a bar of it. I commented underneath saying that I read it as some guy who was insecure in his masculinity and wanted to blame it on women when it was really his problem to deal with.<br />
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If a guy can't handle a strong woman who knows what she wants and won't settle for less, then he doesn't deserve her.<br />
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(Photo credit to chsaplitprideandprejudice.weebly.com)</div>
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By the same token, my view on feminism extends towards males as well. I think a guy should also feel comfortable in his skin, clothes and life without shame or prejudice. As Emma said in her speech, guys not being allowed to show their feelings made her realise that she was a feminist.<br />
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I believe that if a woman is being belittled or mistreated in any way by a man, or even a woman, she should be able to know her worth, stand up and walk away. The same thing goes for a guy. I keep picturing all the tacky material girls who end up with the loveliest guys and treat them like a means to their own ends and the guys just putting up with it because they don't think they deserve better.<br />
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(Photo credit to carleton.edu)</div>
If a guy wants to cry then dammit he should let the tears fall, no shame in that. If he wants to pick a girl flowers or write her a poem instead of spending half a paycheck on fancy jewelry and a 3 course dinner, then let the man be!<br />
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If feminism means equality for all, guys feel their feels with no shame, girls feel confident with no blame, then feminist is I!<br />
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(Photo credit to bellebrita.com)</div>
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Melissa Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08746801252344782846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4075370228724709161.post-53591228645946683722015-08-07T12:17:00.000+10:002015-08-07T12:17:11.109+10:00It All Started With Olive Oil...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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(Photo credit to www.buzzquotes.com)</div>
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Well technically, Olive oil spread.<br />
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I was doing grocery shopping last weekend on an empty stomach which everyone knows is the worst time to go. Anyways, I had a craving for a toasted cheese and tomato sandwich but rather than buying one from Michel's Patisserie on my way home when I already had a decent sized container of hot chips smothered in gravy and a Lebanese pizza in a separate plastic bag, I thought I'd just get the ingredients to make one at home.<br />
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As I was going through the butter/spread section of the fridge and looking for the usual generic branded olive oil spread I'd become accustomed to purchasing, I looked briefly at the brand name spreads just next to them and deliberated on them for a few moments.<br />
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There was about $1 price difference between the two. Not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, yet I'd always gone for the cheaper option, after all, they were the same, weren't they?<br />
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(Photo credit to www.buzzquotes.com)</div>
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I started to think about it some more as I looked between the two. On a sub-conscious level, what message am I giving myself by saving an entire dollar on a spread that I didn't use that frequently anyway.<br />
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The brand name spread was made by a company which was founded in the 1850's or something like that and claimed to be experts when it came to quality olive oil. Assumedly a company which had been around that long weren't bad at their jobs and should be taken more seriously.<br />
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(Photo credit to www.aliexpress.com)</div>
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Usually when I purchased generic branded items it was because of money fears as I'm sure many people know. The only problem with my fears was that they were based on my childhood of not having money. Dad had the occasional contract which didn't last too long because he was overly qualified and a fair sight older than other candidates. Mum had given up working shortly after my parents got married because the stress of her job was getting to her, plus she wanted to be a stay at home mother when my brother and I came along. Between the two of them, money was always tight and many of my parents fights were over mum spending more than my dad was getting in. Not to say that mum was materialistic, she just came from a household where everything was provided for her so she brought the same principle into her marriage even thought it didn't work so well.<br />
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Don't get me wrong, I'm incredibly proud of my thriftiness, resourcefulness and bargain-hunting skills which I developed from my childhood and with strong encouragement from dad. The thing is, my life is different now. I'm working 30ish hours per week, I get paid a pretty good wage plus commissions on any sales I make. I've never been left wanting for something, even if I can't buy it straight away, I'll always get around to it in time. (I remind myself of this every time I get my therapy bill and check my bank balance).<br />
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As I'm sure so many people know, it's very hard to change behaviors which have been drummed into you from a young age and made to feel like they're law. But, I've found that if you just do one thing differently, you'll gradually unravel the tangled web of beliefs you had to believe because of the circumstances you were living in.<br />
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On a much more personal level, the same can be said about beliefs towards yourself as a person and your body image. My mother was always negative about herself. Whenever she was getting changed in the dressing room and asked me for my opinion on something, I'd oblige, but moments later she'd go back to bagging herself out. "My arms are too flabby", "My stomach sticks out, I need to do more exercise", "I look dreadful in this!", the personal insults go on and on.<br />
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I was always determined to not end up like mum which her negative beliefs. Unfortunately, as I told my dad and my therapist recently, as much as you try not to follow in your parents footsteps, if they're present in your life and are the only role-model that you really have, you inadvertently pick up a few nasty things from them.<br />
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While I've never looked in the mirror and thought 'eww, gross!', I generally didn't have an opinion about myself. I didn't have enough, much or really any consistently positive reinforcement to make me believe that I looked good. At the same time, I refused point blank to adopt my mother's negative mindset, so I settled for somewhere in the middle. Indifference. When I looked in the mirror I thought neither yay nor nay. I'd just look and think or feel nothing, more accurately I'd only use the mirror to brush my hair or squeeze a pimple, no words of reinforcement were ever uttered or really thought by me about myself.<br />
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My mother, with her insecurities and mental illness, made it hard for me to appreciate myself as a person. As they say, 'Do as I say, not as I do' yet it's usually the opposite for children, so I was sent the mixed message that I could be negative about myself but lift others up at the same thing. It's all well and good for others, just not for me, but apparently that's okay. I deserve it.<br />
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I explained this to my dad and my therapist and both agreed that it made sense. I also told my therapist that as hard as dealing with the loss of my mother is to deal with, it's also dealing and processing all the false beliefs I've held for so long that were unintentionally reinforced by her.<br />
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(Photo credit to beautyquotestumblrpics.blogspot.com)</div>
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It's a hard thing to do, going against everything you've been taught and believed for so long, but it's the best thing you'll ever do for you.<br />
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I started being kind to myself, lord knows it's about time I did so! Instead of beating myself up for continually buying and eating chocolate and chips, I do whatever makes me feel better.<br />
Instead of chastising myself for daily stalking people on Instagram and spending a few hours searching through Facebook photos and downloading them to my computer to be deleted later on when I'm past this particular period in my life, I recognized that it's only a few hours (a few seconds to a few minutes on Instagram) every now and again. I don't spend my entire day or night on there, I don't follow/unfollow, friend/unfriend people mindlessly. Hell, I was still able to do my work and make a sale or two at the same time. Not bad if I do say so myself! Instead of adding up the cost of the things I want to buy then doing a kind of 'I want this but I like having money' pee-pee dance, I'll buy whatever it is that I want and remind myself that I deserve it, I'm getting paid and I can always return it/throw away something else that I own.<br />
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(Photo credit to picturequotes.com)</div>
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The good news thus far is that I've really started to appreciate my body and myself. When I look in the mirror as I'm getting dressed, I don't think negative things. I think things like 'I have a nice shape'.<br />
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Yes I have a few extra kilos, but I'm not obscenely overweight. It's not like I don't do any exercise whatsoever, I just don't like the label of 'exercise', it sounds like such a dirty word to me. I can fit comfortably into my clothes and if I can't, I give them away to someone else who would appreciate them just as much, if not more than I did. It also helps seeing so many more curvy women in the spotlight, even if I'm not the biggest fan of them (Kim Kardashian, Beyonce, Lena Dunham, Jesy Nelson of Little Mix, just to name a few).<br />
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When it comes to myself and my friends, I'm continually grateful that I've attracted some truly wonderful people into my life. Yes ME! I did that! I click so well with my friends and the people that I'm closest to that even though it's still a work in progress, I can now start to be happy about the person I am because of the people around me.<br />
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(Photo credit to quotepixel.com)</div>
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Sure when it comes to shopping I still balk at the price of things, like when I spent $100 on Damart clothing because mum used to order it and it kinda makes me feel close to her, the same way that ordering Avon does, but I say that I'm investing in myself. The same goes for whenever I buy ecourses on self-love and creativity or whatever. They're not usually terribly cheap, but as a close friend told me the other night, by spending money you're also bringing it back in, AKA manifesting. Like when you put love or kindness or gratitude out and it comes back to you sometimes in the strangest of ways. There's no finite source of money in the world. That's the thing we all need to remember.<br />
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As I gradually learn to loosen the wallet zip for fear that I'll run out of money, I remember that I'm still working, still getting paid, there are weeks that no sales come through and weeks that I supplement more than half my income. Either way, I'm not going to be destitute any time soon.<br />
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For those of you still reading, thank you for staying with me. And for those who are still wondering, yes I did buy the brand name olive oil spread and I'm still feeling pretty damn good about making such a small yet monumental step towards being happy with me.<br />
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It's funny where a simple thing like grocery shopping will take you.<br />
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Melissa Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08746801252344782846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4075370228724709161.post-23865322002639386562015-08-06T17:20:00.001+10:002015-08-06T17:20:53.576+10:00I Survived!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It's funny, (in the completely unhilarious kinda way) that whenever we hear someone say 'I survived', we usually think along the lines of cancer, shark attack, alien abduction or something else of that magnitude. We never tend to think that someone is lucky to have survived the day and not been in some kind of humongous peril.<br />
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Sadly however, this is the case for so many people when it comes to things like mental illness and yet very few people speak up about it.<br />
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No thanks to society, our problems have been belittled to a point where if it isn't life threatening and an obvious/easily fixable thing, then we don't think or talk about it.<br />
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There's also this notion that there's a 'one size fits all' approach to life, which doesn't help anyone and will hopefully be weened out in the coming generations and replaced with understanding, acceptance and most of all, love.<br />
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(Photo credit to ashlynsully.wordpress.com)</div>
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I've seen a few quotes and posts on Instagram which are aimed at people who struggle through life on a daily basis simply with the words 'it's okay if the only thing you did today was breathe'. I don't know about you, but I find that incredibly powerful, profound and really makes you think how lucky you are that that isn't something you even need to think about. Yet for some, that's all they do.<br />
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When I think back on my life, depending on my mindset, I'll feel tinglings of pride for what I've overcome. I haven't had cancer, been attack by a shark, been cornered and assaulted by someone, abused or anything else that would be considered newsworthy. Yet my life has been far from easy and I'm still here today, writing this post. Can I get a WOW or even an AMEN?!!<br />
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(Photo credit to thedailyquotes.com)</div>
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I survived all of my schooling experiences to the point of graduation.<br />
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I survived essentially a lifetime's worth of bullying by way of verbal and emotional abuse.<br />
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I survived continuous neglect, isolation, and feeling ignored.<br />
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I survived (and am still surviving) low moods, depression, extreme anxiety.<br />
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I survived toxic friendships and relationships to the point where I've been able to rekindle them and find myself much happier the second time around.<br />
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I survived my first job in the food industry. (It only lasted 3 months but that's still an achievement)<br />
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I survived my first job after finishing high school. (Just over 2 years in employment as an Office Manager).<br />
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I survived constant emotional abuse and borderline verbal abuse from a previous employer. (No amount of knowing that he means well underneath it all will ever make it okay).<br />
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(Photo credit to theunclaimedgeneration.tumblr.com)</div>
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I survived my first counselling session at Headspace.<br />
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I survived my first therapy session. (Still going, 5 years this year, woot!)<br />
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I survived growing up in a household heavily impacted by mental illness and not knowing how to deal with it.<br />
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I survived my childhood.<br />
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I survived my teen years. (Just!)<br />
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I survived my suicidal thoughts.<br />
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(Photo credit to figure-of-l.deviantart.com)</div>
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I survived 2 spinal operations to correct severe Scoliosis.<br />
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I survived my lung collapsing and spending a weekend in Intensive Care.<br />
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I survived my first night moving out of home.<br />
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I survived the 3rd move I've done in my life. (Still loving where I am).<br />
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I survived some ridiculously heartbreaking times in my life.<br />
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(Photo credit to gracedesired.com)</div>
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I survived my first solo holiday.<br />
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I survived my first plane ride.<br />
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I survived my first driving lesson.<br />
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I survived the first crash I had in my brother's car. (Bumper damage only, but it shakes you up a bit).<br />
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I survived the first dent in my beloved car. (Some lady ran into me at a roundabout).<br />
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I survived my first online dating meetup. (He wasn't a creep or anything).<br />
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I survived my first day at uni.<br />
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(Photo credit to pinterest.com)</div>
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I survived my first year at uni.<br />
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I survived my first long distance drive. (Sydney to Blue Mountains is a fair trip if it's the furthest you've ever driven).<br />
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I survived my 2nd and current job. (3 years and counting!).<br />
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I survived the sudden loss of my mother and her funeral.<br />
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I survived yesterday.<br />
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I'm surviving today, I'll survive tomorrow and every day after that. Because that's what I do.<br />
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I survived, so can you!<br />
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(Photo credit to Google Images)</div>
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Melissa Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08746801252344782846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4075370228724709161.post-67378966352092444352015-07-20T14:32:00.000+10:002015-07-20T14:32:31.748+10:00So, How Are You Really?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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(Photo credit to www.iliketoquote.com)</div>
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I hate when people ask how you are and you can tell they just don't care and are only asking because it's the polite thing to do.<br />
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It's one thing to work in a customer service type environment where it's part of the job description and daily script to ask people how they are or how their day's going, it's another to do it for the sake of keeping up appearances.<br />
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I know it gets tedious asking people about themselves, especially when you get caught up in the drama of their lives which no one really wants, but then you realize that you might be the only person to ask after them in a long time. Stuff builds up over time. You could be doing them the greatest favour by checking in with them.<br />
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(Photo credit to www.pinterest.com)</div>
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Everyone needs to feel loved, acknowledged, appreciated and ultimately like someone cares about and for them, yet so few people do, and even fewer people speak up or do something about it.<br />
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The number of times I've been asked how I'm doing just generally and I've answered 'not too bad thanks' or 'good thanks, how are you?' when I had WW3 happening inside me at the time. Sometimes I didn't trust the person I was talking to enough to open up to them, other times I just didn't want to think about what was going on for me so a simple answer worked best for everyone.<br />
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(Photo credit to www.iliketoquote.com)</div>
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It's different though when you've suffered a great loss. Not just because people don't really know how to approach you during the grieving process, but the ones that really care do ask, especially if they can empathise with you, they welcome the opportunity to do so.<br />
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It's funny how little you actually know about a person even if you see them every day or every week. Some people don't show it, others show it too much, everyone else varies.<br />
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As I've mentioned in a fair few blog posts now about my experiences growing up in a relatively strict religious environment, everything always seemed superficial. If you were going through a hard time, people really only wanted to know so they had something to gossip about, there was no love there, at least none that I truly felt.<br />
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During my time at church and related activities, I had a very selective friendship group. I don't mean that in a Mean Girls 'you can't sit with us' kind of way, I mean I found myself drawn to people who knew the harder side of life but you'd never know unless you took the time to get to know them. Everyone else outwardly seemed like they didn't know what troubles or hardships were and the way they looked at or treated people who knew better showed it just as much.<br />
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(Photo credit to www.buzzquotes.com)</div>
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Even now I have very few friends from the few friends I had at church. Some of them I occasionally keep in contact with because we still understand each other, others I've grown apart from, as is the way with life in general.<br />
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When I look back on my time in high school and various friend groups, I always wanted to be the confident and popular one, but I was permanently stuck at the bottom of the social heirarchy and resolved that it was just my lot in life. I knew at the end of the day that I didn't really need a group of friends that were popular, I just needed one person who for the most part had my back and that I could trust implicitly. While the friendship I did have for most of my schooling wasn't perfect, I knew that despite our differences, we had each other even if we drove each other insane half or most of the time.<br />
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(Photo credit to www.apisanet.com)</div>
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I think in order to get anywhere in life, you just need one or two people who you know you can rely on without fail. If you find more than that, consider yourself incredibly blessed because they will be invaluable assets.<br />
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It's like that saying about feeling alone in a room or crowd full or people versus feeling complete by yourself and supported by the few that you're close to.<br />
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So now I ask you, how are you really?<br />
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Just remember: it's okay not to be okay. Don't let anyone tell you differently. :-)<br />
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(Photo credit to www.iliketoquote.com)</div>
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Melissa Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08746801252344782846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4075370228724709161.post-37199803994032137562015-07-07T14:02:00.001+10:002015-07-27T16:03:37.311+10:00The Pursuit of Happiness <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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(Photo credit to www.southvalleychurch.com.au)</div>
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Are you one of those people who buys countless amounts of crap they really don't need but are somehow able to justify it to themselves in order to achieve instant gratification?<br />
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I'm currently going through something like that at the moment from what I've noticed.<br />
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I've been shopping a few times and left with a lighter credit card, heavier hands and more cluttered living space. Sure I can justify it in a way that all the craft stuff I've bought will make me happy when I get around to using it, and I think that's fairly legit. The same with the books I've bought/ordered despite having an almost overflowing bookcase and being a few pages into about 7 different books at present.<br />
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I told a close friend the other day when I got an email from Dymocks saying I'd accumulated enough points to get a discount or something about a missed birthday, either way I had a couple of bucks to put towards another book or two which had to be used up by the end of July. The friend jokingly asked me if there were any books left for me to buy/read. I told her I was banning myself from buying more books until I'd read AT LEAST one of the one's I'd purchased recently.<br />
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Skipping ahead a few days and 4 books later, that really didn't stick. Although to be fair to myself, I'm spending money on books, not something meaningless or crappy that will fade after a while. I've essentially purchased a whole bunch of different worlds and headspaces that I can get lost in as soon as the mood strikes. That's definitely worth the investment!<br />
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More importantly, I know what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. I feel sad, really really crappy as one does when experiencing grief and adjusting to the loss of someone close to them. I have this giant gaping void in my heart/soul where the crux of my mother's love used to be. Now that she's gone, I have this huge chunk of something missing from me and I'm trying to do whatever I can to fill it or not focus on it. Some methods aren't as helpful as others, but admittedly at least I'm doing better than I think a lot of others would be in the same situation, that's something I need to give myself credit for but sadly don't.<br />
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(Photo credit to www.thethingswesay.com)</div>
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I told my therapist over the last few sessions I've had that in order to cope with everything that's happening including my grief and the crapload of emotions that come with it, I'm filling the gaping hole with 'junk' until I have enough strength to return to myself again and do or focus on things that actually benefit me for the better.<br />
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I've been obsessively stalking people on Instagram even if they don't update anything for ages, I'll still go through all of their pictures until I feel better or find something else more interesting to do. At times it's not even about the person/s, it's just about not thinking about my life or my feelings for a few moments at a time. After a while it's become a habit or an addiction which I'm not exactly unfamiliar with. I know it will pass though because it has before. The last time I just wasn't ready or in a position to be able to deal with the underlying cause. This time it's more that the process is so much longer, bigger and more mind-warpingly personal than before, so I feel like I need a 'fix' to get through even if it's of nothing.<br />
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(Photo credit to www.tinybuddha.com)</div>
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It's not that I don't want to feel better, because I'd love to. I know people don't actively choose to feel like shit about themselves or their lives if they find a way not to, but it depends on your personal strength. I told my therapist last session that I'm just tired, completely exhausted and drained. I give myself a 'get out of jail free card' to do whatever I need to in order to get through this incredibly trying time. I'm not the same person I was before who didn't have something else to focus on, I just need a time out to not deal with my own life, a sort of 'pick-me-up' if you will. It's not going backwards, it's going sideways or sitting out until I have the energy to move forward and despite my subscriptions to <a href="http://www.thisislifeblood.com/" target="_blank">Claire Baker</a>, <a href="http://www.galadarling.com/" target="_blank">Gala Darling</a> (whom I absolutely LOVE), <a href="http://www.melissaambrosini.com/" target="_blank">Melissa Ambrosini</a>, just to name a few. Each email I get from them does make me happy, especially if I'm in a relatively positive mood. If I'm not, then I just file them under 'to look at later'.<br />
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I can remember one time in my life so far that I've have been beyond ecstatic with my life and everything I had going for me. It was last year, when I was a few weeks into my second semester at uni and leading up to my 25th birthday. I was studying a few different things which absolutely fascinated me, my job was going well, I was getting along with my family, I'd developed some truly amazing friendships which I valued dearly. There was nothing in my life that I would change if I had the chance. I even stopped going on Facebook because I just didn't care enough to get embroiled in other people's dramas or feel the need to have myself validated by other people and count the number of 'likes' anything I posted got. If I liked it, that was enough for me. Who cares what anyone else thought!<br />
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(Photo credit to www.zitaben.hol.es)</div>
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I know with time that I can get back to that place and even drastically improve on it. But like most things in life, it will take time, even more so with the grieving process.<br />
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In the meantime I'm trying to curb my spending to things that I actually need or that aren't completely meaningless. If I really don't need another 3 hoodies even though they're $5 and look pretty awesome, I'll refrain from buying them (with extreme effort mind you). If I've already downloaded an album, I really don't need to spend another $20-30 on the physical copy of it. The same goes for a movie or TV series.<br />
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The same thing goes for luxury items. A big fancy house, an even fancier car, a boat, designer this and that. Whenever I see someone driving an expensive car (in my experience, 8/10 fancy car drivers are pretentious assholes who think they're better than everyone else), I wonder if they drive it to make themselves feel important, to impress other people, or if it was really just a childhood dream to own one and have spent their lives saving up for it.<br />
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(Photo credit to www.impfashion.com)</div>
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It's like the quote which has been said allegedly by Will Smith. "So many people buy things that they don't need, with money they don't have, to impress people they don't like".<br />
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Everyone deserves happiness whether they believe it or not. I don't think it lies in a physical object or the acquisition of one. As soon as you buy something you feel happy for a moment, then the chemical reaction dies off and you want more.<br />
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Sadly though, we live in a very materialistic world *cough* Kardashians *cough*, where the main message is to sell, sell, sell and buy, buy, buy because we apparently NEED an item which a rational person would look at think it was completely useless. I remember listening to the 3pm Pickup radio show with Chrissie Swan and Jane Hall I think. Chrissie was talking about informercials and how at the start of them she always thought the product was completely ridiculous and wondered why anyone would possibly by it, but by the end of it you were convinced that you couldn't possibly live without it.<br />
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Unfortunately though, people do spend ridiculous amounts of money on things for instant gratification and repeat the process when it wears off.<br />
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The pursuit of happiness is a never-ending one if you look for it in things rather than in yourself.<br />
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(Photo credit to www.essenceofliving.com.au)</div>
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Melissa Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08746801252344782846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4075370228724709161.post-22036141762299061912015-06-30T13:07:00.000+10:002015-06-30T13:07:50.662+10:00I Was Here: Unmasking Depression with Anna<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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(Photo credit to www.instagram.com/thebutterflybrand)</div>
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About a month ago I had the honor of celebrating the long awaited book release of my dear friend Anna.<br />
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I met her several years ago at a mutual friend's 21st birthday and we'd kept in contact since via Facebook. She's one of the few people in my life that thinks along the same enlightened and philosophical wavelength that I do and is also a very gifted writer.<br />
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As she says in the first few pages of her book, she suffered with depression many years ago and she wrote every day until it had passed. Her debut book, Unmasking Depression, is a culmination of her writings as well as quotes that were meaningful to her personal journey and will hopefully trigger something with each reader.<br />
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I started reading her book a few days after I suddenly lost my mother to cancer. As anyone that's lost a loved one will know, you just want the million and one emotions to go away and some dwell on them which makes it worse, others throw themselves into whatever they can find in the hopes that their brain will do the processing while they switch focus for a bit.<br />
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I like the way the book is written. I don't think I've come across a book that resembles the same format that Anna's used which is a standout feature I'd say.<br />
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She has different sections in the book including Suffering, Pain, Intuition, Healing, Words, Truth, Darkness, Light, Enlightenment, Purpose, Resurrection, as well as a dedication at the front and an introduction which tells you a bit about her personal story and the reason the book exists in the first place. (Check out her the official instagram page to see what I mean. www.instagram.com/thebutterflybrand)<br />
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Between each section which is 2-3 pages long, she has a different quote which helps to break up the writing and give you an extra boost after each part.<br />
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The best way I feel I can describe it is like a written tea or coffee break. You take a big sip of each section, let the words sink into your subconscious, then swallow down in preparation for the next section. The quotes in between are like taking a bite on a complementing biscuit.<br />
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As I was reading through it, I was reminded of Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist and some similarities in the writing. Although in The Alchemist (and possibly other books of Coelho's which I haven't read yet) there is primarily a story, fictional, and the underlying theme which readers usually take on board and which is most likely the reason for its rave reviews. You can also just read the book as a story and let your subconscious make what it will of the underlying lessons.<br />
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Unmasking Depression is similar in the way that it gives the reader something to think about, but it doesn't do so in the form of a fictional story, it removes all the layers and makes you feel like you're inside someone else's head and privy to their thought patterns (which is I think how Anna meant to write it). It's done in a gentle way as if the way friend who's looking out for you and giving you objective insights into your problems, they're not telling you what to do or trying to fix the problems for you, they're merely pointing out what they can see and what the options are, what you take from it is entirely your business.<br />
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Although the book is focused on the feminine, the lessons to be gleaned are relevant and appropriate to everyone, regardless of what gender you identify with the strongest.<br />
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As someone who has grown up with mental illness, a lot of the things that were talked about I felt a strong connection with. In fact I had to sharpen a pencil when I went to reread it because there's so much in it that's like a continuous 'Aha!' or 'Yes! This is so true!', that you just feel the need to make a note of it for future reference.<br />
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I mentioned to Anna the other night that because of the nature of her book and it's themes, it's the kind of book that people need to read when they're at a certain place in their lives where they're receptive to the ideas and it's ultimately exactly what they need to get them to wherever they need to go, or hopefully, the help that they need, to feel like someone understands them and there is a way out of the barrage of craziness happening inside their head, heart and soul.<br />
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Much like pretty much anything written by Paulo Coelho, you know this book is a keeper for generations to come.<br />
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I also really like that Anna does personalizations to show gratitude for not only purchasing her 'art work' but to make you feel like you now have a close connection with her. It makes the transaction that much better instead of just buying a book online and getting it in the mail. Each book comes with love, heartfelt gratitude, support and understanding as well as hope for the future or even that tomorrow will be better than today.<br />
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(Photo credit to www.instagram.com/thebutterflybrand)</div>
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If you'd like to purchase your own copy to see what I'm talking about, (you won't regret it!), get in quick as there's only a limit of 200 copies, of which I think about half have already gone. She also does pretty and poignant post cards (see the picture below).<br />
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Check out http://www.thebutterfly.com.au/products/unmasking-depression<br />
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Yes, the price includes shipping, I already checked. While you're there, I also recommend checking out Anna's blog. It's quite interesting and thoughtful, slight similar to this blog if I do say so myself.<br />
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If you'd like to keep up to date with Anna and her company, The Butterfly, you can do so by following them both on Instagram.<br />
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https://instagram.com/thebutterflybrand<br />
https://instagram.com/annakrjatian<br />
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(Photo credit to www.instagram.com/thebutterflybrand)</div>
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Melissa Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08746801252344782846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4075370228724709161.post-30825505608263975572015-06-15T17:42:00.002+10:002015-06-15T17:42:35.362+10:0050 Shades of Eh...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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(Ellie Goulding - Love Me Like You Do)</div>
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I was sitting at the hairdressers a few days ago and they had the video for Ellie Goulding's 'Love Me Like You Do' as featured in Fifty Shades of Grey.<br />
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As I watched the clip and saw snippets of the movie, I figured it was about time I saw what all the fuss was about.<br />
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I've never read the books and didn't particularly care to. While I was a fan of the Twilight saga before it became a movie, knowing that FSOG was based on or originally written as erotic fan-fiction wasn't the greatest incentive to read or watch it. (I have this thing with over-hyped things aside from Harry Potter).<br />
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I decided to watch it last night, not entirely knowing that to expect, but being an avid reader of Mills and Boon books throughout my teenage years with the idea of 'if I can't date or have sex (due to strict upbringing and religious reasons) I may as well read about people who are', I figured I'd find something to keep me watching.<br />
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For a book that was an erotic story, I was kind of expecting something more pornographic in content. Sure there's the build up in each sex scene, but then it cuts to the next scene and you just wait for the next one to come up.<br />
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I can't say I particularly cared for the BDSM which is a big part of the movie, but my hopeless romantic side did really like the idea of a high powered CEO and eligible bachelor chasing after the 'nobody' who he finds fascinating and completely refreshing in comparison to the women he's used to being with. I know this is incredibly formulaic, but it is so for a reason: it works!<br />
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(Photo credit to Google Images)</div>
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I also really like how assertive Anastasia was when it came to the contract and being with Christian. She wanted him as much as he wanted her but wasn't prepared to play by his rules completely in order to be with him. I think that shows a lot of strength where it would be incredibly easily to just succumb to temptation and possibly regret it afterwards.<br />
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I am keen to see the next installment when it apparently hits theatres in 2017 from what I've read, however I don't foresee myself acquiring a copy of the books any time soon.<br />
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The biggest appeal from the video clip to actually make me want to watch the movie is the sense of stability and security I get from Christian's character. He can afford an incredibly lavish lifestyle and he's wanted by many women all around, but he's not a douche about it. You get the sense from the interview scene between him and Anastasia that there's a lot more to him than meets the eye, as she even said to him.<br />
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(Photo credit to weaimtoplease-miss-steele.tumblr.com)</div>
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There's a comfort of knowing that when you're with someone like him, you'll be cared for, protected, safe and ultimately loved. He has enough life experience to know what's what and how to treat other people to get a favorable outcome. He also has the power to make things happen which is both advantageous and a hindrance as we saw. Some people like the lavishness all year round, others like the occasional surprise of it but get sick of it after a while like Anastasia did, especially if it's to make up for someone actually being there and a monetary comfort instead of a personal one.<br />
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Again, I like that she stood up to him instead of letting herself down by continuing in a relationship of sorts that wasn't emotionally fulfilling for her because he was too scared to let his guard down and kept things physical.<br />
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These kinds of storylines are the reasons why I consider myself a hopeless romantic and always have been.<br />
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(Photo credit to Google Images)</div>
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It reminds me of a conversation I had with a pest control guy a few months ago and more recently, a talk with my therapist about being independent but also letting the guy do 'guy things'.<br />
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I like the idea of being taken care of, to an extent. I value my independence a ridiculous amount so I'm not prepared to just settle for whoever comes along just so I can be married and whatever.<br />
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I, like I'm sure a lot of women do, want a guy to fight for me. I'm not talking about playing hard to get, although that's probably what some people think it is, I'm talking about a guy putting in the effort that it takes to get the girl that he really wants. Like Christian tells Ana, she's changing him. He has his rules and she's bending them to suit her own will and he's kinda powerless to stop her because it's her that he wants and he always gets what he wants.<br />
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(Photo credit to Google Images)</div>
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I think my biggest complaint is that Ana is completely naked in a fair few scenes, yet we only see back nudity or torso and up of Christian. If you're going to have a movie with raunchy sex scenes, it's only fair that both parties be as naked as each other. I'm putting this one on the patriarchy. The same reason why a close friend of mine as well as many other fans have a problem with Game of Thrones and the portrayal/treatment of women. If they're going to be naked, the guys should be too, it's only fair.<br />
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Ultimately, FSOG is basically a big budget and massively hyped movie version of Mills and Boon books, if you take out the BDSM aspect though. I would be interested to see the character development of both Ana and Christian, so as mentioned earlier, I am keen to see the next installment in a few years time.<br />
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It has renewed my love of what I'd call trashy romance novels, given the present lack of romance in my life, but aside from that it's just a case of fifty shades of something, I'm just not entirely sure what.<br />
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(Photo credit to favim.com)</div>
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Melissa Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08746801252344782846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4075370228724709161.post-42082786955063130482015-06-11T11:05:00.003+10:002015-06-11T11:05:57.378+10:00Who Are You?!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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(Photo credit to windowofinspiration.com)</div>
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Over the recent weeks since my mother's sudden passing, I've spent a fair bit of time reflecting upon my life and who I am and comparing it to the life that I knew of my mother.<br />
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When I was digging through the multitude of photo albums stashed away in the days after her passing, I discovered photos of her that I'd never seen before and doing things that I'd never be able to imagine her doing, yet there she was. It was mind-boggling.<br />
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My dad reminded me that my mother was diagnosed with Schizophrenia when I was about 4, so most of my life was spent caring for her while he was working and my brother wasn't prepared to do the job. This meant that my life and the person that I am was formed from the basis of being a caretaker, or as I've recently discovered the term, 'Adult Child'.<br />
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Dad told me that mum was whoever she needed to be or whoever other people wanted her to be depending on who she was with. She played the role of a particular person whether it be best friend, girlfriend, wife, daughter, mother, etc. It made sense. I knew her as a mother, but she wasn't herself as a mother, she was who she thought a mother should be.<br />
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Dad also told me that despite battling mental illness, mum tried hard to be normal even though it completed exhausted her to do so. At her memorial service I gave a speech where I talked about what it was like living with mum in her mental state. Most people had absolutely no clue she was mentally ill because she was so skilled at hiding it around those who only saw her for a few hours a week.<br />
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Something I realised a fair while back was that although I always thought of my mother's illness as a curse or a burden, it was actually an incredible gift because of what it taught me and the person that it made me. If it weren't for her, her illness or how I had to cope with that growing up, I wouldn't be in the incredibly unique position now of being able to empathise and relate to people going through similar things.<br />
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Given how much stigma there still is around mental illness, growing up in a home where we dealt with it on a daily basis was actually a blessing in disguise. People could find some kind of solace or refuge in our home because of how we'd learnt to treat and cope with mum's illness. We didn't necessarily talk about it, but we didn't pretend that it didn't exist either, we weren't in a position to.<br />
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I've also realised quite recently that my mother also gave me another indirect gift. The gift of knowing who I really was from an early age. Granted this is a two-part gift since dad never really discouraged me or my interests, unless he thought that pursuing them would harm me in some way.<br />
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Mum tried to be who everyone else wanted her to be and she lost herself along the way. I was always determined to never end up like her. She just seemed to be unhappy and tried to convince herself and everyone around her that she was, even though I could see straight through her. She always tried to get me to fit in with the other girls, always compared me whenever I wouldn't do what she wanted me to saying that the other girls my age, and named a few who I didn't particularly like, never talked back to their parents and were always well-behaved. I countered that she couldn't possibly know what they were like behind closed doors, but she told me she imagined that they were well-behaved children unlike me.<br />
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As mentioned in many previous posts, I tried hard, really hard to fit in, but like mum I got exhausted from trying to keep up with other people. I wasn't interested in the things that they did or talked about, whenever I tried to join in because I was sick of being alone, moments later the group I was with decided that they'd take a communal trip to the toilet or go somewhere that I wasn't interested in, so it seemed completely pointless when I got the impression that they wanted me around as much as I wanted to be around. So I kept to myself and got through the day the only ways I knew how: finding a quiet spot away from everyone and either reading or writing to escape the world I didn't know how to find the exit for.<br />
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I've realised that I never really knew mum, of course no one can know their parents the way other people can, especially if they're a lifelong friend. But since mum started forgetting things, I really never got the chance to know her even though I had her for 25 years. The pictures I found only tell part of the story, some of her old letters and things tell another part, but given mum's mental state, I don't think there was any way she could have joined the dots for me.<br />
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Something I wrote in an earlier post and that I brought to therapy a few sessions ago was memories of being at church or youth group and because there wasn't much to do or say, people stood around fiddling with their clothes and pretending to be part of the scenery which when I look back on it is both hilarious and pathetic. You just stand there, not talking or really doing anything, just observing the scene in front of you and silently judging those around you because there's not much else to do.<br />
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I was thinking about this earlier this week and after plenty of encouragement from a family friend who'd also lost her mother to cancer a few years back and had similar experiences with mental illness in her family, she told me that I was doing incredibly well and I needed to be much kinder to myself especially with everything that had happened of late.<br />
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I thought about the people from church who had made me feel essentially like a worthless piece of shit for most of my life and I thought about all the things I'd done for myself since then. I was and am proud of the person I've become, not just because of how hard I've had to fight not only to survive, but to be that person, but because of what that really means in the grand scheme of things.<br />
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I had a dream a while back now where the popular religious girl in my class who also happened to be a distant cousin of mine (as well as everyone else with the way that religious communities work), she was hovering over me from behind and I kept asking her why I was treated the way I was. She confirmed that people had wanted me to kill myself, although not saying the actual words, but she confirmed it and told me it was because I had self. I took that as her saying people couldn't understand me and were possibly jealous of the fact that I didn't follow the crowd and they found that fearfully intimidating.<br />
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I wondered though, for all those people who get caught up in crowds and soar in popularity, do they really know who they are when they aren't surrounded by people? Do they know what they want, or do they just mindlessly follow what those around them are doing or what other people want them to do for fear of being cast out and becoming the reject and loner like I was?<br />
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For me, I always saw being the outcast and loner as a weakness. I just didn't have the strength to keep up appearances and convince everyone else that I was okay when I honestly couldn't even convince myself on most days. Now though, I'm starting to think that maybe the things that fellow creatives of mine have said about being courageous by standing away from the crowd, maybe that's truer than the negative image I've always had of myself.<br />
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I imagined the other night bumping into one of the girls I graduated with who's since married and has a baby. From memory she was one of the first in our class to do so. In my fantasy/daydream/whatever you want to call it, she was struggling to wrangle her baby and her husband was out with the guys so she was left to her own devices. I stopped by her and offered to help her out. I asked her how she was doing generally as well as with marriage and motherhood. She admitted to me that it was hard work, much harder than she thought it would be and I got the sense that she'd been so caught up in the crowd and doing what was expected of her that the wake up call of reality was more than she bargained for and she was just riding the wave as best as she could.<br />
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She told me later on that she admired how well I'd done in life and that no matter how badly she or anyone else had treated me when we were growing up, that it had come from a place of jealousy and awe. I refused to let anyone tell me who I was, what to do or who to be, and that was all that everyone else had ever done for the girls I'd grown up with. They were expected to find a partner, settle down, get a job, attend church on Sundays and live happily ever after. I'd done none of that and I was the better for it.<br />
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I was also flipping through the signature book from my 21st that one of my best friends at the time had given me. Her message in the front of it was a great validation of who I am. She wrote that she liked that I was my own person and encouraged me to keep standing up for things that I believe in.<br />
Another friend wrote that she liked I was always honest about things but expressed it in a way that didn't hurt the other persons feelings. Both were great things to hear.<br />
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Some other friends of mine, one being the school counsellor who I'd become close to, told me I had wonderful qualities to be treasured and the former year advisor/second mother told me how much I'd grown over the time she'd known me and really treasured my friendship.<br />
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Mum's one was the hardest to read given how raw her loss still is, but she wrote that I was still my parents bundle of joy and that I'd had grown into a lovely young lady, something which I mentally questioned. Dad, after much coercion (he usually left card messages and the like for mum to do and sign his name at the bottom) wrote that I had a gift of sorts of finding true friendships in a variety of different people and they didn't change over time. He commented that the array of people that came to celebrate my 21st year of life surprised him. Some were younger, only a few were the same age and the rest were older. There was someone from nearly every aspect of my life, but only people who were genuine which was an incredible blessing to both myself and my parents.<br />
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I was having a discussion with the same friend who encouraged me to be kind to myself, and I was telling her that I didn't understand people who went out and got drunk or high every weekend since it held absolutely no appeal to me. She told me that they had no life purpose so all they could do was find different forms of instant gratification to wile away their time. That made sense but I also thought it was incredibly sad. I've always known that I had a huge job to do, that my life purpose was important because I couldn't imagine going through what I had and having it mean nothing at the end of the day.<br />
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So let me ask you, dear reader of the obscenely long yet highly insightful and reflective post, who are you? Do you know the answer or even how to answer that? Are you the person who sits quietly in a corner minding their own business like me? Or are you the person who is constantly surrounded by people and isn't sure of what to do when they're not around? Maybe you thrive in a crowd and know exactly who you are and what you want. Maybe not.<br />
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My gut instincts have always been strong. If someone wanted to me to do something and there was peer pressure but I really didn't want to do it, I wouldn't. If I was going to be liked, it had to be for who I was and not for who people around me wanted me to be, no exceptions. I found that the times when I tried to be who others wanted me to be, it just felt wrong and after a while I stopped because I got tired of it and the people I was trying to impress were just going to see how far they could push me, they didn't really care.<br />
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If you don't know who you are or what you want, that's more than okay. Conversely, if you do, that's great too. If you don't, you have every opportunity to find out. Firstly you need to stop listening to everyone else and listen to yourself. Find hobbies, try out a variety of different things until you find something that you're drawn to and follow that. If you can't afford to do so, find a way to just observe or if it's a class or something, talk to the instructor/teacher and ask if you can volunteer or take part in some way until you can afford to take it on in a greater capacity.<br />
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Whatever you do, do it for you. That's the only surefire way to know who you are!<br />
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Melissa Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08746801252344782846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4075370228724709161.post-15971427714663981262015-06-09T16:35:00.000+10:002015-06-10T10:17:54.888+10:00Bloglovin'<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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For bloggers that don't know, Bloglovin' is a site where bloggers and blog readers connect.<br />
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I recently joined it after reading a blog post that a friend linked to me and saw that they had a badge on their site and I thought I'd look into it a bit more.<br />
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If you have an existing blog, you can sign up (for free!) and claim your blog which puts it in front of a whole new audience.<br />
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If you're looking for new blogs to follow, this site it perfect for you. You sign up, select the blog categories that interest you and bloglovin' brings you all the best blogs that match your searching preferences and interests.<br />
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It's kind of like Instagram for blogs. Well that's my take on it anyway.<br />
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Check it out if you're looking for your next blogging fix, something new, want to boost your own audience, or everything in between.<br />
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https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/welcome-to-my-brain-14143529<br />
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Melissa Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08746801252344782846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4075370228724709161.post-26832353223708364302015-05-28T13:52:00.000+10:002015-05-28T13:52:32.934+10:00Life's a Beach<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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There needs to be another word for hard.<br />
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Whenever you go through something tough and someone says "that must've been hard", it kind of seems like an understatement or a way to make a big thing smaller.<br />
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I consider my life to be hard for the most part. Between being bullied for most of my life from a variety of sources to caring for a mentally ill parent and most recently losing that parent to cancer/pneumonia, hard seems like such a simple and inadequate way to sum up the crap that life throws at people.<br />
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One of the friends that texted me after she saw my post on Facebook about mum's passing sent her condolences and asked how I was doing. I told her my life has never been easy so there was no point it starting now. I then went on to explain that when you go through continuous trials in your life that they become all you've ever really known, when something is easy you get suspicious and wonder what the catch is.<br />
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I think the only way to stress just how hard something is, is to add 'really' in front of it, then people know you mean it. The more you add, the harder it was/is.<br />
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In a way, it's like a competition to see who's been through more and how they've handled it.<br />
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Upon returning to work and settling in, my boss took me for coffee and enquired about my mother's funeral and the last days as I'd been off for a week whilst processing and grieving. He told me about his time with his dad and said that he couldn't stay for the whole time at the hospital because it was just too hard for him to watch. I told him that my family and I stayed right until the end because it felt wrong not to.<br />
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So would it be fair to say that because of my longevity in comparison to his, I'm the stronger person? At least emotionally and mentally speaking?<br />
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Everyone deals with events in their life differently, but I'd say death and grief are the biggest ones.<br />
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On the other side of it, we also as human beings within society seem to compete against each other to see who has the better or more successful life. Unfortunately it's not usually measured by the amount or level of a person's happiness, more so how much stuff they have including monetary wealth.<br />
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Most of the times I've heard someone say that another person is lucky it's due to a materialistic possession. I think a lot of people still tend to use items as a measure of happiness and that somehow equates to luck for possessing the item that makes the person feel happy and therefore lucky.<br />
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When I was younger, I always saw a person as lucky if they had a fancy house or a chilled out and easy-going family because they were two of the things I wanted yet was never able to obtain.<br />
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Now, after growing up since those days, I've come to realize that the times when I'm the happiest and feel lucky is when I can really appreciate the things that I have and why not having things I thought I wanted was actually a blessing in disguise.<br />
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I have a nice home in a great area with a pretty awesome flatmate. My job is flexible and provides me a daily routine and financial stability. I've weeded out the people that serve me ill and strengthened bonds with those who serve me well. I've got dreams and ambitious that refuse to quit no matter how much discouragement is thrown my way. Overall I'd say I'm quite happy, very fortunate and incredibly lucky.<br />
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None of that has come easily to me though. I've had to go through the lowest lows I never thought I could reach and have been rewarded with some of the greatest highs I didn't expect.<br />
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It makes me wonder though, as I was at the train station heading home a few days ago, why is that some people have consistently 'bad luck' and others just seem to sail through life with incredible ease?! Are they not meant to do anything outstanding with their life or do they just learn differently to those who suffer on a daily basis?<br />
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I questioned the other day when I saw a possibly drunken guy on the train talking some kind of hideously embarrassing Australian slang and wondered why he was allowed to keep living his life when he clearly wasn't doing anything productive with it, yet so many other that would give anything for another day, hour or minute with someone, lose out in the end.<br />
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Maybe it's the high expectations I have for myself, but I really really hate seeing people just throw their lives away getting high or drunk and encouraging others to do the same. Now that I've lost my mother, it makes me even more uptight about it.<br />
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Life's a beach. Some people surf the waves with ease, some watch from the sand, others just get their feet wet and everyone else gets dumped by the waves.<br />
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Melissa Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08746801252344782846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4075370228724709161.post-27667181922322939352015-05-10T23:03:00.000+10:002015-05-10T23:03:51.867+10:00Never Say Never<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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How many times in your life have you said something along the lines of 'that'll never happen!'?<br />
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Has it? Maybe something close to it, or even worse than it?<br />
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The one thing I've learnt about life so far in my own is that anything really is possible and can happen, we just don't expect it to, hence the first question in this post.<br />
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I recall a conversation I had with one of my then-best friend a few years ago.<br />
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She was a single mother of two young children, having left her husband a few months before we met and being a devout Muslim as the rest of her family were.<br />
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She'd always done what was expected of her which included going along with an arranged marriage to one of the members of the mosque who was highly regarded and a friend of her brother's.<br />
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Her marriage and life turned into a nightmare that she tried desperately to escape and eventually did.<br />
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During this conversation she told me of how mind-blowingly different her life was from just a year ago. She said if someone had told her that she'd be living with her parents and raising her two kids between herself and their father whilst trying to start her life all over again, she'd have thought they were completely insane. Yet there she was doing just that.<br />
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I try to make a point of not saying never, unless it's in a joking manner. From the things I've seen and heard from various sources, it seems like a very dangerous word to use, almost as if you're tempting fate and fate says 'challenge accepted!'.<br />
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I always thought it would be highly unlikely that anyone in my family would die from something like cancer, yet my paternal grandmother had kidney cancer and my mother most recently was diagnosed with breast cancer. Statistically it's actually more likely than we think, regardless of the type of lifestyle one leads.<br />
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In all honesty though, there are things that I've thought would never happen but actually did. I never thought that I'd get over my high school crush, but by the time we graduated I was pretty much over him. I never thought that some of the greatest friendships I'd ever had would dissipate, but they did. I never thought my life would turn out the way it has, yet here I am.<br />
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Life is unpredictable at best. Curve balls come in all shapes and sizes. Never could be closer and more mind-blowing than you think. Never say never!<br />
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Melissa Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08746801252344782846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4075370228724709161.post-81326039164386180812015-05-10T12:23:00.000+10:002015-05-10T12:23:39.385+10:00That Kind of Love<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I was randomly scrolling through my Etsy feed the other day when searching for Buffy items after a colleague mentioned the series in conversation the day before it and I remembered how much a part of my life it was.<br />
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As I was scrolling through I found a word quote from Spike, a speech that he delivers to her in season 7 when they're about to face essentially the apocalypse.<br />
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The <a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDEQtwIwAw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dw6cWagC3IXI&ei=QK1OVbifI4eJ8QWZqoCYAg&usg=AFQjCNFizzP9JrfjeEiaIslxocJJ6ZQ3oQ&sig2=RE7aVxSwQRAMtubz29vKBA&bvm=bv.92885102,d.dGc" target="_blank">speech</a> is by far the most beautiful and romantic thing I've ever heard or read.<br />
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(Photo credit to www.etsy.com)</div>
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I think that's the kind of love everyone should have and know that they deserve. When someone sees every single part of you and it makes them love and respect you more, not at their anything, but as a human being and your capacity to be one at that.</div>
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While some (possibly my dad) would argue that Buffy and Angel are the best couple on the show, or really that Buffy is better with Angel, I think Spike made the ultimate gesture to her. Epic kudos to Joss Whedon for fantastic character development!</div>
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Another example of amazing love is Luke and Lorelai from Gilmore Girls.</div>
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Through the entire series Luke always has her back and is the father to her daughter Rory that Christopher wasn't. He goes out of his way to do things for her that seem way too big a gesture to be based just on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zRaH9ICKrM" target="_blank">friendship</a>, but he doesn't pursue anything until towards the end of the series when he finally gets the courage to make a move, albeit after listening to some motivational tapes.</div>
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There's quite possibly nothing Luke wouldn't do for Lorelai, no matter how big or small.</div>
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I've always loved that pairing because of the pure honesty behind it. He just loves her without fault or explanation. They have their disagreements, but at the end of the day there's still love that doesn't falter.</div>
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As I'm sure is quite obvious by now, I'm an incredibly hopeless romantic. I've seen wayyy too many rom-coms and Disney movies in my life time and refuse to stop believing in some kind of happily ever after despite my reservations about marriage. While love and marriage go hand in hand, they aren't mutually exclusive. I've never stopped believing in love and what it's capable of doing.</div>
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I think nearly everyone who's ever watched an episode of Friends, or even just knows of the show is a supporter of Ross and Rachel. They are quite possibly the ultimate love endgame.</div>
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Ross, despite his tendency to get married every few years to a different woman, has never stopped loving Rachel. As Phoebe <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekrxKbhrGq8" target="_blank">said</a> to him as they were watching his and Rachel's newborn daughter from the nursery window, now they have a baby, if they got back together he'd have everything he'd ever wanted since he was 15. </div>
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That kind of love is what everyone should have.</div>
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Melissa Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08746801252344782846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4075370228724709161.post-60147757133889825082015-05-10T00:42:00.002+10:002015-05-10T00:42:14.559+10:00Nothing... I'm just tired.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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How many times have you said that to someone whenever they've asked what's wrong?<br />
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I've read some of the same quotes over and over again saying that sometimes saying 'I'm tired' is the easiest explanation to give to someone. In some cases it's also the truest.<br />
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While it may not always be referring to being physically tired, may you're just tired of life, tired of things that keep happening and you don't know why or how to stop them, tired of the same old routine, tired of telling yourself that you're okay when you know deep down that you're not. Just tired in general.<br />
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I heard dad say those words a lot when I was growing up. Being a carer to a woman who refused to acknowledge her mental illness is exhausting for anyone to deal with. I also think his suspected depression has a lot to do with it too.<br />
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I used to say it a lot to people as well. Mostly when I was at church related things and didn't particularly want to be around certain people, namely anyone that I didn't consider an ally of sorts. It was much easier than to explain any one of the bajillion things going on inside my head.<br />
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Most of the time I was tired. I loved and still do love sleep more than anything. I would often stay up ridiculously late the night before and regret it immensely the next day as I'm sure a lot of people have done as well. For me, saying 'I'm tired' was the simplest explanation I could give from my own understanding of what I was thinking and feeling, but also something that I knew other people could understand as well. Being tired could mean anything, but everyone knows what being tired is and feels like in one context or another.<br />
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I remember in an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-E9PGnXWOE" target="_blank">episode</a> of Will and Grace when Jack was talking about Will coming out as gay and he hesitated saying anything for fear of what his family and friends would say or think of him. Jack, the proud and flamboyantly gay best friend of Will kept trying to get him to admit to himself for starters. In the end all he said was 'aren't you tired?'. That was enough for Will to take the plunge.<br />
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I'm sure everyone has gone through times like that where they just keep plodding along because they're scared. Scared of change, scared of judgement and criticism, scared of the unknown.<br />
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Like a part in The Alchemist where the alchemist himself is talking to Santiago and says one of the biggest reasons people don't do things is because they're scared. People will laugh of them if they pursue a seemingly unattainable dream, they might lose the comfortable life they've created for themselves by choosing a sensible occupation that provides them a lifestyle they enjoy even if it means a part of them still yearns to do that ridiculously crazy thing they've always dreamed of doing, but just locked it away as a pipe dream and nothing more.<br />
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What is it that you're holding onto out of fear?<br />
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Like another saying I've heard goes, 'What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?'<br />
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If there were no consequences, what would you change or do differently in your life?<br />
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I must admit, as I'm sure you've already read or at least picked up on from my other posts, I tend to look fear directly in the eye and do whatever I really want to do anyway, especially when my gut instincts tell my I have no choice but to do. Those instincts have always been immovably strong for me and I've never felt bad after following them, well not that I can recall anyway.<br />
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Quite frankly it's exhausting trying to keep up with the flow, especially when you think you don't have a choice because that's the thing, you always do! People seem to forget that whenever hardships strike, but there's always a way out, whether it's right or wrong is for you to decide.<br />
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So let me ask you dear curious blog post reader, aren't you tired?<br />
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Melissa Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08746801252344782846noreply@blogger.com0