Another random update

Hi friends.

I have recently come to the realization that I've only written two posts this month, and the month is almost over. I'm a failure as a blogger. (Just kidding. But seriously though.)

I feel like sometimes I put too much pressure on myself to provide quality, heartfelt content for you guys on a consistent basis. Putting this pressure on myself usually causes me to dwell, overthink and ultimately fail to write anything at all. This blog is one of my favorite things ever, so I can be really hard on myself when I can't seem to find the time and/or inspiration to write.

So to wrap up this year (which has gone by ridiculously fast), I have some goals in mind for myself.

I want to....

1) Start accomplishing some goals that I've been putting off for far too long.

2) Give a majority of my attention to the things that really matter to me and say goodbye to the things that no longer do.

3) Stop putting pressure on myself to write super inspiring posts and start accepting the fact that I won't always feel inspired.

4) Figure out a way to set myself apart.

5) Spend more time with my loved ones and less time sitting on my bum whilst aimlessly browsing the Internet and waiting for answers, work and motivation to fall into my lap.

6) Work hard and play harder.

7) Come up with my own authentic ideas and visions.

8) Stop squelching my drive and passion for the sake of trying to please others.

9) Stop mentally beating myself senseless every time I fail, make a mistake, or feel clueless, lost and confused.  

10) Start engaging more with my readers/friends.

To fulfill that last one, I want to top off this post with a few questions for YOU.

What would you like to see on my blog? Sometimes I get tired of writing about my own life. I want to know what is going on in YOUR life that you wish someone would write a post about or publicly ponder over. What inspires and speaks to you?

Would you be interested in potentially reading an e-book written by yours truly, or are you getting sick of e-books in general?

What are some of the biggest lessons you've learned this year? What are some of your goals for next year?

I look forward to hearing from each of you. Xx

<3 Madison

20 things I'm grateful for

I feel so inspired by all the posts on thankfulness I've been seeing this week. I try to count and appreciate my blessings on a daily basis, and what better day to share them than on Thanksgiving? 

2012 has been a wonderful year so far. It's had its ups and downs, as every year does, but I really feel like I've grown as a person and learned how to be more appreciative of everything that I used to take for granted. 

Here are 20 random things I'm grateful for:

1. The above photo. It's adorable.
2. All the people I love and all the people who love me back
3. My wonderful doggies
4. Autumn weather
5. Uncontrollable laughter
6. Work I enjoy
7. My health
8. Barnes & Noble
9. Happiness
10. Inspiration
11. Pita chips
12. Fearless love
13. Music
14. Ice cream
15. The roof over my head
16. Clean water
17. Food
18. New beginnings
19. Nice people
20. YOU

And many, many more! :-)

What are you thankful for this year?

<3 Madison     

Lovestrong.

If you know me at all, you know that I'm a huge Christina Perri fan. I have a wristband with the title of her debut album on it, and I wear it (almost) every single day. 

It says "lovestrong." 

The other day I was getting hopelessly distracted and letting my mind wander to what that word personally means to me. I think it can have different meanings for different people. And once I started thinking about what lovestrong means to ME, I thought it was really profound, so I decided to share it on here. 

I like to wear the wristband every day for three reasons.

1. It reminds me to love and be nice to myself. 

The whole concept of self-love and self-respect is something I didn't fully grasp until I was about 19. Before then, I had never truly loved or respected myself. I was different. I was strange. I didn't have many friends. I got rejected left and right. For as long as I can remember, I carried around a belief that I was unlovable and unworthy because nobody seemed to like me. And I sure as hell didn't like myself. 

It took me a really long time to get out of that mindset, and it's still something I struggle with to this day. I'm trying to not be so hard on myself anymore. Being lovestrong means having the strength and ability to love and respect myself even when it's hard.     

2. It reminds me to openly give and receive love despite the vulnerability or fear that comes with that.

As a result of not liking myself very much and believing that nobody else did either, I became very emotionally closed off. As far as I was concerned, everyone wanted to hurt me. I was better off being completely on my own and never needing another human to love or support me. 

I built walls around my heart, and it was hard to let people love me. But I feel like I'm finally starting to chip away at those walls now. I'm trying to love and let myself be loved. It's scary and vulnerable, but it's worth it. There's nothing quite like loving openly and without fear. My best moments in life have come from letting go and letting love. The best feeling in the world is knowing and trusting that you're loved by others. Being lovestrong means having the strength and courage to let my walls down.     

3. I wear it to show my support for Christina Perri.  

And of course, I wear it simply because I love CP. :-)

What does being lovestrong mean to you? I would love to hear your thoughts if you have any to share. xo

<3 Madison 

http://www.christinaperri.com/

http://christinaperriblogs.tumblr.com/ 

When you hit a wall

I've been thinking a lot about growing up and navigating life lately. 

Life really is like a maze. One minute you can be navigating your way through it like a boss, and then the next minute you find yourself backed into a corner and desperately trying to figure out how to get back on track. 

I hit walls a lot, as I suspect many of us do. I've been trying to work on the way I react when this happens.

I've realized that you have four choices when you hit a wall in life. You can either...

A) Panic

B) Should all over yourself until you feel as worthy as a pile of pencil shavings

C) Curl up into a fetal position and do nothing

D) Step back, dust yourself off, and think of a positive/productive way to tear down or remove yourself from the wall 

I have a history of doing A, B and C, but I think I'm going to actually give D a try this time. 

We hit walls for a reason. I think it's a lesson in slowing down, taking a step back and being forced to take a closer look at certain aspects of our lives.  

Maybe something needs to change. Maybe something needs more attention or more work. Maybe you just need to slow down and give yourself a break instead of constantly pushing yourself to be on top of everything. Maybe it's all of the above. 

So I am determined to NOT choose A, B or C this time. 

I am going to re-connect with the things that matter most to me. I am going to start being more patient with myself. I am going to start letting people help me instead of assuming that it's me against the world. I am going to start making monthly goal sheets.  

And I am going to be just fine.

<3 Madison   

    

You shouldn't care what people think (Because no one is thinking about you)

I have a confession to make. I can be really really really self-conscious sometimes. There aren't enough "really's" to describe how self-conscious I can get. It's like this crippling obsession over what everybody really thinks of me. I've struggled with it my whole life. 

Ever since I got epically rejected by one of my friends in fifth grade, I've carried around this belief that very few people will actually like me. I've gotten better over the years and have started opening up a little more, but I still care way too much about what other people think. 

I can just be walking down the street, and as cars and people pass me by, my inner dialogue goes a little something like this:

I look so awkward right now. I'm just shuffling along with my head down and my shoulders hunched, avoiding eye contact and trying to look casual. I'm not casual. I look stupid. I look insecure. I bet everybody is noticing how insecure I look right now. I can practically feel their eyes burning into me. I can practically hear them laughing and saying, "Look at that awkward girl over there. She looks like a vagrant. Look at her just walking along the side of the road like she's homeless or something. I should hit her with my car."  

And every time a car or another human being passes me or looks at me for even a split second, I'll just clench up until they've passed. It's ridiculous and completely irrational. The anxiety of coming into contact with other people gets so bad sometimes that I can barely even leave my home. 

While a large part of this has to do with my history of rejection, ostracization and social anxiety, it IS something that I'm working hard to be more consciously aware of. It's an insecurity that I've been trying to pay more attention to and not blame on other people or ancient circumstances.  

People have told me that other people care about me way less than I think they do. And they're so absolutely right.

Random strangers who drive or walk past me on the street more than likely don't give two shits about me or how I look. They're just going about their business, thinking about where they're headed and what's in store for the day. They're not breaking their necks to take a closer look at me so they can laugh at how awkward and out of place I look. It's all in my head.

It's also in my head that people I know are constantly judging and analyzing my personal life decisions. Although negative offhand comments have been made in the past, most of the things I believe are beliefs that I just pulled out of thin air. I have a habit of taking the slightest little comment and blowing it up times a thousand in my head. 

Someone could say, "Sears is hiring. You should look into it," and all I will hear is, "I don't approve of what you're trying to do for a living. You should get a real job like everyone else."

And then I'll form a belief in my head that my face is the first face that pops into people's minds when they see a "now hiring" sign in the window of an establishment. And then I'll get angry about it. 

All this because someone innocently and casually let me know that Sears was hiring.

So yeah. That is what I've most recently been trying to be more aware of---the fact that people care way less than I think they do. The assumption that everyone is judging and analyzing me is entirely in my head. The real problem is that I judge and analyze MYSELF. I need to stop doing that.

Stop worrying about what people are thinking of you. Chances are, no one is thinking a single thing.

<3 Madison

   

                      

A random update

Hello friends.

It's been way too long since my last post (shame on me), so I decided to just pop in and let you all know what I've been up to and what's been on my mind.

Truth is, I haven't really been up to much. Sometimes I go weeks without inspiration for a new post. I think it's because my life is too routine and I don't get out much. I feel like I should plan to do something I've never done before---you know, be spontaneous or take some kind of big risk. I'm open to ideas...

Also, I was letting my mind wander yesterday and trying to figure out why I'm so resistant to change.

You see, Taylor Swift is coming out with a new album this month. I've been a huge fan of Taylor (still am) since I was fifteen. She got me through all of my high school relationship monstrosities, and I really feel like I've grown up with her. I have all her albums and know the words to all her songs. I love her simple storytelling, guitar strumming way of singing songs.

So if any of you are Taylor Swift fans and have been listening to the new songs she has been releasing in the weeks leading up to her album release, you know that she's going for a different sound on this one. She's going more pop. She's playing with auto-tune a little bit. So I've basically been walking around feeling like a giant part of my life has been snatched away from me. Because the storytelling, guitar strumming Taylor Swift is all I've ever known.

I obviously have no way of knowing if the entire album is going to be like that or if she's going to have a delicate balance between her old sound and her new sound. Either way, I'm still excited.

But the point of the story is that I realized that I'm resistant to change because I look at every change as a loss. And that is a terrible way to look at change. If I continue to feel a gaping sense of loss every time something I'm accustomed to changes, I'm going to walk around my entire life feeling pain and loss. I don't want to live that way anymore. I want to be able to bend and evolve and suck it up. As long as I'm alive, things are going to change. People are going to change. EVERYTHING is going to change.

So that's the most recent thing I've been pondering over. Taylor Swift is still Taylor Swift. I know that I will eventually grow to love her new sound because I'm too loyal of a fan not to. She is evolving. I shall evolve with her.

And I will do my best to evolve with any other changes that take place in my life. Change is inevitable, and I'm trying really hard to grasp that concept once and for all. I really think I will feel happier and freer if I do. (Freer is a weird word, by the way. It doesn't look the way it sounds.)

And lastly, I just want you all to know that I love getting emails from you. Every time someone emails me and I email them back, they seem surprised by the fact that I actually emailed them back---like they weren't expecting me to or something.

They're all like, "Whoa, thanks for responding!" or "Whoa, I wasn't expecting to hear back from you!" or "Whoa, you got back to me so quickly! Thanks!"

And I'm just thinking, "Why wouldn't I get back to you? You just poured your heart out to me and gave me the nicest compliments ever!"

I read every email I get. I respond to every email I get. (Unless it's hate mail, but I've never gotten hate mail. PLEASE DON'T SEND ME HATE MAIL.)

Interacting with the people who actually care about what I have to say is important to me. I would never read a heart wrenching or super nice email and just be like, "Eh. Okay. Moving on to the next."

So don't hesitate to email me if you need someone to talk to or whatever. I can't promise to fix your problems or give you mind-blowing, life-changing advice, but I WILL respond.

Happy Friday!

<3 Madison      

   

One thing I'll never understand

I stayed up for awhile last night thinking about something that made me feel very sad, angry, helpless and guilty. It's something I'm sure a lot of other people have thought about before. But it has really been eating at my soul.

The world is really unfair.

I'm not talking about people cutting in front of you at Burger King, taking credit for your work or parking in your favorite spot.

I'm talking about people hurting, grieving, struggling to get out of bed every morning, and almost hating every happy or joyous person they come into contact with.

I don't understand why some parents get to watch their kids walk, talk, graduate and fall in love while others never even get to hear their kid say their first word or see them waddle across the room without falling down.

I don't understand why somebody somewhere is watching someone they love come home safe and sound while somebody somewhere else is finding out that someone they love will never walk through the front door ever again.

I don't understand why some people are healthy and others are fighting a terminal illness.

I don't understand why some people are spared from violence and abuse while others have to live with it every single day.

It makes me feel like an asshole for being happy, healthy and knowing that the people I love are safe and within arm's reach. I am so infinitely grateful for all of these things. Obviously. But it still makes me feel like an asshole because somebody somewhere---maybe even in my own neighborhood---is unhappy, or unhealthy, or suffering a terrible loss. It's just not fair.

And it kills me because I know I can't fix it. I've always felt an obligation to comfort people and make things better. I hate seeing people unhappy. My favorite thing about writing this blog is that I am inspiring people and making people feel better and more hopeful. When I get emails and comments from people who have been moved or changed by something I wrote, it's the most rewarding feeling in the world.

But there is so much suffering that I'll never be able to fix. Nothing I say or do will ever feel like enough. I can't bring someone's kid back. I can't rid someone of awful memories. I can't turn back the clock for someone.

Life is chaotic. Terrible things happen to good people---every day, normal people just like me and you.

I've always believed that everything happens for a reason. But I'll never understand why some people suffer so badly while others don't. It will never make sense, and it will never be justified.

Please don't ever take the love and happiness in your life for granted. Please.