It's kinda hard to live without regrets...

Everyone says you shouldn't regret anything, regrets only cause you to be upset and quite often live in the past. Which to be fair is very true, but if there's nothing in life that we regret, what do we really learn from our mistakes?
All the biggest and most important social lessons I've learnt so far come from situations and decisions that have made me cringe like hell looking back on them. The things we tend not to regret are the things we get away with or we don't care too much about, so we end up making the same silly mistakes again.

Regret is a powerful thing, and as much people encourage you not to live your life with regrets, I think they are necessary to us, when it comes to learning life lessons. The trick is, not to allow them to make you think in the past, and of 'what could of been.' But to use them to fuel you to either fix the situation, or to avoid putting yourself in that situation again.

This is something I'm only learning properly now, I've spend the past few months with my head and my dreams back in last year, it's not healthy for you mentally or emotionally. All I know is that I have to take my regrets and try and use them positively, and maybe in the future I'll see it more of a learning curve than a mistake or a regret... and I'll be a little happier! :)

Sometimes when we're stuck in the middle of what to do in a situation, our heart tells us to do one thing, and our head tells us to do the complete opposite. Usually the decision your heart is telling you to do equals risking looking like a giant buffoon, or as silly as the speedo guy at my swimming centre. But at the same time, if you don't make that decision and follow your heart, you know you'll regret not trying. So what are you to do?
Some people say, if you want it enough, nothing will stop you reaching for it, and some say, if you want it enough, the thought of not achieving it or in situations of love and relationships being rejected is enough to scare you out of being honest.
At the end of the day, if you go with your head, there's always going to be some hurt with 'what could of been' but at least if you go with your heart, you actually have the chance of being completely happy. You just have to work out for yourself whether you're happy to risk it.

Being confident with identity.

I just read a blog post of a friend I used to be extremely close to before I came to Uni, (http://amy-dale.blogspot.com/) And one of her blog posts (Here goes nothing) talks about her identity as a person and how she see's herself.
Through-out life we all pick up different Labels/titles/identities such as Mother, Father, Boss, Employee, Wife, Husband etc, and they're all pretty standard yes? But sometimes we pick up more unique things within our identity which sometimes people find hard to accept. For example my friend Amy talks about how she feels there is a boy trapped within her body and that he is a part of her, and I really admire her courage to be able to tell people this part of her which is obviously very important to her identity, especially when it's something that not everyone finds themselves able to accept in a person. I'm not saying you should go and write a blog about all the unique things about you, but what I'm trying to say is that even though not everyone may be able to accept certain things about you. If they are things that are a part of you, mean a lot to you and make you happy, you shouldn't shy away from it.
A lot of people get depressed over hiding various parts of themselves and their lives because of what people may think about them, or that they've convinced themselves the people in their lives will leave and strangers will look at them in the street and say a load of crap. Sometimes unfortunately these things do happen, not everyone can accept things, or agree with how you feel etc. But if you're acting ashamed of yourself or a part of your life, you won't be happy. You have to embrace every part of you and be like 'This is me.'

As I said to my friend Amy, I wouldn't look her in any other way than the way I already see her. I see her as a great friend, someone I share many memories with etc. She's a lovely person, and someone that always has me in stitches about 90% of the time i'm with her (The other 10% I'm recovering from laughing at all the stupid things we do and say together!)

A lot of people may not feel the same as you, agree with you, or even accept it, but pretty much nearly everyone who cares about you will respect you and that whatever it is is a part of your life and a part of you!

My facebook and twitter is now linked at the side... if you hover over some random rectangle things on your right! :)
Or Email me at Shaneyxcakes@gmail.com

And don't forget to check out my friend Amy's blog! She's an awesome girl! :)

Are our relationships always worth it?

One thing that I see with many couples and relationships is that they spend all their time arguing and being annoyed at each other, and it just makes me think, why are you guys even together?

I know a few people have commented on this, and feel the same way as me, and asked advice on this, the only thing I can say is to just ask yourselves...

Are you happy? Seems like a stupid obvious question. But really think about it, does arguing make you happy? honestly? Too many people turn around and say 'But he/she makes me happy' or that when it's good it's amazing. But are the bad times really worth the good times?

We all get stressed out with our relationships at some point, but a lot of couples bicker and argue almost every day if not every day. Yet still won't leave each other. Everyone deserves so much better than that. If you're getting upset with each other that often then the truth is, you're just not right for each other.
Would you stick around through all that arguing if it was with a friend? Doubtful.

Everyone goes through rough patches, where arguing seems to be constant, this is usually because the trust in the relationship has been broken by one of the partners, You do sometimes get through it, but that's what breaks are for right? To escape that.
Keeping a relationship together so tightly through rough patches like those, only puts more pressure and strain into a relationship.

People are terrified of going on 'breaks' because they feel it is the end of the relationship, and people do use the term 'break' to break up, so it's understandable. But they are good for giving the relationship what it needs to get back on track. It's not rocket science to know that taking the pressure away from a relationship will do it good. Space always helps the relationship calm down, and gives people the chance to get over what is hurting them.

Just a thought :)

Cutting off ties....

Should we allow the people that hurt us to stick around in our lives or should we cut off all ties, and if so, when is the best time to do so?

This is a situation that's a lot easier said than done... If someone has hurt us, we can still want them in our lives, and still want to be around them. But we don't always see if that's good for us.
No one should place themselves in a situation that will hurt them. If it upsets you to be around them, or to talk to someone from a past relationship that has hurt you. Then don't have them around and don't talk to them.
The reason why people get upset when they're with their ex's is because they miss the better times with them, and having them so close. A little bit of pointing out the obvious there, but we try to keep them around, and in our lives because we try to latch on to what we had with them, and we get upset because we know it's not the same. That part of our life is over, and we have to deal with that change. Sometimes it's not always easy to accept.
If it isn't that easy to accept, then the best way to accept it, is to cut off those ties, don't emotionally torture yourself with it. (Sounds a little dramatic, but it is what you are doing to yourself.) People ask when is the best way to cut off ties with an ex, the answer? The second it starts to hurt you. Yeah, people can stay friends after a relationship and many people still hang out and stuff, but if you weren't ready to give up that relationship, then it's only going to hurt you, and that hurt isn't necessary, and I don't believe it's a good idea for anyone to put themselves in that situation.

You can come back to it later, when you're emotionally ready to have them in your life again.

Something that seems even more crazy is when we have moved on, that person from the past can still come back into ours lives, and we remember how it was, and begin to miss it again. It happens to a lot of people and we end up comparing it to what we have now. Sometimes even believing we were happier with what we had rather than what we have. And I think it's a little bit of 'we want what we can't have' sort of thing, and especially if we see someone else with what we want, we get jealous, and want it just a little bit more...

Some people even break off relationships to go back to what they had, and mostly they do regret it, and to everyone outside of the situation, it seems like a crazy thing to do. Is it?
Especially if we're the ones who got hurt in the past relationship, it's a lot easier to fall back into the trap we were in then. Because we didn't willingly take away what made us happy, so we crave it a little bit more because we weren't finished with it. It was something that we wanted and it got taken away from us.

It's natural for when that happens for us to want it back, and what people don't always see is the mistake of throwing away what they have now, because we're comfortable and happy, and what we had that made us happy before is a temptation to what we think would make us happier.
People believe that a person has changed, and they won't hurt them again... etc. We have a lot of excuses to justify what we're doing/thinking/feeling. But in reality it's usually a false happiness, things don't change, things didn't work out for a reason, and we forget that. We also don't realise or underestimate how much we'd be losing by throwing away what we have then, one, because we're comfortable and sitting tight and happy. And two, because usually, we've never been in a situation where we could of lost what we have before.
People don't realise the damage they do by throwing away relationships, because of the temptation, the illusion of things being better the second/third/forth etc time around and because we don't always appreciate what we do have in our lives.
To other people it seems crazy, but they don't know what we're thinking or feeling, we might see more of a picture of the situation, but outsiders can actually see the clearer picture. We do tend to lose our way, and follow our senses and emotions, but they can be very misleading.

Do we need to follow our head or our heart? Our head needs to pull the reigns on our hearts every now and again, but not so much so we aren't going anywhere. We need to follow what makes us happy, but also what is good for us.
And what seems to make us happy, isn't always what's good..

Forgiving them...

At some point, the majority of us do end up getting hurt in a relationship, and sometimes we find it hard to forgive and let go, we stick around the people that hurt us, and to be honest we don't always really know why.
We believe we still want them in our lives, but deep down do we? And is it really a good idea?

Relationships can be hard to get over, and sometimes when we are happy and when we've feel we've moved on, every now and again that ghost of the past can creep in and we can begin to doubt ourselves again. It's perfectly normal...

When someone hurts us in a relationship, it can hurt for some time. One thing people do get confused about is the difference between forgiving someone, and them just being hurt by the events that have happened.
The two things very often go hand in hand, but they also can be very separate. It's very rare that someone can be over something that someone else has done to them, yet still can't forgive them. The two main situations people find themselves in are either;
-Being hurt by someone, and not being able to forgive, or
-Being able to forgive, yet the situation still hurts them.

The main give away to how you feel is how you act with the person that has hurt you. If you find yourself picking out little things about them, and looking at them negatively, or you find yourself bitching about them for no reason etc, in a nutshell, acting bitter, angry and petty about them, then you haven't forgiven them. No matter how much you'd like to.

However, if you can find yourself to be able to hang around with them, and not feel so bitter towards them. Even if the thought of what happened still hurts you. If you can continue a civil relationship with them, then you have usually forgiven them.
But you can only forgive someone when you're ready to, it's not something you can rush.

For example;
Me and my most recent ex, had a really weird relationship, it was really on and off. The reason was just because he couldn't commit to me for whatever reason... But he's a good guy, and always wanted to, always tried to commit.. But something was just stopping him.
At first I found it really hard to hold a conversation with him without being either angry or upset. Even if the conversation had nothing to do with anything that happened. I just couldn't be around him.
But then as time passed a little, I found myself to be able to hang around with him, and we are still really close friends. But I can't talk to him about relationships that he has, or anything similar, because what happened still hurts me, yet I can forgive him because I understand why what happened happened, and I don't feel angry or bitter towards him for what happened, but it still hurts to know that he couldn't commit and possibly could to someone else...

The best time to forgive someone, is when you're ready to be civil to them. It won't work any other time.

I Don't know where I'm going with life anymore...

Hi Rebbie-
I feel as if im going no where in life atm, i went to college, enjoyed it, made friends and passed, but now i don't know what to do, i just want to earn money and work.. and sometimes i feel so alone even though i know i have people around me..i don't know if i'm good enough for anyone.
Anon.




Hi Anon!
First of all, Congrats on getting through college! I know getting a job is really hard at the moment. Assuming you're on job seekers? Have you tried temping agencies? They're agencies that help people find temporary work, while their employers are on temporary leave for things such as maternity leave/sickness leave. To find some in your local area Google 'Temping agencies - then wherever you live' and sign up, it's free to do so.
A couple of my flatmates found work via these over the summer. It's a great way to earn some money until you find yourself a permanent job!
Have you also considered Volunteering in a charity shop or something? I know it's not paid work, but I've done a little and it definitely keeps your spirits up, and gives you something to do so you don't feel like you're not doing anything with your life.
You shouldn't feel so hard on yourself. Of course you're good enough for people, as you said you have people around you, just surround yourself with those people and just think about how much they mean to you. It surprisingly instantly puts things into a much better perspective.
Everyone feels alone at times, even when we have everyone around. It's usually just a phase that passes, the best cure is going out and doing something fun with your friends, bowling, or even going out to get a slice of pizza.
Surround yourself with the people who make you the happiest, it won't last forever, i promise :).


Anyone else want some free advice on anything? Email me at Shaneyxcakes@gmail.com