Show Your Love

This isn’t going to be a long post, but it’s something that has been on my heart lately.

Do things for the people you love and show your love for them each chance you get. Care for them and show you were thinking about them.. even if it’s a quick text saying “hey, I love you and I was thinking about you”. I had the privilege of being home this weekend with my family, and whenever I get these special chances of being with them, I try my hardest to care for them and to make them smile. I don’t need to go into detail about what I did/do for them, because those moments don’t need to be broadcasted when the only reaction I need is theirs, but to make your loved ones smile is truly a beautiful thing. We all have different struggles/different issues going on in our lives. Sometimes we aren’t even fully aware of everything going on in the lives of people we love. It’s very important to remind the people you love that you do love them and that your love for them is abundant even if it’s shown in the simplest and smallest of ways.

Every time I think of one of my friends, or family members.. I will text them. It doesn’t matter if it’s 2 am, or if it’s randomly or whatever it may be. If their name comes into my head, I will find a reason to reach out to them and send my love. I think this is something people should do more of.. text or call someone when you are thinking about them. It’s actually a very simple, but powerful thing that can really enhance someone’s mood, and it can also strengthen the relationship you have with them. Every time I think of how much I love my dad, I tell him that. Even if I had already said it earlier that day.. I believe you can never say “I love you” enough.

Life is so short. We aren’t promised a certain amount of time on this earth. Some knowledge I gained with losing my mom is that love is a special thing and so is taking care of what is yours. Take care of your family. Show your love. Talk to the ones you care for. Be involved in their lives. Reach out. Surprise them. Make them feel special. When you care for others, others will care for you (if they are the right people). When you water what is yours, it will grow into beautiful and worth-while things. Time is powerful. Invest in the people you love.

Making my loved ones smile, laugh, happy, comfortable, see their worth, feel beautiful, feel strong.. will always be worth it. And though making people feel great is a wonderful feeling for them, it’s just as wonderful of a feeling for you.

Cass🌻

If You Try Your Best

Feeling discouraged is not always a bad thing. Sometimes it just means you cared so much about something and you are upset with how it turned out..I feel ya, it really stinks when things don’t seem to go how you would of liked them too.

On my journey, I have met discouragement eye to eye many times. I have struggled with keeping goals, I have been drained from school and unmotivated, and I have not always been proud of myself..oh being discouraged has happened a lot in my teens and twenties. I just want to say though, being discouraged is normal. Feeling bummed out and confused happens to everyone at some point in their lives. It’s normal to have feelings of being unsatisfied with the current situation going on because you want better, or thought you could do better.

One thing my Dad always said to me (and still does) is “as long as you tried your best, that’s all you can do”. I carried that into multiple phases of my life. If I was trying my best and my hardest, I needed to be proud of that. For me, my biggest discouragement has always been school. I have never been the person that could wing everything they did and pass with flying colors. High school was not easy for me at all and I had to try in nearly every subject in order to pass, or not fail too miserably. It was discouraging to be in classes with kids that just seemed to get it and understand. I was always the person that would get a test back on my desk and not flip it over because I was worried who might see whatever grade was given to me. I remember hating school so much to the point where I didn’t know if I wanted to go to college. Heck, I didn’t even know if I would get accepted into college.

I believe one of the reasons I struggled so much in high school was because of my mom’s passing when I was a freshman. That’s a big weight on a 15 year old girl. It wasn’t until I was out of High School when I had realized I accomplished a really impressive thing. 1) I graduated highschool and 2) I got accepted into college. I was so hard on myself during those years and was so discouraged during those times that I could barely see my accomplishments and how amazing I was actually doing. I compared my life to others whose lives were completely unlike mine. I was not giving myself the credit I deserved during that time when I really should of. If I could go back and tell 15 year old me anything right now, it would be something along the lines of “girl, you are doing so much better than you think you are doing. Don’t give up, life will be so much more beautiful after this chapter.”

Fast forward to today.. if you’ve read my posts, you would know I still have times of complete discouragement, stress and uncertainty.. and that it’s okay. College has not been easy for me either, but unlike High School, it’s been easier for me to give myself that credit and see my worth. I still find myself in times where I compare my design projects to others, or compare my life to others, but in the back of my mind I always hear my Dad saying “as long as you tried your best, that’s all you can do.” And it’s true.. as long as you are trying your best whether it’s with school, a sport, a relationship, a job, health, fitness.. whatever it may be.. acknowledge that and be proud of yourself. Even if you are failing, or not doing as amazing as you would of hoped. You do your best and the rest with fall into place. I can’t tell you how many of my failures have turned into the biggest blessing and have been some of the most humbling and self reflective experiences for me. Feeling discouraged is not always a bad thing because it shows you care, but don’t allow discouragement to control your life and your thoughts about yourself. I guarantee you that you are doing a lot better than you believe you are doing. Don’t give up, try your best and be proud of yourself even if you fail.

Cass

BEING COMFORTABLE BEING YOU

My biggest critic is myself. Being a 20 year old woman in the world today, its honestly really tough. As a female, it feels like we constantly have to live up to the standards society makes for us. That we have to look a certain way in order to feel a certain way. I don’t like that.

I am super hard on myself. I honestly often compare myself to other women because I am not satisfied with myself. I get told that I am beautiful, but unfortunately I have a difficult time seeing it. I work out regularly, I watch beauty videos on YouTube, I take care of my body and buy clothes that compliment my body, but no matter everything I do.. I’m just not satisfied. Though the opinions of society have a lot to do with why young girls like me feel the way that we do about ourselves, what I’ve realized is that I think too negatively about myself that it overpowers any positive thoughts. I am not gonna see what others see because of what I tell myself. I am going to see what my mind tells me. If I believe that I am not beautiful, then I will not see a beautiful girl in the mirror. That’s just how it is. So I began to think about what I could do to make myself feel beautiful and really believe that I am. What could I possibly do to help my self-esteem? I came up with this list that I would like to share with you.

1. Praying: It is so amazing what God can do to our hearts and minds just by devoting time to him and praying about what we are struggling with. He is there to comfort us and help us in our times of needs.
2. Surrounding myself with better people: For so long I have put myself around people that have made me feel negative about myself. Whether they say things to bring me down, or their actions effect me in a negative way.. It hinders how I see myself.
3. Taking even better care of my body: I don’t just mean running on a treadmil every day, and eating only green, but just doing little things here and there that are gonna benefit my happiness and how I see myself. Going to the gym and eating better do help, but hell if I want a cheese burger and French fries, I am getting a cheese burger and French fries. I’m staying away from things that could be harmful to myself mentally that I consume, like alcohol. Im changing up my beauty and skin care routine and trying to really take care of my skin. Another thing I should mention about food.. Actually eating. Sometimes when I’m really down, I just don’t eat and that leaves me miserable and I lose a lot of weight. Not eating to get skinny is so not healthy and you might lose weight by doing it, but it will not make you feel better mentally what-so-ever.
4. More time for me and less time for everyone else: it’s okay to be selfish sometimes and right now that is going to be how it’s going to be. I’m really going to focus on myself and what I’m doing with my life and taking care of me rather than taking care of others and putting too much focus on other people. Don’t get me wrong, if someone needs me then I am 100% there. Right now I just need to focus on my happiness. When you focus on others too much then that leave barely any time for yourself and for you to work out your own problems because you have theirs on top of yours. I need to learn to love me and that can only happen if my attention is on me.
5. Stop comparing myself: it’s not okay to compare yourself to other people, I know. I need to stop looking at what others have and see what I do have. I need to see that I am beautiful like the girls I envy.. We are all beautiful in our own ways. I need to stop comparing my body to others. I need to stop comparing my face to others. I need to see my beauty for what it is and accept that. When I start accepting that, it will be so much easier to love myself and see just how beautiful I am inside and out.

This is a process. This might take awhile, but I’m willing to do all this for myself.

Cass♥