Sorry, not a happy one...

I apologize but I don't know if I'm going to be writing much this week, I'll try to keep on posting things that I wrote in advance, though. 

You know when you think everything goes well, but then somehow everything crashes down, everything gets thrown out like nothing happened... It is a horrible feeling. It's an empty feeling which consumes you entirely without explanation. It kills you slowly, makes you cry like never before, and it makes you realize how stupid you are for believing something could be good, ever good enough. That throwing up feeling you get from anxiety and crying too much that keeps coming back without warning... 
I don't know how people go through so much heartbreak and still stand up, I can't move, frozen, numb and destroyed. Barely breathing under these giant tears that are running down my face. I don't even know how to explain myself, I'm so ... I don't know. 
It's like that song "Give Me Love" from Ed Sheeran, I just want to hold on, but just like the song, I can't have love, it's not possible! That song is just going to repeat itself for a while, a long time cause honestly I can't do anything right now. Cupid can give love to others, but can't receive it. Cupid can make others be happy, make them feel loved, but he can't get it for himself. 

Why are we ready to go through hell and back for someone who doesn't want that to happen and prefers to leave? Why do we keep suffering? What's the catch? Are we suppose to feel this pain forever? 
Funny thing is I'm actually realizing that I'm a complete mess, worse than ever before, I don't even know who I am anymore. I gave myself away and now it's over in an instant. Now I'm supposed to trust people? How can someone go through this? I applause them, if you can stand tall in this situation, you are brave and strong! All I'll be doing is drink up, cry, fall back into depression, watch 50 First Dates, and listen to the same sad song... No more sleep, no more eating.... 

If you are one of these people that manage to get through a painful situation without falling into a deep depression, I admire you! You are beyond courageous! You have a strong personality, the level of emotion is under your control, that's amazing! Mine are all over the place, completely out the door, 

Anyways, sorry about this short post, and a sad one! It wasn't expected at all. This week might be boring :/ I apologize. I don't know when I'll be posting happy ones as I am entirely off track. If you are in the same situation right now, please keep in mind that it won't happen all the time (hopefully), that next time keep these walls up, don't give in, sex can wait, and don't develop feelings at all. Or just don't fall in love at all! The pain is beyond unbearable. I can't tolerate at all, being dumped isn't fun. 

~ Bella

Psych 101... Love, Listening to your heart...

Love may be one of the most complex human emotions, but also possibly the most central too. There are many different theories regarding love and while psychologists agree that love is central human emotion, they are still unsure exactly why it happens, or how. At present, there are four primary theories that attempt to explain love, emotional attachment, and liking. 

RUBIN'S SCALES OF LIKING AND LOVING

Psychologist Zick Rubin was one of the first people to create a method of empirically measuring love. Rubin believed that romantic love was composed of three elements: attachment, caring, and intimacy.

• Attachment: The need to be with another person and be cared for. Important components of attachment include approval and physical contact. 
• Caring: Valuing the happiness and needs of the other person just as much as you value your own. 
• Intimacy: Communicating your private desires, feelings, and beliefs.

Rubin then created two questionnaires that would be able to measure these elements. According to Rubin, the difference between liking someone and loving someone can be seen in how we evaluate the other person. Rubin's questions were then created to measure feelings of liking another person and feelings of loving another person, and then these results were compared. When Rubin gave the questionnaire to a group of participants, he told them to base their answers on how they felt about a good friend and how they felt about their significant other. He found that, while the scores regarding significant others rated high on the loving scale. Thus, Rubin was able to successfully measure feelings of love. 

ELAINE HATFIELD'S PASSIONATE AND COMPASSIONATE LOVE

Psychologist Elaine Hatfield claimed that there was only two forms of love: passionate and compassionate love, 

• Passionate love: Feelings of intense sexual arousal, attraction, affection, emotion, and a strong urge to be with one another. Passionate love tends to be short-lived, lasting from six to thirty months, but can lead to compassionate love. 
• Compassionate love: Feelings of attachment, respect, trust, affection, and commitment. Compassionate love lasts longer than passionate love. 

Hatfield also differentiated between reciprocated love, which leads to feelings of elation and fulfillment, and unreciprocated love, which leads to feelings of desperation and despair. She believed there were certain key factors that had to exist for compassionate and passionate love to occur. These include: 

• Timing: When an individual is ready to fall and be in love.
• Similarity: A person has the tendency to fall passionately in love with an individual that is similar to him or herself.
• Early attachment styles: Long-term and deeper relationships are often the results of people who are strongly attached to one another, while people who fall in and out of love often generally do not have a strong attachment or connection.

"Studying psychology is fun because you're always looking for the same things.." 

~Bella

Let's change everything about you...

"You sure you want to dress like this?" He asked with a fake smile on his face making me want to vomit. 

This situation had sadly happened to me a few times, and even though I'm quite headstrong, when it's your boyfriend asking you this, you change your clothes immediately! It starts like this, little comments, then it becomes like this:

"Oh, your opinion doesn't count, you aren't a professional, you don't know what you're talking about. You should just stay quiet!" 

This happened to me many times... I lost count after 11... To tell the truth, I would have rather have forgotten about how many times these types of comments affected me dearly. 

I don't want to generalize everyone so do NOT take it personally! If you do, though, maybe you should take a good look at yourself... 

To debut, I have to say that it affects women and men! Both gender not just women, but since I'm one, obviously my experience might slightly be different than what a guy might experience! 

I've done this once, only once... 

I have been in a relationship with a sweet guy, who were complimenting me enough and made me smile. At first, everything seems perfect (don't try and deny it, we all know that's true), then slowly, both people open up, are more themselves... In my case, I was always myself, I didn't try to hide or fake something. But after a couple months, little comments like the first phrase began to come up a lot more than usual. It would be casual, but still, it was there. So I did what others in love young woman would do, change the way I was dressed or how I put my hair up or down... Started as little... Then the comments would be more around my personality. " You should be quiet..." or " I didn't like how you smiled at the waiter, it was too flirty..." Like really? 

Comments like these are just annoying, and it shows that the other person wants to change you. It's not right, and no one should try to change another human being! 
I'm not trying to tell you to just be quiet, not tell the other person that something bothers you, but there are ways to say these things! Don't aggress, or make the person feel terrible for what they may have done! 

Tell them calmly, don't try to push anything, you can't change anyone, but if that person wants to ameliorate their ways of doing things, they will under their own time, not yours. Don't push it or else you will ending pushing them away, losing them. We wouldn't want that to happen! Communication is key, yes, but don't try and control the other person, they aren't your property to rule over, there are no laws in love, so don't make any! 
For example: 
If you have trouble with the way the other person is dressed, don't say, "Don't wear that" or " You look like a sl**" Don't insult, just be like, "Honey, I don't think this fits well, do you have anything you can wear. I don't think it's appropriate for the occasion." 
It's that simple, but don't overdo it either, after all, people are free to say and do as they want! 

Now, there are some good changes in life and relationships! 

You can change into someone better, ameliorate your ways of expressing yourself (that's a big issue of mine). When you are changing your way of living, leaving the past behind you and concentrate on your future. Or even when you change the way you view ideas... These are the good changes, and it's wonderful. The more you grow up, mature up, we all evolve in our ways and time. We change perspective, change our views, change our destiny in a way! Just don't try and change your partner because you don't like something! They aren't yours, they aren't your property, you have no rights to try to change or even help someone change without approval. 

Just be yourself and let them be, accept and keep growing as a couple! We all deserve to be happy so don't destroy something beautiful because you have a clear idea of how you want your other half to be like. There is no one like you imagine, take the good instead of trying to find perfection. 

"Don't let anyone change who you are, to become what they need." - Margott

~Bella

The Book of Symbols 4...

Shell

From time immemorial, we have held conch shells to our ears to hear the surflike sound - the eternal tides of life that engrave their markings upon us. The human ear resembles a shell, gathering vibrations of air in its outer cavity called the "conch," and directing them through the winding passages of its shell-like inner ear as sound, symbolically evoking an interior listening. "He who has ears to hear let him hear," said Jesus of the hidden meaning of his parables. Images of the Buddha with elongated ears suggest that listening with the inner ear includes keeping silent, meditating on what has been said and opening ourselves to the resonance of the source. 

Shell-shaped and oversized, the ear of the Grand

Buddha suggests wise listening. Detail from a carved

cliff face, 713 C.E., Leshan, China

We have also raised the conch shell to our lips, trumpeting as gods of the sea might have, for the sound of the conch was said to lull the tumultuous waves of the sea.That the conch comes from the deep associates it with the underworld. The Mayan deity Quetzalcoatl mythically descends to Mictlan, the abode of the skeletons, as a dead conch that has fallen silent, so that worms may bore into him in order that he come to life again inside (Moctezuma, 138-9).

Figure, perhaps a deity, emerging from a shell,

showing whorls a growth. Effigy vase, painted

terra-cotta, Mayan, 600-800 C.E.

Shells are mysterious sea treasure, in beautiful shapes, sometimes symmetrical, often ridged and whorled, reflecting stages of growth. The recesses of a shell are reminiscent of the sacred spiral, labyrinth, and center. The intimation of marine life is also an allusion to the hidden life of our interior world, sometimes surfacing, leaving its evidence in consciousness, sometimes not. A shell is an exoskeleton serving to protect the vulnerable creature that dwells within. But shells are also delicate, easily broken, not the tough carapace of defensiveness. We speak of coming out of, or going into, one's "shell," suggesting a gradual, tenuous exposure to the world, or of retreat from it, in privacy, refuge or withdrawal.

As if incised by the waters of eternity- a stone conch 

shell. Aztec, ca. 1486-1502, Temple Mayor, Mexico.

The shape and depth of some shells, the lush pink of their coloring, brings to mind the female vulva, associating the shell with the allure and mystery of the feminine, and with incarnation and fertility. Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love (to the Roman Venus), materializing out of the ocean's foam, is borne ashore on a seashell. In his celebrated painting, Odilon Redon depicts the open, vulva-shaped shell, its soft opalescence infusing the sky and the goddess lying, yet standing, asleep and yet waking, as in a vision. We adorn ourselves with shells, remembering the goddess and her beauty, her seductions. The shell and its evocation of the uterine salt-sea, the moon, tidal ebb, and flow imparts a sense of birth and rebirth; early Christian art made the empty shell an image of the soul's departure to immortality. 

The Birth of Venus, by Odilon Redon, oil on canvas,

ca. 1912, France. 

~Bella

Little note: I won't be able to post on Friday so I'm going to post tomorrow instead. Sorry about that, but you'll still get a post :) 

Watch out for the wall...

As you already know if you read my very early on posts, I'm a hopeless romantic...
http://onemorecupidtothelist.blogspot.com/2016/05/do-you-have-twin-because-i-technically.html

Sadly, I've been keeping all my feelings away, locked behind walls to protect myself from outside pain, love. The internal pain has been eating me alive, but I'm dealing with it... Hopefully.

That protection wall you build after many heartaches or just a single one... The one that keeps you from getting attached too quickly, feeling all these emotions too easily, deeply falling in love with someone before knowing them a bit more than after just a few questions. I've learned to keep a lot to myself instead of letting myself go completely!
You would think it's smart, and it is, indeed. Instead of getting attached to someone who is here to play around, you move on quickly! It's just slightly annoying and frustrating, especially when you have an extraordinary person in front of you, proving you every day that he didn't come into your life to hurt you, but to make you happy!

We often mistake the wall around us, thinking it's there to guard us, to keep the pain away, but all it does it keep love away! You don't want to let your true self out, the wall keeps who you are away from others, it has nothing to do with your heart! Sadly, keeping up a wall doesn't do much good, in order to start liking, loving someone, you need to take down some bricks. 

In order to take this wall, brick by brick, you have to know what YOU want! You can be shy, guarded, have low self-esteem, but you have desires. Don't be scared of asking for what you truly want! Take the risk of becoming who you truly want! For instance, to make it more clear, you WANT to be courageous, you like that person, but you keep your distance away, it's understandable, you're shy and you probably already have that rejection scenario in your head, but what you want is to get courageous enough to go out there and tell the girl you like her! Take that risk, if you don't go out there, you will never know if it could work! 
Look at me, I want a relationship, but I don't let go and tell them, I back away, afraid... I don't let my desires come up to the surface, and I'm missing out on the opportunity of something beyond amazing! 

We believe that things will never change and that our past predicts our future. We think we will be rejected because it happened once or twice before. We are wrong! Sorry, but we are, people change, people grow up, each person is different, so don't think that every situation will end the same way! 
I have the same issue! I've been so afraid of guys becoming my father's image, that each time I see something they do or say that my father has said or did in the past, I back away and think they will be just like him. I don't want to compare anyone to him, but I do it unconsciously. Indeed, we have similarities, but each human being is different, act, think, say things differently. One similarity doesn't make everyone the same! I understand how each one of us is unique, but somehow I manage to overlook this important fact and let my past control my present and future at the same time. Don't make the same mistake as I am doing right now. 

In order to let go of that wall, start saying NO! 
In relationships, I used to give details to each of my answers, I would talk in circles, but ended up losing my partner in the middle of the conversation. The NO and YES answers are easier to answer, and it gets your point across a lot quicker! Walls protects us from sharing back stories. You don't want to share just say, "No" or "Yes". You never have to explain something to someone if you don't feel like it! Walls are here to hide who we are away from other people. We are afraid to answer straightforward questions so we push or avoid getting too close to anyone who might ask questions like these...
"Do you like me?"
"Do you want a relationship?"
"Why are you still single?"
Start saying these simple two words instead of sharing things you don't want to share at the moment, it's destroying you slowly, hurting you. Not healthy if you ask me! You may have had a traumatic experience in the past and you don't want to share, it's understandable, so say," No, I don't want to answer at the moment." Less painful, trust me! And if you are the person who asks these questions, don't try and force someone to answer in more details, you will end up making them run away!

Start choosing love over fear! 
Seeing someone as dating can be scary, and love... Terrifying! 
After my breakup, I was shattered, completely numb, empty from feelings. I did put all my walls back up because I gave all of myself to my ex, and he did hurt me. In my head, I was like, "I gave every bit of me to a person who destroyed me in a matter of a second, why should I take the risk of getting hurt again?"
A lot has come my way since then! Now, I have an amazing, wonderful, understanding, patient, loving person in front of me, trying to tell me he wants to take the risk of loving me, and I'm backing away, choosing fear over love! I became creative in order to keep that person away, I was brutally honest, spoke my mind freely instead of watching out for what I

was saying, I even became mean (when I'm the opposite)! He stuck around, though... Surprisingly! I did everything I could think of to get this guy to run away... And he was managing on staying! I don't know how he stayed, honestly, I wouldn't have! Funny thing is... I had two sides in my head, one saying he needs to back off, run away, and the other was saying, please let this guy in, let him love you like you want to love him... I'm difficult! 
In order to feel love, and be in love, you need to stop running away from pain, you need to let people in. Just because someone did hurt you before doesn't mean this one will hurt you the same way or even hurt you at all. Pursue pleasure, pure pleasure and only give yourself completely to the people that you think can give that pleasure to you. And anyone who can give that pleasure should be welcomed! 

To conclude, putting walls is smart, but if you have that one little voice in your head telling you, "Let him [her] in", open up, and let yourself go bit by bit! If you don't, you might regret it later on. Passing by a great love story and have that happy ending is a choice, you have to choose love over fear! 

Don't be like me! I think I don't deserve to be happy, to have a love story because I didn't do anything to get that! So I'm passing by opportunities, one by one, choosing to keep these walls around, not letting all my feelings out... And instead of being happy, I'm destroying myself. I keep telling myself how stupid I am for believing an amazing guy, like the one in front of me, will ever be interested in someone as idiotic, destructive as me. The painful part of it all is the fact that all the feelings that I have for the guy is beyond anything I experienced before. I always thought I did love the other people, but I never truly did, and I feel it now... It's scary, indeed, but I shouldn't let that fear rule me. I should start loving and be completely myself because what I'm feeling is actual love. 

"Sometimes all you need is one person that shows you that it's okay to let your guard down, be yourself, and love with no regrets."

~Bella

What Would Jane Do? (3)

Welcome back for more wisdom from Jane Austen! 

It's rather amazing how we can learn so much from a British author! I'm amazed! 
At her time a female writer wouldn't be consider writing at all, but her father helped the best he could for his bright daughter's success. Without him we wouldn't be here, today, reading her wonderful work! 

III. Mistress of myself
No one can think more highly of the understanding of women than I do... Nature has given them so much that they never find it necessary to use more than half. - Northanger Abbey (1817)
You were disgusted with the women who were always speaking and looking, and thinking for your approbation alone. I roused and interested you because I was so unlike them. - Pride and Prejudice (1813)
To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain for the first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive. - Northanger Abbey (1817)
You must try not to mind growing up into a pretty woman. - Mansfield Park (1814)
As for admiration, it was always very welcome when it came, but she did not depend on it. - Northanger Abbey (1817)
Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions. - Mansfield Park (1814)
I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other. - Emma (1815)
Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion. - Pride and Prejudice (1813)
Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion. - Pride and Prejudice (1813)
There are people who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves. - Emma (1815)
It isn't what we say or think that defines us, but what we do. - Sense and Sensibility (1811)
If I could not be persuaded into doing what I thought wrong, I will never be tricked into it. - Northanger Abbey (1817)
I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. - Pride and Prejudice (1813)
We all have our best guides within us, if only we would listen. - Mansfield Park (1814)
I speak what appears to me the general opinion; and where an opinion is general, it is usually correct. - Mansfield Park (1814)
There is hardly any personal defect which an agreeable manner might not gradually reconcile one to. - Northanger Abbey (1817)
If I could persuade myself that my manners were perfectly easy and graceful,  I should not be shy. - Sense and Sensibility (1811)
Those who have not more must be satisfied with what they have. - Mansfield Park (1814)
I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you. - Pride and Prejudice (1813)
Let your conduct be the only harangue. - Mansfield Park (1814)
My being charming... Is not quite enough to induce me to marry; I must find other people charming- one other person at least. - Emma (1815)
Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance, I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away... Till this moment I never knew myself. - Pride and Prejudice (1813)
I will be calm. I will be mistress of myself. -Sense and Sensibility (1811)
Run mad as often as you choose, but do not faint. - Mansfield Park (1814)

Chapter IV will be for everybody, so keep up with me as I read along the little book given to me by my mum. 
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to love one of my favorite authors much more everytime I read her piece of work. 


" There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart. " 

~Bella

Benefits you may gain from being single...

I'm sure most of us are single and unhappy... But have you ever thought about the good that being single may procure?

From what I've seen, read, experience, I can tell you some benefits of being single are around! The idea of being "alone" might have gotten as far as boring, and pretty lonely, you might be mistaken, slightly mistaken!

It's about finding your true self, what you are all about, the good, the bad, the unexplained, the confusion that surrounds you, what are your weaknesses, strengths, insecurities. We know what our physical appearances are all about, but do we know what's hidden behind our tough shell? Being single gives you the opportunity to have some solitude, so embrace it, learn and discover who your true self is.

It's about discovering what you want in your future. Job, family, friends... Dreams exist, but how many people can say they arrived at that dream destination? When you are in a relationship you have new responsibilities, you can't just take a job opportunity all across the ocean because you know that
your other half won't be able to make it out there with you, and it's a charge. Don't get me wrong, don't assume I would prefer to be single, but sometimes it helps you build what you want around you.

It's about these little-forgotten skills that are showing up again! We all forget what we are truly capable of doing, and being single makes you look at life differently than while being in a relationship. Your confidence builds up, and your journey of self-discovery makes you gain some talents, or hidden skill appears again!

It's about loving ourselves! Being by yourself makes you see that you also deserve to be loved. There is a saying "Love yourself before you can love anyone else..." You certainly can love someone else, even if you are going through a nightmare, but you obviously won't love with a pure heart, and won't be able to love without low self-esteem getting in the way.  Loving ourselves is important! Don't forget that! 

It's about being you and flirt without fear! We all flirt, don't try and deny it, even the person who flirts the worst, still does it! Flirting is an innocent little gesture, but it can be quite dangerous, someone may end up developing feeling. If you love flirting, I suggest you get back to your single state to prevent a disaster with your partner, obviously, if you are in a relationship.

It's about saving time and money! Let's face the fact, when you are in a relationship you love to spend on your other half. You try to please the other party, spend your free time with them instead of something for yourself. Some couples need a certain amount of time on the phone, over text, and without knowing it, the hours you spend on the phone takes most of your day! 

It's about staying and growing your friend circle. When you are in a relationship, you have less time for your friends, and that happens to everyone almost. Just because you are in a relationship doesn't mean you have to let your friends go, but we see them less. Single people focus on siblings, friends more. 

Being single as its perks, don't be ashamed, feeling lonely or act like you will die alone! It won't get you anywhere, and I promise you, being alone is refreshing, you need it sometimes. You need some alone time to resource yourself, relax and think about yourself. 

"Being single doesn't mean that you know nothing about love. Sometimes, being solo is wiser than being in a false relationship." 

~Bella