Living Proof

How to handle a buncha' nuts... Years ago, we had a seminar at my place of work. My company hired two motivational speakers who came in and completely enlightened us on techniques about dealing with customers, especially difficult ones. I didn't think much of it because I immediately judged it to be this 'over-the-top' non-religious sermon on "YES-YOU-CAN-DO-IT" kinda jibber-jabber. But not even an hour into their spiel, I started to learn much more than I expected to. Keep in mind, this was a two week motivational course. They showed us how some people respond when dealing with circumstances that didn't please them, or didn't meet their needs -- or just crap they didn't want to hear or deal with. They taught you how to react if you received a call from an irate customer, or if you were dealing with an irrational or abusive jerk from hell. We were taught to never say, "I understand," because before you even say the second syllable of ...

If we're all striving to be a better person than we were yesterday, then what if yesterday was one of our best days? All of these redundant cliches, platitudes and inspirational quotes told by other people tend to make you feel all warm and fuzzy, but isn't it just a temporary fix to just say, "You're life is messed up, so just get your shit together." Due to my line of work, I network with a bunch of online marketing entrepreneurs, life coaches and seminar gurus -- the kind where you'll most likely never see them having a bad day -- kinda like my chihuahua -- all piss 'n vinegar and revvin' to go to new and exciting places. Words like, "journey", "goals", "achievement" and "success" are all used in order to make you feel as though you don't have those right now, so by listening to people rattle off these highly motivating words will somehow make you wanna jump right out of your chair and do something BIG...

For the longest time, I've been suffering with anxiety attacks or just 'fear' in general. I guess you can call them "phobias" and whatnot, but it definitely debilitates my life on certain days. Some days are good and some days are bad. Therapists are good, but they can only help so much. They can give advice (which they hardly do) or they can sit there and listen to you while the sounds of the 'tic-toc-tic-toc' morphs into one big 'cha-ching'. They say (whoever "they" are), that just by someone else listening to you is helpful. Well, I disagree to a point. I can go to the bar with a girlfriend and rant all I want. Now that helps. I'm disgusted with the cost of therapy. Do they deserve that money? Some definitely deserve it, but others, like the ones that I have come across should be ashamed of themselves for just sitting there like a zombie pretending to remember what was told to them while writing it all down just to remember your ...

We all want to be understood, heard, related to and even helped in some form or another. We also don't want to be bothered from 'whomever'. There are people that you can trust, those who are always there for you like concrete stone under your feet, and others who seem to undermine your entire being. Some mean well, while others don't. The worst type of help when you are in your darkest moments are from those who have never been through what you are going through. For instance, a psychotherapist may tick some people off, because they seem to have this 'perfect little life' in their 'perfect little quaint office' and their degrees from various schools hanging on their wall screaming, "I'm successful!!!" They possess an overwhelming knowledge of textbook psychology. It's pure bullshit in my opinion. They are trained to understand. They push pills to make it all better and yet, they never actually dig into what's really bothering th...

A very good blogger friend who goes by Neers , brought up an interesting thought: are we all selfish from the result of being human? She writes, ”… it IS indeed about people and not a subset of people ... it used to baffle me, how people kill/rape other people (doesn’t it even HURT to see someone on the screen being hurt??) and then i reached theory -- everyone is a part of god, but then, since there are lots n lots of us (mankind) ... god got divided into so many parts ... now if it was just any of his other creations ... it would have been easier .. like animals, who only prey on what is necessary ... to maintain the food chain, balance ... but the chemicals inside the things called human brains ... makes him prey, esp when it's un-necessary (there are some in number of lines, I have on that) and hence, the mankind has lost the specialty of being a man ... a favored child... 1. Because there are just too many of the original good thing. 2. And also because we let ourselves believ...

T here are two things in life to which I borderline loathing: gray areas (not knowing where I stand in life) and the in between process from depression to extreme happiness. I call it the “eh” stage. Some would call it the mediocre or content stage of your life. In the process of being caught in that gray area, it’s almost as if there’s no feeling at all. You can either take it or leave it. It’s just “eh”. Whatever. Things could be worse, but things could be much better. I’ve always fluctuated from being severely depressed, then rose up to that middle stage only to climb the stairs of extreme happiness. Doc says I don’t have bi-polar disorder, that I’m normal and that these stages are perfectly fine. I disagree, but I’m not sure if I prefer it this way. I don’t think being bi-polar or manic-depressive is a bad thing. Let me explain… In a depressive state-of-mind, I become analytical, more spiritual, extremely creative to where I write a helluva’ lot more and create new and different s...

As some of you probably already know, I suffer from panic attacks. I’ve been experiencing these attacks since I was 16 years old. I have a lot of people in my life who make assumptions about why my anxiety disorder developed, but I still have a vague idea “why”, yet I know some things make sense. I’m going to talk about why I “think” I got this disorder, and what I do today to relieve them. At the age of 16, I witnessed a very traumatic event in my life . I didn’t think it affected me all that much, because I handled it so well during the time it happened. What I didn’t know, is how it would affect me later as an adult. Being at that young age, I was still going to high school and trying to be a kid. I was influenced by my peers and found out that my stress levels were higher than the average teen going through trivial stuff. A lot people assume kids that age don’t have any stress. They do …very much so. And, when something traumatic takes place, it’s amazing what the body can do whe...