Don’t let Doubt be your Friend!

Don’t let Doubt be your Friend!

One of the lessons learned and believe me, this wasn’t an easy one.

It is natural I guess – throughout or life we are doubting… if we are on the right path, doing the right thing, meeting the right people … this is needed as check or ourselves. We build up confidence like that as well.

Doubt becomes a problem when we doubt more than being sure we did something right.

When I write don’t let doubt be your friend I don’t mean it should be your enemy, you will need it, until the end of your life, like a person you meet once in a while but not regularly. Like this person you know your whole life which tells you after a couple of years that you look great, that you changed your style and it suits you, that you were always adored for your skills in whatever, you get what I mean I hope. This person can also tell you that the old car was better than the new you have chosen, but in the end you are driving that car and you need to be feeling good in it.

What are you doing with the car for instance? You may reconsider changing it back because this person had some proper arguments, or you stop thinking about it because it was well thought over in first place?

Doubt is ALWAYS just an adjuster or a confirmer, it is rarely a complete changer but more a lesson learned.

But what if you think you are doing the right thing and all of a sudden Mr. Doubt shows up regularly? He considers himself your new friend and crawls into your life. He is telling you his opinion whenever he can and it’s always the opposite of what you were considering to be right. He starts to drain your energy because it is not easy to be criticized for every step you make. And it’s wrong!

Many may have this colleague who’s acting like that, or even a boss.

Believe me, a good colleague or a well-trained manager would NEVER make you doubt everything. they would make you aware if something isn’t going to the right direction and offer advise, training or help to fix it.

I doubted – too much, so much that I fell exhausted into my bed in the evening because I felt NOT ENOUGH. From the depth of my heart I knew that I did the right thing(s). I even knew it because I got feedback from many others but that one stupid Mr. Doubt was so present and so nagging with his comments that I started to doubt – more and more.

He stepped into my life as if he was an old friend but that’s not true. I knew him and I met him once in a while but I never considered him to be one of my close friends. The opposite, I was always happy when he disappeared and his permanent presence made me feel not good at all, not sufficient and not enough.

I had to learn this and especially I had to learn to tell him STOP!

Stop for the sake of my health – mentally and physically. Once this step was done it felt better because I gained my worth back. My knowledge that has been built up over the years could not be completely wrong as Mr. Doubt tried to make me believe. I was able again to hold my head up high and face him and tell him that he will not succeed in breaking me, because this is what he wanted as my “friend”.

Doubt is like a toxic person

We all know them and we all know that we should keep them very distanced as they otherwise would start to influence our life (and not in a good way).

Almost a year later I am sitting here typing, my stomach still hurts and seems twisted from time to time which is a reminder of what I went through. I’m not complaining because in the end I know who I am and what I am worth! In the end Mr. Doubt and his companions are the poor ones. They will never be happy in their life because as long as you are constantly criticizing others you ignore your own problems which probably are more intense than I can imagine them to be.

We are all human beings, we are all not perfect and that is perfectly fine!

We are supposed to make mistakes to learn and grow. We are exactly where we should be and if someone makes you start to doubt be careful. We can support, we can share experiences, we can give a helping hand, but if we start to put ourselves higher and make others doubting their worth we are the problem, not the other persons!

The struggle to accept and realize that not everyone is my friend even though they pretend to be was long and intense and I don’t want to go through it once again. But truly, I am more mindful and focused than ever before. I’m thankful to know that not I was the problem but others.

If you read my blog before you have an idea of how I think and in this case I could be mad, I could start to hate persons who tried to harm me but that’s not me.

Karma will catch them sooner or later!

I don’t want to poison my thoughts with hatred, I don’t want to invite negativity to my life and I don’t want to hate. To focus on what’s positive in all this is much more rewarding and makes me happier than giving attention to the bad. It doesn’t mean that I ignore, no, I acknowledge, analyse, take my lesson out and then put it aside as it no longer serves me.

I truly hope that whenever you doubt you don’t let these thoughts taking over the reigns – they won’t guide you in a good way. Doubt is not supposed to be permanently present but occasionally only.

Always tell yourself that you are doing the best you can at that time in your life and you are learning along the way. At every second you are where you are supposed to be as the best version of you.

You are worth to kick Mr. Doubt out if he starts to approach you more than you can take. It’s your life!

Stay strong and never doubt the wholeness of your being!

Sometimes I wish to live back in the 1970’s or 80’s

Sometimes I wish to live back in the 1970’s or 80’s
Don’t understand me wrong, I’m not unhappy with my life but when it comes to certain points I would prefer these times. The time without mobile phones where we didn’t had to be available 24/7, the time without emails where it wasn’t expected to answer each “letter” within an hour. If you just think about the work-life balance everyone is talking about nowadays, I’m pretty sure people were much more relaxed.
Do we have constant life’s?
What I see is that almost no one wants serious relationships as it was back then. We switch not only jobs, flats or cities within a short period of time, we also switch private connections instead of putting efforts in. The time where family and friends were counting more than social networking seems to be history. I have the impression that many just try to connect with other persons for their own needs.
Are we becoming more and more selfish nowadays?
I knew persons who started to bother when not receiving a reply on a short message within five minutes. Bother means after the text they started to call, to talk a message on your mobile box, sending a message on Facebook, checking if you are somewhere to be seen as ‘online’ for a chat message. And for what? Nothing special, just being bored or telling the newest gossips they heard somewhere.
Aren’t we allowed anymore to disconnect for a while?
Also the newsfeed is overwhelming, people back in these years weren’t aware of every single small catastrophe happening on the other side of the world. If I say small it doesn’t mean it’s awful for the persons being involved but honestly, even if I know something happened somewhere, I cannot change the whole world to be safe and good. Instead of bothering myself too much with bad news of a country I haven’t a single relationship to I should start to change the part where I’m able to make efforts. I just told my husband a few days ago that I would become depressive if I would watch the news channel for too long.
On the other hand not everything is bad but we have to be careful on how to use all these connections we have, they shouldn’t start to use us. Without the web I would never have met my husband and without world wide news I wouldn’t be aware of what’s going on in his country.
The biggest task for us now is to use it carefully, filter for the parts which are important to us and not to forget that there is a real life outside. Real people who may want to have us around, need us or just want to step by for a coffee to tell about their own personal important news.
And never forget that we are allowed to disconnect, mute mobile phones, shut down computers and turn of TVs whenever we think we need a time out for ourselves!
Stay yourself!
Faithfully…

Rush?

Rush?I have the feeling as if my life or better let me say my work is putting me in a permanent rush.
The plan of writing a few drafts for this blog was destroyed by the pile of work on my desk.
Just one and a half weeks are left before my love arrives (inshallah) and felt thousands things I wanted to have completed before.
I just found this picture and it’s true – I should slow down a bit.

Faithful, Miss Faith

Busy?!?

Busy?!?

How busy can a person be – not being able to write although writing is one of my favorites during leisure time.
I have to educate myself once again. Being busy is something we often pretend to be although in most cases it is kind of not structuring our life and not taking enough time for the things we love.
It’s almost 2013 and I normally should have had enough time during the last days to just sit down and do things I want to do. Instead of doing it I snuggled up in front of the TV and watched all the Christmas fairy tales – maybe that was what I needed but my book was almost looking at me annoyed and my mind told me that it’s wasted time as I didn’t do anything creative or productive.
TV is really something which is bringing me away from stuff I could do better during that time. Nevertheless – I found the way back to write at least today. This is what I mean with educating myself, I should make a habit like taking one hour per day I concentrate on books and writing, as it should become daily routine after a while if I stick to it. On the other hand there’s a small problem, do I really want it to be routine? No, and I say no because for me routine and creativity or relaxing time has nothing in common. Maybe it’s just my impression but if I hear the word routine I’m thinking about things we have to do, things I do without thinking too much, cleaning is routine, washing is or asking the trash out, but nothing like writing thoughts down. My thoughts change as does my enthusiasm to write about something. There are times when I love todo it but there are also times when I cannot calm down as I know that some things need to be finalized before I have the quiet surrounding to let my thought flow.
Bottom line – I was too busy.
Shortly after my fiancé left Germany for work I was buried with work to finish before driving to my parents for the Christmas celebrations.
Here I am now, sitting in my old children’s room, and finally writing again.
There happened so much during the past months that I started several posts already but it’s too confusing to bring one to an end right now. I can’t wait to get them finalized and posted and this is another point. Am I busy now with writing although I have no idea if people like what I’m writing or not – I will not start to stress myself more than needed. In the end I’m believing that everyone who’s thinking a bit in the same way I do understands how it is and also understands that my blog is a real life persons blog. Life never goes as you plan it and it is ok – otherwise it would be boring, wouldn’t it?
Some drafts are already written and I hope to find the right time and place during the next days and weeks to tell my story, to write about how it is now, being engaged although miles apart, being entirely happy although missing is hard, all the stories I want to write and give them a second thought, remember these times as they were so precious and moving forward into an exciting future.
You see, I need to sort my thought because otherwise no one would understand what I’m writing about, my mind is full of so many impressions.

Keep the faith and already a happy 2013!

Tough working week

Tough working week

Hey, I haven't disappeared but this week was one of those weeks you want to skip in your life. Writing here is relaxing, inspiring, a little time out where I just let my thoughts flow. I intended to write every second or third day not to push myself into private timelines. This week unfortunately crashed these plans.

Days without an end where I left my desk late in the evening without having finalized what was planned. Tired, starving, eating what is found in the fridge instead of cooking a dinner and then falling onto the couch to get at least a bit the feeling that it's not only a circle of work and exhausted sleep.

Is this the work life I always dreamt of?

No, a big no. I will not start to complain too much as my job is paying my rent, my food, my clothes, all I need in life which can be bought but what about me?

Where are the times where I just do the things I like so much? After such a week I find myself sleeping, walking senseless through my flat before I start something here and something there not focusing on one action at a time. Is this the modern, busy life everyone is talking about? I'm not sure if I want it like this.

My head is full of timelines, urgent tasks to be completed, budgets, requests from clients and the knowledge about my ever growing mailbox. How did people work before they had access to the world wide web? Was is also stressful like it is nowadays? Sure everyone has times at work where it is stressful but I have the feeling as if there are no longer quiet days. Very common is to offer work-life-balance trainings or workshops, are they helpful? From my point of view they put us into another piece of stress as we have to schedule the daily tasks around them and end up in an even longer day.

So what to change if you are not happy with the current situation?

I would love to have the perfect answer but I haven't. What I try currently is a combination of several rules I made for myself. It's nothing which will fit for everyone but maybe you find some inspiring thoughts in it. I'm not consequent at all with these plans but at least I started to change my way of thinking – for the realization I give myself time to get into a rhythm which is good for me, maybe even cross out something and add something new. Rome wasn't buildt in one day and still have many construction places.

1. Finish work within the contracted time and what's not finalized during the day has to wait for the next day.

I'm improving which is quite good. In the beginning it caused a bad feeling as if I'm not able to do the work I have to. But we all are humans and if you give estimates on when you will have it done and communicate properly people will start to appreciate. It doesn't mean to extend each and every timeline to gain time, it means to stop believing that you have to deliver thousand result on just one day.

2. Find rituals to close the working day and start private time.

This is something complete individual. For me, and I'm working in a home office, it's to start preparing my dinner. I leave the desk, it's out of my sight, and start chopping vegetables for example. A task where you don't have to think at all. It could also be a hot shower, this works also on some days for me as it's just time for myself. I think there are many possibilities on what to do.

3. Take time for at least one thing per week which you want to do constantly.

I fail often with this but if I took the time for instance to sit down and listen to music for a certain time, write or starting to get into meditation I realize that I'm feeling more relaxed afterwards. Even a nap is ok.

4. Learn how you can set your mind on "mute" for a short time per day to get new inspiration.

My biggest challenge nowadays. My mind is constantly running and I'm hardly able to stop it. My plan is to start meditation and I tried already a few but am not consequent enough. I set myself no timeline not to cause additional stress but if I'm able to shut down my thinking mind even for two minutes per day I will let you know. Any tips? You are very welcome to share them with me!

5. Having a relaxing sleep

This is one important point as a lack of sleep or restless sleep cannot recharge the energy you need during a day. I had many insomniac nights during times of trouble and am finding back to how it should be like. Before I was used to read, I read so many books and it was always my ritual before I slept. Then came a time where I wasn't able to focus on what I read because thoughts were running and I got into a circle of finding no rest. I put a TV in my bedroom which isn't what I wanted all those years. I was the one always telling others that I will never have it in my bedroom. But TV itself is for sure not calming you down. Next step was to start DVDs so no commercials and well-picked topics instead of randomly trash. Nowadays I have a mixture of reading, watching DVDs and listening to mediations depending on my mood before I sleep and the way is OK to, step by step, reach the nights again where I just lay down and sleep.

In addition to this, make it comfortable for you! The worst thing for me would be a crowded sleeping room. Maybe it's my personal preference, but to ease I need not too much around me. Nothing to distract me from what I want I my bed. Means my bedroom is completely white, walls, wardrobe, bed sheets, everything. You'll find a few books in there but it's mainly the bed, one plant, and indirect light.

That's it for now – as I said, I'm just starting and there may be things I never thought about before which lead me in the end to where I want to be one day but for the moment these are the main parts for me to focus on. It shouldn't end up in a to-do list like at work so five are more than enough.

Take care and keep the faith – no one is perfect on this earth.

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