Tag: Happiness

We Need To Get Better at Asking for What We Need
When I read that sentence on a newsletter I subscribed in, I felt like someone suddenly turned the light on me. Like I could finally see the world clearly and in full Technicolor.
Is this a problem I struggle with? Heck yes.
I’m the type of person who would gladly help others, however much I could. But when I’m the one at the asking end, things are a-whole-nother potato salad:
I am SO not comfortable asking other people for help.
Just saying that, admitting that to the ethers where other people can read it, is giving me the heebie-jeebies. Maybe it’s my pride that’s stopping me. Maybe it’s because I feel I’d be imposing too much if I ask for help. Maybe it’s both plus a hundred other internal complications like low self-esteem and high self-doubt. But there it is.
We’ve all had this feeling, I like to think. It may not be as severe as mine, but I’m sure you’ve gone through this to a certain degree. I mean, you wouldn’t have clicked on this post if you haven’t, right?
I find teens and young adults usually find it difficult to ask for help. I was definitely one of those teens – still am one of those young adults.
But even when you’re an adult (or #adulting), you may still have some difficulty asking for help.
Why is it so difficult?
Well, the short answer for this is a word you’ve probably come across a lot if you’ve been reading my blog for a while:
FEAR.
Having trouble asking for help stems from a lot of causes but the main root is often fear. Your fear may be a different kind of fear from others’, but it’s fear all the same. Here are three common ways fear may hinder you from asking what you need:
Fear of Showing Vulnerability
Asking for help is one of the most vulnerable things you can do in front of someone else. And people avoid looking vulnerable like the plague. Which is probably why it feels so uncomfortable.
Fear of Breaking Your Perceived Image
We like to think that we are fully capable of facing our problems on our own. Again, this could be because we don’t want to seem weak or vulnerable (which are two different things, by the way!)
Fear of Rejection
When you ask for something, there’s like a 50-50 chance you’d probably be rejected. It’s a “Sure thing!” or an “I’m sorry, I can’t” kind of question. Often I find myself skewing that 50-50 odds. I’m super focused in the worst-case scenario (i.e., getting rejected), I have zero reason to believe that people will actually reason.
Fear gets the best of everyone. And I mean every-freakin-one. And letting fear hinder you from asking for help, is also letting fear hinder your growth.
WHY YOU NEED TO GET BETTER AT ASKING FOR HELP
1. You can’t do everything on your own
You may feel like some kind of superhuman who do not need to ask for help. But here’s the thing: Even computers can’t do things on their own.
The computer or tablet or phone that you’re using to read this right now also has limited capacity. It’ll be even less capable without the Internet and added storage.
Even world-famous people like Michael Phelps and Steve Jobs and Arianna Huffington and Oprah didn’t achieve what they have achieved completely on their own. Even their triumphs and successes are a product of the many hands and minds of people who’ve influenced them or worked with and for them along the way. Even my blog is a product of the tons of help I got, both directly and indirectly.
This isn’t to say that this blog isn’t entirely my work. It totally is! But all throughout this wonderfully journey, I’ve learned a thing or twenty from people in some way or another. And we all do!
2. People want to help you
It sounds ridiculous. And sometimes, I still can’t wrap myself around this “ridiculous notion”. But it’s true. People want to help you. They really do. (Dum-dee-doo.)
The trick here is, they won’t really know how they can help… if we don’t tell them. And we’ve already established that (scroll back up) we rarely do.
A friend of mine once shared to me that she had a grudge on a friend of hers. All because her friend did not do something that she “thought was pretty obvious” she needed.
The problem with thinking this way is that this is wrong most of the time.
Like when I thought that smudge of paint on my artwork was super obvious and is totally ruining the entire piece but my mom didn’t see squat. She didn’t understand why I was so upset because the reason was invisible to her.
I’ve learned that what seems completely, totally, undeniably obvious to me is most likely completely, totally, undeniably unnoticeable to others
3. You open yourself up
Sometimes we’re so afraid to ask for help because of the scary possibility of getting a no. That we might get rejected.
But like I said, people want to help you! There was this study that found people actually get help twice as much as they thought they would. This only goes to show that people want to be helpful and feel useful, but we think otherwise.
Think about it: isn’t that why you love to help others?
I know that’s why I love to help. Because I want to be helpful and feel useful.
When you ask for help, you’re telling people they can help you. You’re telling people you are open to learning from them. You’re telling people that you are human and you don’t have everything figure out (which is totally okay!) You’re telling them you need help. And that you want to rely on them.
In doing so, you are not weak. Or incompetent. Or unworthy. You just need support. Nothing wrong with that.
I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
What do you need? Let us help you! 🙂
xx Kate
Photo from Ivory Mix
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October 10, 2018
Why you need to let your inner child out to play
At age 8, I was already building my very own empire.
A paper empire, to be exact.
I have a paper doll, Analysse, who had a paper mansion and custom tailored clothes (I drew them myself).
She was living The Dream, I’m telling you!
But the thing was, her house was empty. She needed to eat the most delicious food and have the most beautiful things. She could even have her very own elephant, I thought as I look at my thick coloring book given to me by my uncle. It’s filled with the exact things Analysse needed – hair brush, hand bags, elephants and ice cream. Tons of ice cream.
I grabbed a pair of scissors and was about to cut them when a hand held my wrist. It was my aunt.
When she asked me what I was doing, I told her I’m going to cut out a few of the pictures so I could play them with my paper doll.
That’s not how you use coloring books, was what she told me then. Coloring books are for coloring. It isn’t meant to be cut out.
I’m sharing this story now, not because I have a grudge on my aunt for not letting me play back then (I don’t hold grudges) but because, remembering all those years ago, I realized that I was held back. I wasn’t allowed to play however I wanted.
And just like 8-year-old me, my inner child has also been held back. And it stayed that way for years.
I’ve only allowed my inner child to play freely recently. Like 2016 recently. And even to this day, there are still times when I hold myself back.
Here’s the sad truth:
We somehow have this idea that adulthood meant shoving your inner child into the deepest, darkest recesses of your subconscious. That we would no longer need it when we’re adults. Add to that, we live in a world where child-like behaviors are frowned upon.
Raise your hand if you’ve ever been told to “grow up” after doing something fun and carefree and completely un-adult-like.
That’s one aunt holding you back from your play. But really, it’s the aunt inside us that we listen to the most.
Back in the 1970s, psychologist Eric Berne theorized that we all have three parts in us all the time: the parent part, the adult part and the child part.
The idea is, in order to live a happier life, you need to find the balance between these three parts. By age 15, however, (and I’m guesstimating here ok??) we let our adult part take the reins completely. Because that is what’s expected of us – to be adults.
Sure, we’re all adults now. We have far more responsibilities than we did as eight-year-olds. But that does not mean you need to shove your inner child onto the back corner. I have 4 reasons why you need to unleash your inner child and make friends with it.
WHY YOU NEED TO LET YOUR INNER CHILD PLAY
1) It Relieves Stress
As a kid, you usually don’t care about falling down or getting bitten by ants or having dirty hands. You just play and have fun and enjoy yourself! Who cares about dirt? (Adults, that’s who.)
Plenty of studies have shown that the carefree, playful attitude that’s often found in kids can increase happiness and reduce stress.
I’ve had tons of impromptu dance parties with my brother at home and I know this to be true. Play with your pet! Stop for a sec and smell the flowers. Get on your knees and get dirty.
Small yet super fun activities like these can help you forget, even just for a while, the stress that comes with adulting.
2) Strong Fearlessness Muscles
I have these two distinct memories from two different periods in my life:
The first one was when I was around six or seven, dancing my butt out in the middle of the makeshift dance floor at my mom’s office Christmas party.
The second one, I was a sixth grader in our school’s bathroom with my friend, showing to her that I could dance the Spaghetti dance in secret.
I’m a college student now in my senior year, and the only place you could see me dance is inside my house with my brother. (And it only takes me about two minutes and I start wheezing. Gosh I’m old.)
My fearlessness muscles that were super active when I was a six-year-old have become super, super stiff. And I’m sure I’m not the only one in this.
Letting your inner child out to play is a great exercise to your fearlessness muscles. Neither your parent part, and especially not your adult part, has any courageous streak in them. Only your inner child do.
3) Creativity and Inspiration
If there was one word that you could associate with kids, I’d say it’s “why.” Children are curious little potatoes. You’ll probably remember those times when you were a kid and you either thought to yourself or asked an adult why.
Why is the sky blue? Why are Tom & Jerry always fighting? Why do my friend Jenny only have a mom and no dad? Why do ants march in a single line? Why can’t those children go to school? It’s asking these questions that will foster your creativity. It will inspire you to think, to empathise, and to be more aware of the worlds both inside and around you.
The connection between your inner child and creativity has also been scientifically-backed. The Mission made a list of how unleashing your inner child can make you creative.
There’s also this amazing Ted Talk by then twelve-year-old Adora Svitak about how “childish” thinking inspires bold ideas and unhindered creativity. It’s a lovely talk and you should definitely check it out here.
4) You Become a Better Adult
Did you know that narcissistic behaviors and temper tantrums seen in adults are the result of your inner child “acting out”?
Mind = blown.
When you don’t give it play time, your inner child will find its own way to play by acting out. And, as things often do when restrained for too long, they act out in an awfully ugly way.
So all those so-called adults with negative child-like behaviors? You know. Those who are like a child in a grown man’s body (one of which you may know has an orange-y skin and hay-like toupee)? Those adults have not befriended their inner child or are even aware of it.
Mind = blown. Again.
Look, I’m not saying being an adult sucks. (Although adulting is definitely hard, not gonna lie.) If it weren’t for our mature and adult self, the world would be in total chaos. Like far more chaotic than it already is. True adulthood means taking your responsibilities seriously.
But remember: it is also important to let your inner child out to play. It is your inner child’s job to be creative, curious and courageous. Things that I’m sure we all need to cultivate as we also start our journey into adulting.
I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
Have you let your inner child out to play? What are your thoughts on inner child and how it’s affecting your life? Share them below!
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Photos from Jess Watters (via unsplash). Check out the photographer’s website here.
October 3, 2018
Friendly Reminder: Let Your Weird Be Free
Hey hey.
Have you ever been called weird as a kid? Has anyone ever laughed at something you thought was extremely funny or extremely interesting and looked at you like you’re from another planet? As if they were saying, “Why is this kid so weird?”
How did it feel being called weird in such a subtle yet brutally honest way?
Did it make you feel embarrassed? Did it take a huge hit to your self-esteem? Did it make you rethink about what you thought was funny or interesting? Like you are now convinced at the possibility that maybe you are from another planet? Like maybe showing that quirky side of yours was a wrong move?
Ever thought that maaaybe you should just hide your weird side from people? That maybe it’s better that way?
Well, imagine this:
You’re hanging out with your friends.
You cracked a dad joke. Or made a smartass comeback. Or created a horrible pun. Or danced macarena without the macarena music. Or educated your friends on the mating process of narwhals. Or shared an unpopular opinion, like, I don’t know, aye-ayes are cute. (Although I honestly don’t think this is an unpopular opinion. Aye-ayes are cute. But I digress.)
Basically, you did something weird. In front of your friends. In public. For everyone to see and hear. Yikes?
Nope. Not yikes. Not yikes at all.
Because, my dear quirky friend, you have NO idea.
Perhaps an author was sitting nearby, contemplating this scene in their work-in-progress. And they saw you. And an idea sparked. Perhaps that author’s novel will be a New York Times bestseller. In the book, there’s gonna be an iconic scene — inspired by your weirdness.
Perhaps a Youtuber saw you and snorted at what you did, choked on his soy milk caramel frappuccino even. And it inspired a comedy sketch that will garner millions of views and will be copied by other Youtubers and will be the reason the choked Youtuber could host on SNL. All because of a sketch — inspired by your weirdness.
Perhaps a sperm whale researcher was drinking black coffee with his baklava. Sitting at a corner booth, he overheard your heated monologue on narwhals, and it gave him the key solution to the conservation of sperm whales — and so it was inspired. By. Your. WEIRDNESS.
Look. I get it.
These may seem like ridiculous scenarios. You may be thinking, “What kind of sperm whale researcher hangs out in a mall’s food court??” To which I say, YOU. NEVER. KNOW. YOU NARROW-MINDED POTATO.
Because people being inspired by your weirdness isn’t weird.
That’s the point I’m trying to drill into your wonderfully weird brain.
We live in this blue and green oblate spheroid big enough to accommodate all kinds of ideas. A planet bigger than all of our brains combined. Can you imagine that? It’s bigger than 7 billion brains. Seven billion!
Each of us can only generate as much ideas. But all these ideas coming out from our hypothalamus and our gray area and our cerebellum… basically from all parts of our brain, all of these ideas are unique. And before you tell me, “Welp someone made this and that. My idea’s not unique.” Hold your horses, you.
What I’m saying is, these ideas are unique in a way that they are molded with your own unique perspective and came about through your own unique experiences.
They may only be one puny idea in a world teeming with so many other puny ideas, but they are the only puny idea of that kind that came from you. That puny idea of yours is part of a complex idea system. It is the one unique protein that make up a chromosome, which ultimately makes one well-coordinated and functioning body.
Can you imagine if the idea of Apple came about from some other guy named Steve but not Steve Jobs? Can you imagine if someone else other than Xi Lingshi found out about the silkworms’ cocoon of thin fibers? We probably wouldn’t have silk.
It probably might have become, like I don’t know, really thin hair extensions made of worms’ cocoons. (Which is more of a mouthful than just silk.)
Can you imagine if J.R.R Tolkien burned all the papers containing his fascination on making Elvish language because some brute told him he was weird? Can you imagine if Mama and Papa Mozart didn’t support Mozart’s affinity for music and made him become a baker instead? Can you imagine if Dr Seuss didn’t write?
And so: be weird.
Be the kind of wonderfully weird that you are.
Not just because it is a disservice to yourself to lock that part of you in a cage. But because it is a disservice to this planet that is simply begging to witness that strange beauty unfold.
I can guarantee you, the world will be a lot less brighter if your weirdness was locked away deep inside you. In some dark place that no light can shine upon. And won’t that be a shame?
So let people give you the judger eye. Let other people sing about you in your own version of the song “Belle (Little Town” from Beauty and the Beast. Let them question your ideas. Let them question it or raise their eyebrow on it or laugh at it.
And if it hurts too much, find me. I’ll buy you ice cream and let you free your quirkiness and celebrate it for the whole world to see. Let them be scandalized by how shameless they think you are for not keeping your weird tucked away.
Because you know what? There is no shame in showing the whole world who you are — every beautiful aspect of you.
You are you. You matter. And you are beautiful, quirks and weirdness and all.
Share your quirks below and allow me and everyone else to celebrate them 🙂
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PS: What’s stopping you from doing what you want to do?
Photos from: Death to Stock Photo and chuttersnap via Unsplash
January 13, 2018
When Things Seem to be Falling Apart
A few times in your life, you would hit a low point. Like the sad chapter in a novel or one of those sad slow montage in movies with rain or sad songs in the background—or even both.
And to the viewers and the readers, the bystanders who merely witnessed you at your lowest, it’s not a big deal. It’s a short-lived moment in a bigger picture. A blink of an eye. They’d think you’re being too dramatic. But you know they’re wrong.
They haven’t experienced it the way you have. They don’t know the pain and sadness that only you bear.
They don’t understand.
And so you suffer quietly. Blinking back tears, pushing them far back into your eyes. You try to lift your head up, look at the ceiling, but see nothing through the blur of unshed tears filling your sight.
They don’t see the swell and redness that your eyes should have after crying because you did not shed any tears. You did not cry loudly; no one could hear the song of hurt playing deep inside you.
No, only your body could feel your struggle and your mind was the sole listener of that sad song. The swell wasn’t visible outside because it was your heart that stretched unbearably with bottled up pain.
To the people who are suffering alone, who are crying in the dark or silently inside, to those who feel like things seem to be falling apart around you, please know.
I understand.
I’m one of you. I have felt similarly to what you are feeling now. And let me tell you something honest.
The others are wrong, yes. You are not experiencing a montage that would fade instantly. But they are also right. It is not the end of the world. That burden is not forever. And if it comes to a point when it becomes overwhelming, please.
Please don’t allow yourself to be drowned by your sorrows.
Please remember that you are stronger than your struggles.
Please know that I am here.
If that makes any difference.
I’ve learned to accept that life comes with harshness and cruelty and difficult obstacles but even now I still don’t know the secret formula for passing through each of them with no scratch. I bear with me scars that will never fully heal and I will carry them for the rest of my life. But I refuse to let that stop me from wanting to live the life that I want to lead.
And it mustn’t let you too.
So suffer. Give yourself a moment (or three) to cry, to acknowledge the pain. Mourn for that tiny piece of perfection now wounded and utterly imperfect. Grieve for the loss of happiness but know—truly know—that it’s only temporary.
Because what’s amazing about life, I learned, is that it’s so much bigger than all of us. This makes life uncontrollable and unpredictable. But this also allows life anything inside it. Anything. The possibilities of what will happen next are infinite, as are your choices. Even at times when it feels like you’re cramped tight in a box.
So cry. Be sad. And then choose to be happy, to be hopeful, afterwards.
I know it’s hard; I keep returning in that same position, always struggling every time. But try. Stand back up bearing the scars. Forever with you, a reminder of what you have gone through. There will be moments when they’ll hurt again.
But stand and keep on walking anyway.
Have a happy day, awesome person 😃
November 9, 2016