Insightful Sunday - Completion

I was having a late night chat with my favourite person, Miss Charlotte, last night, about our dreams & I came to the realisation that a very LARGE & important part of mine, is having a partner.  Which, startled me in a way.  I'd always been such a feminist growing up, fully under the belief, that "you don't need a partner to complete you," but now, well, I kinda feel the opposite.

I want to share my life with someone, to share the highs & take comfort in their arms during the lows.  I've grown & developed over the past year, during my travels & I'm confident in myself & what I'm capable of, but sometimes, it's hard to do it all alone.  

I do think it's important to enter into a relationship on equal footing, knowing you are quite capable of being on your own, but appreciating being with someone else.  There is nothing more damaging in a relationship, than being reliant on someone else to make you happy.  It only serves to build up resentment & dependency, which wrecks a relationship like a bad case of woodworm.

Equally so, it's important to have a strong & healthy relationship with yourself, before you can have one with anyone else.  How could you ever accept someone's love, if you aren't capable of loving yourself, as you are, flaws & all.

Your partner should be your bestfriend, you should inspire each other, encourage each other, care for each other, be there for each other & LOVE each other, completely & unconditionally.  There is no compromise.  With billions of people in this world, there is someone, who fits with you like a jigsaw piece, who balances you out, who makes you want to be alive, to live, to breath, to feel, just because they're there & they make the world better.

I've had countless relationships start, then crash & burn before even becoming legitimate.  I've given my heart away, like a goody bag at the end of a kid's birthday party & had it shredded into confetti, on numerous occasions.  I'm done with dead ends & poor choices, I'm ready, ready for the end goal.  To find someone, who completes me, who fulfills me, who makes my life whole.

If they happen to be brown-eyed, bearded, have a penchant for skinny jeans & happen to be open to living in Paris, then all the better.

Insightful Sunday - Self Recognition

I recently came across this on Pinterest & it kind of summed up exactly how I've been feeling of late.

After four months of traveling, the last place I visited, before my Christmas break in England, was a Buddhist monastery near Rome.  Spending two hours a day meditating, really centred me & made me realise who & where I wanted to be.  I went back to England on a high & then seemingly, came crashing down, with great force.  It's one thing to find 'inner peace' in a monastery, a place of no distractions, but to take that peace & keep it with you, in the big troublesome world, well, that's a little harder.

I fell apart a little & although I managed to pull myself together in time to return to Italy, a week went by & I started to feel disillusioned again.  By the time I arrived in France, I was on full meltdown alert.  A part of it is knowing what I want to do, but accepting that I don't know how to get there yet.  I have learnt to accept that it's about knowing the destination & trusting in the journey, but sometimes, when you feel like nothing's changed, like you haven't got any closer to the end goal, it's hard to keep the faith.

Life can be so distracting & I constantly worry that I'll end up way off track, because I lost sight of where I was going.  Although, as John Lennon famously said, "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans."  I know I can be a rigid individual, afraid to let go & I do try to embrace life & what crops up along the way.  Even the past few weeks have proved miraculous for me & been evidence to how life can work out, without you having to worry or force things.

The worst thing I could imagine, would be to get to the end of the year & look back on my travels & regret anything.  Not doing what I wanted to do, or embraced the moment enough.  Even if I don't make it to my apartment in Paris, if I'd had a year of blissful memories, then that would truly be enough.

Insightful Sunday - Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say

It's almost impossible to go your whole life without inevitably relying on someone, at some stage.  Whether it be emotionally, financially or otherwise.  Unfortunately, in life, you soon realise, that you can't always rely on people, even the people you feel you should be able to.  I've had to learn this the hard way.  But it's difficult being completely independent.

I think at some point, you have to find a healthy balance between standing on your own two feet & knowing that you have people who'll be there for you, when you trip & stumble.  I also think it's important to be that support for those around you & to remember that, what you say as a passing comment, may be taken as firm action by someone else.

So it's always wise to mean what you say & say what you mean.  Don't make empty promises, whether they're little or large.   Always give with an open heart, be understanding & love unconditionally.  At the end of the day, that's all anyone can really ask.

Insightful Sunday - Learning to let go.

Inspired by my bestest, Charlotte, doing Motivational March, over on her wonderful blog, The Tea Drinking English Rose, I have decided to start Insightful Sundays!

Although I am entirely out of the working loop, what with having resigned last May & essentially living as a vagabond ever since, I can't say that I get the gloom wash over me on a Sunday evening, in preparation for the Monday morning return to work.  However, I know that for a large percentage of people, this is the case & so, rather than end the week on a glum note, I wish to end on something positive & insightful.

Through a combination of words & inspiration from my Pinterest boards, I shall attempt to lift your spirits, so that you may start your working week on a happier, more enlightened note!  Enjoy!

At the beginning of the week, I had the great honour of guest posting on Charlotte's blog.  The post was to coincide with her Motivational March & offer a positive message, about how we can choose to overcome our adversities to triumph & fulfil our dreams.  At least, that was what I was attempting to convey.

Mère brought me up believing that you can't plan life, because ultimately, things will simply unravel as they will, whether you try to control them or not.  For someone who likes to be in control, such as myself, I found this quite exasperating.  However, over the years, I've learnt that she's actually quite right (not that I'm thrilled to admit it).

If I think of all the times I've tried to force a situation & it's fallen spectacularly apart, or how I've clung so fiercely to routines & plans, only for boulders to come rolling in & everything to crumble around me.  The thing is, when you actually start to let go & just accept these changes, you start to see that everything kind of happens for a reason & ultimately, things tend to work out far better than you originally planned.  Take my life right now as a prime example!

Whilst I still struggle to entirely 'free flow', I do at least relax a little more about things now.  When something seemingly negative arises, I take a step back, accept that it's most likely occurred for a reason & try to find something positive in it.  If nothing else, it stops me screwing up into a ball of negativity & most of the time, things generally do turn out for the better.

Plus, if I have learnt nothing else in this life, it's that shit happens (I now have this tattooed on me to remind me of this fact).  You've just got to keep positive!  I know it's not always easy, but sometimes the rockiest roads take us to the best destinations.