Relationship Affirmations on YouTube

 

affirmation - noun - emotional support or encouragement (Google)

Admittedly, I am a bonafide YouTuber in that I sport two channels albeit one is a mistake that I can't seem to erase. What is the reason why I am on YouTube? To find an international audience for my original music and homemade videos, of course. How do I do that? I tend to start conversations with fellow YouTubers to advertise my music.

However, every once in a while in my search for people who could possibly what to listen to my songs, I will come across videos that relate to psychology, a subject of personal fascination and study, and I will learn something about human beings that I didn't already know. Thankfully, to save me some time, YouTube with its superior algorithms will find videos for me based on my existing searches. Just this evening, YouTube found a video for me that Psychology Daily released, providing a litany of affirmative quotes, the best of which, I would like to share with you so as to save you a bit of valuable time. They are in no particular order. "Woke" alert: Some of the quotes assume everyone is heterosexual. If you are someone outside the nomenclature, I apologize. I'm guessing whoever wrote the material did so sometime during the last century. Just substitute in the appropriate nouns and pronouns that will work for you. 

The quotations are as follows:  

"If you focus on the hurt, you will continue to suffer. If you focus on the lessons, you will continue to grow." 

"A real man/woman will be honest no matter how painful the truth is. A coward hides behind lies and deceit."

"The main reason behind most breakups is misunderstanding." 

"A woman can't change a man because she loves him. A man changes himself because he loves her."

"Once you are in a relationship, you think it's going to last forever, but in reality, it only lasts as long as you are working for it. If one person stops working, it falls apart."

"Hearing a single negative thing can damage at least five positive memories. Distancing yourself from negativity is self-care."

"Learn to love without condition. Take without bad intentions. Give without any reasons. And most of all, care for people without expectations." 

"Don't treat people as bad as they are; treat them as good as you are."

"We don't need to explain our love. We only need to show it."

"People who hide their feelings usually care the most."

"Crying is actually very healthy. Tears lubricate your eyes, remove irritants, and reduce stress, making you feel better."

"Real people stay faithful to their partners. They don't have time to look for others because they are too busy looking for new ways to love their own."

"A man always remembers the woman who has captivated his mind."

"Without communication, there is no relationship. Without respect, there is no love. Without trust, there's no reason to continue."

"Lucky is the man who is the first love of a woman's life, but luckier is the woman who is the last love of a man's." 

#word-to-words, #slice-of-life,  #blog, #blogging, #editorial, #reading, #vocabulary, #ReadersMagnet, #spilled thoughts, #good advice, #personal-essay, #writing community, #writing, #philosophy, #truth #relationships #self #therapy  

The Epistle: A Thumbs-Up for Letter Writing

 

epistle - noun - a letter (Merriam-Webster: Google)

    In this age of over-the-top technology, the emphasis, of course, is on communication. Yet believe it or not, there are some who shun the popular means of reaching out by clinging to what worked well in the past, letter writing, for example. Ah, you may turn up your nose and/or scoff at what you may deem to be outmoded. However, there are some solid reasons why you might want to return to penning and sending an epistle (a letter) as opposed to using email, texting, a Skype/FaceTime, or a phone call to catch up with others. Here are five good reasons why you should go back to letter writing (and they have nothing to do with Lucy van Pelt's fingers or fist):

    One: A letter is palpable, concrete yet abstract at the same time. You can experience a letter via all five senses albeit I wouldn’t recommend tasting it. (And to experience the audio sense, you can rustle it in a soft breeze as opposed to tearing it up.) It also can convey symbolism or other literary tropes if the writer happens to be a poet and tries very hard to impress the recipient.  

    Two: A letter can defy time. Just think of all the letters written by famous people over the years that have wound up in museums or books. Think Mary B. Shelley’s in the Huntington Library if you have ever been there. If not, definitely put it on your bucket list.

    Three: A letter can unite (or separate) people. If I hadn’t found the letter that my current love interest had written to me in 1980 while digging around in my attic, he and I would not be an item today. Admit it: If you are intent on your lover remembering you over time, write him or her or them a love letter. Letters are way more romantic than emails, and you won't delete them by mistake.

    Four: A letter is a display of written expression that can be telling. Handwriting analysis or graphology has helped people fathom an individual’s personality, unlocking the mysteries of the self. (Okay, maybe not legitimately, but it sounds good.)

    Five: A letter (esp. a love letter) is a purveyor of joy in the moment and over time. The recipient can read and reread it until she or he is convinced that it is real and not a come-on. Or if the recipient is trustworthy, he or she can read and reread it for the pure pleasure of it. (I admit to doing just that.) After all is said and done, digital won't last over time because technology is constantly being changed and upgraded, whereas analog (the basic paper epistle) will if you take time to preserve it.

    I probably can think of more reasons as to why the letter shouldn’t go the way of the Pontiac. (Gosh, I miss my Sunfire.)  I'll leave it up to you to come up with a few more reasons on your own, perhaps in a letter to yourself? :)

#word-to-words, #slice-of-life,  #blog, #blogging, #editorial, #reading, #vocabulary, #ReadersMagnet, #spilled thoughts, #good advice, #personal-essay, #writing community, #writing, #philosophy, #truth #relationships #self #therapy  

Wraiths and Reality

 

wraith - noun - a ghost or ghostlike image of someone, especially one seen shortly before or after his/her/their death. (Google)

This past weekend, I drove down to the Eastern Shore of Virginia to attend an informal reunion of friends from college at the lovely Victorian home of one of the friends. "The Big Chill" it was not, however. It was more on the order of "Three's Company," comical, but not silly.

On Sunday evening toward sun down, we three treated ourselves to a two-hour, historically focused, walking tour of the downtown, which featured a ghost story about a man, murdered for monetary reasons, who has been haunting the movie theater for decades. One employee swore that she actually saw him limp into the men's room only to dissolve completely into thin air. Naturally, this initial, stranger-than-fiction anecdote incited a litany of personal experiences involving wraiths. My male friend went so far as to inform us that he has seen and communicated with multiple apparitions, friends and relations, either in his dreams or during dreamlike states. I don't doubt it, for I, too, received a visit from my father in a dream that I had shortly after his death. Whether or not you believe in this sort of supernatural, Macbethian/Dickensian thing is certainly up to you. If your life experience has not led you down this shadowy path, then most likely you don't think about the presence of spirits, and your reality is more or less normal as opposed to paranormal.

Or so you might think. Whether or not you'd like to admit it, most likely you are being haunted in some sense of the word. If wraiths are ghosts, they are transparent images of the pasts that they had once inhabited. If your memory serves you well, it has the ability to visit and spook you. What I am getting at is that the Past can be a wraith that stays with you and may or may not wreak havoc if you allow it to do so. The only way past an unpleasant, wraithlike Past is to walk through her/his/their vapors by way of the present. Translation? Stay in the present. Which is easier said than done. I admit to being haunted myself, both in the conscious and unconscious states of mind. I don't expect that I'll ever be quite free from the two insistent specters who played significant roles in my life, but to placate or just protect myself, I try to remain fixated on memories of them that are pleasant as opposed to unpleasant. Memory can be selective. You can simply make a choice, which is a theme that I tend to come back to repeatedly in this blog. You can choose to remember the good things about the Past as opposed to the bad. The Past won't evaporate, but it will be more tolerant. At least, you will be able to coexist with it.

#word-to-words, #slice-of-life,  #blog, #blogging, #editorial, #reading, #vocabulary, #ReadersMagnet, #spilled thoughts, #good advice, #personal-essay, #writing community, #writing, #philosophy, #truth #relationships #self #therapy