Author Archives: Be a Leading Lady

What would you tell your younger self?

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I read  What I Know Now: Letters to My Younger Self by Ellyn Spragins and found myself reflecting on the question: What would I tell my younger self? It is definitely an interesting read, and oh, if we could only go back and give our  younger selves advice.  Many of us have learned a lot of things the hard way. We just do not have enough good leading lady role models telling the younger girls/women what they need to know.  Think of the life of regrets that we could save younger girls and women.  Some things cannot be undone.

Some things can affect our lives for a very long time, if not forever.

Here is my list of what I would tell my younger self.  I will probably come back from time to time and update it, but it’s a start.

  • Trust your instincts.
  • If you walk away from a relationship, and you are not really sad at all, that is a sign. Don’t second guess that.
  • Marry someone you respect.
  • Don’t decide to marry someone until you know how the two of you resolve conflict together. Is it give and take? Is it respectful?
  • Once you marry someone, whether they meet the above requirements or not, treat them like you would like your child’s spouse to treat your child. Chances are a daughter will marry someone like her father, and a son will marry someone like his mother.
  • Don’t ever let someone else talk you into marrying someone you don’t want to marry. Trust your instincts.
  • Likewise, never try to talk someone into a marriage they do not want. Let them trust their own instincts. They will be the one who has to live with it.
  • Do something creative on a regular basis.  It will make you a better person.
  • Practice daily the art of being grateful. It changes your perspective.
  • Make good friends and stay in touch with them (do life together on some level even if it is limited during various seasons but always be a constant in each other’s lives)
  • Take lots of pictures and print them.
  • Journal – write everything down, your thoughts, your dreams, everything about your experiences, being pregnant and your children growing up.

When you think about it, twenty years from now, we will be looking back at the very place we are now and thinking that we wish we could go back and give our present self advice.  Oh, the difference time, experience, and a little objectiveness can make.

I think twenty years from now, I would be telling my present self this:

Don’t waste today worrying about yesterday or tomorrow. The greatest tragedy of all is to waste today. -Simply Topaz

What would you tell your younger self?

Judging Is a Burden That You Do Not Have to Carry

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I really hate learning lessons the hard way. But we are all going to learn a few that way, probably many more than a few. The important thing is to take that lesson and to learn and grow from it and share with others to learn and grow. We are less likely to make it again, when we do the work after a lesson learned the hard way.

It can be so tempting to judge someone. We can be quick to say that someone shouldn’t have done something or that we would never do that, which is thinly disguised judgement. The truth is, that you never know until you are that person walking in those shoes down that path.

We look at a situation and only knowing a small part of the facts, or only the small amount of the overall information that one person in the situation has shared, and we come to a conclusion and judge someone. That is judgement.

The truth is, we do not know what we would do in that situation. We only think we know. And another truth is, if we knew the whole situation, we would have a greater compassion for the person, and would probably not judge. Period. It wouldn’t matter if we would have done the same thing or not.

Judging tends to come from our own issues based on our own life experiences. It can also come sometimes from (hang on, this one will be tough to hear), a need to feel superior, a need to feel like we are doing right in our lives. We need to feel that we are on a superior and higher path.

Even if you are, it’s only because you have not gone through everything that they have gone through, or maybe you went through it with a much better support system.

I judged someone once and found myself walking in her shoes one day, and you know what, I don’t judge her at all anymore. Even though I am trying to handle it a little differently, I do not in any way, shape, or form judge her now. No matter how much I think I may know, I don’t know what all she went through. Although, I do have a small insight now to what it may have looked like, but this I know – it was hard. It was very hard. Even if I were able to handle the situation perfectly, I have lost all need to judge. The situation is that hard, and I have an understanding of it now that I did not before.

The truth is, we can only say what we would do in a situation when we are actually in that situation, and even then, it is only who we are and everything in our lives that we have been through, and the support system that we have had or not had that got us to the point of making the decisions that we do. Something could happen tomorrow that might even change that.

Which brings me to my conclusion, judging is a burden that we do not want to carry. Life is full enough of the situations that we have to actually deal make. Judging is based on a hypothetical with only a very tiny portion of the facts. Give people the benefit of the doubt. At the very least, let them live their own lives. It is, after all, their life. Be the leading lady in your own life, and let them have the leading role in theirs.

I ask you, if you are hanging onto judgement of someone, to lay it down. Lay it down right now, and walk away. Just leave it and walk away. It’s a burden that I do not want my dear friends to carry.

Another thing to know is that we do not have to carry someone’s judgement on us. We do not have to own that. Let’s not carry burdens that we do not have to carry. Do what you know to be the right thing, and let others do the same for their lives. Lay down unnecessary burdens.

Judge not, that ye be not judged. -Matthew 7:1

What lessons have you learned the hard way that you can share with others?

Defining Moments

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Throughout our life opportunity presents itself, opportunities to direct/sculpt/create our life. It comes in the form of choices. These particular choices are not your ordinary choices. These are the choices that change your life forever. When we come face to face with a defining moment, we are making defining choices. These are choices that will alter the course of our life. For good or bad, we are determining the course of the rest of our life.

If you think back, the defining moments will reveal themselves. You know which ones they are. Sometimes the moment is so etched in our mind that we remember it down to the tiniest of details. We remember the two choices that we were presented with and even the feelings that we had, and then we make what seems like such an inconsequential decision, but it alters our life forever. If we only knew the power that we held in that moment. Defining moments seem almost magical. They find us. We do not find them.

Unfortunately, they do not always find us when we are in the best frame of mind to be making defining, life-altering choices.

So the question is how do we alter the course if we have made a bad choice in a defining moment, or to put ourselves in the best place to make good future choices? Defining moments are internal choices. We make them with our heart, not necessarily our instincts, but our heart based on everything that has brought us to this place today and what we have come to know and believe, and or fear up to this very point. That is the problem with defining moments. We are not always in the healthiest of places when we must make them. An important thing to note about defining moments is that while they do alter the course of our life and define our lives from that point on, we do have the power to change that course. It may not be in the magic of a defining moment, but it is possible.

Think back to the choice you made and who you were when you made it. That is where our attention must be focused. The person we were when we made the choice. Who was she? What did she think? What did she believe? What did she do daily? The defining moment is changed when we see the person who made the choice and begin to do things differently than she did. Was she selfish? If so, then do things that require giving. Was she fearful? If so, then do things that require being brave. When you change the person who made the choice, you will create a person who makes different choices. Many times we hear that knowing is half the battle. Yes, but it is not the whole battle. The rest of the battle comes when we change what we think and do daily. Consistency is key. Be careful not to fall into the trap of thinking that just because you see the error in the choice you made that that makes you changed. That can be a trap making you think that you are entirely different. You are not truly there until you are consciously changing the day to day choices. Remember, it’s the day to day choices and thoughts that ultimately lead us to being the type of person who makes our defining moment choices. True change does not come until you consciously and consistently living a different daily life. We cannot change history, but we can create a new future. -Topaz