Miss Adventures

Anger Management: The Struggle is Real

By: Shauna Zamarripa

Honestly, it takes a hell of a lot to get me angry. I don’t have a hair trigger temper – even though some people think I do…mostly because those people have been assholes for so long that they deserved a good blowing up on.

Here’s what I do have though. I do have a tendency to hold on to things for so long and so tightly, to let my resentment build, despite trying to let whatever is bothering me go, that just one wrong statement piled on at the end of a rough day, or on a day when I am feeling tired and overwhelmed will (quite literally) unleash the Kraken.

In which case, duck and cover is probably my best advice to anyone in my wake during such moments.

I can hold a grudge about 70 times longer as the most talented opera diva can hold a note.

Because, chances are, when I have decided that you have had more than enough chances, I cut you off. For good. And I’m not sorry about it, either.

And yes, I know that isn’t always the right answer, and yes that is something I am working on.

Cut me some slack. I have been that way all my life.

And, truth is, I do have some legitimate reasons to be angry. My trouble comes when I take out that anger on someone else because they remind me of someone who has done me wrong, or because I see so much of someone I am angry at in another human being, that I will wall up and decide to be angry at them too.

And sometimes it’s just because I’m an asshole. I’m human.

Thing is, I know I am not the only woman in the world like this. Hell, I’m not the only person in the world like this.

So, if you find yourself in my shoes there is a coping strategy I have found recently that is both helpful and healing.

I picked the five people I am the most angry at (hey, it’s a long list after 35 years, this can only be done in increments) and I wrote them each a letter. I spoke to them about why I am angry, why I have been angry with them for so long and how I would like to be able to forgive them one day.

These are letters that I will never send. Not ever.

These are chapters long since closed. But I had to do it for me. So? After I wrote these five letters, I burned them.

And yes, it helped.

However, as I took the pen to the paper of each of these letters, I realized two very important things:

The first thing is that most anger is born out of pain. And that sometimes we hold on to it because it is the only defense mechanism that works 100% of the time. If you are mean enough, you will scare enough people away so that you don’t get hurt again. Because your heart can’t handle getting hurt anymore. Because sometimes pretending you don’t have a heart is the only way you know how to keep yours safe.

The second thing I realized is that while I have held on to this anger and resentment for many, many years now towards so many people, the one person I was truly, honestly the most angry with….was myself.

And I was angry with myself for several reasons. I was angry at myself for holding on to all of this. For displacing my anger. For allowing it to rule and control so much of my life for so long. For not risking the pain of getting hurt. For justifying my own bullshit.

So even though my assignment for the week was five letters, I wrote six. And I don’t mind sharing the last one with you at all.

Dear Me,

Please remember to allow yourself to be human, and that you have to allow others to be human too. Try to show the world your heart instead of your walls. And know that I forgive you, because I don’t want to be angry with you anymore.

Love,

Me.

It’s okay to be angry. It’s okay to get upset. It’s even okay to blow up from time to time. It’s okay to be human. It’s okay to be flawed. It’s also okay to have boundaries and not feel like the entire world has to like you (and vice versa). All of that is okay. Being an asshole is not. And that is coming from someone who has done her own fair share of being a huge asshole. So take where I screw up, learn from it and apply it to wherever you need to, so that you can avoid making the same stupid mistakes that I have.

Much Love from Me to You,

Miss Adventures

Amazon.com Widgets

For YEARS I have known several folks who have harped about this book at nasuem. So, one day while I was at Half Price Books, I decided to see what all the fuss was about, and I bought it.

Granted, I’m not much for hoopla and all of this bright, shiny, life advicey, pie in the sky hogwash, so, while reading the book, I figured I would approach it with as much cynicism as possible; that I would make an experiment out of it.

So that is exactly what I am going to do.

And, I’d like you to join me.

Naturally, it helps if you buy the book, but each week, I am going to work on one chapter, follow the advice to the letter and let you know my results before moving on to the next one.

Here are the key points of this chapter:

So, working under the assumption that thoughts really DO become things, and that you attract in life what you desire -- even if you say you don't -- I am going to follow the instructions and see if I can't manifest somethings I want out of life.

And, since I am a techy sort of gal, I'm going to do it using Pinterest. Meet...my vision board.

Follow Shauna's board 2015 Vision Board on Pinterest.

So this is how we are going to do this thing, fellow experimenters.

Step 1: Go follow my board, then send me a link to yours.
Step 2: Post one thing per day that you would like to see manifest itself into your life.
Step 3: After 30 days, we are going to check our results and see what worked and what didn't.

Each week, we will add to the "experiment" until we finish the book....heck, if it yields results, we might even play this little game a bit longer.

[If you like this post, please share it with your social networks to get even more people involved in "The Secret" Experiment]

And, of course, if you are the type of person who just doesn't want to miss a Miss Adventure, sign up for our spam free email recap -- where we send you the best content each week.

Buy the book on the cheap on Amazon.com

I was having a chat with a friend of mine one day. We were discussing how so many women we knew had all landed a man to “take care of them” so they “didn’t have to work”, and while that is all well and good – in a traditional, antiquated 1950’s value proposition sort of way – we also noticed that these self-same people were….for lack of a better word….bitches.

Now, let me expand on this concept for a moment.

Essentially, there are three types of bitches in the world:

The Trophy Bitch

The Arm Candy Bitch

The Self-Made Bitch

And don’t worry, we are going to explore each one in a little more (albeit in edaciously snarky) detail.

The Trophy Bitch

Also known as the Anna Nicole. You are the one who waltzes down the block, hunting for the weakest, oldest, most morally bankrupt and lonely man possible. Why? Because that’s the asshole with the most money, that’s why – well that, and you can pretty much bet his Rolex that you will

outlive him and take every dime when he goes tits up.

Trophy bitches are manipulative. You will obtain thousands of dollars in plastic surgery – usually funded by some weak ass man – knowing that you can get away with it. Because you are pretty. Even if only in the most surgical of senses.

You are beautiful creatures who can play dumb at the drop of a hat, but you aren’t necessarily stupid…save for one tiny detail.

One day, he is going to die. One day, you are too. All the plastic surgery, makeup, designer clothes and fancy purses won’t be able to hide an ugly heart. You might enjoy the throes of trophy bitchdom now, but one of these days, you’re going to be old and alone. Really alone – and probably broke because you spend money like water. Because you are so truly awful that not even a stray dog nor feline would keep your company in your golden years, or even your last few moments.

The lesson? You might enjoy the “riches” of life right now, but you’ll live out your years emotionally bankrupt.

The Arm Candy Bitch

These busty dullards are the same bimbos posting nothing but bikini or underwear selfies whilst, at the camera, sporting the-ever-so-atrocious look known as “duck face”, all the while shooting deuces at all their Instagram followers -- yes, I went there. (How many selfies does one need in order to feel validated as a human being, by the way?)

You’d like to be a trophy bitch one day. That’s your biggest goal and aspiration in life. After all, much like the trophy bitch, you too, will have someone else pick up the tab for your oodles upon oodles of plastic surgery and Boxtox injections.

However, you aren’t as smart as the trophy bitch, so your days of enjoying being financed by the latest in the parade of 31 flavors of men will always leave you passed up for…you guessed it…the trophy bitch.

You rely far too much on your looks, and don’t do anything to expand your knowledge or horizons above and beyond the latest shoe sale at Saks or the latest fashion advice in Vogue.

And, like your wicked counterpart, the trophy bitch, the same fate awaits you. It just awaits you much sooner.

The Self-Made Bitch

You? Well, you are one bad bitch. You drink your bourbon on the rocks, no mixers. You can smoke a cigar. You can handle yourself on the golf course. You’re not girly. You really could give a rat’s happy ass about the latest “Naked” pallet at Ulta. You’re practical. You know exactly what you need to do to infiltrate – and own – the boy’s club that is the world of business. Nothing (and no one) gets in your way, and nothing ever will. You don’t need plastic surgery. You need a good workout. That makes you happy. A hike in the mountains with your faithful canine is the equivalent to a day at the spa for these other bitches. You will kickbox your way into the top ranks of magazines like Entrepreneur. And you will own the world.

You take no shit.

You need no man.

However, you’re a little different than the other two species of bitches in this article. Unlike them, you have a softer side. A side that yearns for a companion, a partner, but not a trough of money from which you can leech throughout your dying days.

That makes you, Ms. Self-Made Bitch, a rare and wonderful breed.

A breed that we should teach all of our daughters to live up to. Because you will enjoy riches in this life and the next. Because you’ll never step on anyone to get ahead, you’ll never hurt anyone intentionally. You keep your head down, stay in your lane and focus on the end goal: success, even if you have to earn it all by yourself.

You’ll leave something behind in this world that you can be proud of, a legacy, a dream, an aspiration that people can reach for. And you will die as a role model for other women; something for everyone to live up to.

You? You’re who I always wanted to be when I grew up.

You’re who I became.

So thank you, self-made bitches before me, for lighting the way, for showing me how, and for giving me a prime example of the sort of bitch to live up to that I always aspired to be.

If you know “bitches” like this, share this post and tag them. Appreciate the great women in your life. Build them up. Become them. Know better, do better.

Much Love,

Miss Adventures

It’s amazing how little you can accomplish without any guidance. I decided in 2007, after earning my master’s degree, I wanted to start my own business in second language acquisition. I created a website on my own and waited. I created business cards and handed them out to friends and waited.

Finally, one of my friends told me that she and her boyfriend wanted to learn Spanish. So, I eagerly took their money and spent almost two months with them. I tried to use what I could remember about learning theories to make it the best learning experience possible. But in the end, they didn’t learn much. I finally gave them a booklet of frequently used phrases, and we stopped meeting.

I thought the next best step would be to start going to seminars –online, locally, and nationally. I still had my business cards, maybe if more people knew about me, I could get more business.

But, I didn’t.

I struggled for quite a while trying to figure out how to do this business. Honestly, I really didn’t know what I was doing.Was my goal to simply teach people Spanish? Maybe I wanted to offer teachers research about Spanish?Maybe I should get certified as a Spanish speaker? It seemed so broad, but I thought I needed to spread a broad net if I was to find any customers at all.

About a year later, I decided I didn’t want to focus on second language acquisition at all. I made this decision, mostly, because I had only one customer who paid $50. After purchasing a business license and registering my domain, I probably netted $5.

That 's when I started a blog. Again.

I really didn’t know what I was doing. I tried to stay focused. I figured if I stuck to education, I’d be doing pretty well, but I was doing exactly what I had done at the start. I wrote a blog and waited for someone to read it. Maybe someone would comment, “good blog”, or send
me an email and ask me to write something for them.

Of course that didn’t happen, and my blog became rambling about anything and everything. I just wanted to write, so I wrote book reviews, summaries of my vacations, thoughts on religious topics, and local artist profiles.

Again, I waited.

Of course my artist profiles and some of my book reviews drew attention, but it certainly didn’t draw any money.

Kudos could only go so far. So, I stopped blogging.What was the point if no one was going to read what I was writing, and my focus strayed in so many directions, who would even want to follow what I was writing?

And that got me frustrated. I wasn’t working a 9-5 job. I hadn’t done that in over 5 years, and while I was receiving money from another source, there was no way I could sustain myself in the long term. I needed help.

One friend I have on social media recommended finding someone local who wasn’t connected to my field at all. In doing that, I could get connected to the community but have the objectivity I needed to get to work. I definitely needed the objectivity, but I didn’t like the idea of finding someone local.

Being connected to the community would be a good thing, but I like to travel, and I want my writing or blogging or whatever this is to have a nationwide or global audience.

So, I did seek out someone completely unrelated to my field, well sort of, and she isn’t local. She’s a writer, and she markets her products through writing, but her products have little to do with my area of interest –that vague field of educational research. But, she is a successful writer, and if nothing else, I wanted to be the same. Even if I couldn’t be a successful researcher or a world-renown expert in education, I wanted to be a successful writer.

And, I wanted to be paid for my writing.

What’s the point of writing if you’re not being paid? Really, if you’re not being paid, you’re not doing much more than writing in your own private diary!

So, now it’s 2015. It was just December 2014when I realized I finally needed some kind of focus.

And, now at the end of January, I can actually say I’m not just an educational research writer. I don’t want to be a Spanish teacher or a book reviewer, or a music blogger.One of the first things I needed to do was find a niche, and surprisingly after some brainstorming, I came up with something I don’t think I would have ever considered.

I have a single focus now on music education within early childhood programs.

With that niche, there is so much I can do, but I will no longer ramble in my blogs. I won't allow myself to get off topic, and I won’t just wait for someone to stumble onmy website. I know it’s still early, but I feel confident that with proper guidance, the next ten years will look nothing like the past eight I wasted by doing nothing!

To find out more about Deb, follow her!
Twitter @debhalasz
Blog http://www.Debhalasz.com/index.html
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/WriterDebHalasz

4 Lessons I Learned From My Nieces

Awhile back, the man said something to me that ruffled my sarcastic feathers. In conversation one evening, he referred to me as an ice princess; the end result being my panties quickly crumpling into a wad.

Then, I unwadded my drawers and unruffled my feathers and I thought about it a little bit.

And I realized that he might be (just a little tiny bit) right.

I guess I am kind of an ice princess.

So here is my confession.

I never thought about how cold and intense I can come off at times – to just about anyone, even small children and dogs --, but when he said it, it got me to thinking about all the times in my life that I have been accused of coming off as cold, unfeeling or even a bit mean. There were several.

Okay, okay, there were more than several.

The thing is, I don’t mean to come off like that.

At all.

I love people (well, some people) very deeply. I am just really, really, really horrendous at showing it. In fact, I can’t remember a single time that I have been good at it. My face is usually set in “resting bitch face” mode 24/7, 365 days a year. I can be very intense when I speak, very authoritative and even come off as a bit bitchy – I don’t mean to do that either.

I’m also a bit of a shut in and a hermit, circa Princess Elsa from “Frozen”.

Why am I this way? A myriad of reasons, really. But, after meeting my nieces for the first time this past weekend, I also learned that I need to….

Up until about a year and a half ago, I had never met Sam and Katie. In fact, I have never even met my brother, Dennis. My brothers and my sister were born much further ahead of me in the lineup of kids – over 14 years in fact --, making me the baby and the only child that my father and my mother had. Since my half-brothers and half-sister lived in Kentucky – and prior to the dawn of social media – we had never even spoken. In fact, the first time I ever spoke to my brother was last year.

Crazy, right?

However, after connecting via Facebook, I began talking to the nieces quite a bit –

sometimes even the nephew. And it was eerie how much we all had in common, how much alike we all were. So, one day, Sam and Katie jumped in the car and decided to come and visit Aunt Shauna (aka Princess Elsa). And while I thought I could teach them something about business and blogging and such, they actually ended up teaching me some things instead.

It’s okay to show people how you feel

Touchy, feely is how I would describe my nieces. They would hug and play with each other’s hair and didn’t have the “security bubble” like aunt Shauna does – A security bubble of that includes a strict “no hugging” policy – hugs = death -- and generally liking to keep at least three feet of distance between myself and any other bi-ped with a pulse. However, being around these girls made me realize that it’s okay to be touchy feely; that feeling loved is part of that.

It’s okay to talk to your parents every day

I cannot even describe how cute it was to watch the girls text and talk to their mom and dad a few times a day. There were a lot of “I love yous” and “I miss yous" thrown around – words generally not in my vocabulary. There was a time that I felt I would say those words much more freely, but as life happened, I guess I got a little bitter; cold even. However, the nieces, my brother and my sister-in-law made me realize how important it is to say those things; and that when you are texting family or close friends, you shouldn’t feel like a burden – they might just be waiting to hear from you.

Approach everything with a sense of wonderment

As the girls spoke about the differences between Kentucky and Texas, they did so with an endearing childlike wonderment, and I thought it was absolutely adorable. It made me realize that I rarely approach anything with a sense of wonderment anymore; that wonderment had been replaced with cynicism and apprehension. I need to work on that. And, had they not come down to visit, I probably would not have realized how much.

Give praise. Often.

I admit, I am slow to give praise – like molasses in January slow. I guess that is probably why whenever I have done so in the past I have (literally) freaked people out. The girls, however, are anything but slow to giving praise.

Here is an example: As we went into the mall and I wandered off to grab a phone call from the man, I came back to hear the clerk gushing and saying, “Oh, so THIS is the famous aunt?” And while I minimized it, because I don’t often accept praise easily either, I have to admit, it was nice to be praised.

Something that reminded me that I need to be a little more forthcoming with praise.

So, before they left to return home, I sent a message to my brother telling him what amazing girls they were, how I absolutely adore them and how thrilled I was that he let me borrow them for a weekend. I went on to praise my brother for doing such an amazing job in raising two very sweet, loving, caring and amazing women.

So, I guess I’m on the right track. At least, I am starting out on the right foot, and maybe, just maybe my ice cold demeanor melted just enough to remind me that sometimes we all need an emotional overhaul – or at least a makeover. And sometimes, just sometimes, the people you think you are meant to teach are the people who end up schooling you.

All my love from the bottom of my a-little-less ice cold heart,
Miss Adventures

Goals. We all have them, right? We all craft some imaginary (or real life) list of things we want to accomplish before we croak. Some goals might be lofty (take over the world), others might be to quit smoking or to spend more time with friends, or even to work out three times a week. However, how well do you do at planning your goals?

No.

Wait.

Better question:

How well do you manage the accomplishment of each goal?

That, from where I sit – and no, I am not on the high horse today – is where I see most people fall down.

Naturally, that led me to believe I needed to do a blog about this.

So, direct from one of the most anal retentive people on the planet – that would be me --, here are a few tips that might help you eat that elephant (I’ll explain later).

Step 1: Build your elephant

This is when I sit down and write my annual goals – usually right before the end of the year, or directly after the start of the new one. Except I don’t write them as goals, I have them in my Evernote as “Things That Will Happen in the Next Year”. Then, I have a daily reminder to myself (set in my Outlook) to review those goals. Daily review helps keep me focused forward, as opposed to obsessing over things I didn’t get done.

And I obsess….a lot. Really. This helps me.

Step 2: Downsize your elephant

From the annual list, I take the month ahead of me and do what I call a “30 in 30”. A 30 in 30 is a list of 30 things I am going to accomplish over the next 30 days. All of these things are written to help me inch closer to my annual goals.

Step 3: Keep eating that elephant

From there, I pepper my daily to do list with these 30 in 30 items, crossing off one item on the

“bigger” list each day – sometimes even two in a day – and giving myself a system with which I can track my own progress.

How do I do it? I use a combination of Evernote (for the larger goals), Outlook tasks and calendars and a plain old composition notebook – for when inspiration strikes.

Goals only mean something if you measure them. As we are now, officially two weeks into the new year, are you making goals you can track and measure?

Because the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.

Stay tuned for my next piece on this, at the beginning of February. I’ll let you know how I fared.

And, of course, if you have something to share, please leave a comment!

JAMES ALTUCHER | JANUARY 13, 2015 | LIVING

Children laugh on average 300 times a day. Adults…five.

I don’t really know why. Maybe it’s our additional responsibilities. How much time do I spend worrying about the future instead of focusing on right now?

I suspect I have another ten-twenty big changes left in me. I get passionate about something new at least once a year.

As for small changes, I try to make them every day. Or I lose practice.

Saying “No” to a change that’s begging for you, will kill you. I think I would’ve died in 2009 without change.

Benjamin Franklin said, “most people die at twenty-five but are buried at 75.”

Who wants to spend fifty years dead?

You can’t ask the world to change… you have to change first. @jaltucher (Click to Tweet!)

When you start a new change, here is what happens. Well, I have no clue what happens to you. Here is what happens to me.

FEAR.

I get scared:

What will happen to me? I’ll go broke! Or be lonely! Or get sick! Or nobody will like what I am doing!

Practice dealing with uncertainty is the only way to get comfortable with this fear.

Everything is either an obstacle to growth, or an obstacle to keep you from growing. The good thing is: you get to choose.

ARGUMENTS.

Bosses won’t want you to quit. Colleagues will get scared because it means change is forced on them. And depending on your change, maybe family is unhappy (when I was thrown out of school, my family was certainly unhappy).

Whoever wrote your script will be unhappy. You’re changing the movie.

There’s NOTHING to say to the people who argue with you.

Because they are right also. In their life situations, it’s very right for THEM for you not to quit. Why argue with them? Conserve your energy for your change, not for the weights on your back that will try to hold you down.

GUILT.

Let’s say you are leaving a relationship or a job or an agreement. I can tell you: someone is ready to make you feel guilty about this.

It’s hard not to feel guilt, particularly if someone is sad because of “what you are doing to them.”

But much worse is the guilt you will feel if you don’t make the change your body and the universe is telling you to make. The universe is much bigger than the person on the other side. To go against that flow will make you sink and drown.

TEARS.

I don’t think I’ve ever once made a change in my life that didn’t involve me crying either on the day of the big change or sometime that week.

Why cry? Isn’t that a bit wimpy?

Change is very lonely.

But you will never be lonely if you enjoy being with the person you are alone with.

None of the above sounds that great actually. So why change at all?

PREVENT MUSCLE ATROPHY

When a car doesn’t start all winter, the engine will get ruined.
When you don’t walk for two weeks, your leg muscles atrophy and you need physical therapy to walk.
Change is a muscle.

STEEP FEELS GOOD

When you change you go from a flattening learning curve (your old situation) to a steep learning curve (the new situation).

Steep learning curves feel good. Do you like the feeling of touching a new curve?

YOU WERE IN THE WRONG SCRIPT.

At every stage of our lives, the people around us try to write our scripts.

When we are young the script your family writes you might be: school, cubicle, promotions, management, CEO, retirement, death.

But you might realize that the right script for you didn’t include “cubicle.”

You have to rewrite your script.

If you stay in the old script it’s like acting in a role that is not written for you.

You want to be in a work of art, not a forgery or a plagiarism.

PLAY.

When we were kids we played different games all the time. We would never play the same game for 300 days in a row, for twenty years in a row.

But then we got handed our “scripts” by our parents, schools, political parties, jobs, institutions, etc. We were told to stick to the script.

But we never stopped being the boy or girl who wanted to play.

AND THEN…

Getting good at change (big, small, tiny – every day) means getting good at life.

Do it without expectation. Wish for nothing. Care for everything. Happiness will be in between.

James Altucher has built and sold several companies, and failed at dozens more. He’s written twelve books, and The Power of No is the book to RULE THEM ALL. (Although he is also fond of Choose Yourself.) He’s an investor in twenty different companies. He writes every day. He doesn’t have enough friends. Still interested in knowing him? Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

Originally posted on Positively Positive

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Miss Adventures

You can’t ask the world to change… you have to change first. @jaltucher (Click to Tweet!)

When you start a new change, here is what happens. Well, I have no clue what happens to you. Here is what happens to me.

None of the above sounds that great actually. So why change at all?

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You can’t ask the world to change… you have to change first. @jaltucher (Click to Tweet!)

When you start a new change, here is what happens. Well, I have no clue what happens to you. Here is what happens to me.

None of the above sounds that great actually. So why change at all?

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About Me

Popular Posts

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