I have been doing it all wrong

When I was a little girl, perhaps more like a teenager, I started wondering what makes a lady a “good” woman. I must admit that I did not have the best role model at home, and not because my mother wasn’t good enough, she has always been a lovely and beautiful person, but I remember that my parents were not the best couple on earth, which caused confusion in my mind. This confusion led me to numerous questions around how good one can or should be, to become “a good prospect” for a good guy (to then build a happy family, yes yes the fairy tales, blame Disney ha!).

By the age of 14 I thought I had it all figured out… Back then, I created a list of characteristics and a full definition of a proper lady. This list had elements such as:

   •  Good girls never wear provocative clothes

   •  Good girls are religious

   •  Good girls are smart but never smarter than guys

   •  Good girls always say yes

   •  Good girls always smile

   •  Good girls cook well

   •  Good girls work out

   •  And many maaany more …

As I am a very committed person, back then I started acting each and every item of my list… I practiced every single day, until one day I think I became the person of my list. I then met a guy, who latter became my long term boyfriend, who by the way wasn’t the best person on earth, I mean he was there all the time and we were trying to build a true love relationship but it never really worked out. It wasn´t until we broke up that I started asking myself “how did my perfect plan fail?”… I mean I was this “good” person and a “proper lady”… How did I do wrong and chose the wrong guy? For many months I blamed him for being the “bad” one of the story…  I kept thinking like that, until I realized I was failing in this area, over and over again.  I failed so bad that I even “picked” the wrong husband. It was right at that moment of massive screwup that I realized I was doing it all wrong…. I did it wrong all the time, it was me, not them.

It took me 27 years to learn that one cannot pretend to be someone who you are not… That game can only last for so long and the issue with that is that, not only will this ruin your happiness, but you will also make very veeery stupid decisions. How on earth could I choose the person to walk life with, if I did not even know who I truly was? I could not expect to build a family, when I was not capable of building myself. The past is definitely in the past, but it was evident that I needed to change, from scratch.

I have done a deep analysis on my mistakes and also, I have observed successful close friends, to understand the keys to true and endless love (as if there were  many hehe). I truly believe that there are no recipes for true love, but a few things have been appearing consistently between the great benchmarks I have done with my friends and the analysis of my epic massive fails.

In two words: STOP PRETENDING. You need to be yourself, and to make this happen, you need to give yourself time to get to know you. Getting to know yourself is hard, because you realize how massively imperfect you are, but that process of getting to know you will come accompanied with lovely benefits, such as: tolerance, understanding, openness, appreciation and the best of all, it will give you the opportunity to love yourself. And this one is the ONE thing on which I have failed badly. Accepting who I am, without concerns of how it may look like from the outside, has been the key to my present happiness. Hearing my inner voice and driving my life in the way that I always truly dreamed of, has been the reason for my smiles and enthusiasm. For so long I looked out there, for what was always IN me <3. Self love is different from being selfish or egocentric, because when you truly love yourself in a healthy way, the outside counts too…Is from this self love that I have been able to appreciate and value what I have and above all, I have been able to value the people that join me in the walk of life. Is thanks to this self love that I have learned to prioritize the people around me, and not in a bad way but in a very good one… what I mean is that now I know to whom I love the most and I dedicate all my efforts and time to them, because they make me happy and I want to make them happy too. It is from self-love that true peace, balance and mindfulness come from. One must stay truthful to itself and be congruent in life, and good things will get in our way… otherwise, our lives will be just a spiral of mistakes, pretensions and dishonest behaviors.

I have learned that I need to stop trying too hard… Not that I need to give up on love, but I need to know that love cannot be forced. The right person will come along and, because my heart and mind are ready (or will be ready at some point), I will be able to actually SEE that person and that person will honestly and transparently SEE me. Additionally, this self love will allow me to identify the things I have “missed” in the past... I should be able to get to know that person in a much more honest way, and that person should be able to meet me as I am, without sudden “surprises”.

I may be all wrong here, again (it would not surprise me haha) but one thing I know: if you don´t fully love yourself, you can´t honestly love anyone else. In the way that I continue to love who I am, I will continue protecting my heart and to others. In the same extent that I keep valuing and respecting myself, I will value and respect others too.

Surely, I am missing around 3 million keys for pure and endless love, but I am sure this is the base for it.

Fall in love... with yourself. Happiness lies within <3

P.S. This one goes for you Raquel... you are a true inspiration.

Mi más grande miedo (aparte de morir)

A veces me pregunto si me quedaré sola para siempre… Estoy segura de que no soy la única que se cuestiona estas cosas, o al menos eso quiero pensar jaja

Hablar del miedo a quedarme “sola” es algo que ya se hizo parte de mis charlas semanales con mis mejores amigas. La verdad, me imagino que ha de ser muy cansado para ellas escucharme decir una y otra y otra vez “wey, ¿tú crees que me quede sola?”, pero mis amigas son las mejores amigas del planeta, porque siempre me escuchan hablar de lo mismo, como si fuera la primera vez (lucky me!).

Sin temor a ridiculizarme, confieso que estas dudas y temores sobre el amor, la vida en pareja y mi futuro en este ámbito, pasan por mi mente de vez en mes. Hoy fue uno de esos días en los que me levanté pensando: “will I ever be loved by a man, again?”… y sí, me lo pregunté en inglés, solo Dios ha de saber por qué. De forma extraña (o tal vez he de decir “de forma humana”), a pesar del gran trabajo que he hecho este año para estar en paz conmigo misma y ser plenamente feliz on my own,  en momentos el miedo a estar sola me invade y siento que jamás podré ser lo suficiente para ser amada de nuevo. No intento hacerme la víctima, sinceramente en ocasiones me fastidia que estos pensamientos vengan a mi mente, pero he  llegado a aceptar el hecho de que soy humana y por más “bien” que esté conmigo misma, es normal de pronto sentirme “sola” o con un miedo paralizante de no ser digna de ser amada. Cuando hablo de no ser amada, me refiero al más puro sentido romántico de la palabra… ese amor de pareja que uno vive y siente en cada poro… el amor que se construye en cada mirada, en cada detalle, en cada plática e incluso en cada pelea. Yo sé que soy inmensamente amada por la gente que me rodea y yo los amo también, con cada pedacito de mi ser, pero por algunas razones humanas conscientes e inconscientes, de pronto me inundan los pensamientos de que nadie me va a encontrar lo suficientemente adecuada como para ser su compañera de vida.

Si algo he aprendido este último año es a ser yo misma, sin pretensiones, máscaras o falsedades, y eso me enorgullece, porque en esta libertad he encontrado mucha felicidad… pero hay algo de esta libertad que me aterroriza, cuando de amor se trata… me lleno de preguntas… ¿Podrá alguien aceptarme así como soy? ¿Soy lo suficientemente atractiva? ¿Y si mejor soy un poco más convencional?  ¿Y si soy demasiado extraña? No sé si te haya pasado, pero en muchas ocasiones, cuando volteo a mi alrededor y veo que no “encajo”, entonces me pasa lo que me pasó esta mañana… me veo en el espejo y me pregunto: “will I ever be loved by a man, again?”.

Sé que son preguntas sin respuestas absolutas…. Sé que debo seguir siendo yo misma, buscando la felicidad en cada una de las cosas que hago y vivo. No me queda duda que soy bendecida por tener las amigas que tengo, por tener la familia que tengo, por trabajar en lo que amo y estar en el lugar que estoy… Me encanta poder hacer y deshacer con mi vida… amo viajar, conocer gente nueva, tener citas conmigo misma, hacer planes para luego deshacerlos, ponerme metas muy altas y trazar planes a 20 años… Amo mi vida y estoy enteramente agradecida por ella… pero aún así, aún con todo eso, me pregunto si algún día podré reírme de mi misma por pensar que, tal vez, el amor no era para mí.