Relationships

Sick Of Feeling Crappy? Here Are Five Rules To Finding Happy!

I have had several friends say they are not happy and that they do not know how to find happiness. I do not in any way shape or form profess to be the happiness coach, nor do I have all the cures for finding your own happiness; however, I would like to share to a few things I have learned over my own years of searching for happiness.

RULE# 1
Happiness comes from within
For years I went back to a relationship thinking I could not be “happy” without him or the relationship. I could not be alone. I went back trying to love and be loved, however I was only putting myself through a personal hell.

I let the relationship define me and my reason for being.

After my divorce I found that I didn’t even know who “I” was. I had been too busy trying to find happiness in someone else, that I had lost myself. I had to rediscover and find who I was.

RULE# 2

Happiness quotes
A year later I realized that my unhappiness wasn’t because of the lack of having someone in my life. I had to find happiness within, because if I was not happy now how was I ever going to he be happy in a relationship?

RULE# 3

Happiness quotes

Letting someone else be your source of happiness is self-destructive. You have to learn to like, love and respect yourself before anyone else.

Question:
How long do you find yourself happy when you allow your happiness to be driven by another person? A couple of weeks or months, and then what?

Then you believe this person must not be the “one” because they no longer make “you” happy….. when in reality you set this relationship up to fail because you were searching for someone/anyone to fulfill your void.

We have all been taught that to love someone is to sacrifice yourself for their happiness and in return we expect them to do the same for us. However, by sacrificing our happiness we are only becoming miserable. We alone are responsible for our happiness.

RULE# 4

Self acceptance key to happiness

Start by making yourself the priority and no-one else. Find yourself, and enjoy being you.

Now this doesn’t mean you have to cut everyone out of your life, but that you should allow yourself to be the priority.

RULE# 5

The only person you cannot live without and have unconditional love for is YOU! Everyone else is a bonus. Once you start to love yourself and instead of leaving your happiness dependent upon others, the right people will fall into place.

Written By: Aliceson Troute Carver

The Birth And Death Of Friendship

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I once read somewhere years ago that friendships are born in those moments that we look at someone else wholeheartedly and say “Ohhhh, you do that too!?” It is in those moments of clarity such as uttering that statement  that will mark the beginning of wonderful memories. 

Through the years I have found that it really is about how much we can relate to others that not only determines the amount of friends we have, but the depths of those friendships as well. 

As we grow and change we will grow together as friends, or grow apart. And if our circle has never changed or has not changed for quite some time, then we may want to question some things. Because if it our circle does not grow or change, then we probably aren’t either. 

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© Angela Bininger and The Empowerer, 2009-2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this websites author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Angela Bininger and The Empowerer with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Something Always Comes Up Missing If We Have Bad Company

What happens when we hang out with the wrong people quote

We have to stay away from the Negative Nancy’s and the Debbie Downers. They will steal things from us that may take years or never for us to restore.

These thieves I mention, are energy vampires. And they will suck us dry if we let them. But fortunately we have a choice! So let’s choose wisely and protect our harmonious bubbles. Shall we?

© Angela Bininger and The Empowerer, 2009-2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this websites author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Angela Bininger and The Empowerer with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Are These Three Types Of People In Your Life?

Relationships of any kind with certain types of personalities may seem impossible. Perhaps because they are! Especially if they are the three types described below.

Censorious people in relationships are hard to please and they are very hypercritical. They are the ones who accuse, condemn, chastise, criticize, and pretty much make a person feel as low as possible. What they fail to realize is that they are the primary reason that all of their relationships fail. Nothing seems to satisfy them, leaving in place a huge relationship landmine.

Censorious people are the opposite of what a relationship needs to survive. In a healthy relationship partners will praise, encourage, and compliment one another just as they should. They feel grateful and thankful for one another and their interactions with one another are a direct reflection of such.  

Malcontent people in relationships are also a huge landmine and because one feels so dissatisfied or unfulfilled, it can lead to many different scenarios ranging from the disrespectful ways one would speak to or treat one another, to adultery or even the abandonment of the relationship.

These people are full of regret and resentment, and because of this you will surely hear about it repeatedly if you decide to stick around and put up with it. What they fail to realize, is that it is themselves that they are miserable with. It has nothing to do with the people they encounter or that they try to build relationships with.

Recorders or Historians in relationships will recall everything in the present but they are particularly obsessed with the past. They let nothing go and can cause what would have been a wonderful and life long relationship, to dissipate.

Building something long term with this personality type is like building upon quicksand. No matter how hard you try to prove yourself it continues to deteriorate and crumble. It is impossible for the recorders to truly enjoy the present because they are too busy dredging up the past. They will never move forward until they stop looking back.

moving forward leaving past behind quotes

So what do you do when you are in a relationship with these types of people? RUN! Just kidding. You do not have to run. You can walk instead.

Once these patterns are present on a regular basis whether it be a lover or a friend, you may have better luck forming a close bond with a brick wall. These people are energy vampires and will suck you dry. Tread lightly.

Are Any Of These Four Things Stealing Your Time?

I have never met anyone in my life who gives preference to or who truly enjoys the company of a thief. They simply are not trustworthy. But here is the twist; thieves are not always people. Sometimes they are just “things” but these things are here to take something precious. They want our time.

These four “things”  I have listed below may attempt to steal our time but we can determine their success and failure rate in pulling off the heist.

In effort to make these four things stealing our time a little bit easier to remember long after you are done reading I have listed them so that they spell out the word PATH.

(Pretty simple, eh? I thought so too.)

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  • Playing victim will never get us anywhere for the simple fact that we are only the victim of something the first time that it happens to us. After that we begin to shed our own blood with our own hands. Replaying it in our minds countless times is pointless. By holding on to the past and playing victim we begin to have our time stolen. It is best to let go of whatever it is if our time truly matters to us.
  • Addictions steal the addicts time and life. They will steal both the time and life of the people who love(d) the addict. And as we all know, addiction will also steal an innocent persons time and life.

Addiction can, will, and does strike any class of people in any society or culture across the globe. Addiction will never discriminate. It attacks fragile humans tirelessly like the revolting beast that it is. 

Addiction does not have to be drugs or alcohol which is what most of us picture when we hear the word. It could be anything. An addiction could be food, soda, cigarettes, gossiping, compulsive shopping, lying, sex, pornography or anything else one could fill the blank in with. (With shows like “My Strange Addiction” and some of the other programs on television these days, this area of addiction no longer has a border. Anything goes it seems.) 

  • Toxic people will not only steal our time but their negative energy falls upon us like an ominous cloud on a sunny day. That negative energy electrocutes us then spreads through our bodies and rolls out of our mouths. Our wonderful mood vanishes so swiftly and before we know it we are stewing over things that we have zero control over. Better yet, we begin stewing over things that we normally would not make note of at all. 

In order to protect our time and preserve our own life we have to maintain a sure and clear distance from people who are toxic. If there is no distance then they will continuously monopolize our time. (Please note that this does not mean we have to fully cut people off. In fact, we need their numbers in our phones so we know when not to answer.)

Toxic people will feast on us for as long as we grant them permission to. We just need to say “No thanks, not today!” when they bring it to us. About the same response one would have with a salesman stopping us in the kiosk area of a mall, or a telemarketer calling us on the phone. “Ohhhh, well I am not interested…. but thank you!” speaks volumes. And sometimes it will need said several times before you are heard.

The trick is to not feed into it. By not feeding into it, eventually they will get bored with us and find another victim. In fact they have to do that! For they are the energy vampires. (muahahahaha – insert evil vampire laugh here___)

  • Harbored Wrongs are absolutely one of the biggest time thieves. We have seen people in their 60’s to 80’s still holding on to things from decades ago. We’ve seen people hold on to things someone did twenty years ago in high school. We have seen people hold on to pains of their ancestors throughout history. The list is endless for this one. But the fact is, a harbored wrong does us no good. It allows bitterness to take root and our heart then becomes a hard blob of rubber cement. It serves us no purpose and there is absolutely no benefit in holding on to the negativity.

Harbored wrongs are often the root of addiction. They are the root to becoming a toxic person. And it is almost impossible to harbor a wrong and not be found at some point or another playing victim.

These four things mentioned were stealing valuable time from millions of people as I typed this. These four things (alone or combined) are stealing from others as you read this. And they will still be stealing from people next week at this time or even next year.

Are any of these things stealing from you?

Time is too precious! Life is too precious! And we only get one shot at both!

© Angela Bininger and The Empowerer, 2009-2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this websites author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Angela Bininger and The Empowerer with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Humility And Wisdom The Best Of Friends

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I wrote a piece a few years ago in regards to humility and wisdom going hand in hand. And boy do they ever if you think about it. I mean, they are in deed the best of friends. You can’t have a little bit or a lot of one….without having the other show up. They are just inseparable. (And the two of them together can cause quite a fuss!)

In life we will have experiences that humiliate us. Friends may humiliate us. Co-workers may humiliate us. Family may humiliate us. All in all…. people will humiliate us. ( And if they don’t we may just find some time to humiliate ourselves.😂)

We must remember however that it is only humiliation when there is truth to it. Otherwise it is just a rumor folks. And nobody gives a crap about rumors. Rumors are laughed at, blown off, and just flat out ignored. (By intelligent people they are anyway.)

When truth humiliates us we are given wisdom. After that it is up to us  what we do with it. We can take that wisdom in and use it to benefit us and the situation, or we can reject it all together. 

When we reject the wisdom we choose to continue on the same path and stay in the same place of ignorance. It is simply a preference to keep making the same mistakes.

What we should really do, is use the wisdom to change the situation. That in turn breaks the cycle, and that is the only way to truly move forward.

From Both Sides Of The Fence: Cheater vs. Victim

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When cheating occurs both sides endure pain. Both sides feel theirs is greater. But whose is really? Can pain really be measured?

From my experience, the cheaters feel their pain is the same as their partners. They feel pain, loss, heartache, and failure. They feel dark, lost, alone, weak, and broken. They can’t believe they hurt someone who loved them.

More often than not a cheater doesn’t realize the depth of a partners love, until they see the pain their partner experiences when the cheating is revealed. In most cases, cheaters did not set into a relationship to cheat. At some point, needs were not being met. This does not justify cheating. Cheating is however a symptom of an already broken relationship. Things were broken long before an affair began.

Cheaters often wish the victim would quit talking about it or bringing it up. At times, cheaters are walking on eggshells with even the thought that their partner may be revisiting such bad memories. At other times the cheaters may appear nonchalant saying phrases like; “Get over it, Cant we move on already, Can we make up, etc.” Or perhaps the cheater plays that they are the victim.

Typically after finding out one has cheated, the story goes a little bit or a lot like this:

Cheater – I love you, I didn’t mean to hurt you.

Victim – Hind sight is 20/20. Thanks for showing me your version of love, jerk/b***h!

Cheater – I did it because ____, I did it because you didn’t ______, I did it because I was drunk/lonely.

Victim- There is NO excuse! Tell me the real reason please! Why wasn’t I worth the truth?

Cheater- How long will it take to get your forgiveness?

Victim – Can you be any more shallow? Can you exercise some patience here and help me clean up this mess you made before you ask such a ridiculous question. There is no time limit. I have no idea. I am still trying to figure out if I can even stand to be near you!

Cheater – Why are you always so negative now? Man you are in a bad mood!

Victim – Well, you should have thought of my mood when you did what you did. For wanting something positive you sure infected this relationship with your negativity. You did this! Not me!

Cheater – How do we move forward?

Victim – Move forward? I am still trying to figure out how I will survive today!

Cheater – This isn’t what I wanted. I wanted you. I didn’t want to hurt you!

Victim- Again, hindsight is 20/20. If you wanted me you should have been faithful. If you didn’t want to hurt me you would have been honest. You would have had some class, and character.

Cheater – He/She/They didn’t mean anything to me.

Victim – Wow, really? Sure means something to me now that I finally found out!

Cheater – How can I make things better?

Victim- I don’t know. But I do know your words mean nothing. You are a liar. Actions speak WAY louder! And your actions just spoke loud enough to last me a lifetime.

Cheater – Can you forgive me? What do you want?

Victim- I don’t know what I want! I don’t know anything anymore. Everything I thought I knew, I didn’t. I have been played the fool. This is SO embarrassing. Was any of this even real?

Cheater- Do you still love me?

Victim – Either doesn’t answer at all, or says I don’t know.

While the cheaters often carry guilt and pain, in my opinion it does not even compare tothe_past_love the pain that the betrayed partner carries. But I guess it truly would depend on the situation. Again, pain is hard to measure. (Everyone’s tolerance is so different.)

Once betrayed by a partner and the intimacy you once knew has been shared with someone else the entire relationship appears to have been a hoax. Nothing seems real. The betrayed feel violated emotionally, mentally, and sexually. You just feel dirty.

What doesn’t change is the amount of pain it inflicts on the faithful partner, the one who had hope and the one who believed. The one who never questioned anything. 

Yeah, that one will forever be changed. 

For more info on signs of a cheater click here

We All Know Or Have Known Fire Starters

There will always be people who like to stir the pot

There will always be those people who enjoy starting trouble. I have found that when we ignore them they will eventually get bored and leave us alone. It works like a charm.

Defending what they say about us only adds fuel and can sometimes make both sides look stupid. We are better off to let it ride. Walk away.

Time always reveals the truth so why waste any of ours getting worked up? Besides, what they say about others is a reflection of who they are and not who we are. 

Talking about you
© Angela Bininger and The Empowerer, 2009-2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this websites author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Angela Bininger and The Empowerer with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Life’s Golden Rules For Relationships

This method of determining how people in your life will treat you has proven itself to be true. Time. And. Time. Again.

Golden-Rule1If you quietly watch other people and really listen to what they say then you will easily see who is who. From there you can determine what you will and will not tolerate from the people you have in your life.

By using Life’s Golden Rules For Relationships your circle may get a little smaller (or it may get a lot smaller) but let it! The quality of people in it after you purge out the bullshitters will be worth your while. You will find yourself much happier and you will likely take notice that life is much calmer. Not to mention it becomes SO peaceful! 

The Golden Rules of Any Relationship:

If they lie to others in front of you-  they will lie to you too.

If they talk bad about others in front of you- they will talk bad about you too.

If they steal something right in front of you- they will steal from you too.

If they disrespect others in front of you- they will disrespect you too.

If they hide who they are from others- they will hide it from you too.

If they cheat on someone to be with you- they will cheat on you too.

If they blame others for their problems- someday they will blame you too.

If they use people in front of you- then eventually they will use you too.

Although genuine people are hard to find, by using this method you will quickly see who is who. (Just be mindful of their actions and hear their every word.)

And once they have shown you their true colors, believe them. 

© Angela Bininger and The Empowerer, 2009-2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this websites author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Angela Bininger and The Empowerer with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Falling Apart or Falling In Place

fall apart or coming togetherSometimes things will completely fall apart and we will question why.  And at times, we may be grasping for straws trying to comprehend it all and why things are the way they are. But it is always in those times, that we need to look deeper into it.

Perhaps these/those things were meant to fall apart all along. And maybe (just maybe…) they were never meant to be together in the first place. We may have just been off course.

Sometimes…… things will have to fall apart in our life for the right things to finally fall in place.

So the next time you find yourself discombobulated from everything falling apart around you just remember ….that it’s not falling apart after all. Things are finally falling into place.
© Angela Bininger and The Empowerer, 2009-2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this websites author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Angela Bininger and The Empowerer with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.