Can You Guess What These Two Pictures Are?

Judging by what we see

They may look good. They may act good. They may even smell good. But it doesn’t always mean they are.

They may look happy, educated, or wealthy. But it doesn’t always mean that they are.

They may seem cool, fun, driven, laid-back and content.  But it doesn’t mean that they are.

They may look the part, dress the part, and even act the part. But it doesn’t mean they are the best candidate for what we desire to accomplish. Perhaps someone else would do a better job.

With all of that being said…. the opposite is also true.

They may look dull, boring, and lifeless. They may appear to lack direction and creativity. They may seem negative, empty, or listless. But it doesn’t mean that they are.

They may even look poor, beaten down, or used up. But it doesn’t mean that they are.

They may look like they are ready to be tossed in the trash. But it doesn’t mean that we should.

Looks are so deceiving my friends!

 © 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.

Love Them Anyway

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© Angela Bininger and The Empowerer, 2009-2018.  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 You Having Trouble Understanding Someone?

Struggling to understand peopleWhen we watch the news or read the paper we may find ourselves asking: “What in the heck were they thinking?”  Or we read or hear countless stories of people inflicting pain upon themselves and others and wonder “Why on earth would they do that?”  And of course after even the slightest exposure to world news we hear or state: “What in the hell is wrong with people?!!!!”

We spend a lot of time worrying, wondering, questioning, and trying to understand people. We wonder how, why, and what pulled the trigger that took them to the dark side. Perhaps it is time to stop trying to understand everyone that we meet. Sometimes we are not suppose to figure them out. There are some things we are not suppose to understand.

Just because we encounter something does not mean that it is our battle to fight.

© 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 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.

Butterflies and Goodbyes

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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.

Who Is Your God Given Mirror?

I wrote a poem years ago in regards to people and mirrors. The flow of it was there and it just slipped from my brain to my finger tips in seconds. The words have never left me since the day it was written. It is a simple reminder to myself and others struggling to understand people in general.

mirror

God Given Mirror

I asked God for a mirror,

and He decided to give me you.

He said If I don’t like what I see,

then perhaps I have done it too.

He told me to cast no judgement,

on others when they are weak.

And that if I had nothing nice to say,

there shall be no need to speak.

He told me that you were my mirror,

what I dislike in you needs changed within me.

Because we are all one another’s mirrors

and our own worst enemy.

There is a lot of truth to what is said in this poem for the simple fact that “what we do not like in others is usually something that we do not like about ourselves”.

It may seem hard to believe it at first, but not if you really think in depth about it.

When we do not like someone…. it is because they either do something we use to do ourselves and we have attached negative feelings towards that action, or they do something we have suppressed and kept ourselves from doing.

 © Angela Bininger and The Empowerer, 2009-2018. 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.

Do You Use People Like I Do?

using people

I have been thinking a lot about people using people. Whether it be to get ahead, gain information, or reap some sort of benefit it happens all of the time.

There is only one acceptable time to use someone and that is when we use them for inspiration. We should use people daily for this, and we should use people from all walks of life.

Every day I find inspiration through sharing stories with or by interacting with people. Sometimes it is something funny the kids do. It could be the cashier at a grocery store. It could be something pleasant or thought provoking and it could also be by something completely irritating. Regardless, I find it.

So, there you have it, I can now admit that I use people all the time. I never know who it will be or what word will pull the trigger, but when I see it or I hear it I tuck it away for later use. And when I get hungry, I chew on it and then I spit it out. 

Do you use people the way I do?

© Angela Bininger and The Empowerer, 2009-2018. 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.