The Eyelashes Effect - a post for girls on how we may often see guys

The eyelashes effect is something I took note of while I was in Italy. I was looking at my Italian sister’s eyelashes and they were just so long and curled. It is a commonly desirable feature to have long eyelashes, especially in Asia where even if your eyelashes are long, they are flat. While I looked at her eyelashes, all I thought was “I wish my eyelashes did that! If I look at it more, will it become that way more? If I had eyelashes like that everyone would think I’ve got the most gorgeous eyes ever.” At some point in my thinking, I realized that if everyone thought the way I did, what would be the point of beautiful eyelashes? That everyone can wish they had them? The point of beautiful eyelashes is to be appreciated for the beauty they are, not to wish you had them if you didn’t or to be proud you have them if you do. Those are two completely distinct states of mind – appreciation for beauty and longing for acquisition. If you’re thoughts are occupied with one of these, the other is not present. While you are appreciating beauty, you will not be wishing it for yourself. Wishing it for yourself is a statement of lack and that you do not have it, thus will give you, by the Law of Creation, more lack of it (essentially, creating the circumstances that affirm you do not have it).

However, aside from that, the eyelashes effect can be analogous to the way many of us women look at men (myself included at times when I’m not aware). We look at men and imagine them as our boyfriend or husband or boy toy, and how nice that would be.

If you want a reason for why we do this and why we think this way, my best response would be (not to sound strange) capitalism. It is all the marketing and companies that knows we do not monitor what we are thinking. They convince us we would love to have something, and that if we had it, everyone would admire and love us! They capitalize on our lack of thinking and as we buy their products, we reinforce the position in our minds.

This is not an argument against capitalists and companies (you are responsible for your own thinking!) but rather pointing out to an area that is blocking beauty from coming into our lives. Being “whipped” by a guy is unpleasant for you for obvious reasons (no one likes to think she is toyed by a guy!), and on top of that it also means that you are not appreciating a guy. Girls complain that guys only love girls for their bodies, but girls do the exact same thing with a guy – usually not for their bodies as much as if he were hers he’d be the perfect accessory and all other girls would be jealous. It is also logical to say that if you are “whipped” by a guy, you are being selfish and only thinking about yourself! It’s a strange concept as you are thinking about another person, but only in the perspective that there is a possibility of benefitting yourself.

Whenever I find myself judging at someone or something that way, I remind myself of the eyelashes effect, and that if I’m one less person to appreciate eyelashes, that’s one less person appreciating beauty.

-Catt

xxx

I'd like to share something today. Something very personal to me. Something I would say saved my life. Certainly reclaimed my life.


It's a book that I used a few weekends ago to ask for myself and my emotional well being back. I'm still working on it but the implications are amazing.

I don't know what to say about it, as the best advice I can give is to buy the book and do what it says right now..it's only like 3$ and it will change your life if you do exactly what Kamal suggests. I know that's about all self-help personal development books, but Kamal focuses on ONE thing, and from what I can tell, has huge success with it.

I love myself, I love myself, I love myself..(:

-Catt
xxx

Gratitude

It's easy to forget gratitude. Or rather, it's not easy we're just habituated to it. I had a long talk with my friend the other day about whether this stuff is "natural" or just easier. I don't really know for certain what would be our complete natural state, but I think if we all touch into the intuitive part of us, something tells me we're supposed to be happy and grateful and abundant.

For me, we know on a cellular level that we are not alone, that a lot of life is about merging with each other (not just because we know so well of biological urges, although they are well "advertised" and accepted by the majority). I find this is also true on gratitude, happiness, and abundance (and on health too, as we are the only mammals who don't live 11-20x their age of puberty).

I'm sitting at my school library, and I noticed a lot of people are wearing sweatpants studying with their headphones plugged in. I myself am on a comfy sofa chair in my comfy class sweatshirt with my heels on a coffee table and my favorite pair of UNIQLO jeans. And then I realized how little people have this experience. This experience of having a community (an entire community, not just a building you spend 8 hours a day to) where we have 7 different dining halls, coffee shops/cafes, grills, libraries with comfy chairs, studying rooms, dorms with five-days a week maintenance/cleaning...okay I could go on. I don't come to the library often and I never use the studying rooms and I'm not particularly fond of the dining halls (nor grills nor cafes), but this is about as good as it gets in terms of "stuff"! (Sure you may also want a nice fancy car and expensive jewelry, but really come on). Yet all I hear about college is "poor college students," student loans, too much homework, too many exams, "I'm so stressed out," I don't like what we're studying...

Just typing that last list made me feel pretty bad, and almost angry if I weren't intentionally being present right now.

I am so grateful, and I know this experience is only going to last for another year. While I'm glad I don't have to be studying things I'm not particularly psyched about, it's almost unbelievable how incredible of an experience I've created for myself. Seriously there are so many people to meet here (even though 90% are stressed burn-outs and extrinsically focused) and there are so many facilities that make this an amazing experience. Professors care about me, I have my own single dorm room, my bathroom is always clean (save for serious party weekends), it's life for four years and it's a really nice one. I have practice rooms I can practice music and sing, I get the low-down on the best of the most knowledgeable people on this earth (not to say knowledgeable equates to success/happiness, but you know it helps us grow!) I even have a little kitchenette where earlier tonight I made pesto pasta with fresh basil leaves I grew and organic cherry tomatoes. Charmed life girl!!!

Strange thing is I almost feel guilty for not feeling good, which is so funny it reminds me of this part in Dr. Robert Anthony's book when he told a seminar audience to never feel guilty, and one of them said "You mean, we should never feel guilty, about, anything??" (they were feeling guilty about not feeling guilty haha). But I remind myself to be present right now and just enjoy myself sitting in this comfy sofa chair with my comfy clothes, reading things I love and reflecting on how amazing the life I created has been. I don't want to sugar-coat things and ignore them, but those are things I'm currently dealing with and I am grateful that they are being dealt with better and better everyday.

Thank you, thank you, thank you..always be grateful!

-Catt
xxx

Discovering the Real Parts of Me

I've been thinking a lot lately about this whole "being yourself" business. Recently it has become something I use to make note of what I do not want, and then my ego gets me lingering on it and that it's the biggest problem in the world and can never be solved and oh drama and poor me stuck in a situation where I don't know what I want but the only thing I know is that it's not this.

This is such a bugged thought and I actually didn't notice it until now.

I've been spending a lot more time thinking about what I want as when I studied abroad and had more freedom and space in my mental psyche to dissociate from my identity at school (and even more rigid my identity at home) that I started doing things that I actually did want to do or started asking what I actually wanted to do.

So naturally as I haven't been really marching to the beat of my own drummer I've been noticing all the things that bring me joy and get me excited are not really what I've been doing.

But instead of being inspired by this, my ego wants to bring me down about it and be like look at all the horrible things I have to put up with because I am at school and stuck here for another 3 semesters.

Now it seems clear that given where I was in this soul-evolution thing, this is where I am. What's wrong with it? And goodness I'm only 20 it's not like I'm 80 and realising this (man that would actually be much harder to swallow) so where is the need to feel bad?

I'm glad I saw this one and can continue working on designing my life and things in my life. It'll be fun and I can do my schoolwork well at the same time if I carefully shift my perspective on the things in my life.

xx,
Catt

What Others Think of Us

The only person in this world you can control is you. And most people do a very bad job of it.

It seems like a lot more could be done in a day if I could completely drop the habit of being concerned over what others think of me. It takes up so much time and mental energy..time and mental energy that could be spent on more productive things. I'm always inclined to see productivity as how much psychic energy you can free up and thus how well you can focus on what you're doing.

We literally imprison ourselves by letting what others think bother us. If something bothers us, then we are accepting it as true to the degree we are bothered by this. We have to recognize this as wrong thinking and let go of it because it's just not real and just not going to work if we want to be ourselves and being ourselves is the only way to live a fulfilling life.

For myself right now I am learning to take note of when things to bother me (and it's not that hard..feeling crappy vs. feeling gratitude is what happens for me) and accept that right now this is how I feel, and I have to work with where I am right now. Only until I've completely accepted and love the pain (and all the past decisions that brought me to a particular point) does the pain go away and can I now ask the question, what is the best thought I can have here?

There are so many things we think, speak, and act upon about us that just aren't true..well clearly if they were true we wouldn't be in the state we're in right now. So learning to accept is the first step and then picking the closest next best thought.

As Andy says, worrying about what others think really is insane, but we all do it because somehow we've defined ourselves as how others see us..I guess there's few people who define themselves by their own standards (certainly no one I've been close to) so it's hard to see. But untrodden territory is definitely obtainable, as I've already proven to myself big time.

xx,
Catt

Why Am I Still Here Today

So this is a kind of sad post but I'd rather be honest than cover things up.
I watched this once, then listened to it while I asked my fiance to watch it, and then just watched it again, and each time the tears roll.

I was never called names on a large scale in school but at home I definitely felt like it was a daily battle. I don't know what things caused me to believe in things this way aside from I guess getting in trouble for small things that didn't make sense to me all the time and feeling under my brother growing up. I still remember the times where my brother and my mom would make fun of me together, about how I would never have a boyfriend because I have an impossible-to-get-along-with personality and an easily irritable temper. I remember they never picked compassion they picked ridicule and pity/look-upon-like-she's-pathetic. Then my dad would tell me to get over it or learn to cope with it. He didn't pick compassion he picked "strength." And it's all really peachy to say I could handle it all but that approach never worked. It never worked because when I chose "strength" I never let myself be hurt or down. I wanted to be bulletproof and unassailable. It took me a while to realise how this wasn't working for me. It took me some ample doses of emotional pain and physical pain - from domestic violence to forced sex - until I could finally see that something in the way I saw things was wrong.

And more importantly, a very recent realisation, they have to be wrong. They can't be right. Otherwise how would I still be here.

The more we hide things the more out of perspective they get. Whoever came up with the idea that being strong by being unassailable was wrong, and my own life experiences are the experiments to that hypothesis. And I can tell you they're wrong.

But only when we realise the deep seated unassailability we all possess by default, spiritually, truthfully, can we then be "brave" enough to tell the truth. But otherwise, we're accepting us as half-good, broken goods, if we put up a facade that everyone can see as bulletproof..the army of friends that call us an inspiration.

I actually had a pretty good day I didn't wake up sad. I think it's because I let myself really cry over this long enough last night and start realising I can pick better. I'll know I've made progress when I come back to this video someday and find that perhaps I'm not crying anymore and understand fully why we go through these things and what a gift it's been to have gone through all these things, and that I don't need them as a contextual field anymore.

xx,
Catt

Deep Fears

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.' We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

I wanted to look at this quote a bit because it's a really strange concept - or more accurately perhaps, an unfamiliar one. I haven't been doing quite as well emotionally recently although perhaps "materially" it's been better than it's ever been before.

This quote reminds me of a quote Dr. Robert Anthony wrote:

A lesson that has taken us far too long to learn is that the opposite of bravery is not cowardliness, but rather, conformity.

I know personally I've been scared to "be myself" because of what others may think or say about me, and for good reason if I am affected by it. If we are really, as Marianne Williamson describes, "powerful beyond measure," surely we would be rejected by more people than accepted. Beyond being brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous, it is really about being ourselves which is brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous, and that's where the confusion comes in, that's where we start to question well what's up with that? I didn't do anything to merit it.

When we really take a good look and observe, it's all around us. To claim who we really are is not a big deal, but with years on years of conditioning we automatically turn right when maybe we're supposed to turn left to get when we want to go.

I think it's time for a few things to be established (for me at least)
1. The things most people say most of the time are just BS (ie. ungrounded or for ulterior motive)
2. It takes thought and awareness to not get dragged into it
3. There is a way to live in this world but not of it

I've been having trouble since I came back to school because suddenly everything in my limited thinking became "I must" or "I should" or "I have to"
The more I dwell on these things the more I feel an obligation and the more it gets crappy.
I'm not here to sell ideas [anymore] or be proof of burden or whatever the terms are. I desire to give and I have no clue who ends up on my blog or anything of that sort but I know that there are people out there who do have similar feelings or situations and I know that there are ways out and I know it will come with a matter of time, for everyone. I've been cowardly recently. In actuality it is just taking the limiting beliefs for real. It's not exactly a matter of being brave just what to pick to represent what is real. I struggle still with knowing that I can live in this world without being of it because no one around me that I'm close to or I know really well does, but it's time I stopped using examples.
I had a problem set for philosophy class and I couldn't really do it because I had no example to follow. Previously, I could only do them because I could follow step-by-step what was to be found. Yet the last one had no example and I found myself clueless. I felt I had no way of doing it. I went to my professor's office hours and he showed me how to do it (my main task of the day..complete my problem set :)), but he tried teaching me (I don't know how successfully) not by teaching me how to do it but how to think about it. I think it's time I clarified things more and allowed this to come through me.

xx,
Catt