Tag Archives: empowerment

The Power Of My Voice (or Even More Closure)

Posted on April 24, 2019 | Comments Off on The Power Of My Voice (or Even More Closure)

A month ago, I wrote about how almost every month I learn something new about myself through my adventures in dating. And of course, I’ve learned another thing recently. And it is actually something I learned through the same guy I was writing about before. He is someone I was seeing on and off for a while but he is now engaged. He has continued to message me saying how he was confused and wanted to talk. While I felt like I had the closure I needed, I also couldn’t deny him the same. I know I don’t owe anything to anyone, but I can’t help it.

When we saw each other, he panicked and freaked out. He said he wanted to leave and while I didn’t want to hold him hostage I also didn’t want to lose this chance. I don’t plan on seeing him again because I have moved on and don’t care what he does with his life. He is the one who is still confused. It’s unfortunate since he is the one getting married soon, but I can’t control what he wants to do with his life. If he feels like he needs or wants to get married but is still confused about it, that’s on him. And I wanted to finally have the talk in person that we have been avoiding for a while.

He didn’t do much talking, but I did. Most of the things I said to him were things I have said to him over text. It was mainly about how he hurt me and how I have had to move on. I mentioned how I couldn’t forget what he did and how he was a coward in failing to be honest to me. I wasn’t trying to be mean or harsh, just truthful in what I felt and thought. I know it wasn’t nice and he didn’t like hearing what I had to say, but if he wasn’t going to talk about what he wanted to talk about I was going to talk about what I wanted to say.

He eventually left without saying much more than that he was sorry and that he couldn’t talk. He left very shook up by what I was saying and it surprised me to see that. I wasn’t saying things he didn’t know already. But I realized that every time he heard that from me in the past it was over text. Since he previously knew me as sweet and gentle (how I normally am in real life), maybe he was reading those messages from me with that same vibe. But hearing me say it and how strong I was being probably made him realize I wasn’t kidding before. Hearing the words come out of me most likely hit him in a different way than he had experienced before.

So much of our communication these days is over text. Not just with dating, but with work and personal stuff too. Even with my day job, I get more customers using our online chat system than phone calls. Texts are so much easier to do sometimes and they allow people to multi-task. But it also can lead to confusion since there is a lack of tone over text. While I feel like missing the tone usually leads to a text sounding worse than it really is, in this case with this guy it seems like it made it seem better. My feelings and thoughts were probably not taken seriously because my tone was missing. At least now I know that he knows exactly what I meant and if he is still confused that is completely on him. I cannot force him to be clear in what he wants, all I can do is make sure that I make myself clear. And that’s what I did.

Since meeting up with that guy, I have been more aware of when I send a text instead of calling or saying something in person. I know that not everyone likes to talk on the phone, but I can at least make an effort if I feel like something would be better over the phone. And some people will answer or will text if they can’t talk asking if they can call back later. I’m being extra cautious about what I text to someone and am going that extra step to call when I’m not totally sure if my tone would come across. It might be a silly thing, but realizing how little someone understood what I meant over text has made me so aware of making sure that it doesn’t happen again. It’s not about things as seriously as they were with this guy, but I’m still glad when I feel like someone knows what I’m saying and what I feel about it.

Obviously I will still do a ton of texting since that is much easier than calling and a lot of things can be said over text with no issues. But realizing the power of my voice with this one guy made me realize that I don’t appreciate that power enough and I should use it more often.

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Default ThumbnailYet Another Life Lesson From Dating (or Finding Power When Not In Control) Default ThumbnailAdventures In Online Dating (or My Luck Might Be Changing) Default ThumbnailMore Ridiculousness In Online Dating (or I Think I’ve Been Ghosted) Default ThumbnailMore Thoughts On Online Dating (or Not Letting My Past Dictate My Future) Default ThumbnailThis Might Be A Breakthrough For Me (or Trying To Believe I’m Not Unloveable) Default ThumbnailBeing Hurt And Finding Closure (or Still Finding Out More About Myself Through Dating)

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Yet Another Life Lesson From Dating (or Finding Power When Not In Control)

Posted on November 16, 2018 | Comments Off on Yet Another Life Lesson From Dating (or Finding Power When Not In Control)

I don’t know why I’m learning so many life lessons from dating. Maybe it’s because that’s the main thing in my life that hasn’t been a part of it for as long so I’m discovering new things all the time. Maybe it’s because that’s the place I’m out of my comfort zone the most and that is pushing me to change and set my standards. Or maybe it’s just random and doesn’t mean anything. Whatever it is, I just keep learning more as I date. I am ready to find someone amazing and not keep learning from dating, but that’s not what seems to be in the cards for me right now.

Every so often, I feel like guys from my past come back into my life for some reason. These always happen in groups so when one guy from my past comes back into my life, I know it’s just a matter of time before another one comes along. And that has happened in the past week for me. One guy is just someone I lost contact with and it was nice to reconnect with him. Our communication was always through the app and when my account got banned I lost my conversation with him. So when we rematched and were able to start talking again, it was nice. Hopefully I’ll get to see him again soon and see if we still have fun.

The other guy is a guy that I didn’t have as nice of an ending with. I’m not going to go into specifics with it because it doesn’t matter, but we ended on a bad note and I figured I would never hear from him again nor did I want to. But he reached out to me, we talked a bit, and I don’t have as many negative feelings toward him. But he is seeing someone else right now and I am not going to be the other woman or someone he sees on the side. I understand that when you date someone, if you haven’t said you were exclusive that you should assume you aren’t the only person they are seeing. But if you have an understanding that you are exclusive with someone, seeing someone else is cheating.

I told him that I am not willing to be a secret or someone he cheats with. If he wants to go out with me again, then the person he is seeing now needs to know that they aren’t exclusive. My understanding is that she believes that they are, so he would need to have a real conversation about how he wants to be able to see other people. I don’t necessarily want to be with someone who is serious with someone else, even if they have an open relationship. But if he wants to try seeing me again to see if we could be together again, the only way to do that is if all parties involved know that they aren’t exclusive.

I let him know this and told him it is his choice. If he wants to see me again, he knows what I require. If he doesn’t want to have to have that talk, then he and I won’t see each other again. If he doesn’t want to have the talk but still wants to see me, it’s too bad. I’m not willing to do that. I guess it’s kind of an ultimatum, but I really didn’t see it that way. I saw it as setting my standards and letting him decide what he wants to do.

I was sharing this story with a friend of mine after I told this guy what options he had, and I was having a bit of a tough time explaining why I felt so powerful in what I did. I have no clue what the next step will be as the guy has to make the next choice. But I feel completely in control and have no regrets. My friend and I were talking around the idea and I was just trying to find the words to express what I was feeling.

The idea of “the ball is in his court” kept coming to my mind, but that didn’t seem right. That makes it feel like he has the power and the choice of what is next and that was not how I felt. So I came up with the idea of “the ball is in his court, but I was the one who served it to him there”. That felt perfect to me. Yes, he has the choice in what he wants to do next. But I am the one who presented the choices to him and there is no other option than those. If he doesn’t want to pick one, then we won’t see each other and that is fine with me. I am not going to go against my standards and I feel very secure and comfortable in that idea.

So many things were so clear to me once I came up with that idea. Even when I am not the one deciding the next step, that doesn’t mean I have to be powerless or helpless. I have ways to find power even in situations that I don’t completely control. After that idea was said out loud to my friend, a huge weight felt like it was lifted off of me. I don’t care as much about what this guy will decide next anymore. While it would be nice to see him again and see what we could be, I don’t want to see him if it isn’t in a situation I’m comfortable with.

I don’t know how I can apply this new mindset to other things in my life, but I want to figure it out. I know that rethinking when I have power and control is important and can be used in so many other situations I find myself in. I guess I just have to naturally let those situations find me and remember this idea so I can apply it in the moment.

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Default ThumbnailNot Blaming Myself (or Still Learning From Online Dating) Default ThumbnailStill Finding New Life Lessons With Dating (or Some Skills I’m Proud Of And Some I’m Not Sure About) Default ThumbnailBeing Hurt And Finding Closure (or Still Finding Out More About Myself Through Dating) Default ThumbnailFinding Some More Control (or How Medical Stuff and Dating Stuff Are Alike) Default ThumbnailThe Power Of My Voice (or Even More Closure) Default ThumbnailDating Life Update (or I Guess I’m Lucky I’m Still Seeing Humor In This)

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The Color Purple (or Such An Empowering Musical)

Posted on June 5, 2018 | 1 comment

For the next few months, it seems like I’ll be going to a musical every few weeks! The way this season is set, each musical is having a shorter run than what we’ve seen before. So each new show comes pretty quickly. But I’m not complaining. I love my nights at the Pantages and they are such a bright spot in my life.

And this week, the musical that my group went to go see was “The Color Purple”.

I read the book and saw the movie when I was in high school, but I don’t think that I read it or saw it since then. And high school was a little while ago for me so I was a bit worried that I wouldn’t remember enough of the plot and would get lost trying to figure out the story. Sometimes I can get so lost in watching a show that I don’t pay attention to the dialogue or songs and then get pretty confused. I didn’t want that to happen with this show. So I looked at a quick summary of the book online before we met up to get dinner before the show. And a few things seemed familiar to me and there were several plot points and characters that I had forgotten about, so I was glad that I did this.

Our dinner was pretty casual at Green Leaf Chop Shop and somehow we ended up being really early for things! A lot of times we are getting to the theater 5-10 minutes before the show should start, but this time we were inside 30 minutes ahead. So we took our time getting to our seats and continued to catch up while we waited for the show to start.

Even though I wasn’t too familiar with the story since it had been so long since high school, I thought I remembered little bits and pieces of it and that seemed to be confirmed by reading the summary online. I thought this was going to be one of the sadder musicals we saw because I remembered it being a very sad story. But I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t the case!

While there are a lot of sad and upsetting parts of the story, that is really not how the musical felt. Obviously when you are watching the characters being hurt you are sad, but it seemed like more often there were moments of overcoming those issues and that was so positive. There were so many empowering moments in the show and the entire audience was buzzing with excitement when those were happening. It was just not at all what I was expecting but exactly what I needed to see.

With feeling down and working on trying to get back to myself, I know that I do need to work on feeling empowered and not a victim to circumstances. And that’s exactly what the characters in this musical were doing. Their circumstances were very different from mine, but that didn’t matter. Having the examples of watching people do this gave me stuff to think about and try to see where I can have that same attitude in my life.

I love when something that I have scheduled to do or attend just happens to fit in with exactly what I needed to see or hear. It doesn’t always happen that way and more often than not the musicals we see are just a fun night out. And there’s nothing wrong with having a fun night out because I know that they are important to my mental health. And I can forget to have fun sometimes and having musicals scheduled help me to not forget about it. But when the show we see hits me much deeper and has such a great impact on me, it feels so special and precious to me. And that’s exactly what “The Color Purple” did for me and I’m so glad that this was the musical we had this week.

Our next show is 3 weeks away and it will be a musical that I’ve seen before, which will be fun. Even though I’ve seen a lot of shows recently, it’s been rare for me to see something that I already have seen. And seeing a show for a second time (especially when it’s a different cast and production) is really fun for me because I love to see how things are made unique with that combination of cast and crew. But I did realize that the next season (which starts this fall) will be so many shows that I’ve seen at least once before and I’m getting super excited for that to happen!

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An Amazing Photo Shoot (or Dress Like A Woman)

Posted on February 14, 2017 | Comments Off on An Amazing Photo Shoot (or Dress Like A Woman)

I know I’ve talked before about trying to not be too political, but I think we are in a time where you can’t just sit back and hope for the best. We need to make sure that our voices are heard by our elected representatives and that we are involved. I’ve been guilty of not doing that much in the past but I’ve realized over the past year how I cannot do that anymore. So I’ve been slowly getting more and more involved in things. I’ve joined Facebook groups and other online communities, I’ve been sending emails/snail mail and calling politicians, and I’ve been more vocal about issues that mean a lot to me.

I know it can be scary to put yourself out there like that, but I was inspired by others do it so I hope that I can inspire others to do the same. Sometimes I don’t know what to do, but I’m lucky that I know people who I can turn to that can give me ideas. And I’m very fortunate that I have friends who come up with amazing ideas that I am able to participate in. And recently, I got to participate in a great photo shoot with Adam Emperor Southard , who did my most recent headshots.

Adam posted on Facebook that he needed some women to participate in the next photo series he wanted to do and it had a political twist to it. That’s all he posted, but I said that I was in and was really excited to hear what it was all about! When he finally shared the idea with all of us who wanted to participate, I was so happy that I took the chance to be a part of it. The idea came from the statement about how President Trump likes women to dress like women when they worked for him. There had been so many posts about what dressing like a woman means since there are so many ways women dress for work. And that’s exactly that this photo series was about.

It was tough for me to think of an outfit that I wanted to wear that represented to me dressing like a woman. I tried on some of my favorite dresses that I don’t get to wear that often, but it didn’t seem right to me to wear something that I only wear on special occasions. I also thought about wearing my working clothes since I feel so empowered while wearing them. But in the end, I wore comfortable clothes that I wear when I’m working (if I’m not wearing workout clothes) including the new hoodie I got that showed to me that my work toward weight loss was paying off.

When I got to Adam’s house for the photo shoot, I was pretty ready to go. I was in the outfit I wanted to wear and had done my hair and makeup at home before going over there. But I wanted to add one more thing to my look which was the new lipstick that I’m in love with. I’ve never been a bit lipstick person, but the first time I tried this color on I felt so beautiful. So I wanted that in my photos.

The first photo was without the pink hat (which Adam had there since I didn’t have one of my own) and it was interesting taking photos that I knew weren’t going to be headshots. I experimented more with my facial expressions and poses and didn’t worry about looking pretty or thin. And the second set of photos was with the hat and I knew it would be a close up. So I thought about all the things I wanted to say to President Trump and let my expression speak for itself.

After I was done with the shoot (it only took a few minutes), Adam let me take peek at some of the photos that he took and I was shocked by how I looked!

I never feel like I can look fierce, but I felt like I really did in these photos! I looked tough and not sweet (like I normally do in photos) and I was so happy with how they looked. I had to wait a few days to see the finished image, but I could not have asked for anything better to be my photo in this series.

I shared this online right away and if you want to see all the photos in this series you can see them on Facebook. And if you are in LA and want to be a part of the series, Adam is still doing more photos so please reach out to him on Facebook!

I know that me doing one photo shoot isn’t going to change the world. But between all the women participating in the series plus all the other work they and I are doing, hopefully we can make some noise and get some people to listen to us.

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