How I became a Minimalist

So for about a year and a half ago I came across the concept of minimalism. Such a beautiful thing can simply be stated as:

"The less you have, the more free you shall be".

Step 1 - The realisation

Initially I had no idea how it was going to be at all possible to make such drastic changes in life. It started with the initial spring clean / de-cluttering. About 2 days and 10 black bags later.. I felt so much lighter. And I realised how much stuff we keep.. why do I need to keep that old birthday card from 8 years ago?

Step 2: Simplify

I moved into a fully furnished place in January, intentionally not taking anything with me besides a few necessities, trinkets and clothes.

Step 3: Look on the inside

What I truly yearned for though was a complete minimalist life, not just based on the material. I needed to declutter my mind and pain body, as they had been in control of my decisions for so many years, that I wanted to experience just me. I wanted to have an energy declutter of sorts. Without the past or future. Just me in the present. A moment to breath. And feel life around me. And I started meditating to quiet my mind and live in each moment. Practice, practice, practice.. Still WIP.. but significant progress has been made :)

Step 4: Have a more meaningful life

This one is usually a bit difficult. It means having a smaller social life. When emerged in society, I felt so much pressure to attend wine evenings, girls nights, all the social events that i couldn't not attend (for what?), the babyshowers, the birthday parties, the bachelorette evenings.. so.. I would put a smile on my face, listen to peoples worries and gripes and conversations, adding in where it was expected, listen to the gossip and try to not get sucked in by the meanies, and every now and then I would bravely open up the conversation to something I found interesting, and more often than not would have to swallow the rejection of the "oh there you go all deep again", respond with a smile and change the subject back to who got drunk, who slept with who, whose bitching about who.. and so on.

So much energy to put on that smile and listen to the social problems experienced by the suburban elitist middle class - all so that I could try and fit in. Boys are said to be easier.. not so much in lil ol surburbia.

In order to have a more meaningful life, you have to start saying no to attending events, start doing what you really want to do - such as spending time with people who spirtutally filfull you.

Please understand, this is not about anything that is wrong with how certain people choose to live their lives, but sometimes you come the realisation that the 8-5 surburbian status / image / popularity contest / materialistic life that people strive towards in South Africa is just clutter. None of it really matters. And you cannot truly be yourself when you are surrounded by the consumeristic facade that is portrayed as "individualism". Who you surround yourself with is who you become. If you need more and are feeling unfifilled, and have to use substances to fit in and socialise, something is wrong. Because nobody is better than anybody else. We are all just spirits having a human experience. Its just that simple.

And I look around today, and I am blessed. My social life faded away immediately. The second you no longer confirm to a suburban click, you are outed. Similar to cults. Growing up in one I know the feeling. While it hurt terribly in the beginning knowing that I had become the primary focus of people'e ego, the valuable lesson I learned through meditation allowed me to not focus on the pain body so much. It allowed me to accept the past as previous "now" moments, and not to overthink the future. The blessing is that a smaller social life means more time for me.. it allowed me time for meditation, time to spend time outdoors, time to focus on my interests, and the time to build closer friendships with fewer people rather than spending so much time in large social groups where no real connection existed for me.

What freedom!!!

And it dawned on me .. again.. just a little recap refresher on how putting out a spiritual need for a minimalist life can manifest itself in ways that you could not even fathom.

Just as we try to quiet our mind and pain body to get in touch with that inner peace,

It is so important to quiet our external environment.

Too big of a social group, too many appointments, too much stuff, too many cars, too much... its just too much!!!

I have realised:

The less you have, the more you are free

The less you need, more grateful are you

The less you want equates to a sense of freedom and peace within yourself.

Much love :)

Job Hunting

So I'm in the process of searching for new employment due to my company relocating to another city. If I don’t relocate, I get retrenched.

It has been a scary process going out into the market place and putting myself out there.

You are judged on the first impression you make, how well you are able to describe your own strengths and weaknesses (I'm not sure why they think people are going to give them a long list of our weak points... I mean I'm here to make you believe I'm the best candidate not shoot myself in the foot), the way you describe your skills, your personal history and basically who you are as a person.

It has been a very big learning curve not to lose confidence in myself and my abilities after being rejected after so many gruelling breakdown sessions. They are basically saying that you are not good enough, or not what they are looking for.

I find that interviews have changed from being focussed on the experience you have to whether you fit in with the persona they have in mind. After being to a great number of interviews, I have had many different interview situations.

Some people go through the regular, tell us about yourself. What are your strengths and weaknesses? How did you get to where you are at such a young age? What are your goals for the next ten years? Are you sure that this is the career you want to do. How do you manage conflict situations? Or they work on a psychological assessment situation, where your answer on what animal you would be determines whether you get the job or not.

The recruitment agencies definitely fulfil a generic interview situation. Most of the time the agencies staff have no idea what my specific field of employment entails. Sure they might have a reasonable textbook knowledge of the field, but if you use some really large complicated sounding words confidently, they are “completely blown away by your in-depth knowledge of your specific field”.

Some of them try to break you down by firing questions at you and criticizing everything about yourself. I've had a woman tell me she was offended by my removing of my jacket at an interview without asking for her permission (it was 35 degrees outside and no air-conditioned inside). She then criticised my professional work blouse at it did not have sleeves and she felt uncomfortable by the sight of my arms... she was special. Very special.

Her colleague sat quietly throughout the interview staring at me with a very obviously look of condescending hatred on her face. That was honestly the most uncomfortable situation I had ever experienced. Then they recommended me for some really great positions, so I obviously made a good impression despite their “tearing me down” interview strategy.

The most difficult situation is an interview with more than one person. Usually you have one chatty, friendly person, another dominating question firing question and a third person quietly staring you down. Obviously each person needs to be responded to differently. So I usually feel bi-polar as someone will agree with something I said where another interviewer will completely disagree.

Another recruitment agent that I was interviewed by was the sweetest girl, so down to earth, quiet and absolutely amazing. She made me feel so confident about myself. I actually felt that we could become great friends if the opportunity arose.

Another was with a company and upon arrival their receptionist proceeded in making me feel completely out of my depth before I entered the boardroom by notifying me that I was one of hundreds of applications and they are looking for a very specific type of person. Upon arrival in the interview room, I was not met by the people I had been notified would be interviewing me, but instead I would be interviewed by two middle aged woman. The one was sweet, pleasant and confident.

The other sat sullenly shooting out questions. After grilling me about my age for a while and pushing their seniority around, the interview eventually ended when they "didn't know what else to ask me".

I received a response saying that thought I was a perfect candidate except for the fact that I was too young for the position. Seriously… did they think I would have arrived being older than the age indicated on my CV? If I was too young, then why call me in?

Apparently they had another less senior position they wanted me for. Scary truth is the “senior” position I applied for was not a “senior” level salary so I decided not to go for the more junior position as the salary would probably not be able to pay for my monthly petrol…

A few other interesting experiences have included a middle aged man offering me a cigarette while speaking about himself throughout the interview, basically selling himself to me (Grossssssssss); A gent telling me he was afraid the position wouldn’t be challenging enough for me and telling that he wouldn’t pay me a salary but I could consult through him (whaaat?); Another where the owner met me and changed the job description advertised to basically running his company when meeting me and then when I got excited told me that they couldn’t afford to pay me what I was currently getting and that they had recently cut all their staff’s salaries in half (I’m sorry whaaaattt???); Another where I had to do assessments for two full days, competing with about 50 applicants for a position, of which they notified us when we arrived that it would basically consist of driving a minivan around the rural areas handing out flyers (basically a taxi in the location…) and of course many positions where I was the only Caucasian applicant, obviously not standing a chance at employment with my pale white skin which would majorly decrease their BEE status.

Through it all, I have been for a few interviews where I have had the privilege of meeting some inspiring individuals and have realised that this little town that I live in has some extremely successful entrepreneurs.

So wherever this job seeking road takes me, I know that I will add great value to the lucky organisation that is smart enough to snatch me up.

In the meantime… this limbo feeling and the great unknown path ahead of me are keeping me inspired, hopeful and excited for the upcoming changes, whatever they may be.

The diary of a smoker trying to quit...

So yesterday after deciding that I was tired of being a smoker... I thought I would google - the truth about smoking. Well... I now REALLY want to quit. There is so much conspiracy, unknown facts and side effects of smoking that we are completely unaware of.

So I'm going to start a "quitting smoking" journal - to ty and motivate myself to persevere. I will update on this same post every day...

26/01/2012

3:10pm - Just had a smoke and I've decided I want to quit. Again. Why is it so difficult to just stop? Anyway, I've googled "The truth about smoking" and man have I found some truths...

here are some of the sites I came across:

http://www.realtruth.org/articles/100812-005-society.html

http://www.thetruth.com/facts/

http://smokingstopss.com/

6:30pm - Had a rolled smoke... Feeling a bit of tension so needed one to relax me.
Going to bed early so as to not have another.

27/01/2012

9:30am - didn't go smoking with the work collegues. A big achievement.

Yesday I didn't smoke on the way home, only had one rolled smoke last night (usually about 5 after I get home) and still havn't had a smoke this morning. Can't stop thinking about having one though.

Think I'll try and push until 12 then maybe have one if I'm getting too irritable. Or maybe I won't... will wait and see!!!

10:45am - Oh I have a pounding headache! Not even craving a smoke at all. What a discusting vision of why I should quit!!! (Sorry, I know its a bit gross but definatley a motivation to continue on this tough journey). Think I'm going to look at this every time I want one...

A bit worried about tonight though... drinks with the girls. Always a tough one to not smoke when drinking...

12:11pm - The headache is starting to annony me..... its all around my left temple and left shoulder.... what I would do for a pain killer right now!!!!!!! No... im not going to swop one addication for another. Anyway, pain killers take the headache away now, but it'll be back later and tomorrow!
Throat is feeling odd - tight sensation in chest - like I have asthema or somthing. Not feeling like a smoke, but my mind keeps on telling me I need one!  Going to have lunch. Maybe that'll help to distract me for a while!

15:12pm - So the headache is still pounding a bit. I went upstairs twice with my collegues when they went for their smokes and didnt' have one. Its almost home time. I think ive almost made it through my first day! Someone just gave me this book by Allen Carr to stop smoking easy. So Im going to ready it and give it a go:)

Confessions of an (ex) Shopaholic

It always amazes me how some people are constantly complaining about never having enough money
(i.e.: Chronic Spenders), but yet always seem to run off and spend every cent of their salaries within the first week!!!

Let me give you some history about my personal experience with this specific disorder…

My first ever immersion into the "I blast my salary” club, was when I first moved to this small city/large town. I was earning quite decent money at the time and at 19 years old, the freedom of having all this hard earned cash to spend consumed me, especially the first two weeks of the month (after that the need died... followed with serious regret).
Within this time I had paid my rent (my only expense) and spent my entire salary!!!!!!!!!!!!! (At the time I did not have a fridge or freezer to store food, so take-out was pretty much my staple diet – which requires cash to eat).
While I was merrily having fun partying, eating, shopping, etc., I had somehow over looked the fact that the money could actually run out. I mean like Philele (Xhosa for “all gone”), finished...kaput... nada…until next payday.
2 weeks into the month, I was broke.

Living in a new town where I didn't know many people, no family around to help out. I was confused about where my money went, as well as hungry.
So I decided to pray, asking God to forgive my foolishness and please provide me with food - whereafter new friends miraculously invited me to dinners, colleagues purchased me lunches, etc.... Absolutely amazing memoriesJ

But after that, I realised that I seriously needed to manage my finances properly, so I started a (wait for it)… BUDGET!!!
So something that had previously only existed in my school accounting books is now a very important part of my survival (physical, emotional and mental survival that is).

So back to my comment about chronic spenders...

· Definition - "Chronic Spenders":

People who have more than enough money to pay rent, purchase food, afford a car, petrol, etc., but yet feel to need to spend an enormous amount of money to fulfil the emptiness inside themselves, an excuse to remove their boredom. These people can usually be spotted by their inability to say no to a "good deal".
 

· Definition - "Good Deal":

Something "packaged" as a bargain to entice you and make your feel that you are getting something for such a good price that it is stupid to not succumb, but yet it is causing the individual to purchase something that they don't actually need.

Don’t get me wrong. I'm not personally attacking these people. It’s their choice to waste their money. But these are usually the ones complaining non-stop about how bad their salaries are and how they can't even afford to support their families, etc., etc. - but yet they are always going out shopping and always full of stories about the "bargains" they purchased…

I used to be one of them... I’m still a chronic shopping addict. Therefore my solution is to avoid shops at all costs unless absolutely necessary.

I have always had a MAJOR problem with debt as my father happened to be one of those people who opened accounts everywhere and then couldn't afford to pay them... so the idea of getting an account really didn't faze me, until I tried to get a cell phone contract and a lease agreement in my name and was told that I didn't have any credit record or rating and therefore couldn't apply. WAHHHHHHHTTTT!!!

So now we have to have debt to get debt. Anyhoooooooo, I fell into the trap of opening a clothing account at this store that has THE MOST divine clothing, shoes, perfumes, etc.
And then I opened another one at a less exclusive store, and another, and another. Eventually I was spending a third of my salary on clothing accounts and credit cards, paying off things (who knows that they were...) that I no longer even used.
And because I didn't have to "pay" for it now, mostly it was Impulse shopping.

· Definition - "Impulse Shopping":

Something that we woman love to do... it starts with the entering of the temptation phase (shopping mall), which then flirts with us... those little signs saying SALE... they call us.... they beg us to enter...... we take the bait and think, "why not, I mean it’s a sale?" and as we walk through those doors, we no longer have control of what we are doing... the urge to have is too great, we no longer care, all that matters is to beat the other woman to the best sale items - the rushed panicky feeling of "Get whatever you can, whatever fits", followed by the disastrous time in the changing rooms! (I have to interrupt myself here - my advice to all clothing retailers is to have spacious, luxurious, flattering lighting, air conditioners, soothing music and plenty of space for hangers in your changing rooms. I mean this is the place we decide to purchase your products - yet there are certain stores that have hot, stinky, dirty, VERY BIASED mirrors... way to put a girl off spending her money).

After this highly emotionally draining experience, we end up purchasing the "best looking" items because we have to buy something, surely!
The depression following all those pants that wouldn't zip closed, pushes us to go and grab some comfort food - because we deserve it - I mean all that exercise, whew!!!!
A month later - these items are still sitting in the cupboard with the tags on... and every time we try them on, we're immediately start self-critising, with the “OOOhhhhh my body is so awkward”, “I wish my butt wasn’t so big”, “I can't fit into anything” “Nothing looks nice on me”! (It’s actually the clothes that are awkward and that weren’t designed specifically for us... but yet they never get the blame… strange – hmm maybe an inspiring idea for another post!)
So getting back to the main topic at hand, I finally managed to squash my accounts and credit cards and now my salary belongs to me and my savings account :)

But yet I look around and see people purchasing Tupperware they don't need, Meat that won't even fit into their freezer, Avon Make up (that no one wears because its crap, no offense), all because it was pay day. And after the dry spell of not having money for the past two weeks, we convince ourselves that we "deserve" to spend some money... it’s a vicious cycle.

Do I enjoy depriving myself?
Well no, it’s not easy... but my philosophy is that if I don't see it, I don't need it!
If I do see it and like it, I wait a few days and if I'm still thinking about it, then clearly it was memorable enough to justify being purchased.
Believe me, when I do buy something now... I enjoy it for a lot more than I used to. The satisfaction I get is so immense (kind-of like that sneaky burger during a diet).

I've realised that buying things doesn't bring me happiness, or fulfil any empty void inside of me. Only God does that. Only my family and friends can bring me laughter and joy:)
And maybe… a new pair of shoes… every few months... hehe ;)

On a serious note - something to consider - Country debt and what that means for society:
Whoever holds the debtors books holds the power...

My pet peeve - Road rage!

A while back (after a few incidents I'm not going to mention) I decided to "try" to not let road rage affect me.

If I made sure I left home a bit earlier, the slow traffic, learner drivers and oldies wouldn't bug me anymore.
So far it’s working ok-ish. I put on my chilled lounge house, pull out a smoke and enjoy a slow casual drive home... I still have difficulty with "bully drivers". Those are the people who drive up your rear, flash lights at you, cut you off, push in line.... but I'm trying to understand that perhaps that man that pushed in front of me and caused major heart palpitations and that dreaded female hot flush, had just received terrible news about his family or had an urgent work emergency with a mean boss... Sometimes it is hard... but I'm trying.

The problem is to now convince my partner that the need for road rage is unnecessary. Love the man, but men driving can be compared to how dogs are when someone walks past "their" property.

Goodness. If someone overtakes them, cuts them off, they feel the need to "reprimand" that person by a few options:

Number One: Drive up behind them with a distance of 1cm
Number Two: Flash lights, show fingers, call them every dirty name in the book
Number Three: Speed up and deliberately overtake them, pushing right in front of them (usually during this time their ability to hear, speak or take notice of you completely disappears).

The aftermath usually consists of an upset female, with the man protesting, "but didn't you see how he cut me off".. um ya. Sure. He definitely had it coming - oh wait. you just did the same thing to someone else. "Buts that different, I didn't mean to".

My personal worst, is when a car flies by, going almost double the speed limit and suddenly your anticipation of a quiet romantic drive home (us woman and our silly expectations) suddenly turns into a speed chase that could compete with a traffic cop in a GTI chasing an Audie R8... I wonder what it is that causes men to become like this...

The scary part is when you make a mistake on the road and even though you apologise, sometimes people follow you, drive up right behind you, flash you, zap you, etc. There is nothing more difficult than remaining calm. Our human body automatically clicks into safety mode - which means anger/protection (aka - ego out in full force). How dare you cut me off, poor little me, I did nothing... sure.

But hey, with some chilled house, a smoke (and a car with a maximum speed of 80km/ph) who am I to judge...it’s not like I'd be able to catch up to them anyway!!!!)  ;-)

Stop trying to buy happiness

So life has been feeling a bit dull lately... you know those days when you just feel uninspired, nothing is very interesting, nothing makes your heart beat faster except people cutting you off on the road, and that’s not because of happiness, it’s more of an indignation that allows us to express some type of emotion. Well that’s how I'm feeling today...

So I thought I'd write about it, and use it in the next growth and balance tip about creating happiness:

"Stop trying to buy happiness. – Many of the things we desire are expensive.  But the truth is, the things that really satisfy us are totally free – love, laughter and working on our passions. "

Easier said than done! Sometimes when we're feeling a bit down, there’s nothing better than a bit of retail therapy, a nice unhealthy bit of junk food, maybe some road rage, “vegging” out in front of the TV... but are these the best options? I think maybe I should try to have some good old fashioned fun instead, maybe play some cards, do some writing, read a good book (no drama as it = worse depression).

 

 If you look back on life, the best memories we have is of loving, laughing and doing things we enjoy. Let’s get a hobby find out who we are and what we enjoy again! As woman we are sometimes so busy trying to fix everything, create this perfect exterior, that we forget we are special too. That we have needs too. Maybe the reason we aren't feeling all that happy is because we aren't being very nice to ourselves? We have such double standards for ourselves and others. When a friend pours their heart on our shoulders, we tell them to start doing more for themselves, that they shouldn't try so hard, that they are fantastic and can achieve anything. But yet when we are down, we give up on ourselves. I think we need to start being our own best friend and start giving ourselves good advice!

The next part of the happiness advice was:

"Stop exclusively looking to others for happiness.
– If you’re not happy with who you are on the inside, you won’t be happy in a long-term relationship with anyone else either.  You have to create stability in your own life first before you can share it with someone else.  Read Stumbling on Happiness . "

I was reading the second book of the "Men are from Mars" genre and it said that we expect men to make us happy all the time. Yet we are in reality only able to get 10% of happiness from them. Which means that even though we focus 90 % of our energy on them, we can never be completely satisfied with just them.

What brings us woman happiness is caring for others, socializing with friends, getting a pedicure (or taking out that dusty foot spa and giving one to ourselves), taking a good book and going out for a quite read in the garden.

This means that we should be 90% happy / content with the above, and then our men will provide the last 10% - topping it off for us.

How often do we do things for ourselves though? It’s easier to spend a couple of hundred rand on groceries for the house, but what about replacing that old eyeliner that is so small you pinch it between your index and thumb to use?
(Embarrassed face - my kind of thing.....) haha

So let’s try and look to ourselves for happiness and inspiration. Let’s become our own best friend.  Let’s create our own happiness.

Inspire me

One of the most important things to me is to be inspired. By Jesus, other people, ideas, creativity, thoughts, my sister, the universe, love, empathy, kindness, peace and many other things.

But so many people have forgotten about inspiration.
An example is a movie called the Romantics (plot being boy breaks up with girl in college, proposes to her friend, they all re-unite at their wedding weekend).

There is a part where the old lovers re-unite late at night and during a very passionate discussion of their old lives and she cries out, "you inspired me".

Since then those words have stuck with me and are often in my mind. What inspires me? What makes me feel so motivated and great that I feel I can take on the world?

It’s great once you've found it, but the journey to discovering it is incredible. And sometimes it can actually make you feel quite down and very alone. It took me many years to find my inspiration.

And when I did, I realised it had been under my nose my entire life.

My sister. She is more than just a biological sister, she is my soul mate, my best friend, my confidant. When she feels ill, I feel ill. When she’s happy, I am. We are so in tune with one another it often scares me. But nothing quite beats the feeling of enjoying some alone time with her. It’s as if the world disappears and it is just us, flying along this beautiful path of growth. Sharing, discovering and true acceptance. I have never felt completely and absolutely adored by another human more than how her love makes me feel. And what I feel for her is so much more than simple words can explain. More than a bright warm light of everlasting love and devotion.

"To be Inspired is great, to Inspire is incredible".

 

Find your inspiration and you find yourself.