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Obsessions, Advice, and My Killer Music Mix

posted 22nd July 2011    Written by: Katharine    CATEGORY: All Posts, Inspiration, Katharine, Life Lesson, Season 4

It’s been an honor sharing the Stratejoy stage with the lovely ladies of Season 4 (and of course, Molly and Katie) and it’s super sad to see this season come to a close.  For my second to last post, it’s time to answer some questions!

What are you most proud of from the last six months?

I’m proud of having the courage to leave everything I knew and loved in America in order to find a way to live my best life.  Truthfully, I didn’t think I was strong enough to do this.  I was terrified of boarding that plane to Prague, but looking back on that moment now, it was the catalyst to get me to Australia.  In these last six months I’ve gained more courage and confidence than I ever thought I would.  I feel like I really am going to conquer the world some day.

What is your favorite meal memory?

This is a tough one because I love food way too much.  I think one of my favorite meal memories was last summer at my cousin’s cottage in the Finger Lakes.  I took two of my girlfriends with me and we sat out on the deck, watching the sunset, sipping on NY’s finest cold Riesling, and eating zweigles and grilled portobello mushrooms.  If you’ve never had a zweigle, you just don’t know.  I demand you click on that website and order a pack (or 12) right now.  It’s totally worth it, I promise.

What’s the best piece of advice you have for someone struggling with a QLC?

Embrace it with both arms and hold on tightly.  Allow yourself to feel the wave of emotions that come with the QLC because that’s one step towards conquering it.  Don’t be afraid to ask yourself those gut-wrenching questions and don’t be afraid to chase after your wildest dreams in pursuit of your own authentic happiness.  It’s the risks we don’t take that we regret the most.  But most importantly, know that whatever you’re going through, you are not alone in it.  You’ve got a tribe supporting you every step of the way!

Post a picture of your happy self – where were you, what were you doing, and who were you with?

One of my all-time favorite things to do in life is watch the sun set.  I know it sounds cheesy, but I find it so mesmerizing and peaceful.  The Boyfriend took me to a park in North Bondi one Sunday evening so I could get some snapshots of the sun setting over the Harbour Bridge and Sydney Skyline.  I’ve seen some amazing sunsets in my lifetime but watching that sun set over the entire city was truly spectacular.  It’s the simple things in life that make me smile.

What’s the best piece of advice someone has ever given you?

“Enjoy every moment of it.”  – JZ (my friend, not the rapper)

Honest, simple, and heart-felt.  It wasn’t until I got to South Korea when I started taking my friend’s advice and really enjoying my time abroad.  I opened my mind (and heart) to the world and all of it’s beauty, and it’s changed my life.

We forget how important it is to truly enjoy the moments that take our breath away, make us smile, and bring happiness in our lives.

In my case, ‘it’ was traveling abroad but maybe yours is a relationship, the decision to start over, or an upcoming vacation.  Whatever ‘it’ is, love it, learn from it, and appreciate the small bursts of joy.  Live for the moments that make you smile.

What’s your killer music mix?

“The Seed” – The Roots
“S&M” – Rihanna
“F*ck You” – Cee Lo Green (sorry, the clean version just doesn’t cut it)
“Float On” – Modest Mouse
“Runaway” – Maroon 5
“Rolling in the Deep” – Adele
“Fearless” – Colbie Caillat
“Shake Me Like a Monkey” – Dave Matthews Band
“Give Me Everything” – Pitbull

(don’t judge me based on my music selection)

Three biggest obsessions right now…

wearing skirts with knee-high boots (apparently I found my feminine side in Australia…)
playing iAssociate2 on my iPhone
sunsets over the Harbour bridge

What has happened in your time as a Stratejoy blogger that you would never have imagined for yourself in January?

Definitely landing in Australia.  This certainly wasn’t on my itinerary when I started this journey around the world, but because I was already in Asia, I knew I just had to come to Australia.  Now that I’m here, I can’t imagine living anywhere else.

What’s something you learned from each of the ladies of Season 4?

I’ve learned that even the most talented, beautiful, capable women can hit rock bottom and find a way to climb to the top with even more courage, confidence and determination than they had before.  These ladies are nothing short of inspiring and they all hold a special place in my heart.

What’s your Dream Job?  Dream Vacation?  Dream Home?

Dream Job:  owning my own restaurant, cafe, or Bed & Breakfast.

Dream Vacation:  sailing around Croatia and the Greek Isles.

Dream Home:  a nice, small home with a really awesome, brand new, state-of-the-art kitchen.  Oh, and a patio facing a body of water would be nice, too, so I could drink a glass of New York’s finest Riesling while watching the sun set.

What’s currently turning you on?

All of the male Australian accents.  #swoon.

How are you going to change the world?

By staying true to myself.  By living with passion and intention.  By listening more and talking less.  By believing that if you really want something in life, you will do whatever it takes to get it.  By encouraging Generation-Y and future generations to stop conforming to societies norms and start defining your own norms.  You don’t have to have it all figured out by age 30 and you don’t have to join Facebook just because everyone else did.

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Uncovering Loneliness

posted 15th July 2011    Written by: Katharine    CATEGORY: All Posts, Katharine, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 4, Travel

Australia has been a very healing place for me.  I came into this country with a lot of unanswered questions, unresolved issues, a broken heart that still hadn’t fully healed, an emotional void constantly being filled with alcohol, and a burning desire of wanting something more.  That’s a lot of baggage to carry around from country to country.

In six months I found the courage to start over.  New career.  New city (and country).  New friends.  New relationship.  But there’s still something missing; I still feel this sharp pain deep in my heart and soul.

Buried beneath all of the happiness, excitement, adventure, and newness is deep, painful loneliness.

I’ve been struggling with loneliness for a couple years now, though I think this is the first time that I’m actually admitting it. I don’t know where it stems from.  Maybe partly from losing my parents at such a young age (and not being raised in that tight-knit family dynamic) and partly from the unhealthy relations I had with nearly every man back in America which created this dangerous feeling of inadequacy.

Traveling solo surely doesn’t erase this feeling of loneliness though.

Choosing to create a new life in Australia is certainly a monumental tipping point for me, but it does come at a cost.  I had wonderful, supportive, genuine friends back home.  I had two brothers who would drop everything and come running to me if I needed them.  I had a therapist who saved my life and helped me work through my emotional demons.  And I chose to be selfish and leave it all behind to travel the world solo and find my happiness.

Now I’m on an island, miles and miles away from my closest friends and family, trying to find a way to build a new foundation full of happiness, love, and gratitude.  I’m trying to become a successful ESL teacher, a genuine friend, and a loving girlfriend.  It’s not as easy as it sounds.  Life Down Under isn’t always rainbows and butterflies; it’s an emotional roller coaster of fleeting happiness, painful loneliness, drops of stratejoy, and moments of feeling homesick.

Being an ESL teacher in Australia is very challenging, for obvious reasons.  I’m teaching private lessons to International students and Backpackers, but it’s not steady, guaranteed work every day.  Some days I teach eight lessons, other days I won’t teach at all.

Most of the friends I had when I first got here have traveled out of the country, and it’s been tough to organize nights out with the remaining friends that are still in town.

It’s emotionally challenging to be in a relationship with a man who’s constantly surrounded by his friends and family and I’m on the other side of the world from mine.  I miss that kind of social environment and I miss being around people who really know me.  I don’t want to become co-dependent on him, but it’s tough when he’s one of the reasons why I chose to stay.

How do I make the loneliness of starting over in a foreign country, thousands of miles away from everything I know and love, go away?

I don’t know how to work through it.  I don’t know how to just sit with this feeling and be okay in the moment.

Starting over is scary.  Though I never thought I’d ever start my life over in Australia, I certainly don’t regret this decision.  This country has changed my life.  But I think that honeymoon phase of being here is officially over and now I need to start digging deep and working through this loneliness and the other emotional affects of living abroad.

{photo credit: Vermario}

 

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What’s One More Change?

posted 7th July 2011    Written by: Bri    CATEGORY: Bri, Job/Career/Work, Life Lesson, Season 4

Since I started writing here my life has gone through some changes.  Understatement? I went from single girl living alone trying to really drice home the whole self-love thing to, well, a married lady with a VERY active baby boy moving around in my stomach constantly.

There have been some leaps of faith required to hold my shit together; this is a fact.  The residual effect of all this change is this overwhelming feeling that I have the power within me to change whatever I want to get to the life I dream of.

 

 

 

“There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction” – Winston “The Man” Churchill

My life is like a house that you buy thinking it’s pretty fantastic but then you decide to redo the guest room and in that process you cause a hole in a wall that leads to a bathroom remodel, and now your wall colors don’t match so you move down the hallways and you just keep going and before you know it you’ve redone the whole darn house.  Change is addicting, but what if the result is YOUR DREAM HOUSE? Change doesn’t seem so scary when you have so much to gain.

These thoughts have been running rampant in my head lately:

What if I could work from home?  Writing and freelancing to pay the bills.

What if I didn’t have to put Baby A into day care at 2 months old?

What if I had flexibility in my schedule to take time off in the summers to travel with my family?

What if I could take a lunch break and meet up with a new Mama friend for a little play date?

What if I could be REALLY happy every single day when I work?

What if my commute time was the time it took me to walk from the coffee machine to my home computer?

What if I could make MORE that I do now?

What if I could control the projects I took on?

What IF I just made one more change?

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Video Blog: Live Your Best Life

posted 24th June 2011    Written by: Katharine    CATEGORY: All Posts, Creativity, Inspiration, Katharine, Season 4

“Live your best life,” she told me, as I detailed my adventures of traveling around the world searching for happiness.

We met in a cafe in Wenceslas Square in Prague.  She was backpacking through Central Europe with her husband, and I was working on a lesson plan for my class.  We exchanged stories of why we came to Prague and what our next adventure is going to be.

Live your best life.

Simple, yet so, so complicated.  Because what exactly can I do to live my best life?  How can I make each day count?

Nicole wrote her personal manifesto, The Life Less Bullshit, and so did Katie.  I have to be honest, I loved both of them.  So much that it prompted me to write my own personal manifesto.

So, I did.

The wonderful Amanda raised the bar this season with her own video blog, talking about what makes her terrified.  Molly then challenged the rest of us Season 4 bloggers to match it.  I hate being on camera and in the spotlight, but this season for me has been all about breaking out of my comfort zone (like going skydiving in Australia!), so I decided to continue with this trend by video blogging.

I’ve never done this before, so please be kind and don’t judge me.

Live your best life.

(in case you’re wondering, the song is a cover of Pink’s ‘Less Than Perfect.’).

 

 

{photo credit: taken of the Sydney Harbour at sunset}

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You Are Your Own Happiness Engineer

posted 21st June 2011    Written by: Amanda    CATEGORY: All Posts, Amanda, Life Lesson, Season 4, What I've Learned

I started reading Reality is Broken a little while ago. Jane McGonigal caught my attention with her TED Talk a while back, where she talked about how gaming — yes, of the video gaming variety — could change the world. Of course, my being a gamer meant that I was all like, “HELL YEAH, BABY! LET’S DO THIS THANG.”

And then her book came out.

While I thought the book was going to be all about explaining the awesomeness of games to non-gamers, it turned out to be an exercise in paradigm shifting. I’m not very far into the book (yet) but the chapter on Happiness Engineers really caught my attention… especially after recent events.

You guys know that Mike and I don’t own a vehicle. No point in this transit oriented city. Mike went over to Vancouver Island last weekend and brought back his mom’s SUV (since she’s using her other vehicle and Mike’s dad is in Toronto for four weeks). It’s been nice to have wheels.

I digress.

Not the point.

He proposed that we go and get our hospital bag(s) packed for when ZomBaby decides to make his appearance. I noticed I didn’t have everything I needed so we figured we’d go out and pick it up from the local Mega Store of Groceries and Other Things (ahem, Superstore). About three blocks into our journey, I burst into tears.

Of course, Mike was a bit horrified. I’m not usually one to just break down and cry out of the blue. We can blame the pregnancy hormones all we want but the truth is this: I’ve been feeling very isolated lately. Events had occurred recently that had really shifted my perception of the people in my life. Where I wouldn’t expect someone to step up, people have stepped up. Where I have expected support, people haven’t bothered to show up.

It’s an odd thing to be faced with that kind of reality. It’s like I’m in perma-Opposite-Day-mode or something.

Okay, it’s not just odd.

It’s devastating.

So I sat in my mother-in-law’s silver Nissan SUV and I bawled. It wasn’t just a few tears. This was a full-on, big ugly cry. With hiccups. And black liquid eyeliner EVERYWHERE.

As soon as I could speak, Mike asked me, “Baby, what’s wrong? Why are you crying so hard? Did I hurt you?”

Sniffling hard, I said, “No, love. I’m just so angry that while I’m faltering and flailing… people keep leaving or not bothering to show up. I feel alone. I feel desperate. I feel isolated. I feel under-loved… like my soul is malnourished or something…”

Eventually, I pulled my shit together and we managed to get our hospital checklist taken care at the Superstore.

The next day, I contemplated my reaction in the car and really dug deep to understand both my motivations and the motivations of others.

1. In which we love too much.

I’ve always been of the mind that if I pour my heart and soul into another human being that they will reward me with loyalty and respect. I figure that if I love people enough, it will act as its own deterrent for people seeking to hurt me. After all, what kind of person would go out of their way to hurt someone that loves you so damn much?

And, as always, my naiveté overpowers my logical brain meats.

Shortly after my outburst in the SUV, Mike pointed out that the people I know aren’t being malicious. People have their own lives full of their own worries and concerns. I can’t expect to be loved by everyone. It’s simply not possible. Or reasonable.

“But I love a lot of people,” I protested.

“Yes, but you are the exception, not the rule. I know that I don’t tell my friends I love them. I may care for them but it wouldn’t occur to me to say it out loud. I figure they just know.”

I found myself vexed. Perhaps Mike was onto something.

Which led me to…

2. We engineer our own happiness.

“Positive psychology is the relatively new field of science that studies “human flourishing”, or how we achieve different kinds of happiness. For just over a decade now, positive-psychology researchers have been accumulating a formidable body of knowledge about how our brains and bodies work to help us achieve well-being and life satisfaction.” – Jane McGonigal (Reality is Broken)

It’s a luxury to be thinking about happiness and joy and “human flourishing”. I know it is. I know that I’m blessed enough to have grown up in (moderate) privilege, without having to worry about my personal well-being and survival beyond more than, “What shall we make for dinner tonight?”

When I think about happiness in the context of my life, I think of myself as a happy person (especially these days). I smile a lot. I laugh all the time, without thinking. Many things (and people) bring me a distinct feeling of joy and fulfillment.

And that, as I’ve learned, is wherein the problem lies: things and people bring me joy.

The conclusion I came to is that if I relied on the rest of the world to bring me joy and happiness and fulfillment, I would be left with a string of disappointments in the form of completely busted relationships that were buried under high expectation and lack of mutual respect.

Happiness must come from within, first and foremost.

It was a hard lesson to learn, especially after the years I’ve spent being a firm believer in cultivating relationships and love in order to feel loved (and happy) in return. By allowing my thirst for love and approval to drive my happiness, I became tied to the moods of friends and family. Slippery-ass-slope especially when…

3. People are fickle.

Yes, yes they are. People will come. They will go. They will show up when they’re least expected. They’ll be conspicuously absent when they’re needed. They’ll love you when you feel loved up. They’ll ignore you when you’re desperate for a scrap of human attention and validation.

Or they’ll surprise you and do something completely unexpected and wonderful in the process.

People are fickle (and, by our own nature, selfish), therefore we must become our own Happiness Engineers. We can’t be looking to the horizon and saying, “If only this person would love me a little more — a little better — I could be happier.” Or wishing for Prince Charming to swoop in. Or Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica. Whatever floats your boat, really.

This is one the hardest things I’ve ever had to learn in my life. I know that it will take many, many more years of reprogramming my own behaviour until I get to the point where my friendships and relationships can’t crush me.

I must become Happiness Sufficient of my own volition.

Talk about a tall order. Got any advice for me? Better yet, got a similar story to share?

Image found via Image Spark.

 

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