How to forgive, forget and let go.

"It took me a while to realize that I could actually check this off my list, that he didn't matter anymore and that I was free."

How I did it: As weird as this sounds I had to stop trying to forgive him, I had to stop trying to forget about him and I just need to live my life and let the process take care of itself. And it did, one day I thought about him and how glad I was that things didn't end up working out. I thought about him and I was ready to forget about him altogether. I was indifferent about him. And that's what I wanted. It was unreal to think that the same guy I thought I might be able to marry someday became the guy I could be ok never seeing again. And now it doesn't matter and I can move on.

Lessons & tips: Don't worry about it. Just go out and have fun with your friends. Plan your future goals. Decide what you want to be when you grow up. Go be single. Or not. It doesn't matter just as long as he/she doesn't matter.

Resources: My friends.

It took me 3 months.

It made me relieved.

See more progress on: Forgive, forget and let go.

Photo + Yoga = Zen Liz.

So if any of you follow me on facebook, you might have noticed my latest status that said: "so. I've decided I'm gonna stick to photography as a major. AND I'm going to go to yoga school to become a yoga teacher. how does that sound?" 


So my journey to get to that point was less than exciting, it actually started off with me freaking out about the classes I was going to have to take for my then physical therapy major. That's something else that I think I would love to do eventually, however, looking at the science classes that are involved in that major, I was not very confident that that was something I could do well in. Don't get me wrong, I really like science, but the math that goes along with them, and the fact that I'm struggling in my prep to chemistry class... well that raises a red flag to me. 


That left me second guessing my choice in major (for, what is this? the tenth time now?) And frantically trying to figure out what to do. I went over to the NAU site (which is where I want to go eventually) looking through all of their majors, and only a few continued to stand out to me. The same few that always stand out to me: athletic training (physical therapy), music (music ed) and photography. Now, I was going with the physical therapy choice because it sounded like the smartest choice to make, as far as how much money I could make and job opportunities. The other two just weren't as stable. But considering I knew I wouldn't be happy with the athletic training I was definitely stuck.


Meanwhile, I was trying to figure out a schedule for myself at Pima for Spring 2011, based on the idea that I would take a bunch of classes that sounded interesting to me that could maybe eventually help me decide what I could major in. At one point I had a ballet class, a yoga class, a photography class, a meditation class, a journalism class and another fitness class. Ridiculous right? It probably would have been lots of fun but definitely would have gotten me nowhere. So I revised my schedule again... and again... and again....


And finally decided to go with photography. In the middle of trying to figure out a schedule that didn't sound like a blow off semester, I decided that I was going to just suck it up and major in photography. I would start with the associate of arts at Pima and somewhere down the road transfer to NAU. At NAU I would eventually find what I should concentrate my photography on, since NAU is career based with their photography and then I would go from there. Maybe I could do it. Maybe photography wouldn't be such a bad idea. And then I made my schedule for Spring 2011.


Online:
Writing 101
Math 142


Monday/Wednesday:
Art 100 10:30-12:45
Yoga 3:00-3:50

Tuesday/Thursday:
Art 110 9:30-11:45
Meditation 12:40-3:55


Friday:
Study Skills 10:00-12:05


It's still a fairly easy schedule, but it's getting things done.
And then I noticed something else. No matter what schedule I had conjured up, I always had yoga. I have learned to absolutely love yoga, and it's something that I want to be a huge part of my life always. It always makes me feel better, it makes me feel balanced and gives me confidence. I LOVE YOGA! So then I was thinking to myself, "I wonder what it would take to become a yoga teacher?" If I wanted to be an athletic trainer, then wouldn't yoga be similar in a way? And yoga is something that can definitely help people... now I want to be a yoga teacher!


So I think I'm going to do both. I'll have to wait a while for the yoga school, I definitely need to work on my own practice for a while longer so that I'm a little more bendy and know and understand more of the postures and poses. But that's definitely something I can be constantly working on, and especially if I can continue to take yoga classes at school and at the various yoga studios around town (anyone want to join me?) I can constantly learning about and perfecting my yoga, which in turn will help me when I want to go to yoga school. :)


Now that I seem to have my life planned out again, I'm excited for what lies ahead of me, but I definitely need to remember to keep focused on the present so that the future will be possible.


Off to clean. 24 days till Colorado.

The Dog Park

So I noticed today on my dashboard that I now have 8 followers. :) I'm not sure if all of you really follow my blog or not, but that definitely made my morning a bit brighter. And in reality I might even have more than that through my tumblr links that go through facebook.

Well I just wanted to take a moment and thank all of you who actually follow my blog, I'm definitely blessed to have people interested in my life and what I have to say on here.

So I've definitely found a new place to go when I'm feeling stressed to unwind and relax when I need to.
The dog park.
I've been several times with my family, we take our dog Rolly, and he gets to run around and play and just be a dog. Last night I decided to take him to the park by myself for the first time. It was awesome to be able to just sit on the bench by myself and watch him have fun with the other dogs that were there. I almost wished that I had my camera to take good pictures of the dogs, but oh well, that will be for another day. I've talked about how I think I'd be perfectly content living by myself with just some dogs to keep me company (for a while at least I still think eventually I'd like some human companionship lol) and being able to go to the park alone and be completely content just sitting there watching the dogs play pretty much confirms that belief. And it was definitely stress relieving for me, since all I did was watch the dogs playing I didn't think about anything that had been bothering me lately and I just chilled out. I'm looking forward to this being an option of things to do to destress myself when I need it, and I'm sure Rolly is going to love it too.

Looking forward to it.

I hate the fact that my parents don't really believe in me to do anything above my usual action level. Like for instance when my mom said that if I cleaned parts of the house I could roadtrip to Colorado, she said that thinking she had the security of setting the level "high enough" that it would never happen. When she found out that I was actually going to work towards that goal, she basically laughed in my face. In about a month when I'm driving away from this dreaded place and off to a vacation she can't go on, maybe she'll second guess herself.
I also hate the fact that they don't think that I have any sense to think things through. No mom, I wasn't going to plan this big old first road trip alone without considering that it would cost me money and that I would have to  plan it around school and such. I made a plan of action considering absolutely all of that. I even consulted with my grandparents (which is ultimately how she found out, but whatever.) I am perfectly capable to work hard to earn reward. I really want to go on a long road trip without my family, I really need to get out of Arizona for a while to save my sanity and I really want to go up to Colorado. Why wouldn't I work my ass off to be able to do so?
Well my goal is in sight and the work to get there is not particularly awful, with enough motivation and drive, November 10 will roll around and I'll be kissing AZ goodbye for a while. I'm looking forward to it :)

Thoughts about you.

This is one of those confessions/truth things where you basically just vent out feelings or thoughts about people. I usually don't really like these but I definitely felt the need to do one to let out some thoughts. And since I haven't been writing many blogs lately (I'm very behind) I figured I might as well do one. Plus I'm killing time in between my classes :)


-If all you're going to do is complain through statuses, nothing's really going to change. You wonder why you seem to be losing friends and why no one seems to care. Well it's basically your own fault things are like that and I'm sorry it has to be that way since you're not willing to change. Stop worrying about other people and what they think of you. Go live your life and be happy.
-I wish you were more confident in yourself. You seem like such a happy person most of the time but then there are so many instances where you let yourself be pushed around and walked on. It's not good for you and I'm worried about how far someone will end up pushing you. You're an amazing and beautiful person and you need to start thinking that way.
-Sometimes I listen to country music in my car when nothing else is on so that when you play it in your car I'm already accustomed to it and it doesn't kill me. I do it just for you.
-You have become a monster, worse than your creator. I'm not sure what happened to you but I have no hope that the old person you used to be will ever come back. You've become a selfish, unreliable person and I'm not even sure I can call you my friend anymore. For your sake I hope that you continue to find people as fake as you are to be friends with. Otherwise you're going to end up alone.
-I am so glad that the world has people like you. I have no doubt that you will make great changes in this world and we all will do so much better when you do. I'm excited to see where you will go in life and how you will continue to grow and become even more amazing every day.
-I just don't think you're ready.
-You are a pompous ass who cares about nobody but himself. Seriously you need to get over yourself and stop putting people down.
-I've liked you for a while, and I probably will continue to like you until I find someone else. But you will never know and for some reason I think I'm ok with that. If it happens I'm trusting God to make it happen. I don't think I've ever been able to do that before. Maybe that's a good sign.
-I am continuously amazed at how our relationship works. I'm almost positive that nothing could ever cause it to end. And I am so very thankful for that.

BoysBoysBoys.

It's been a month since I've posted anything. I feel like such a slacker.

So I'm living one of those "I like you but you'll never know it / hardly know I exist" stories. They're the worst. Especially since I have such a fear of rejection (brought on from so many accounts of bringing forth my feeling towards someone just to get the "well I like you as a friend but..." talks. Not fun.) It's definitely a situation where I'm not expecting something to happen, but that doesn't change the fact that every time I see him, I get that feeling like my social skills and IQ have seriously dropped. (I'm one of those people who trips on their words and acts a bit mentally weird when I try to interact with someone I like. And then I also definitely do the self kicking afterwards lol.)

I wish I wasn't so socially weird sometimes. I definitely blame myself for my lack of successful relationships. I just hope I get married by the age of 24. That's only 5 more years. Oh dear.
I need someone to coach me on being attractive. That sounds so odd, but that's definitely the case. It might help if I didn't go to class in my workout clothes every day. Or didn't go basically everywhere in my workout clothes. I definitely need a bit of a wardrobe makeover.

I'm going to die an old, lonely dog lady.
Woot.

Friends.

A weird thing about friends. I'm finding as I get older that it becomes more and more hard to define what a freind is. Like suddenly as we grow older there's more to becoming friends then having the same favorite color or disney character. But at the same time, I don't think I would want it to be like that anymore. As you get older, the important things in your life change and therefore your day to day drama is no longer what are we going to play at recess, but rather needing to get a job and get through college.

Back to friends. I've gone through a huge transformation of who my friends are in the past few years. In high school, my group of friends were always band kids, we hung out in the band room, ate lunch at the band wall and played card games in the band hall. It was easy to tell who your friends were then, it was who you hung out with, had class with, ate lunch with. I'm not saying there wasn't plenty of drama then, because there definitely was, but it usually ended up resolved somehow and things would continue on.

Enter college. People go their separate ways. People start their own lives. And now comes the true test. Who do you continue being friends with? This is something I had a hard time with. The same group of people that I hung out with on a daily basis was no longer there for me. They had things to do, I had things to do and it was almost impossible to get together and hang out. My best friend and I were fortunate to have been able to get through her leaving for college with out me in one piece, me being in college almost made things easier for us. I was lucky enough to make new friends, the people in my dorm all. They became the people I hung out with, the people I went to class with and the people I ate with. I feel very blessed that I had them throughout that year.

But the other friends of mine, that I had been with all through high school never left my mind. (It was difficult for them too considering I had 60+ pictures of all of them on my wall.) I would see one or two of them every once in a while and hang out for a short time, but things were still definitely different. Some of my old friends I never saw at all. It was through all of this that I think I've begun to realize who my true friends are. It sounds so overdramatic to say that, but it really is true. The people who won't take the effort to hang out with me, or flake out on me or won't talk to me at all are definitely the people I'm not close to anymore. The people who do make an effort and I actually get to see quite often or talk to quite a bit are the people who I'm close to and consider to be my friends.

As much as I really wish I had some of my friends that I had during high school, I'm realizing that gaining new friends and keeping the friends that are more important is the most important thing to do.