Self Love: A Journey

I've noticed a lot of down feelings among my friends recently. A lot of self hate, and yearning for love. I just wanted to share what my journey to self love and eventually romantic love looked like for me.

I had to think I was awesome before anyone would even acknowledge me. For all of my teenage life, I had terrible self esteem. I worried constantly about what others thought of me. I was desperate for love and attention. I thought that when no one fell in love with me, that there must have been something very wrong with me.

I convinced myself that I was ugly, didn't know how to act in public, that I had to hide who I was and how smart I was because then they would think I was a suck up. It was an awful way to live. I was a "hopeless romantic " and was convinced I needed prince charming and that he was out there for me. I fell in "love" with every guy that was ever kind to me and ended up in some really toxic relationships. I ended up in a three year relationship I didn't belong in because I didn't want to be alone.

My journey to self love started when I took a hard look at how I looked at myself. I think people see you often as how you see yourself, not all the time, but often.

I decided to stop letting people, things, and stereotypes define how I viewed myself. I picked three things (being a compassionate human being; being a strong, independent woman; and being a writer) and I told myself that I would never let anything else define me. That was step one of a hundred mile journey.

I started to undo the deep self-degrading psychology I had implanted in myself. I actively corrected my self hate and my over worrying about other people's judgments. I started pushing boundaries on what made me happy, alone and with other people. I complimented myself when I did something awesome. I started to pull away from social structures that were harmful to me. I started shrugging off more things instead of stewing over them. I started trusting people when they complimented or thanked me. I started being more kind to others inside my own mind. A critical mind attacks everyone, including itself. I gave people the benefit of the doubt. I spent time alone with my thoughts, away from technology and people.

Slowly I started seeing changes, I smiled more, I was more genuine, I didn't see the world through a filter, I wasn't desperate for attention ect. This is how I leaned to love WHO I was. My body love slowly started to filter in when I realized it didn't matter, that I would never be perfect, and that I loved myself.

I started seeing the good in my body: curve of a muscle here, softness there, the ability to lift things and to dance smoothly. I started appreciating it like I never had before.

During all this time I had started to not care if guys found me attractive but now, I was finding me attractive. This is when the attention started. I think because I didn't need the attention, boys wanted to give it to me. I had a kind of flippant attitude for a while, which still kinda lingers of "yeah, I know I'm awesome" and it made me feel great and made the boys go mad.

When I started actually dating people, it was because I believe in giving people shots and it was fun. I got asked out a lot and I had them take me to dinner, where I genuinely wanted to get to know them. When guys treated me like crap and still wanted my attention I told them to hit the road, and told them exactly why I didn't have time for that shit. It was in this kind of "me first" attitude that T started pursuing me.

I told him I didn't want anything serious right then and he told me that he was fine. He said he wouldn't push me, but that he wasn't seeing other people. I continued to see him and date other people. I was able to see in a clear way the difference between everyone else and him without being desperate for love and attention. I realized that he respected me as much as I did. When I saw that, I decided to give us a shot and the rest is history.

Self esteem is exactly that, about yourself and how you view you. You have to start loving you before you can get in a good place to love someone else and accept their love.

I hope everyone that hasn't gone on their journey of self love, has the courage to start. It's an amazing world out there. I would hate for anyone to miss out on it because they can't love themselves enough to enjoy it.

Love always,
Carly

The Human Response in State Legislature

Recently I came across www.utahvalues.org which is a Utah group that asserts love, fairness, opportunity and family. This group asserts that it is not within our Utah value system to allow hate and discrimination against those in the LGBT spectrum. On the site there was a place to fill in your address and be given a form to write to your local representatives to ask them to vote for anti-discrimination bills.

Here's what I wrote:

As a young voting constituent I'm writing you today to ask you to next year vote in favor of non-discrimination bills in Utah regarding the LGBTQ community. I've grown up in utah being taught to hold to my integrity and to always love and cherish those around me. As a state I believe we are very kind and generous people, it is something I love about living in Utah, and I believe that there is currently an incongruency between the law and the hearts of most of our citizens.
 
As a state we are people of service, people of charity and people of kindness and yet, the law stands to uphold the bigoted attitudes of the few. I'm not writing to take a stand on "the big issue" right now (maybe that will come later) but right now I ask that we offer the protection of the law to those who are currently cast in the shadows.

Ireland Trip: Kilmainham Jail

This was so cool for me to see, after talking about the Easter Rising in my Irish class it was so fascinating to see exactly where and how these men were held! The tour was amazing, they told you so many cool things!

Haunting but sadly beautiful in it's own way

Ireland Trip: Viking Walking Tour

The architecture in dublin was so stunning all the time!

Ireland Trip: Paddywagon Tour and Cliffs of Moher

I really enjoyed the Paddywagon bus tour, they took us to some really great spots and the driver was really awesome!

Traditional Irish lunch at an Inn

This old abby was gorgeous!

Fear and Exhilaration

Day 29

Spring break: you think about it in the U.S. as a wonderful respite in the middle of the semester that makes it bearable to continue the drudge towards finals.

Before I cam out here I didn't really do any research on when the school holidays were. So you could probably understand why I was pretty shocked when I was putting assignments into my planner and realized that there was a two week break during the fourth and fifth weeks of class.

Yeah, two weeks off when we just started. I mean don't get me wrong, I was excited but at the same time it stressed me out beyond belief.

At home I hadn't really thought about how terrifying this trip would be. I was thinking to the flight and that was about it. Everyone was constantly telling me "oh you're so brave" but I wasn't really thinking about it, I would shrug it off and just think about how simple it would be.

Then I got here.

Inaction Gets You Nowhere

There's this funny thing about life: If you do nothing, almost nothing will happen to you.

This has come down on me a lot the past week. I didn't quite come to Innsbruck with a social plan. I had my schooling and traveling and financials all set up but I didn't really think that hard about my social life. Some where in my head I think I assumed that part would just happen.

It doesn't.

You have to make it happen just like everything else. I think it is the fact that this adventure has been so overwhelming that finally made me see that I can't just sit back if I want to make the most of it. I have to get out there and be assertive with my desires for friends and activities. You can't be afraid to ask someone if they want to do something. You can't just wait for them. You have to make it happen.

IKEA Run!

Made my first IKEA run every and I was shocked at how cheap the stuff was! This whole haul was only 53.39 euro! If we count the pans and cooking tools individually then that averages out at about 3 euro an item!

• Hangers
• Dish Towels
• Glass Baking Dish
• Fry Pan
• Flatware
• Cutting Board
• Two Storage Containers
• A Pack of Kitchen Tools
• Three Pots
• 1 Bowl
• 1 Plate
• 1 Mug
• 1 Glass

I think I did pretty good :) Now I can actually cook instead of the munching I've been doing the past week. If anyone has any recipes you think I should try give me a holler! 
Carly

Wunderschön

It is the only I can think of that grasps at how I feel about this place. Directly translated it means wonderfully beautiful. Wonder inspiring beauty. That is Innsbruck.

It is magical. There's a feeling in the streets of the old city--not in from the people necessarily but from the city its self--that speaks to the past. It is as if the stones themselves have wisdom from the things they've seen, as if should you listen hard enough you could hear them whispering to you.

Anything That Could Go Wrong Did...But I Survived

Finally in Innsbruck and let me tell ya people, it was no easy task getting here.

My flight out of Dulles was an 1 1/2 hrs late leaving and with me only having an hr layover between flights I was screwed on making my connection before I even left the tarmac. I knew that United had already booked me for the next flight into Innsbruck but I was worried that since the Dorm office is normally only open until 1pm on Fridays I would not be able to check into my dorm until Monday.

Once I arrived at Frankfurt I transferred my boarding pass and my luggage to the flight into Innsbruck leaving at 12:20 and landing at 1:20. After finding my way through the maze of an airport and going through security again (being stopped for private screening for the second time that day) I finally made it to the terminal.

After grabbing a pamphlet from the info desk on how to get to their free 30mins of internet I sat down to try to get on to email everyone about the delay and try to work something out with the dorms. Once I got to the log-in page I had the joy of learning that the log-in required you to have a phone to send a text to with a confirmation code. Well duh-duh-DUH! Guess whose phone was off because it doesn't work in foreign countries?