Tag Archives: gratitude

Motivational Monday: On Mindfulness and Minimalism

Hello and welcome to my blog! Welcome to motivational Monday. Today, I’m ridden with anxiety and need some motivation as well. I didn’t write a to do list on Saturday nor on Sunday because I wanted my schedule to be free.

Today I wrote a to do list but kept feeling suffocated by it. It’s wierd. Sometimes to do lists relieve my anxiety, other times they give me anxiety. I know that I preach about picking 3 items and prioritizing your tasks and all that but I’m easily distracted and keep feeling like everything on the list is equally important. It’s hard to decide whether I should exercise or organize my miscellaneous items drawer 1st, so I have done neither so far.

Also, we have no electricity at the moment so I can’t work on my laptop (its battery is ruined so it must be hooked to the charger to work) and that’s looming over me. I’m not one to go overboard with editing but I’m working on a project (stay tuned) and it’s really important that I make sure the work in it is 100% original, no plagiarism. It’s causing me great anxiety that I’m avoiding working altogether. I mean, if I didn’t procrastinate so much, I would have accomplished so much more in life by now. Anyway, now that I got all that off my chest…

Get motivated with me on motivational Monday!

Mindfulness is an attitude rather than a skill. It’s about making our everyday lives more pleasurable and present.

This is so true. I struggle to be mindful but I’m really working on it and I’m getting better. I’m not really being mindful today but I try to be.

You are enough. Every morning, every sunrise, every day.

This is so hard for me to grasp sometimes but I have been raised to the concept that my value as a person increases with my accomplishments. I even unconsciously judge my siblings sometimes based on their accomplishments. I’m still being judged my my loved ones based on my accomplishments or lack thereof (they’re not impressed by my master’s degree anymore since my younger sister is getting her PhD and my blog doesn’t phase them because I don’t get paid for it).

Remember that everything you do contributes to where you are going.

Best selling author here I come. One day.

Gratitude and mindful self-compassion can heal and bring peace to you. Gratitude comes when we are mindful, observing the simple beauty in our lives.

I always pray “God make me content with what you have given me” and right now, as I read this reminder, I slow down and feel so grateful. I have a lot of gratitude moments during the day, but only when I slow down and am mindful of my surroundings and my life.

You can start over any time. Just don’t stop being you.

I wish I could start over. But usually when I imagine starting over, I imagine creating a new identity some place new.

Your body loves you, love it back.

I’m not there yet. I can’t tell you how much I hate my body right now. I lost 6 pounds during Ramadan and everyone complimented me for it. What did I do as soon as Ramadan was over? I went back to emotional eating and I’m pretty sure the weight is back.

Living moment by moment and seeing everything afresh without judgement and worry lets us experience life rather than simply get through it.

So true. I have no comment for that.

Under the influence of clutter, we may underestimate how much time we’re giving to the less important stuff.

I’m not a minimalist but I admit my mind and surroundings get a bit cluttered sometimes and it really gets me off track.

Reminder:
You’re stronger than you think you are.

I hope so.

Outer order contributes to inner calm.

Try it. Tidy up your space and notice the impact is has on you.

Remember: you are not what you own.

I wish a lot more people knew this…

Update: I finished almost everything on my to-do list. I exercised, worked on editing a bit, but I’m leaving the organization of my miscellaneous items drawer for tomorrow. Wish me luck!

A Thank You Note

Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy. They are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.

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Hello and welcome to my blog! Today I just want to thank you. I’m truly grateful for everything and everyone. I struggle to stay up to date with the blogs I follow. I always seem to be 4 to 7 days behind. I try, so I get how hard it can be to stay up to date with my blogs, especially since I basically blog daily, sometimes more than once a day.

I know you all have busy lives, families, jobs, other hobbies besides reading blogs, so I know what dedication it takes to give me from your time and energy and read, like and/or comment on my blog posts.

I don’t even know how to begin to express my gratitude to those who listen to my podcast. I know I’m supposed to incorporate each episode into my blogs but I’m too lazy, so if you want to listen to a bot reading my blogs, head over to My Rollercoaster Journey Podcast on Spotify and enjoy. I must warn you, though, that if you find it creepy when she says “hello waving hand” it’s because when I 1st imported my blogs to convert them into podcasts, I didn’t realize that the bot would read emoticons too. I now avoid using emoticons in my posts.

I would also like to thank everyone who has bought any of my books in ebook form or paperback. I really appreciate it. It’s not about the money but I feed on feedback and a book isn’t finished until it’s read. All those who bought my book, please send me pictures or videos of the book or you with the book if you want and let me know what you think.

Finally, I would like to thank those who believed in me. I never imagined myself as a writer. I just wrote poems to let out my emotions. My friends would tell me “you should sell your poems” and I would brush it off. Then when I wrote my 1st book, I was encouraged to publish it and I laughed. When I finally found the courage 7 years later, the pandemic broke out, but the silver lining is that I now have 9 books out there, 6 of which are available in both ebook and paperback. It’s so surreal. I don’t expect to become rich or famous or to live off of my book royalties, but it’s good to feel like I’m leaving my mark. It’s terrifying at the same time, being noticed, but that’s just my social anxiety and imposter syndrome talking.

Thank you to everyone who brings me joy, makes me laugh, enjoys my company and I enjoy theirs. You are my muse. Thank you to everyone who brings me pain, makes me cry. You inspire me to better myself, to write, to vent, to give advice, to seek advice. You are my motivation. Thank you to everyone who has served as a role model, from relatives to friends to teachers to celebrities to historical figures. You have made me aspire to inspire and therefore you are my inspiration.

Thank you to my fellow bloggers who I read your blogs and enjoy and learn so much about life and how to write better and be better. Thank you for making me feel like I’m not alone. I read your blogs and I feel like there is a part of me in each of you. We all have things in common despite having completely different lives. Feelings are universal, regardless of gender, religion, race, and age. You make me feel like I’m part of a community, like I belong somewhere, so thank you!

I hope I continue to motivate and inspire you like you motivate and inspire me.

So keep on writing. Keep on reading my blogs and letting me know what you think and how to improve and any topic suggestions you would like me to encounter.

We’re all in this together…

Ramadan Series: How to Achieve Contentment

Hello and welcome to my blog! Welcome to the Ramadan series. This series is inspired by Free Quran Education. I’m subscribed to Free Quran Education on YouTube and they have a lot of beneficial videos set up for this Ramadan. I debated with myself whether or not to call this Ramadan series. I’m aware that many of my readers are non Muslim and I try to remain as inclusive as possible. The values I will be discussing in this series are universal to all mankind, like honesty and peace and in today’s post, contentment. However, I felt if I didn’t put Ramadan in the title, it would be as if I’m ashamed to be Muslim, and I’m not. I’m proud to be Muslim. I’m not trying to convert anyone.

My purpose here is to reach out to muslims and non muslims alike. All I’m doing is sharing my thoughts and feelings and hoping to motivate you and inspire you along the way. What I’ll be doing is I’ll talk about the idea of each video as it comes out and I’ll discuss it from my perspective. At the end of the blog post, you’ll find the link to the YouTube video that inspired this post. This way I’ll be inspired to write more and I’ll be sharing the source of my inspiration, which is the video. Ramadan began at sunset yesterday. Last night there was taraweeh, which is a prayer from 4 to 20 rakaat in which you get extra good deeds if you pray them.

One of the special things about Ramadan (there are many) is that good deeds are multiplied 700 times. This is why there is a lot of focus on good deeds in Ramadan. However, the values and good deeds we strive for in Ramadan should be sought after year round, but Ramadan is a good place to reset and restart. One of the values we remember in Ramadan is contentment. Contentment is feeling grateful for what you have without feeling the need to look in someone else’s plate. It is feeling grateful for however much food you have without comparing to other people’s gourmet banquets, but rather remembering the poor and needy who don’t have enough to eat.

When you feel content with what you have, your mental health is good, because you don’t have FOMO (fear of missing out) and you don’t feel jealousy and envy towards others who have what you don’t have. It’s hard to maintain an attitude of gratitude and contentment (I use gratitude and contentment interchangeably because they go hand in hand), especially with social media and the need of many people to show off what they have or highlight the good side of their lives. That’s why I deleted instagram app temporarily (my account is still there). In order to feel content, I can’t keep getting bombarded with all these people who posted over the top decorations for ramadan or gourmet recipes and feel like I don’t measure up.

My focus this ramadan is on a few goals I set for myself. I did low key decorations with my son becuse he was excited about Ramadan and he is too young to fast. His school will be giving him weekly activities revolving around ramadan, like making a lantern out of cardboard today.

We made a lantern out of green and orange cardboard (my son’s favorite colors).

Comparing myself to other people will get in the way of my goals, and discontentment will ruin the spirit of Ramadan for me. I think we can all agree that contentment is a universal value for Muslims and non Muslims, in Ramadan and during the rest of the year. Also, when you feel content with what you have, you become more giving. That’s where charity comes in. I like to keep my acts of charity private, even though I feel I don’t do much charity compared to even non Muslim people (see, I’m comparing myself to people on instagram again) so I won’t be sharing any charity I do or don’t do here.

I’m just hoping that this month, especially with the economic situation in Lebanon, I’m able to give to the less fortunate (UNESCO states that 55% of lebanese are living in poverty and struggling to meet bare necessities).

For more about achieving contentment in Ramadan, watch this video:

How to manifest what you want by coloring

Hello and welcome to my blog! I’ve been reading a lot of blogs lately (trying to catch up) and several posts in the past few days were about complaining. They said that the more you complain about something, the more you invite it into your life.

It really made sense to me. I have noticed that I have been complaining about all the things I can’t have, and I don’t fail to mention in every post the situation in Lebanon. I don’t go to the extent of some people who all they talk about is how expensive things are getting, but I have been complaining about not being able to go out and about, and guess what? I’m still not going out and about. In fact, Lebanon has been in lockdown for 2 days but it feels like forever.

Okay enough complaining.

Now in those blog posts I read, they mentioned that to get what you want, you must practice gratitude for what you have, and thus invite more of that in your life because what you focus on grows. They also said something about coming from a place of abundance instead of coming from a place of lack by acting as if you already have what you want.

Go to Be Inspired for more on that.

Anyway, the idea was that by coming from a place of abundance, you will manifest these things into your life.

Side note: I also listened to a bunch of coffee talk podcasts by kayln’s coffee talk and she talked about non attachment and how it gives you inner peace. She recommended the book “The courage to be disliked” which I have as a pdf but haven’t read yet. Back to the topic at hand, gratitude and manifesting.

I have been practicing gratitude for a while, but it doesn’t seem enough to stop me from complaining. I would say I’m grateful for food and shelter, but I’m mad that I can’t drive yet (I have a license but don’t have a car and my husband won’t let me use his because I haven’t had much practice yet).

I also realized that it was really difficult for me to visualize having what I want. I don’t know how to do a vision board. I could easily learn but it doesn’t interest me for now. I can’t even visualize myself on my death bed!

However, I had a Eureka moment while coloring on my phone (I use this app called Happy Color which my sister showed me a year ago but I hadn’t used in about 6 months) and I realized I’m coloring the things that I want in my life. I decided to manifest these things through the pictures I color. I already colored a few and I’ll share them here to help manifest them into my life.

Happiness. I suffer from bouts of anxiety and depression and I would like to have a positive mindset and pure joy regardless of circumstances. I manifest a positive mindset into my life.
Speakers. What does the image of the “Inside Out” movie have to do with speakers? The speakers on my laptop are ruined and I’ve been using earphones for 2 months. My son is 6 and so I won’t put earphones in his ears. I have the movie Inside Out on my laptop and my son wants us to watch it together. We can only watch it if the speakers get fixed, but in the current economic situation, it’s too expensive to fix them. My husband got me external speakers that work via bluetooth but turns out my 9 year old laptops bluetooth doesn’t work and my laptop needs formatting. He returned the speakers then decided not to get different speakers, nor format my laptop. I manifest a format or speakers into my life.
This image looks nice. A girl swinging contently on a swing tied to a tree with a cat nearby. Personally, I don’t like cats and swings make me dizzy, but I look at this picture and I see an idea for a novel. I’ve never written a novel before, but you never know, right? Also, when I think of a novel, I remember my other books, but instead of complaining from lack of sales, I manifest book sales and writing a novel into my life.
I love picnics. I haven’t gone on a picnic in 6 years. I manifest going to the same spot I went last time.

There’s also one more thing I’m trying to manifest, but it’s personal and it’s big so I’ll keep it to myself, but I manifest it into my life (said with not as much confidence as the other manifestations).

What are you going to manifest into your life?

End note: manifesting does not mean you don’t work hard towards getting what you want. Nothing is served on a silver platter. Manifesting is the attitude you adopt instead of complaining in order to invite things into your life via Law of Attraction (I read The secret a long time ago).

Thank you for following my blog

Hello and welcome to my blog! I just reached 400 followers on wordpress. I wish there was a wordpress achievement star for that. There was one for when I reached 200 followers. I’m a sucker for those kind of stuff.

I’m not posting this to toot my own horn. I’m aware that many bloggers have much more followers than I do, and some have far less.

I’m posting this to say thank you. It means a lot to me, every view, every like, every comment, every follow.

I try to keep up with reading blogs of those I follow, but I’m currently 10 days behind. I binge read when I can and sometimes it’s a lot to take in because I like to read and reflect. Sometimes I have a migraine or I’m too tired or busy or my son is too clingy and I can’t read, so I know that sometimes it’s an effort to read blogs sometimes, especially if you’re a parent, or if you have a full time job, or both.

I also recently started converting my blogs into podcast episodes, and I appreciate everyone who takes the time to listen. It means a lot.

I also recently published my 8th book on Amazon. I appreciate everyone who checked it out.

I just updated my author bio on Amazon. You can find all by books now here.

I am glad YOU exist!

You are incredible and awesome. You make my soul blossom, and I am grateful for your existence. I am glad you exist…

I am glad YOU exist!

I just read this post from Freethinker and I had to repost it. It felt so good to hear these words. I believe we should speak like this to ourselves and to others, to not beat ourselves up over our mistakes. I thought of sending this post to my friends, and I thought of sending it to all my readers because you mean so much to me. Writing is my therapy, and the more positive feedback I get from you in the form of views, likes and comments, the more I’m motivated and inspired to write.

It’s funny that my purpose is to motivate and inspire you all but in the process I have motivated myself and you have inspired me to do so.

I looked at my views today (I look almost everyday but I try not to get hung up on them. My purpose is to know which type of content you’re enjoying most but I’m also keen on writing from the heart always) and my heart was filled with joy that this month February 2021 (though it’s not over yet), I’ve had the most views on the blog ever! I’ve had more views than all of 2019 combined!

So thank you. For taking the time out of your busy day to read my words, like and/or comment. For making me feel less alone. For making me feel like I make a difference.

I doubt myself and my abilities often, and my journey of self improvement and self love and self care and self reflection is not a linear one. It’s a rollercoaster (hence the name of my blog) and I’m glad I’m able to share the journey with you and to read your blogs (those of you who are bloggers themselves) and feel how similar we all are deep down. We all want the same thing, despite our different ages, races, ethnicities and religions, we all want to be happy, loved, and understood. We all want to feel enough, important and as if our presence makes a difference.

I’m telling you. Your presence makes a difference. Thank you for making me feel like my presence makes a difference.

Storytime: Look how far you’ve come

I hold my son in my arms, and I feel the love flooding through me. This peace washes over me and I feel so much gratitude. If you were with me through my difficult pregnancy, sudden delivery and 3 weeks of agony during which my 1.5 kg son was in the NICU, you’d understand (he is almost 6 years old now and weighs 18 kgs).

Maybe you went through a similar experience. If not, I hope you never do. If you are going through something difficult now, be grateful for 3 things:

  1. That is wasn’t in your faith/religion/spirituality because the loss of money or health can be bearable if you have unshakeable faith in whatever you believe in
  2. That it wasn’t worse (when my son was in the NICU, there was another baby in the spot next to him born with a heart condition and also had to be operated on his intestines 2 days after birth and his mother was in the ICU fighting for her life).
  3. That God granted you patience because patience is the safety valve that helps relieve the pressure of a hardship.
I couldn’t find translation but the 3 things to be grateful for that I mentioned…this is the source I got it from. It’s a quote by Omar ibn khattab a companion of the prophet Mohammed (pbuh)

Lebanon is going through a tough time, but I am grateful to have food, clothes and shelter. I’m grateful to be near my husband and that I have a cute smart healthy son, even if he drives me crazy with the online learning and going to bed and eating meals. Every time I hold him, I remember what I went through when he was 1st born and I’m filled with gratitude at how far he has come from the 1.5kg baby with a nasogastral tube through his nose because he was too weak to breastfeed or bottlefeed.

This is a happy dance for the good things I have in my life

I pray for those who have no food, clothes or shelter. I pray for the opressed and those in war zones. I pray that God uses me to serve his people and that I make a difference. Lately I feel like I haven’t been making a difference because no amount of words spoken will feed the hungry but at least I’m raising awareness to the gravity of the situation in Lebanon. I can’t tell you to donate because most of donations end up being sold in the black market or sent to Syria so I’m not sure donations will actually reach the poor people. I don’t know how else to help. Covid is making it difficult to help because I’m too scared to leave my house. I’ll find a way though. I’m praying for it.

It’s cold. Good morning/night!

Thank you to those who stayed through January 2021

Hello 👋 reader and welcome to my blog!

This is an appreciation post for all the readers who stuck with me and kept reading my blogs despite their personal problems, despite their busyness, despite the situation of their country.

Most of my views from readers are from the US. Barely 23 views from Lebanon this month and I get it. Lebanon is in panic mode and most people watch tv shows to destress. Not everyone loves reading like me.

January 2021 was the longest year ever!

Most of my readers are on wordpress, meaning they probably write blogs too or read a lot, so thank you for making the time for me and my blogs.

I have had more ups and downs in this month than in all of 2020. Or at least it feels that way. It’s no secret that January 2021 felt like an extention of 2020,and whether you live in the US and are dealing with the divided nation issues, or in Lebanon and dealing with the chaos that is going on (I don’t know how else to describe it) or in any country in between (because each country probably has its issues except maybe Germany), it means a lot to me that you took time from your day to read from the 40 posts I wrote during the month.

The likes and comments may not seem like much, but compared to last year, they are more on average.

Thank you to everyone who liked, commented and shared. Although I don’t post to get likes, but rather to motivate and inspire, and I love reading your comments and getting your thoughts and learning about your similar experiences.

I’ve struggled with consistency in writing because I’d write on a whim. I tried to time my posts but you can’t time creativity. It comes in bursts of energy. I speak from the heart but I also learned a lot about which time to post and what day to post most and how to use links and write my title properly and pay attention to the introduction. After all, I don’t want my blogs to not reach people because I didn’t know how the algorithm works. Writing like that this month has gained me the most views ever! My 2nd most viewed month was October. So thank you. I take this as a sign that you like my writing.

Most people don’t make it past the home page though…

There are some posts that I write on the spur of the moment, like the storytime posts and the poems. Other posts I plan and research about 1st like the advice posts. I will include the links to my top 5 viewed posts during January in case you haven’t read them yet:

Motherhood memes to get you through the day

What is your purpose in life?

The 3 Cs that ruin every relationship

What are your priorities in life?

Rough night

I now say goodbye 👋 to January and hello 👋 to February.

I already wrote an assessment of my January goals and wrote down my February goals (only 9 as opposed to 20) yesterday.

Today I’ll be coloring this and writing the 1 important event in this month (February 13th, my son’s 6th birthday)

This is my quote of the month

I wish you a happy February. Winter is almost over. Spring is on it’s way. Hang in there…

How did you say goodbye to January?