The complete list of all life-guiding messages for young people – click the titles for further information
If you simply have a bad feeling about your friend’s partner or dislike them for an unknown reason, give careful thought to if and how you will approach your friend. You may need to take some time and self-reflection to get to the issue at the core of your negative feelings.
Being more reactive than active is a decision to let the outside world dictate how we feel. We don’t need to sit around waiting for other people to evoke our feelings. Instead, we can take responsibility to create our world as we want it.
Pain is sometimes an indication we need to set boundaries, learn to say no more often, or take better care of ourselves.
If we keep telling ourselves the same old limiting stories, we live the story of now based on a sad one from before. We can change how we interpret yesterday, how we view ourselves in response, and how we live today as a result.
Often we allow our feelings and beliefs about the past to limit our effectiveness and happiness in the present. Even though we want to let go, we don’t know how to live a life that doesn’t revolve around our former pain.
Acknowledge and own the problem of negative thinking patterns. Understand that only you can choose how you react to your circumstances. Only you can challenge your negative thinking and change your life. Reclaim your power to choose a different response.
Avoid blaming circumstances or other people for how you feel. When we blame, we surrender our power and ability to change our thoughts and feelings. We put ourselves at the mercy and whims of our environment and other people.
When you have a partner, your friend might feel excluded from your new social calendar. On top of having to carve out time to hang out with their best friend, they now have to deal with “stealing you away” from your partner.
Even if your friend and significant other have one thing in common (you), they can still be totally different people with different tastes, interests and senses of humour. Having to spend time with someone you didn’t choose to hang out with can be difficult.
Celebrate any little, or big, changes you have made. For example, if you used to worry about what people thought of you, and you now discover you’re more concerned with what you think of yourself.