How to improve your life

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Hello wonderful people!

Have you got doubts about your life?
Have you thought you have more to bring to the world but you can’t seem to figure out why?
Do you want to improve your life and yourself but you’re just so overwhelmed by what everyone says you should do?

I understand you.

Feel hugged.

We see all these people giving us advice, either on the internet, on TV, or our friends and family, and it all becomes such a huge yarn ball of advice where we don’t know where the start is anymore.

I’d like to tell you my experience with this and maybe you can take something useful out of it.

I see a lot of motivational videos on youtube, in order to learn useful tips to improve my life.
After some weeks I feel exhausted from it, because I feel overwhelmed with the amount of information I’m getting. And then my motivation goes down, as it is all so much to handle and my head is so full I can’t barely think straight. Not good!

With this I don’t mean to say you should not see motivational videos (or consume any kind of motivational content for that matter), I just believe you should limit the amount of it. Find three tips that really make sense to you at this point in your life, write them down, put them in a place where you can see them often (like the kitchen or your work place) and start implementing them right away.

You will begin to have more clarity and realize you are an impermanent being that is constantly changing when you look at those three tips you wrote and think you have to change them because they don’t connect to your life goals anymore. And that’s totally fine! That is the proof that you are living 🙂

I implemented lots of things in my life already but I have a problem of not knowing when to stop. I try to implement so much, and most of it I can, but then by not prioritizing I end up sucking the time I have for useful actions with not so useful actions.

So prioritization is key when trying to improve our lives. Taking a bit of time every morning after waking up to see what your schedule is for the day and recognize what is really important and what is not will bring you more clarity of mind.

How do you know what is important? Ask yourself: If this would be my last day on Earth, what would you do?

It’s not about just throwing everything and going on a trip or just have fun. It’s about making sure that what you do has a big impact on you, that that will bring you closer to where you want to be.

Where do you want to be in five, ten, twenty, thirty years?

Of course we can’t plan life and expect it to go fully accordingly with our plans. It just doesn’t work that way. What we can do is have a plan for ourselves in a specific timeframe, write down the steps we need to archive it and be calm and accept change when it comes. Once again, welcoming the idea of impermanence of life.

I’ve been doing yoga, meditation and therapy regularly for a year now and I believe this has helped me improve my life and helped me know myself better. I can now ask why I do certain things or dream certain dreams because of that. I am far from doing that every single time, self knowledge takes a lifetime. But I do see an improvement, and that is enough. To see an improvement, to become conscious of change, will help you stay focused and carry on with your actions to improve your life, because you know it works and it will work better overtime.

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So what do I want you to take from here?

Advices are good, take them. But don’t take too much, or you will feel overwhelmed.
Take three, write them and follow them! Be open to change them at any time.

Accept change, accept the impermanence of life. Once you do that, you won’t loose control of yourself or be scared out when change occurs. You will adapt. And you will immediately have improved your life.

Prioritize. Be realistic of what your goals are and what you need to do to archive them. Understand what is important and what is not.

Be patient, results take time. But once you see them, you will feel much better.

Remember: All people are different and what works for some might not work for others. You decide what works best for you!

Hope to have helped you get a bit of clarity today.

Stay safe and smile 😀

Leo

P.S: If you want to try meditation, I do recommend Headspace. I’ve been using it for some months now and it has helped me get more clarity in my life. You can use the link below to check them out (not an affiliate link, I just love it so much I recommend to everyone):

https://www.headspace.com/

4 Lessons You Can Take For Success

Hello wonderful people on planet Earth!

Today I will talk about a moment when my life completely changed. It was such an inspiring moment that I believe it will inspire you too and improve your life.

Searching for a Bachelor to study, back in 2013, I knew I didn’t want to study arts, as I was afraid of loosing my creative flare, but didn’t have any idea of what I really wanted to study. Because my parents were interior designers, I went to study the same field.

I struggled a lot. Since i was used to arts, I felt outside my comfort zone. After two semesters, I had to take the dreadful “3D Studio Max Class” (for those of you who don’t know, it’s a program where you can digitally create 3D models, for film, animation, design, etc). It was said to be the most difficult class in the Bachelor, and its failure rate was the highest of all classes.

I went and did it. I struggled, not understanding a thing. After all, I loved to work with my hands and any computer work was difficult and boring to me.

I failed.

After failing a semester as well due to personal problems and anxiety, I felt… terrible. Exhausted. Overwhelmed. Even more anxious. I felt like a failure, that I wasn’t smart, and that I would never get any success in life.

After a lot of support from my boyfriend and self helping myself back into a better version of me, I came back as strong as ever.

Nobody was going to stop me this time!

But I had to repeat the dreadful class. Oh boy was I happy.

(I am being sarcastic here).

Before I was having all my classes in the morning. This time, I was having classes in the afternoon and night, doing a semester plus repeating classes (this went on for a year). I took this class at night, from 7 pm till midnight, every Tuesday.

The first time I went, I was nervous. I didn’t want to fail again and didn’t know what to expect.
I had another professor this time. And that was the luckiest chance I could have gotten.

At first, I found him funny because he was telling jokes a lot, but nothing special. But as classes went on I realized what an amazing teacher he was. Let me tell you why.

These 3D StudioMax classes went on for 5 hours. He would explain something on the board for about 10 minutes, and the rest of the time he would sit by our side and help whoever needed. He was putting himself on the level of the students, and that is a surefire way to get your class to connect with you.

He was talking to us and making jokes like we were all friends, and not putting a wall between us and him. He treated us as equal and not as “children of today are all the same and they don’t know anything”.

There wasn’t any arrogance. Just a pure joy to teach. And whenever he came to me, i understood immediately what i had trouble with, because his style of teaching and explaining was crystal clear.

He went to a student to help, and then he would go to another student to help, and then another one, and then another one…. FOR 5 HOURS STRAIGHT!

Let me say this again: 5 HOURS of no breaks, no eating, and he would literally run to the bathroom and come back running. What is even more amazing is that he did this after having started at 8 am and having had classes all day. So at 7 pm he should have been very tired. But still, he smiled, said jokes, helped each one of the students personally with the program and stayed until midnight with us.

It inspired me.

Because of that, it became my favorite class. With him, I learned more in a month than I had learned with the other professor in three months.

He taught me everything in such a flawless way, that by the end of the semester I was helping other students struggling, so the teacher would have more time (and to go to the bathroom without running!). I ended up having one of the highest grades in this class where a lot of students failed.

I had learned something very valuable. I didn’t fail because I was a failure. I failed with lack of motivation and lack of help. After trying again, I was helped and heard, I felt the teacher was there for us all, that he acknowledge everyone and their problems and helped with his kindness, knowledge and respect. And that motivated me into becoming really good at his class.

Competition never worked to motivate me. What did was being valued for being there and wanting to learn, feeling it was okay not to know, and that I could ultimately ask for help and get it with kindness and wisdom.

So this is what you can take from this story:

– Get out of your comfort zone because only then you will find truly rewarding experiences.

– If you fail, it’s not because you are a failure.

– It’s okay to ask for help if you don’t understand.

– You failed? Try again! You failed again? Try again! With perseverance you will succeed, I just know it! You can do it, I believe in you!

Teachers have all different teaching styles, that don’t suit everyone. If you can, look or ask around for another professor for the same class, because just maybe you will find, just like I did, one professor that will inspire you to learn more and change your life.

Have a wonderful sunny day,

Teresa a.k.a Leo

Learn from others

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Hello wonderful people!

Have you ever thought about what you are doing? About your life, about who you are?

Throughout my life i have spoken to many people and they all answer similarly to the question “Who are you?” They answer with they profession or area. “I’m a doctor” or “I’m an artist” or “I’m a engineer” or… you get the point.

What would you answer?

I used to answer the same way, but lately i’ ve been thinking about why i answer it. Let me explain.

I believe everyone in this world is born for a reason. And that reason might be being an artist or a cook or a business person. Yes, we are all different beings, having different visions and hopes for life, but in the end we are all the same, human.

And for us to grow up kind and compassionate, i believe we need each other. When we learn from each other, from other people’s fortunes and misfortunes, we can show empathy and be happy for their fortunes, sad from their misfortunes. We ultimately learn what we want and not want for our lives. We hear other peoples’ perspectives about their own experience with living and take away our conclusions in order to go forward in our path. We learn to be better versions of ourselves.

In order to learn from others, we need to be open minded and adaptable to what life can offer. So for example, when we say “I’m a doctor, i only know of medicine”, we are closing ourselves to that field of knowledge. It is of course vast but, in my opinion, when we learn about other fields, when we gather other types of knowledge, we become more empathic and more adaptable.

I’m going to use an example from a series i love, “Avatar: The Last Airbender”. (Shout out for all the fans out there!)

In these series, there are four groups of people: The Water Tribe, the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation and the Air Nomads. In this universe, some are benders, people who control the elements. For example, some air nomads are airbenders and can control air. The Avatar has the duty to learn all four types of bending and restore balance to the world with the elements’ power.

In an episode, Uncle Iroh, a wise retired general from the Fire Nation (one of my favorite characters of all time, i wish i had an uncle like that in real life!) teaches Zuko, his nephew and banished prince, that they can and should learn from all the elements, although they are firebenders.

He then teaches his nephew a firebending technique that consists in redirecting lightning, a technique he himself learned from observing the waterbenders.

The lesson here is: we should learn from other areas of expertise in order to upgrade our skills in what we know and do best.

I try to apply it in my life as much as i can. I’m an artist, a dancer, an actress. But i learned a lot about design, cooking and baking, permaculture, piano playing, leadership and management, personal finance, interpersonal communication, psychology, typing, Yoga and now i am doing a massage course (this is as close to science as i’ve ever been). I love learning about other cultures and other religions, meet new people and see the world through their prespective.

I believe i would just limit myself if i just learned about arts. Continuing to learn about all these topics (and other cultures and other religions as well) that interest me enables me to become a better artist in the future, as i am learning from many different areas and will use that learning to improve my arts skills and ultimately improve myself.

As for the answer to the question “who are you?”, i think i i’ ll just say “I’m Teresa, i’m a human being *big smile*.

Who are you?

If you want, write it in the comments, i’ ll be happy to read your answers 🙂

Have a wonderful Sunday!

Teresa a.k.a Leo

Hello minasan (that’s japanese for “everyone”)

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In this world where we all are, a new year has begun. We were faced with a true ordeal over the last 9 months. Life as we know it has changed. Is that good? Is that bad? I can’t tell, when these feelings of these weird beings revolve in this time warp.

As a child i grew up loving new year. I mean, just seeing these wonder colors explosions in the sky made my mind completely fascinated and happy. As i grew up, i saw it through some more experienced eyes and now i don’t enjoy it as much. When i think of the poor animals believing there is a war outside and the pollution these fireworks produce, i am in a way happy we didn’t get to do them this year.

New year resolutions. Why do them when all one does is forget them? I believe the ending of a year is not the end of a cycle. Let me explain: Nature doesn’t know what years are, what months are, what hours are. Nature doesn’t know what human time is. We invented clocks. We wanted to control time as we wanted to control everything we could. According to an article by Mary Bellis on ThoughCo., we’ve been trying to control time for millennia and our modern base-60 time system dates back to 2,000 BC, from Sumeria. The English word “Clock” comes from the french cloche, which means bell. So humans have been controlling time for a long time (no pun intended) but nature does not seem to react to our passing of time. Because time is different there. In nature, beings are born, they live for some time and then they die. And that’s it. That’s the cycle we are in: The circle of life (and as I’m writing this i can’t help but having that opening song from The Lion King in my head).

Corona-virus was born, now it lives, and then it will die. Like all beings are. That’s the only thing we can be sure about. Once i saw an image and there was Life and Death potraited and life was helping a turtle beginning her way to her life and ultimately to death. “We are just presents Life gives to Death” it was written. I found that cute but also too one-sided. But then i learned the ways of Buddhism and realized we are never dead. Our bodies die, but our souls live on. And then they are reborn in another body. So that’s Deaths’ present to Life: our souls. I feel happy with that realization.

So we didn’t “start this new cycle” because we never finished. A cycle opens and closes with you. You control your own time. You control yourself, but then again, nature controls you. The only thing you can control is how you react to life, until you don’t have your body anymore. And you having being born is the ultimate miracle.

Happy continuation of the circle of life!

P.S: There’s a photo of sheep because i believe in their cuteness.

Hello World! Hallo Welt! Olá Mundo!

My name is Leo, nice to meet you!

Thank you for being here, your presence makes me very happy!

This blog will be a gateway of my expressions and myself. If along the way i can help anyone, i will be very grateful for that 🙂