Coping Mechanisms: How do we deal with stress and our fear of the unknown?

Hi guys,

I know I haven't done a post in a while, but at this point in my life I feel like I'm still in the process of being taught a lot of things which I am not fully educated to speak about yet. So I do not have the authority to speak about a number of things! But I do feel I can share my thoughts on this...

It seems like the consensus of feeling from people surrounding me at the moment is gloominess, depression and stress. Possibly because most of us are third year students which, on an individual can be quite scary feeling an creates a sudden need for introspection. You may start to question a lot of aspects of your life as a reaction from the overwhelming feeling that you're GETTING OLD.

You may start looking as aspects such as:

.The quality of your friendships and relationships with people

.Your career prospects

.Your long-term relationship prospects

.Who you are really are as a person

.And which direction you should take your life in upon graduating?

If you struggle to find an answer to these questions, we often stay in a state of limbo where we are just confused about what exactly we are doing in life? It becomes quite tedious just focusing on one thing such as your degree or even work and that can increase the pressure to dis-cipher these aspects, on top of the pressure of your work or degree it can really lower you spirits and create what my house mate termed as a 'constant black cloud over your head' - you feel down and have zero motivation.

Where's Kelly when you need some motivation?

One thing that concerns me especially is that although we are under pressure, life will inevitably be full of pressure, so rather than moping we should in fact try to find our own coping mechanisms. Because although we cannot change a number of external factors, could we, (upon introspection), discover what makes us truly happy?

If we look at the two types of coping mechanisms, there are ones that provide long-term relief and those that provide short-term relief. Exploring the affect of these could be our first starting point.

Short term coping mechanisms can be things such as:

.Sexual comfort

.Drinking with the aim to get drunk

.Excessive partying

.Watching TV

.Retail therapy

.Takeways

Long term coping mechanisms can be things such as:

.Going to the gym

.Cooking healthy food

.Visiting a careers advisor

.ticking off things from your to do list

.making sure your home is clean and in order

.completing pieces of work

.trying the best way you know how, to fully understand yourself as an individual

.Praying, improving your relationship with God

Now Although the latter may seem less fun, (and agreed only my perspective -everyone's coping mechanisms will be personal) the difference is that these are things that will give you a longer sense of happiness as they give you a lasting sense of achievement. If you don't really know where to start, it might be useful to look at people you really admire and their qualities, and then think to yourself 'do I wish to have that quality?' If so, that should automatically lift your spirits as you then have a goal to work towards. and once you start to adopt these qualities you will automatically feel more contented as you can look at yourself and feel proud and inexcusable of the person you are.

There are many things in this world that we cannot master, but ourselves is something we all have the ability to, so why not embrace it? Plus there is nothing more attractive than a person who truly knows themselves.

I feel like Gavin DeGraw's - 'I don't wanna be' suits the mood of this entry and also a very feel good song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gFCW3PHBws

Support Of yourSelf: Pillars of life

Hi guys, I know it's been way too long but forgive me! I haven't quite mastered the art of time management....

What I wanted to discuss today is the issue of supporting yourself. now I am by no means saying that'a man is an island' or any of that jazz, but simply that we need to be able to support ourselves when/if other factors let you down. Now, one of the ways I keep a balance in my life is by thinking different aspects of my life as 'pillars'; I call them 'the Pillars of life'. So you can divide these into 5 category's:

1.Work (career)

2.Education (study)

3.Relationship (romantic)

4.Friends

5.Family

Now how they work is that you do your best to maintain each of them in the best way possible, and you'll notice the times you feel the happiest is when your on top of them all, but obviously this is real life so things wont exactly go like that. However, when you work on strengthening them all you number one, have clear things to focus on when one of them fall and number two, you avoid breaking down completely as you have that comfort of knowing other aspects of your life are in tact!

It's actually a really positive way of thinking as even when only one is strong, you can still be like yeah, you know what, at least I still have this, let me be grateful.

The worst thing you can do with these pillars however is to focus your energy on one completely, as you rely on your happiness to come from that source, so when that source falls through you have = breakdown. And how secure is life that you even feel comfortable doing that?? Uncertainty is the only thing we can be sure of hence why we have insurance; so think of this as your personal happiness insurance.

Therefore even though having one strong pillar can still give us an illusion of being happy, neglecting the others is not covering your back! You've heard the phrase 'don't put your eggs in one basket' and mostly I hear this being applied to dating - which is not what I'm supporting. Because I'm not saying, put your energy into a variety of relationships so if one falls through you have back up guy/girl. I'm saying let a different part of your life be the back up.

The point is: you have many things to draw your happiness from

(not just relationships) - know that!

On the subject of happiness, listen to Beyonce's album 4 if you haven't already! - a bunch of feel good tracks. My personal fav's: Love on top, End of Time, Best Thing I Never Had, 1+1 and also, this is not on the album but Youtube 'Dance for You'. If that relationship pillar is strong, a nice slow jam for you ;)

'Oh well you know what she's like..'

I must say I really dislike it when people use this phrase.

I dislike it because I don't appreciate the finality of it's tone.

What it suggests to me is that there's no way the person in question can turn themselves around and we therefore, have to 'put up' with the behaviour, just for the simple fact that we expect it.

It aggs me even more when the people themselves say it, because logically, if your aware of something that you do that is negative and received negatively by other people then why wouldn't you feel an urge to change it? I don't think there's is any reason for someone to be so blaise about there negative characteristics as you can become stagnant. It's ignorant and may I add a little boring.

In the words of the great comedian Katt Williams, 'you gotta keep it pushing', you can't be on the same ish you was on last year, cause we're bored, and who wants to deal with people who think they have nothing to learn and are done growing? Because the truth is, we may stop physically developing when were 18/19, but mentally we don't ever stop! That's what makes us exciting and interesting characters, our natural organic growth.

It's like...

If you set up a business which refused to change with the times and innovate: it's going to go out of business!

Or... If you were in a relationship which tedious routine and partner who refused to switch it up: it's going to fail!

'You gon leave the toilet seat up again?? ' 'Oh come on baby you know what I'm like'

It's also like having goldfish as pets, it's boring, because they do the same ish all the time. (sleep, poo & eat) When I was younger I used to forget I even had them! (thankfully my mum was in charge of feeding...)

So what you basically have to imagine, is what Apple would be like without their innovative projects every 5 seconds... We'd be like apple who?

The question is whether you want to be the person before the who, whether it's an Ex, Employer or Teacher saying it?

Nah I didn't think so

But if you let phrases like 'you know what I'm like' excuse yourself and restrict yourself from growing you will go out of business and fail (and therfore be a sad, lonely & unemployed apple).

At the end of the day, nobodies perfect and I'm definitely not saying you have to be. But you owe it to your self to at least try and spend your live striving for perfection whilst simultaneously being at peace with your faults.

At this point it would seem appropriate to throw something in about aiming for the sun and landing among stars, but that would be way too cliche- I gotta keep it pushing!

So I'll say....

Don't be a Goldfish in a bowl, but be a fish in the sea!

Just look at how boring they look *shakes head*

'Excuse me can I talk to you for a minute...': Facebook Stylee

Random Entry:

So I woke up to this in my FB inbox...

‘Hey Kyomi, you alright darling? looking real good babe...

Now let me not waste your time any further and get straight to the point.

You dont happen to know me i came across you on some black dudes friend list and thought woww (he's not black btw), look at her i could put a ring on that finger. Therefore i was wondering can you add me as a friend if thats not too much of a hassle for u babe. I would add you but you probably have so many friend requests already that you ignore them lol

thanks in advance

xx mwah xx’

Looooooool

Yeah that was me when I read it too. Could be the extremely analytical frame of mind I’m in due to ‘revision season’, but I was like wait a minute please. You could put a ring on my finger when you can’t even Capitalize your I’s? You said mwah...(I won’t even elaborate on that one) and his display picture was those: ‘I take pictures in the mirror photos’ and he looked around the same age as Justin Beiber *cough* 15, so I was like, is this really what my face attracts?? *mid morning crisis* and just went back to bed LOL (not really I had stuff to do but you get the picture)

I love the second line as well like he really had some Hitch swag!

Boy...

Let me not complain. I’m sure when I’m like 30 and single I’ll be praying for messages like these, like Heather and Kevin98 or whatever his name is... ‘Oh my gosh shirl he just messaged me!’

(GOD FORBID!)

Okay, Let's get Technical...

Hey guys,

First things first, I got a twitter:

www.twitter.com/misskyomiwade

Secondly I've had a reallly nasty case of writers block... so if you could excuse the little drought *ehem* of blogging.

I just had a little epiphany of sorts after coming off the phone to one of my girlfriends which I thought I'd share with you.

and it was that maybe, the trick is not to focus on the technicalities and just live life

Now obviously I don't mean to say this as some sort of grand revelation or secret to life. Nor do I mean technicalities in regards to work and theory related matters. When I say technicalities I mean, each time a situation in your life has come when you've thought, well technically I shouldn't be doing this because of x y z.

For example you may not put a lot of energy into a project for someone because 'technically' the work they produced for you wasn't up to par

Or

I'm not going to text this person back straight away because technically, they took a long time to reply to my message.

Or

I don't want to take up a dance/fitness class because people will laugh at me because I cant dance- therefore I will look like a fool. and you know, I'm not a fool.

'Oh he must think I'm playing!'

If you look at what's going on here you can realise just how dangerous this is because we end up focusing our energy on minor details whilst the bigger picture slights of of sight due to principal.

Now don't get me wrong.... principles are important. But why would you hold yourselves back from experiences due to pre-conjured thoughts people MAY have, or not exercising your full potential, at the expense of someone else's failings? Even worse stop your self from communicating with someone when the point is you want to speak to them, or you wouldn't have texted them in the first place.

I think it's very important to just live sometimes because things will never be smooth sailing or perfect, but if we know that, then we can work on getting life as close to perfect, whilst still existing in reality.

Even if we are to specifically look at relationships. We can sometime stifle growth, and our own happiness, due to technicalities we feel we have to enforce; regardless of their irrelevance!

We can have one set thing in out head like for example 'he has to take me out and pay or he's not serious about me' or 'I'm going to wait said time before I'm intimate with him'. And we do this because we assume the worst case scenario's. The idea that he could be after one thing, or that he's not putting his money where his mouth is because he doesn't think your worth spending on. But the truth is, this isn't the case with all men- so why do we cling on do them so tightly?

Happy People? Yeah (8)

The solution it seems would be to judge situations individually, and not by a whole sex's reputation or your past experiences for instance. Make room for and allow the happiness in your life, you really don't want to be that person, sat wrapped up in technicalities when it comes knocking at your door!

x Ky x

On a lighter note however whilst attending the Drake and J.cole concert, I found myself swell with pride when he shouted 'ya dun know!' at the crowd in a 'London' accent. Made me proud to be British mate!

*wipes tear from eye*