Month: August 2017

I learned…

…that not everything happening is a random process. Everything happens for a reason, and that reason is not always grandiose, but necessary to our growth.

…that every situation is a lesson, and every person you meet is a teacher. I learned not to judge anyone and anything.

…that everything you give comes back to you because life functions on the principle of cause and effect.

…that to be strong means to forgive, to forget, and to offer goodness and love. When others attack you, don’t act the same way, but ignore and know that their attitude has nothing to do with you, but with their frustrations. Your attitude creates a state of peace and discomfort, and that you can avoid the discomfort by choosing to ignore and be positive.

…that resentments, hate, anger are useless, and they only bring suffering and sadness.

I learned that by accepting life for what it is, you get peace.

I found out that nobody and nothing can make you suffer, but your own expectations make you suffer. That’s why when you offer something, or you do something, don’t expect something in return, but offer everything unconditionally.

I learned that the past is just a lesson and nothing else. That it doesn’t exist anymore and you must leave it behind but keep the lessons you’ve learned and the beautiful memories you’ve formed. I learned that if you insist on living in the past, you only make yourself suffer by recalling those negative feelings that are useless to your present and future.

I learned that your happiness depends on you. Nobody can make you happy. You hold the door to your happiness. I learned that happiness is not permanent, but it is composed of happy moments, those tiny unimportant things in our lives.

I learned that happiness can’t exist without sadness and that both are necessary.

I learned that you can’t see the goodness and the beauty surrounding you or in the ones around you if you don’t feel them and you don’t offer them. I learned that your life reflects what you feel inside. That’s why you must nourish the love and the goodness inside you. Only when you offer love and goodness, you can get them returned to you.

I learned that we are creators of our lives, of our happiness, and that our peace depends on our attitude about life and how we think about life. It’s that simple.

I learned that life is beautiful if you are prepared to see it this way.

Love,

Carmen Monica

We need to be able to spend time alone to rest and recoup if we don’t want to suffer from what the psychologists call “privacy deprivation syndrome.” These symptoms include increased resentment, mood swings, fatigue, and depression. I bet it sounds familiar. Does is sound grim? Well, it is. When it happens, we struggle to get up from bed every morning only to fall into bed so emotionally depleted that we can’t sleep well at night. When we reach this point, the littlest thing can set us off, bring tears and irritabilities. Soon our work and our personal relationships begin to suffer because we never have time to refresh our feelings, to filter them, and let them settle down.

Unfortunately, for many of us, it is only when we get sick that we allow ourselves the luxury of time and space alone. If you find yourself looking forward to regular dates with a hot water bottle and Nyquil, then it is time to find the time alone to recharge because there is a better path. For example, finding a hobby is a wonderful way to start freeing ourselves creatively. Pursuing a hobby warms up our talents and illuminates our natural inclinations. By doing this, we are bringing more fun into our lives, and the opportunity to free our spirit from the rigid rules society imposes.

Love,

Carmen Monica

Everyone has tried spending time alone in the early morning or late at night when the rest of the house is asleep. My hour of solitude is during my lunch break. I use it for solo excursions to a library, an old church, or a public garden. It is the time when I am contemplative and think of what I want to achieve in life and how to get those results. I think of the past and the current friends, of the people who passed through my life and at the reasons why they are not in it.

It is of vital importance to have some quality time alone at home, at least two nights, no matter how busy I am. Deliberately seeking solitude may seem selfish but it is not. Solitude is necessary for my creative spirit to develop and flourish as are sleep and food for my body to survive. There is a certain quality of being alone that is incredibly precious. I must find the delicate balance between my deepest personal passions and my commitment to family, friends, and work.

To keep my inner harmony, it is essential for me to have at least an hour’s worth of solitude and to defend my soul against all distractions. I had to be inventive. I decided to retire an hour earlier than the others in the house, and read, and relax in bed.

If you are juggling family, home responsibilities, and an outside job, claim two hours as your own. Allow yourself to enjoy solitude.

Be open to the unexpected.

Love,

Carmen Monica

Sometimes you experience times of frustrations in your life. You believe you’re on track, trusting God and yourself, yet things don’t work out. You have false starts and stops. The door refuses to swing wide open. You may wonder if God has abandoned you, or doesn’t care. You may not understand where you’re going, or what your direction is. Then one day everything is revealed: the reason you didn’t get what you wanted was because God had something much better planned for you.

Imagine that you decide to make some changes in your living situation. You have lived in the city, and now you want to live in the country, on a lake. You find a small, lake house that isn’t the home of your dreams, but after selling your city house, you will be able to have money to remodel the new house. You wait for your city house to sell and it doesn’t sell. You have times of patience and impatience. Some days you trust God and others you can’t figure out why God makes you wait so long and doesn’t let you move on with your plan.

One day, a neighbor comes to visit you, and he tells you that he is selling his house because he is moving. His house is your dream home. The neighbor offers you the first option on purchasing his home. Two months later, you sell your city house and the small lake home. A short time later you move into the home of your dreams.

Sometimes, all it takes is patience to wait for the right things to come to you at the right time. You must trust that what is meant to be yours will belong to you if you are patient enough to accept that God has a plan for you and your life and he will always give you what you seek at the right moment.

Love,

Carmen Monica

The time has flown. It has actually been an insanely busy couple of months. I had a lot of things to do in my house, I had a rewrite to do on a book, I decided to weed some things out in my house and get rid of some furniture, and with one thing and another, I haven’t stopped for the past weeks. I have another rewrite to do. I do many, many rewrites before a book finally gets published. It takes a couple of years from when I write a book until it gets into your hands.

Aside from writing, and responding to family matters, I try setting time aside for what makes me happy. Yesterday, I went to the theatre, watched Disney’s Little Mermaid, and wondered why people stopped believing in fairy tales? It is true that if I look around, the sights are not very encouraging, but I tell myself that if I cease to believe in the power of love, all will be lost. When people love each other, distance becomes just a word. We like a lot a people we meet during our lifetime, but we don’t love them all. We don’t have to spend every second together to feel we belong to something greater than one. Distance is a way of proving that what we feel is real, testing our resilience to the outside temptations.

My new book, Unveiled Secrets, is a testimony of one woman’s tenacity in finding her husband and another one’s determination to distance herself from the man who stole her heart and reinvent herself while she gets in touch with her heritage. Look for it in a couple of months!

So, it’s back to the grind for me now, time to get back to work. I’ll be hunkering down with the keyboard for the next several weeks!!!

Lots of love,

Carmen Monica