Carmen Monica Oprea

Many of us are faced with the issues of whether we can trust another person again and if we can trust our judgment. Sometimes the slip-ups we have can cost us our sanity, and we can’t afford to make similar mistakes. Many of us have trusted people who deceived, abused and manipulated us because we trusted them. Perhaps, we have found these people charming, kind, even decent. But there was always a small voice saying “No, something is wrong.” Or maybe we have been comfortable trusting that person, and we were shocked when we found our instincts were wrong.

These issues may reverberate through our lives for years, shaking our trust in others. But what is worst is that our trust in ourselves has been shattered. How was it possible to feel so right and be such a total mistake? Then, you wonder how can you ever trust your selection process again when it showed itself to be so faulty?

Maybe we will never have the answers. But it is important to make “mistakes” to learn critical lessons that we wouldn’t have learned another way. We can’t let our past to interfere with our ability to trust ourselves. We can’t afford to live in distress. If we are taking wrong decisions in business or in love, we may never learn how to choose what’s right for us.

The most important thing we can do is to improve. To learn from our errors. Slowly, in increments, our relationships improve. Our business choices improve. Our decisions about how to handle certain situations with friends improve. We benefit from our mistakes. We benefit from our past. And even if we made mistakes, we had to make them in order to learn along the way.

Love,

Carmen Monica

I learned that we can be loving, trusting people, and still not allow ourselves to be used or abused. We don’t have to let people do whatever they want to us. Not all their requests are legitimate because not all requests require a yes.

Life tests us, people seek out our weak spots. But if we have a weak spot in one area, we find ourselves repeatedly tested in that particular area by our family, friends, or co-workers. All these tests are trying to teach us something. When we learn that lesson, we’ll find that we are capable of setting boundaries. We own the power to say yes or no. There are moments when we may be angry with certain people, people who pushed our tolerance over the edge. And that is perfectly fine because soon enough we can let go of the anger and exchange it for gratitude.

Those people have been present to help us learn about what we don’t want, what we won’t tolerate, and how to own the power. We should thank them for what we have learned.

You should ask yourself how much are you willing to tolerate, how far should you let others go, how much anger and intuition should you discount? Where are your limits? Do you even have any? Because if you don’t have limits, you’re in big trouble.

There are times when you shouldn’t trust others, but instead, trust yourselves and set boundaries with those around you. You should forego your naïve assumption that the other person is right.

Love,

Carmen Monica

I learned that there is a gift in every relationship coming our way. Sometimes, this gift is in the form of a behavior we’re learning to acquire, something like detachment, self-esteem, or becoming confident enough to set a boundary. Some of our relationships trigger healing from issues of the past or issues we face today. There are times when we find ourselves learning the most valuable lessons from the people we least expect to teach us. Relationships teach us about loving ourselves or someone else. Or maybe we learn to let others love us.

Sometimes, we aren’t certain about the lesson we’re learning if we are still in the middle of the process. But the learning and the gift are there, and we don’t have to control the process. We will understand when it’s time, and we can also trust that the gift is exactly what we need.

It is important to trust that you are a gift in other people’s lives and each person in our lives is a gift to us.

Love,

Carmen Monica

How many of us have worked hard to make our relationships work? Sometimes they didn’t have a chance because the other person was absent. To compensate for the other person’s absence, we decided to work harder. In fact, we realized that we did the work. This situation will mask the reality for a while, but we usually get tired. Then, when we stop doing all the work, we notice there is no relationship, or we are so tired that we stop caring.

If we do all the work in a relationship, it is not loving, giving, or caring. It is called self-defeating because it forms the impression of a bond when in fact there may be none. It allows the other person to be irresponsible for his or her share. And because it doesn’t meet our needs, we feel victimized.

In our relationships, we all have temporary periods when one side participates more than the other. This is normal. But if it is a permanent way of engaging in a relationship, it will leave us feeling tired, worn out, needy, and angry. We can learn to contribute a reasonable amount, to let the relationship find its way to light.

Ask yourself if you do all the calling, the initiating, the giving. Are you the one talking about feelings and thirsting for intimacy? Are you doing all the waiting, the hoping, the work?

You can let go. If the relationship is meant to be, it will be, and it will become what it is intended to be. You can’t help the process by trying to control it. You do not help yourself, the other person, or the relationship by trying to force it or by doing all the work.

Let it be. Wait and see. Stop worrying about making it happen. See what happens and try to understand if it is what you want. Start the day by saying that you will stop doing all the work in your relationships. That you will give yourself and the other person the gift of participating. That you will accept the level your relationships reach when you do your part and let the other person choose what his or her share will be. Today, you will trust your relations to reach their own level. You will not do all the work, but only your share.

Love,

Carmen Monica

We learned that painful and disappointing things happen, often for a reason and for a higher purpose. Sometimes these things work out for good. It’s not important to spend a lot of time and energy figuring out the purpose and the plan for each detail of your life.

It happens that sometimes the car doesn’t start. The dishwasher breaks. We catch a cold. We have a bad day. It helps to accept these irritating annoyances, but we don’t have to understand everything and to try to figure out where it fits into the broad scheme of things. It is important to tend to your responsibilities and to not take everything personally.

Everything happens for a reason. I was going down the street many weeks ago and noticed the building of a luxurious hotel. It looked just like a palace with seventeen stories and two outdoor swimming pools. I wasn’t satisfied with my current job, and I searched the new place on the internet. It just happened that the company was in the process of hiring all personnel for the grand opening. I applied, on multiple jobs, and then I waited. Weeks. Months. I forgot about my applications. And one day, I got the call, I had the interview and got the job offer in the palace.

All I needed was patience. I told myself that if it were meant to be, it would happen. And it did.

We don’t have to query every occurrence to see how it fits into our plan because the plan will reveal itself to us. The lesson here is to learn to solve our problems without always knowing their significance. The lesson is to trust ourselves to live and experience life.

Love,

Carmen Monica

Most juggle with duties and passions, trying our best to find time for all in our busy lives. My friends asked me when I find time to write if I am working all day and I have a home to tend to. My answer is that I set aside one hour for writing every day. I sit in my room and write my thoughts down, I scratch them and write them again in a different form. Some had asked me why do I write? But I am asking you why do we need air? Can we ask the grass why does it need rain? Can we ask the butterflies why do they need wings?

Every day, we receive a call from our duties. It may be the house calling to us, the children calling to us, the work calling to us. We probably wonder when do the painting and the poem call to us?  Perhaps every day. But sometimes we are just too busy listening to everybody else instead of ourselves. Maybe it happens because we convince ourselves that we don’t have time for personal pursuits that bring us contentment if they take a long time. Maybe we just feel guilty for losing ourselves to our desires. Perhaps we don’t hear the whispers of our longings because we don’t want to hear. If we hear the call, we might have to acknowledge it and even respond. If we ought to learn to dance, draw, raise horses, build furniture, we might have to take a class or buy a book, fabric, or a pony.

Some will say that there is no time to be passionate because we have to be practical. Some things will have to wait until we have more time. We find excuses to push aside our longings or to ignore them until we are ready to admit that pursuing them it is essential for our happiness.

George Eliot said that “we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.”

Love,

Carmen Monica

There are many times when you want to tell how very, very sorry you are about the incapacity to ease someone’s suffering. There are times when you can do something about, and times when you can only witness the struggle with the pain, take a step back and just wait. You learn how to live with losses, with unfulfilled dreams, with betrayal, with the fact that you have been abandoned.

When you feel so lost that nothing makes sense and you ask yourself what to do when you feel this way, try finding a solution that is making a difference. It is unlikely that we will reach the same answer. Some will find help in medication, others will choose religion, others will talk to a friend, or a counselor, or a therapist. A friend may bring you comfort, cuddling a pet may bring you comfort, or a loved one may say things that resonate with you, or a support group of some kind, or dancing, or going for a walk, or yoga. The answer will be different for each of us. Try to discover what makes the most sense to you, and just as life looks worse now and then, it also gets better. Hang on for that moment, and try to find what feels best to you, and makes your life better again.

Try to understand that you couldn’t change what happened, that it wasn’t in your control, but it was in somebody else’s hands. You will always miss the ones you’ve lost, but in time, you will feel more peaceful about it. Sometimes, the loss is immense, but in time, you will laugh and smile when you remember silly things and fun times you’ve spent together.

The ones we love and lose remain in our hearts forever.

Love,

Carmen Monica

The scent is an irresistible magnet drawing the heart and imagination. How many of us hadn’t said, “so glad I’m finally home” when we returned from a trip? There is no place like home because no other place smells like home. As I write, the delicious aroma of baked chicken smothered in lemon sauce fills the house.

A fragrant home is a simple pleasure. Every day air the rooms, even in the winter, by opening the windows wide and letting the fresh air circulate. In the summer days, when the windows are closed to keep the air conditioning, wait until the evening when it cools down. But after a summer shower, open the windows for a delightful scent.

If you have animals, use a baking soda carpet freshener every time you vacuum to eliminate odors. We become used to the smell of our pets, but it can be overpowering to unsuspecting visitors. Add scented powder to the vacuum cleaner bag to diffuse fragrance as you clean the carpets. Clean with pine cleaners for an invigorating scent.

Simmer apple cider, cinnamon, and cloves in water if your home expects prospective buyers. It creates a cozy, inviting atmosphere. Scented candles and incense bring romance to a room setting. Hang scented padded hangers and sachets in the closets, and line drawers with scented paper. Burn aromatic woods in the fireplaces. Set bowls of potpourri throughout the house. I like to use florals in the spring and summer, and spicy potpourri in the fall and winter.

Our days at home can be full of fragrant moments once we start to savor the romance of scented rooms.

I’d like to close with two verses from Ralph Waldo Emerson,

“I wish that life should not be cheap, but sacred,

I wish the days to be as centuries, loaded, fragrant.”

Love,

Carmen Monica

I’ve been thinking about forms of communication that we’ve come to take for granted. Things are very easy now with cell phones, text messages, and e-mail. Regardless of what we have on our minds, we can tell our friends, acquaintances, family members, whether they are available, concerned or not. If we have anything on my mind, we send an e-mail or text, and then it’s becoming their problem too. The issue is, there is no human being on the other end of that line. We don’t hear a voice, we don’t have a conversation, we don’t have to listen to what they think about it. It’s a strictly one-way street, independent of time differences or convenient times. And similarly, they can answer whether we are awake, at home, or available, or not.

For a chat between two human beings, or worse, to have a relationship, I think that e-mail and texts fall short. No exchange happens. I miss the human feel or the voice to go with the message. There are whole romances that are conducted by text, without a single phone call. Many adults work at home. In these cases, there is no accidental meeting of cute girls or guys at the fax machine or water cooler. People in their 30’s and 40’s discover how hard it is to meet someone. And people in their 50’s and upwards are having an even tougher time. They get e-mails from their friends, they can find anyone on the Internet or use an Internet dating service to meet someone, but it seems to be a lot less face to face, voice to voice contact these days. That tells me that people at every socioeconomic level, with every imaginable kind of education, are having a hard time meeting people, finding a romance, or maybe even making new friends.

I believe we are losing something important as a consequence of technology. We are on the brink of losing human contact, the pleasure of hearing someone’s voice on the phone, and a possibility to talk, to interrupt each other and to laugh or put a disagreement to rest, rather than simply dropping a bomb on the other person by e-mail or text.  Sometimes the hurt that causes is hard to fix. I think it’s something to watch out for—that we don’t trade convenience for something far more important: the sound of a person’s voice, their touch, and the unique look in their eyes. We forget too quickly the human being on the other end of those messages. And they forget about us.

Love,

Carmen Monica

Good manners and pride lead us to reduce some of the horrible things we go through, and the ones around us minimize it too, perhaps to make us feel better about it, or because they don’t know what else to say. There is some good in that theory because we can’t sit around crying all the time. Maybe your boyfriend dumps you, or you break up mutually, and everybody assures you that you’re better off, and you’ll find a better guy in no time, and it’s a blessing in disguise. You go through a  divorce, and your heart breaks, or you lose someone you love some other way, and you swear you’re fine because it’s just too awkward or agonizing to admit that you’re sitting at home, weeping every night, and think that your world will never be the same again. And everyone will tell you that it’s better sooner than later, and a great thing that you didn’t lose more time. You lose a job, and everyone says you’ll find a much better one that uses all your talents, and once again we say we’re well when you’re wondering how the hell you’re to pay the rent.

Dignity makes us swear that we’re “fine,” and that’s not entirely a bad thing. Because the world doesn’t come to an end when something bad happens, and hopefully something good will happen after that. We must remember that after the storm, the sun comes out again. Many of us rarely admit how dazed we are by the bad stuff happening to us. Not too long ago, I was let down by people I trusted and dealt with the situations wisely and calmly, and I worked hard to not appear upset by it, although I was.

I shared both experiences with a friend, not wanting to make a big deal of it and she looked at me saying: “Oh, my God, that is awful!” She totally understood how upset I was, even more than I did. And surprisingly, I felt okay to admit it, and not just try to be grown up and polite about it. I come from a European background where you just don’t confess how upset you are, and you deal with it gently and graciously. My friend said that it sucked, and I had to laugh because it did suck, and it was horrifying, and all of a sudden I didn’t have to assure anyone that I was well. I am fine, but I was offended for a while.

We don’t always have to be well-mannered and tell the ones closest to us that we’re fine, and what they did wasn’t so awful. It was healing to hear my friend confirm my feelings and the experiences. She was absolutely right that it sucked. Sometimes things that happen are terrible, and it’s okay to say it. And hearing someone I respect say that made me feel so much better.

In conclusion, we don’t always have to say we’re fine if we’re not and maybe we should tell the people who upset us how much they upset us and held them be accountable for it. It’s okay not to be okay. And I believe that admitting it when things are lousy, even if for a moment, helps us to be fine in the end, and maybe a lot faster if we say “this sucks” instead of “I’m fine.”

Love,

Carmen Monica