Letters to My Younger Self - Three Rules to Live By

Dearest youngling,

Listen to the words of someone who's gone through things you will hopefully never go through.  I'm going to lay down some ground rules for your life.  If you follow them, your life will be a million times more wonderful than mine has been.  This is just the first three...more will definitely follow!

Rule Number One: NEVER APOLOGIZE FOR YOUR FEELINGS.

Your emotions are the mechanism your spirit uses to tell your mind that something is good or bad for you.  If you feel good about something, trust that.  If you feel bad, something is wrong.

It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks about your feelings...your feelings are yours.  They are your private language with the part of you that is also God, the part that loves you unconditionally and wants you to be happy and healthy.

No one gets to tell you how you should feel.  Which leads me to...

Rule Number Two: NO ONE CAN MAKE YOU FEEL.

No one makes you mad.  No one makes you sad.  No makes you feel dumb.  Thinking that others can make you feel gives others power over you.

But that 2 year old made his mother mad, you say?  Does a 2 year old really have power over a grown woman?  Only if the grown woman decides that the 2 year old should be in charge!  You are responsible for your own feelings; and pretending otherwise is making yourself a victim when you should be the hero.

So if you feel angry, accept that you feel angry, and find the real reason why.  You aren't angry because that person said something mean.  You are angry either because you are afraid that person is right, or because you feel out of control and want to control the other person.  Which leads me to...

Rule Number Three:  YOU CANNOT CHANGE ANYONE EXCEPT YOURSELF.

If you are not happy, figure out what's wrong, and change yourself.  You will never find another person who can make you happier than you can make yourself.  You know you better than anyone else ever can.

You can't make another person care about the same things you care about, but you can find other people who are more like you.  You can also examine those things, and see how important they really are to you.

You will change throughout your life.  The only constant in this universe is change.  So you have to decide whether you are going to change for the better, or for the worse.

Love,
Someone Who Wishes She'd Known These Things Decades Ago