"To love others you must first love yourself" - Leo Buscaglia
Since the chain of events that changed my life in my early twenties, I found it a mission to really mold myself into the person that I wanted to become. In order to that, you have to be conscious of your own nuances. Why do I get angry when this happens? Why do I cry when that happens? These questions consistently rattled my mind of years. Maybe enlightenment was the path I was supposed to take, who knows? All I know was is that I wanted to understand me.
My biggest struggle was handling emotions. I absolutely despise confrontation. I've always been a better communicator through writing. I don't know if I was conditioned by AOL chat rooms but that's what happened. In relationships, I found myself going to a third person to vent my frustrations instead of talking to my boyfriend at the time. All that ended up doing was creating a pathway for my roommate to get close to my boyfriend then start seeing him after we broke up :-/ Then I realized, when you start making excuses for the other person, that is when you should start questioning the happiness in your relationship. You should never want to change the person you're with but you should be with someone that does make you a better version of yourself, not bring you down.
When I get upset, I tend to start shaking, then I have this uncontrollable urge to cry. Ha! I must sound like a mess...lol. I had to learn to hone in my emotions so that I would understand how to react whenever I do get angry. I promise, I am much better than I used to be. It does take a lot to get me to the point where I am angry or upset. The idea is to handle it when I get there, not bottle it up and put it to the side.
I can't stress enough that I'm not perfect, no one is. But I do work on myself every single day. Some days are good, some days are great and others are just plain awful. We are in charge of everything we put in front of us. Think about what got you here because if you want to get out, you're the only one who can save YOU.