Little time alone to cope..,

Personally, I enjoy being alone. I take great pleasure in a lot of things that involve spending time by myself, such as reading and writing. It has been awhile since my blog was updated. Too many things happening now  and was extremely busy with my exams preparation and work. I had to juggle both in one time. Honestly I missed writing my blog talking about my work progress and everyday life. 

 Well, one of the most intimidating things about alone time is that you're alone... with your thoughts. Doing things and keeping busy all of the time is a great way to avoid thinking about things (especially things that might be bothering you!), but it really is a great feeling when you pause and listen to your thoughts without distractions. When you embrace what you are thinking and feeling, you can work towards accepting it and dealing with it. While this might not seem like the most fun thing in the whole world, it's really important to take some time to yourself to think about what's going on in your life and how it's affecting you. 

I believe that a moment spent coping is a moment that could be spent living.  Coping is about making it through another day.  Coping is about survival. . 

The purpose of my life is to live with joy.  I have found that when I am in coping mode, joy is impossible in my life.  I lose the ability to find pleasure in all the small things that make life so satisfying. It is a small thing, but for me, merely thinking about challenges in a different way makes them more bearable.  Joy has become the barometer.  When things are terrible, I ask myself whether I am able to enjoy anything in my life.  If the answer is no, I am in survival mode.  This is not the mode I want to be in, unless I am literally fighting to survive. If I find that I am having a hard stretch but there are still things that I can enjoy, then I am living, not coping. 

As much as I like to share my stories of coping, I guess my close friends and family had pampered me well so I can survive in rainy days and taught me how to live with joy.  Rather, they act as life jackets of distraction that float me to the end of another difficult day. .

 Take care of yourself and never stop finding new ways to be happy..

Take deep breaths and time outs

When dealing with a very hectic day, it's tough to remember to take deep breaths and time outs. No matter how busy you are, taking breaks is essential, like playing UNO cards. 

 Have a good Sunday!

Let it rain..

Opportunities are everywhere. You know this. I know this. But then why does it sometimes seem so hard to find them? So often we say we want more opportunities and, yet, we do not know where to find them. Whether you are searching for opportunities for your career or for a new relationship or for some chance to succeed, the key to finding opportunities is to realize that, much as you might want them to, they're not going to magically appear and the magic word will be " go with flow and patience is virtue"...

Ah, we are all aware of the opportunities. One word said or read the wrong way can cause so much pain. The perfect opportunities came at the perfect time can provide pure moments of bliss.  It is astounding to me to think about how much words have changed my life and i constantly believe opportunities comes once. However, things didn't come easily. I fall and wake up again. 

Since I've been struggling with acceptance lately, I've decided to focus on the ways I can start accepting what is (instead of dwelling on what I wish it could be). I know it's not going to be easy this whole situation has been one of the biggest challengers of living a positive and present life  but I have a feeling that if I at least try to accept what is, I'll be able to wake up and don't give up on something..

"An optimist is the human personification of spring."

Love,

My smiling heart..

“Smile with face, smile with mind, and good energy will come to you and clear away dirty energy. Even smile in your liver.” - Ketut, from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love

See the lights above you glowing

Life can throw us a lot of curveballs and, sadly, too many of us hold ourselves back from doing what we really want to do because we don't believe in ourselves, we don't love ourselves. And that needs to stop now. We all need to let ourselves be amazing , no matter what we're up against. Be happy and learn to let go without any grudge! I believe the more you respect yourself, the more you respect the world around you and the more likely you'll be to live a positive life.For those haters, I'm sharing these five reasons why self-love need to be exercised all the time !!

1. Having respect for yourself leads you to have respect for others^-^

2. Celebrating positive things about you supports a positive attitude about others

3. Taking care of your happiness first leaves your heart open to caring for others

4. Loving yourself makes you a happier, kinder, more positive person

5.Once your happiness is taken care of and you really learn to love yourself, you free up your emotional time and energy to love others and focus on them.

The other side of me and feelings.

For years, I stumbled through life and the fog in my head.  I spent a lot of time looking back to the past and forward to the future while suppressing all of the memories and emotions. The end result was I don't remember a lot from those years and didn't exactly build a life I was very happy living. I lived in fear yet still hoping to live happily.

 Constantly looking back at the past meant the present was filled with pain, loss and confusion. I scared to give disconnected from the true experience of the day because to feel all of that emotion would be overwhelming.

I was too distracted to create the perfect life, career and relationships that would bring me pleasure and a sense of achievement.  I have the fear of loosing.  Always looking ahead to the next bad thing meant I was always trying to see further down the road instead of the path in front of me.I was a constantly dripping puddle of regret, regretted almost everything by allowing myself to be compromising situations where I was hurt badly and be in a relationship with people took advantage of me. 

I know I have to create the future by overcoming what held me tied to a place of pain, grief and fear.. But I am still unsure where I am heading and when is the right time.. Silly as it may sound, sometimes, the quote "go with the flow" doesn't applicable to me at this age. I know everyone goes through challenging times and they end up digging into a hole of negativity that they can't get out of. For many this leads to relentless self-sabotage like myself. Therefore, its the time for a change. 

One Year passed...

I have been fortunate enough to have been given the gift of love and rezeki. One year had passed since the day I join other organisation ( which obviously a bank also) and to do something different from what i did previously.To switch from a relationship manager in corporate banking to treasury as market economic analyst was a big step. I have to begin my new career from scratch, cringing in front of pc doing analysis job, publishing economics paper which god knows how hard to cope with it were an amazing experience. Things didn't come easily.. The hurdles of coping and wanting to learn. .I have to keep my mind  open to absorb new things and there were times I slipped when I loose my focus but I survived. 

Happy one-year anniversary to me!

Life is filled with moments in which you feel as if you are standing in a fork in the road, looking down two potential paths, and wondering which way you should go. Sometimes we find ourselves lost, uncertain of which path will lead us home. One thing i learned for the past one year was "if you want to move forward from wherever you've found yourself, you have to take responsibility for your choices and actions".. I must admit there were times when I feel giving up when things didn't sail smoothly. I just want to go back to the things I used to do for the past 4 years. The feeling of " i think i made a wrong decision to do something I am not used to" .

When you find yourself in a situation in which you've made a bad decision and there is no one to blame but you, it can be tempting to feel down on yourself and to start thinking negatively, but DON'T! One thing I found the solution of my misery of being negative and mitigate the feeling was, asking myself, can it be fixed and changed now?  Alhamdulillah.. All you need is willing to understand.The wonderful thing about fixing any problems when comes to work is always be positive and don't give up although you are at slowest pace to catch up. 

The door always open for you to learn although sometimes it feels like a big game of trial and error, and often I don't have any idea what the best choice might be.. Honestly, at this juncture, although my trial will be my ppkm  and sc licenses which still pending to pass, I am happy to walk this far and expanding my knowledge on economics from doing credit for the past 4 years. After all, we bound to make few mistakes in life but most importantly, you know what you are doing and be grateful!

No matter what you've done or what choices you've made, there is always hope for the present moment. The past, unfortunate as it might be sometimes, is gone. . Happy weekend everyone!

Much love,

Rain or shine

Today is a gift

Sometimes we find ourselves on the same road we've been traveling down, yet we find ourselves yearning to take a turn down a different street. The wonderful thing is that we have a choice. Unfortunately, the hardest thing is also the fact that we have a choice. As any adult knows, life is filled with choices. . Throughout our lives we often find ourselves standing at the end of a road, wondering whether or not we should turn left or right.. " Ah, is this good for me or not. Right or left?"

As I weigh the pros and cons of keeping things the same or making a change, I found myself struggling to look for the positive, to realize that whatever situation I choose will be the right situation for me. Getting caught up in the future of potential change or weighed down by the reminders of changes in the past, I found myself unable to stay in the present. My mind is racing with "What ifs..." and "Remember whens...

Over the past few years I've been in a battle with myself, contemplating the pros and cons of my situation and weighing out all of the options. I just turned 30 a little over a month ago and I remember carrying around far too much heavy negative emotional baggage for the past few years until eventually, finally, thankfully,  Alhamdulillah, I became more happier each and everyday of my life. I arrived at a conclusion to live happily.. And, through it all, I kept mind open and my thoughts positive although along the way, I met the wrong person and break my heart again and again. While this definitely does not mean I stopped holding people accountable, I found that no problems were solved by my feeling this way. I was only hurting myself. Basically, over the past few years, I have learned to choose my battles and its okay to make a mistake in taking which route. 

Anyway, pictures to share for the week with the team and my short get away to Malacca over the weekend.

Have an amazing long weekend and Happy Independence Day Malaysia. I am bit sad to cancel my short trip to Bangkok this week. Sobs. Some other time perhaps :(

Let's be grateful in everyday of life

I'm a firm believer of looking inside yourself for some of the most important things in life , love, inspiration, hope  and that's why I've been giving a lot of thought lately to how I can inspire myself although sometime I slipped and cried ( cry baby, i am). There are a great many resources to turn to when it comes to seeking inspiration, but one of the best ways I've found to inspire myself is to surround myself with things that bring me happiness and fill my mind with hopeful, inspired thoughts and of course people around you play a big role to shape who I am now.  

I want to be steering a ship. Or at least my own tiny boat. I want to choose where I'm going. I want to point myself on my own course and have some control over where this life is headed. It's not always easy to take control, to choose your own path, but I'm taking it one day at a time. And one of the best ways I can think of to take control of my life right now is to decide what I'm going to do with happiness and love what I am doing now... Few pictures to share during the week and belated birthday celeb. Life is amazing and stay positive!

  

Post-July'15

As I more than halfway through the year, making August a great time to look back last month in July when I turned 30. 10 years to be 40. Hahaha. Bizarre.  It has been a while since my last post. Alhamdullillah July has been great to me though I celebrated my thirtieth birthday a day before the eid. Thanks for the surprises and wishes!! Being 30, I thought to myself, " How time flies and how amazing upside down my life were in switching from twenties to the big figure". The older I get, the wiser I become. So thankful to walk this far and blessed with wonderful people around, supportive parents and friends, career wise ( needless to say, i MUST PASS my exam for this attempt), abundance of happiness (although question raised this year, when are you going to settle down, enough of enjoying single life, time to make babies), and good health. 

As quoted by Samuel Ullman, "Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years.We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul."You can't just make a positive argument for something that's not true. That's just pretending. But then I realized it's not about pretending something is different than what it is; it's about looking at the other side of the argument and see if, perhaps, the opposite, positive side might actually be true. 

I know I have to start being serious with my life .

Life is short, but do you really act like it's short? Between work , relationships, and commitments, we're only given so much free time to spend doing what we really love to be doing. Are you doing what you love during your precious hours of free time? Or are you doing what you think you should? Are you making the most of every minute? Because if you're not, you're wasting your time  and, as I'm sure you know, time is one of life's most valuable commodities. 

 You need the time to figure out what you really want in your life. Just slapping some words or images on a board isn't going to get you very far (or very far in the right direction). Determining a vision for your life takes careful thought. So here I am sharing some pictures from the day I turned 30 and eid picture. 

Finally and most importantly, happy birthday boss who celebrated his birthday two weeks after mine. Sorry I am not allowed to share the full picture..  and also my immediate boss. July babies are :-

 "a perfectionist and are quite critical. You will perform very well in a position of power or management. "

Counting days to big figure...

This month will be my 30th Birthday and thinking how did I survive so far plus obstacles I have gone through for thirty years of living,  I am so thankful that Allah never failed me to give me strength...What matters is this: if something makes you genuinely happy, you should spend time doing it. Ramadhan has been my favourite month of the year. My third year celebrating birthday during Ramadhan. Alhamdulillah...

Thirty years of living, I remember when going from a negative outlook to a positive one. I really had to spend time thinking about the way I was looking at things. The way you see the world around you is a choice. You can choose to look for the good or you can choose not to.  Once I realized this, I understood that it didn't make much sense to focus on the bad things in life. Sure, I had to acknowledge them, but I certainly didn't need to dwell on them. A friend of mine told me, don't take it too hard on your self..  

For too long, I spent way too much time thinking about, revisiting, and quite literally going backward into the past. It was pointless and painful, but for years I did it and caused myself a great deal of unhappiness. Hard as it is to admit sometimes, the past is over. Now that I am 30, all of the work is worth every ounce of effort I put into it because nothing is better than loving the life I am living now. Counting days till my big figure change... 

A wake up call.

Not too long ago ( approx 4 days ago), I found myself in the middle of a terrible, not a good day and screwed everything. Everything seemed to be going wrong and my mind would not stop returning again and again to negative thoughts and envisioning worst-case scenarios. It was one of those days when I felt like, no matter what, I couldn't stop ruminating on what had/could go wrong and I felt far, far away from the present moment. I was so upset and broke down. I blamed myself for the failure. Hmmmph. I struggled handling my terrible day and it took days until now to remember the moment I opened my result.

 I know, I know, some of you are probably cringing at the" what result" you are talking about? Remember few months back I was talking about my exam preparations for the license I have to attempt. I failed those 4 papers. My heart was broken to see my results. But yea, come to think back the day I felt I'm a loser, I have forgotten that " it's not my rezeki yet"... Maybe, Allah wants me to learn from my mistakes and fully understand treasury itself. 

When it comes to speaking my mind about disappointment, I'm really good at doing this professionally and really bad at doing it personally. No professional disappointment will slip by undiscussed, but I have a difficult time speaking up when it comes to personal disappointment. Arghhh so much in my mind now...At the very least, facing disappointment can make you a stronger person who is honing his or her skills at looking for the positive in even the most difficult of situations.. So here I am, a toast for myself. Stay strong and lets do this again without giving up!!!!

Ramadhan 1 - 1416H

Sadness is something I'd like to think I spent my life trying to avoid, but there have been moments when I have reveled in it, when I have spoiled myself with it, consuming more than my share until I was too full to move. I've claimed not to want it, but I have dug in all too willingly when it was served up. I used to think this was a bad thing, my propensity for sorrow, but as I've made my way along the path to living a more positive and happy, I've learned that sadness is not something to be avoided. " Everything that has happened to you in the past has been a preparation for the wonderful life that lies ahead of you in the future". Remember the rule: It doesn't matter where you're coming from; all that really matters is where you're going.It is something that should be embraced, experienced, and explored. 

Another Ramadhan to celebrate at the age of 30 in few weeks time and my 1st time fasting at my new office with a new job! Likewise, my routine will be gym over the lunch and hoping "masjid" for terawikh. I decided to skip futsal for a month and  I can't wait to blog on my masjid hoping this year. Yesterday was my 1st experience to step into Masjid Asyikirin at KLCC which full with muslims to collect their points. Hoping everyone enjoying this wonderful time of "togetherness". My sincere apologies to those I have hurt before directly or indirectly. May Allah bless us and bestow us strength to go through one wonderful month. As for me, my wish for this year to obtain HIS forgiveness and blessings in whatever I do in future. InshaAllah. Trust me, Ramadhan is always the best time to make a dua' and it never fail to give me "something good". 

Selamat berpuasa everyone!

Little things in life

It can be hard to be thankful for work, but consider how work makes your life better. It provides you with income, and it can challenge, inspire, and excite you.. We should all be thankful for whatever kindness we experience in work or life. There's a beginning of something.. What inspires you to get out of the bed in the morning? What inspires you to keep working, loving, living? Little things in life make a big difference for you to keep going! Hey, gotta love this new little notebook i received from a friend of mine. Thank you for the sweet thought! Now time to write "what shall I do when market turn haywire?"

What's stopping you?

While I really am trying to live in the moment and focus on what's happening right now, I can't help but look to think what's stopping me to decide what is the best decision for myself. Of course I am referring to the previous post on how i FEEL right now at the moment. Nothing major to be honest but there is so much happening right now in my life and, if you're anything like me, you probably rush by it all the time. 

Every aspect of my life has changed since I made the decision to choose happiness last year. It started in my blog and then flowed into every part of my life, and it continues to grow every day. I am the healthiest and happiest that I have ever been. The choice to think more positively and seek out positive things leads to more confidence, better decision-making, so much more clarity, and fuels a desire to continuously improve and be better than I was before.

But as I travel to my destination of finding my own happiness, I found myself afraid of admitting my feeling and scared to loose. What gets me excited is whenever it crosses my mind, it leaves me feeling so overjoyed or pumped that make me can barely sit. Believe me, I know how much courage it takes to willingly tell the person your feelings. It really can be terrifying, the thought of confronting and confessing. I honestly think it was that fear that held me back at this juncture. I knew I needed to ask and tell although I am so afraid...

Life is hard.  There is no shame in saying so.  Pain hurts.  There is no weakness implied in feeling the inevitable discomforts that are the cost of taking this risk of confronting.  But if the discomforts persist longer than they should, it is always worth asking what that is. So yesterday when I told one of my closes friend about this matter, she asked me, what is the purpose of your life? "To live in joy but no regret in future"...It is a small thing, but for me, merely thinking about challenges in a different way makes them more unbearable. I knew I have done my mistakes years ago when I have no chance to say it, but one thing i am scared of is loosing the friendship and the laughter we shared. 

Before immediately responding to my post and the previous post, please bear with my picks for this post. Pictures taken last weekend during the two big events. Loving the make up and these ladies. Anyway, my sissy back in Dublin got engaged last week to her love of her life. Trust me, they made long distance relationship work out. Congratulation my dear Fardila and Aizat. Nail it! well tonight, another big day for my another friend Reen. I am looking forward for all big events such as engagement and wedding before pause starts in another 2 weeks. Have a fabulous weekend dearies!