TheRealSharon's Blog











I have many friends like me that sometimes feel less than and really could use a self esteem boost. Therefore, when I was listening to music yesterday, I came up with an idea to put together some really great songs I have found that make you feel good about yourself. The media tends to make you feel that if you’re not a size 2, have model looks, and have clothes that come from anywhere other than name brand places that you are not as attractive. This is a lie!

We should always remember that you are beautiful JUST the way you are. If you ever need a self esteem boost, feel free to listen to my playlist and cheer up! YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!!!!!

Here’s a short link to my playlist which was also found on my last post before this one! http://wp.me/pNPnI-6u



{March 14, 2011}   Self Esteem Boost found here!


Get a playlist! Standalone player Get Ringtones


{February 23, 2011}   Weekly Photo Challenge:Refuge

What is a refuge? The dictionary claims a refuge is a shelter or a place of protection, such as from the weather or danger. It also says it can be any place, person, action, or thing that offers or appears to offer protection, help, or relief.

This is a hard theme for me to do a photo for. I think most people jump to the idea of a house being a refuge, but if it’s a true shelter from the storm, it could be pretty much any place that has 4 walls, right? And when you add the element of danger, it makes it harder because a house is not necessarily a sanctuary from danger. In fact, for a lot of people, anywhere but their house is a refuge for them. So then I have to figure out what is my idea of refuge.

Any place with 4 walls is not a true refuge to me. It may protect me from a storm, but there’s no permanence in a dwelling place to me. To be a true refuge, I believe you need to have a feeling that you’re always safe there and you’re always going to have that place to go back to. As a kid, I felt like I WOULD always have a house somewhere to live. As an adult, you realize that that is something you take for granted. There’s no real guarantee in that. Storms have destroyed people’s house before and left them homeless. Even rich people have lost everything and had to start over from scratch. So then I thought about considering a person or people as a refuge. I think a person can be there for you and you CAN feel safe with them but just like a home, a person is not going to always be there. This is also something you tend to take for granted as a child. You also learn that sometimes the people you put the most trust in are the ones that can hurt you the most. So what’s MY refuge? What place or person can I always feel safe from the storm while I’m in their arms or under the protection they offer?

There’s only one answer I can truly give for the only true refuge for me. I believe God is the only refuge. But how can I take a picture of God? I can’t. No one can. But I can put a picture of something who reminds me of God.

The same God who created these deer is the one who is my refuge

This picture was taken a couple of summers ago by me. Even though I can’t yet see his face, here is a wonderful thing that God has created for us all to see. Every time I look at this picture, I am reminded that the same God who created these deer is the same God who created me. No shelter on Earth is permanent but God will always be there for us as our refuge.



{February 17, 2011}   Guilt is a 5 letter word

Today’s entry in “The Woman’s Book of Confidence” was all about erasing guilt from your life. The most interesting thing I learned from the entry is that “Guilt” is a strictly English word. I even looked it up online to prove it to myself!

guilt – word origin and history.

I found it rather humorous when I read The Daily Post’s topic of the day, though. Today it suggested you describe the perfect crime. I don’t think I want to follow the directive for today because I just don’t really think about committing crime. I do think it’s funny how my confidence boost was about erasing guilt and then the Daily Post wants me to talk about committing a crime. Rather ironic, wouldn’t you say?

If someone commits a big crime, then I think they SHOULD feel guilt for it. It’s more about not feeling guilty over every little thing. I think the feeling of guilt is rather overused nowadays. If you forgot to clean the kitchen today, you feel guilty. If you made a tiny mistake, you feel guilty. I think when it comes to something so minor, it’s good to stop yourself from feeling guilty and just move on.

So far, I am 2 days into this book and I really feel like I am learning so much. I really think this book is going to be a great confidence builder for me. I don’t want THIS to take over my posts everyday though cause I didn’t do a blog JUST to have it be over confidence or to strictly be inspirational. I would love to know I am inspiring anyone but I don’t want my blog to be based on any one thing. This blog is about me and what makes me ME. It’s about what I’m going through in my life. It’s about emotions and feeling inside me that I want to share with others. It’s about things I feel compelled to say and not just keep inside me. It’s about the Real Sharon and the real Sharon is not just one thing all the time. No one is.

So…I would love to hear feedback from whoever reads my blog. Do you like that I don’t have a themed blog or would you like it if I stuck to a theme? And what do you think about hearing about my daily confidence boosts? All comments are greatly appreciated and welcome!



{February 16, 2011}   Finding Roots through the Dew

I have this little book called “The Woman’s Book of Confidence” that is all about teaching you to accept yourself and be true to you. I had never read any of it before today. In fact, I had it set aside under the little table by my bed. I had fallen asleep last night with another book beside me and today when I went to set it down on the table, I accidently knocked over a can of Mountain Dew that I had left on top of my table. So…I had to grab a towel real quick and move everything from on top and under the table to clean it up.

That’s when I saw the little book and decided to read the first part. It’s divided up into many little sections so it can be read kind of like a daily thing, if you want. The first little story was about Sharing Roots. It talked about Redwood trees and how they last so long because they spread their roots out all around them.

Redwood tree roots are very shallow, often only five or six feet deep. But they make up for it in width, sometimes extending up to 100 feet from the trunk. They thrive in thick groves, where the roots can intertwine and even fuse together. This gives them tremendous strength against the forces of nature. This way they can withstand high winds and raging floods.-www.sunnyfortuna.com

The lesson you can learn from this story is that if we, like the Redwood trees, share our roots with those around us, we can withstand the trials that come into our lives. You need to have confidence to be willing to share your roots with others and not be afraid to ask for the support that you need.

I believe this is a very important lesson for me. One that I never knew I needed. I always thought I DID ask for support when I needed it. Obviously, I haven’t always, though. As one of my most recent posts showed me, the one about my brother drinking and the way he acted. I chose to keep that secret from a lot of people that could have been there for me during that time. I made up a million excuses as to why I couldn’t tell anyone when the real truth was simply I felt like to tell people would be asking for pity. Why should I tell ALL my friends my sob stories? They have enough of their own, right? They don’t want to hear all my pitiful ones. What if they think I am pathetic and just want attention or something?

But what I have learned from that short story on Redwoods is that whenever you have ANYTHING in your life that is hurting you and bringing you down, it’s important to share it with someone. You can not survive if you have no roots planted in the ground. If all your grief and heartache starts inside you and also ends there, then you’re like a tree with no roots in the ground. Eventually, enough wind and rain is going to come your way, that you can no longer remain standing strong. It WILL knock you down.

Today I realized that part of having confidence in yourself is asking for support when you need it. AND giving support when others ask for it.  The confidence is in trusting yourself.

From now on, I choose to ask for support from those around me when I need it. I also choose to give support however I am able to, to those around me who need it. If this is something that you, yourself, struggle with, I challenge you to do the same.



{January 27, 2011}   My Ode to Music

Me with my first true love :)

Me and Music go way back. We are like long lost siblings that mesh together so well. I can’t remember a time when music wasn’t a part of my life. As soon as I was old enough to control a TV remote, I found MTV and music videos. Everywhere I heard music, I couldn’t help but be intrigued and have a huge smile on my face. I have just always loved music and music has always been there for me.

I remember holidays as a child when I would grab a stool, set it in front on the TV, stand up on it and sing out for everyone to hear. Looking back, I am sure it annoyed the men who wanted to watch their football games but I didn’t care. Music was something I loved and singing was my way of sharing music with others. If I was in the car, I was pretending to be a radio DJ AND doing my own made up songs as well. If I was in the grocery store, I was in the cart banging on the front like a piano and singing out for the whole store to hear. I still have old fashioned cassette tapes where I recorded myself being a DJ, singing and announcing songs that I taped from the radio.

As I grew up, I kept more to myself and didn’t sing out in public all the time. I mean, people tend to look  at you like you should be in a mental hospital if you do. Honestly though, my confidence in sharing my love of music through singing dropped as I got older as well. It’s funny how when you’re a kid you just don’t care so much what people think. As you age though, you learn that people are judgmental and you tend to become so yourself. So I don’t sing all the time around everyone anymore but my love for music is still there.

There was a dance song when I was younger that was called, “I’ve got the power”. There’s a line in it that says “Music is my life”. I’ve always related to that line. I don’t know where I would be right now if it wasn’t for music. Music has gotten me through some of the worst moments in my life. It has lifted me up when I was down, became a proverbial shoulder for me to cry on. It has made me laugh, allowed me to express myself in a way that nothing else ever has. Sometimes I feel like all the answers to life’s problems can be found in lyrics.

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.  ~Victor Hugo

When words leave off, music begins.  ~Heinrich Heine

The discovery of song and the creation of musical instruments both owed their origin to a human impulse which lies much deeper than conscious intention:  the need for rhythm in life… the need is a deep one, transcending thought, and disregarded at our peril. ~Richard Baker

A Musical Joke now?

A tourist is sightseeing in a European city. She comes upon the tomb of Beethoven, and begins reading the commerative plaque, only to be distracted by a low scratching noise, as if something was rubbing against a piece of paper.

She collars a passing native and asks what the scratching sound is.

The local person replies, “Oh, that is Beethoven. He’s decomposing.”



{January 11, 2011}   It came to me in a dream…

Just checking in on my blog…trying to keep up the motivation to write more often in it….

Last night I watched a movie called “The Ladykillers”, the 1955 version, the original, NOT the remake with Tom Hanks….I forgot who they said wrote it but I remember them introducing the movie by saying that the man who did was suffering from writer’s block, went to bed and dreamed the whole story line for this movie, from beginning to end. This isn’t the first time something like that has happened and it surely won’t be the last. I’m sure everyone knows about the Twilight Saga, whether you like it or not, if you haven’t at least heard the name, you may have been living under a rock for the past couple of years. Well, the writer of this saga, Stephenie Meyer, actually dreamed up the idea for that very saga…She didn’t plan to write a book, didn’t even go to school for that, but nevertheless, the idea came to her in a dream.

This got me to thinking about my own difficulties when it comes to writing….I have been told I am a pretty good writer and I believe, at times, I can be good if the inspiration really hits me but it seems inspiration always hits me at night while I’m sleeping and by the time I am able to reproduce my thoughts to paper or to an online blog, it never quite comes out as good as it first came to me in my dream. Neither am I the only one that knows of this. I have a dear older friend who I worked with on more than one occasion within the past few years who has told me of coming up with her most creative thoughts in her sleep and she has even suggested keeping a notepad next to my bed to record the thoughts. Unfortunately, I have yet to do that, but I really feel like I should. Another woman I know who has children’s books she has written but never gotten published has told me recently that she feels a lot like me when it comes to getting this spark of inspiration and just wanting to write, write, write and then poof, nothing, for awhile…She has also mentioned that she gets her best thoughts in her sleep.

So why is this, I wonder? Why do all creative people seem to get their best thoughts in their sleep? I thought about that a lot last night and the only thing I can surmise is that our minds are constantly going during the day, no matter who you are, it’s constantly busy with all the things we need to do, the things we should do and haven’t done, the things we want to do….and let’s face it, the second we start to daydream for a bit and think on more creative things, our brains tend to steer us away from those thoughts because “Why are you thinking of stories to write when the house needs to be cleaned???? Errands need to be run? You need to do this and do that????”…..So why then is it so much of a surprise that our brains are the most open to creativity when we sleep? For that is the time when we shut off all the things we NEED to do and our body relaxes, we are allowed to freely dream away without fear of our brains reprimanding us for being lazy.

~Sighs~ So that is what I came up with for the reasons why so many writers are inspired by dreams although I am sure there are many other reasons….If only we could have an invention that saves our dreams for us so that we could remember them more easily…I think it would be so much better if I didn’t have to struggle so to remember my dreams….

May your dreams be filled with inspiration!

Question of the week: What inspires you and motivates you to be creative?



et cetera
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