The Music of July (even though it’s August 10th)

Hi there I hope your soul is doing well. July ended a little over a week ago and it went by so fast that truthfully I am having a hard time remembering what all happened during that lovely month. I know I organized my sock drawer, went to New York City for a weekend, ate a bunch of good food and drank way too much coffee (but thats normal no matter what month it is lets be real here), oh I watched a ton of inspirational Will Smith interviews (love that guy), I saw Bad Moms in theaters and it was hilarious and wonderful and I want to see it again, oh did the Secret Life of Pets come out in July? If so I saw that TWICE and loved it so much, went to work, ran (sometimes), anyways you get the idea. It was a month filled with good and bad days. So here, without further ado, are the tunes that blessed my soul this month:

1. Forest Fires – Axel Flovent
2. 7 – Catfish and the Bottlemen (this has been on repeat)
3. The Kitchen – Tow’rs
4. No Future – blink-182
5. We Were Lovers – The Analog Affair (this one has recently been on repeat, I loVE IT)
6. Lost/Inside Our Minds – John Vincent III
7. Touch – MAALA
8. Losing Control – Russ
9. Sober – blink-182

Sometimes,

Hey. What’s up. How’s it going. How’s your soul. I know it is August 10th and I haven’t made a July playlist, let alone written on this here blog in a long time but you know what thats okay. Sometimes life can be hard and sometimes you have too much to say yet you can’t adequately organize your thoughts. Or maybe thats just me. Sometimes it can feel like you’re not growing and sometimes that can make you sad. Sometimes you can feel like your life isn’t really moving anywhere and sometimes you can feel like you’re living the same day over and over and over again and nothing out of the ordinary is happening and that is okay. Some days you can struggle with loving yourself, more than other days. Some days you don’t want to go to work. Some days you allow yourself to get too stressed out about the future. And sometimes you allow yourself to get too stressed out over very small things. And thats okay.

Sometimes it can be extra hard to feel grateful, or to feel happy or content. It is easy to let tiny victories and things you’re grateful for fall to the wayside when you are too busy feeling those heavier thoughts and emotions that I listed up there. But I think that is part of the issue, at least for me. See there are beautiful things surrounding you and I every single day. They may be harder to notice sometimes but they’re there. That fact alone is comforting to me. I mean come on we have sunsets, and oceans and mountains. Outer space and the stars to look up to every night. As cheesy as all of this is, it is just the simple truth. Sometimes there are days where you feel hopeless and sad. Sometimes you can feel like you are not accomplishing anything. But let me tell you this. That your existence alone, has made an impact on this planet. You have made someones day brighter, someones heart smile. I guarantee it. So those days when you feel upset just know that your existence matters and that you are moving forward, always. It may not be evident now, but great masterpieces take time. And you are art.

The Music of June

This month held the heat, the rain, and the light. It also now holds memories, good and bad. Whether this month was the most amazing one you have ever had, the worst month, or just another regular one that seemed to go by too fast all I want you to remember is that you are loved. Here is a playlist that I made that will hopefully let light into your room.

1. Southern Wild – Honeywater
2. Mykonos – Fleet Foxes
3. This Is How I Let You Down – The Franklin Electric
4. Talk Too Much – Coin
5. The Knife – Flagship
6. All That and More (Sailboat) – Rainbow Kitten Surprise
7. Homesick – Catfish and the Bottlemen
8. Ophelia – The Lumineers
9. Sunset Lover – Petit Biscuit
10. Crazy Bird – Wild Child
11. When My Time Comes – Dawes
12. Bridges – Broods
13. River – Saintseneca (they’re local!)
14. Hospital Beds – Cold War Kids
15. Fools – Wild Child
16. Jump Into The Fog – The Wombats
17. Love More Worry Less – Bipolar Sunshine

*also yes I know today is the first day of July BUT can we all just take a moment to appreciate the new blink-182 album that got released today? It’s so good.

Things We Can’t Control

So I have been doing a lot of thinking lately, as one does. And one of the thoughts that kept passing through this brain of mine, is that we as humans have this awful habit of worrying about things that we cannot control. After being a victim of this habit for many, many years worrying about things ranging from whether Jake Gyllenhaal is still single or more serious things like getting a bad grade on an exam, it finally hit me. Why am I wasting so much time and energy and emotion worrying about things that are out of my control. Why do we do it? If we took that time and energy and invested it into something that we could control? Wow. We could accomplish so much, and be so content! Because here is the truth, I have a really hard time with the concept of time. I think it goes by very fast and I think that it is very easy to let it pass you by. I mean, my opinion is hey, we have been gifted this beautiful thing, so why would you not want to do everything you possibly can in one life time? Now I know first hand that worrying about things that we can’t control is a very hard habit to break. But it is important to realize that you and only you are in control of your own happiness and your own emotions. If someone cuts you off while driving, you have the option to fall into the deep depths of upsetting road rage or you could take a breath and say hey I can’t control what just happened but I can control how I react to it, and choose not to let it affect me. And it is hard and it takes practice. Trust me, I was the road rage queen for a while and I’m not proud of it. But that is just one of the many examples of things you will encounter throughout your entire life, that is out of your hands. But you know what’s not out of your hands? Your happiness.

Take a second and think about this scenario. Imagine if right now this very second, someone handed you a documented list of all the calculated hours you have spent worrying about things out of your control. Or the amount of hours you have spent on your phone. Would you be happy with the amount of hours that you’ve wasted? I sure wouldn’t. It would probably make me want to lay on the floor for a long time. But imagine if you were spending those hours being productive, accomplishing things, worrying about things in the present, that are in your control. Even if you spend some of those hours taking in the worlds beauty and feeling grateful for your life. Because I already know that you have accomplished so much already, so why not celebrate that instead of worrying about what you could have accomplished. We all have so much light and potential inside of us, and the opportunity to live outstanding lives. Do you realize how awesome that is? Oh my god we are all so unique and bring so many beautiful things to the table. We are all super frickin cool, and don’t deserve to be treated the way we treat ourselves sometimes. So don’t worry about what you could have done differently that day, or what you did wrong, or what could have happened. Because that is all in the past. You can’t control that anymore. Try spending your time and energy focusing on the now and what you can do today to make yourself happy… Whether that be jamming way too loud to old throwback songs in your car (E.g. All The Small Things by blink-182, Stacy’s Mom by Bowling For Soup or Hold On by the Jonas Brothers. This list can go on forever so I will stop here). Or studying really super hard for an exam, or something as simple as not getting road rage when that person cuts you off.

*(also one I need to work on is accepting the fact that Jake Gyllenhaal will not be single forever and instead of getting upset I just have to appreciate the fact that he is a glorious human bean) (but I’m still working on that one okay it’s hard give me time)

The Epitome Of Being Alone

When you’re alone. You have a lot of time to yourself. To think. To clean your room. To read or do homework. To think. To empty the dishwasher. To Think. There is a pattern here isn’t there? I think there’s this falsified image of what being alone should look like. Maybe like Carrie Bradshaw drinking wine by herself on a New York City Street in that one episode of Sex and the City. Or someone who is always productive and getting important things done. When in reality, being alone can get lonely. You can have too much time to think, too much time to convince yourself to clean your room tomorrow, and too much time to convince yourself of false things. After going through a really dumb (but hard at the time) break up I convinced myself that I needed to learn how to be alone. I needed to be my own home instead of making someone else one. I needed to completely love myself. So I started working on that stuff, not really realizing how deep that is, and how hard it is to do. I got this preconceived notion that no one can love you unless you love yourself, which, after growing up just a little bit more and living a few more years of life I realized was wrong. Self love is something that is extremely important to have. But it is also something so incredibly difficult to obtain. It takes time truly. It takes small steps and tiny victories. Looking at yourself in the mirror and learning to love the things about yourself that you’ve been conditioned to hate is a difficult mountain to climb. So I think that it is false and unfair to believe that no one could love you unless you love yourself. I think it matters that you are trying, I think that it is an important thing to work on because when it comes down to it we are all super rad human beings okay. And that is the truth.

Along with loving the heck out of yourself, spending time with yourself and your own company is an import thing to learn as well. Because at the end of the day all you have is yourself, and if you don’t like the temple you’re residing in (yes your body is a temple okay) then it can be difficult to get through the day. The main thing that you have to conquer is your mind. At least for me. It can be easy to convince yourself that you aren’t growing, or accomplishing things. We as humans have this thing where we are so critical of ourselves, you know? It’s like we are our own worst critic. And it can be so easy to fall into this downward spiral of negative thoughts, and when you’re alone you are stuck trying to dig yourself out of that. But when it comes down to it you just have to take a step back and recollect your thoughts and try really, really hard to turn your brain around to the sunlight. Just remind yourself of all of the cheesy good stuff. Like the invention of donuts or being able to see the sunset or being healthy. Because every single one of us are so precious and filled to the brim with potential. It’s crucial to just be patient with yourself and your own growth. And be easy on yourself. There will be days that are tough and days that are amazing and a bunch of normal ones in between, but at the end of each one will be a sunset. And nothing bad can happen when you’re watching a sunset okay. It’s a proven scientific fact.

 

The Music of May

Okay personally I think we should all just take a moment of silence for the new music that has been released recently. I swear it felt like it all happened in the course of a week which is amazing yet overwhelming. In the best of ways though I must say. These tunes took up the month of May and cleared the air in my lungs. So here is a list of new and old songs that you should allow yourself the pleasure of listening to.

In no particular order:

1. Lemonade (the whole album lets be real) – Beyoncè
2. I Need A Forest Fire – James Blake, Bon Iver
3. Past Lives – Local Natives
4. Bored To Death – blink-182
5. Say It (feat. Tove Lo) – Flume
6. Cocaine Jesus – Rainbow Kitten Surprise
7. Search and Destroy – Sanders Bohlke
8. Gun Song – The Lumineers
9. YOUTH – Troye Sivan
10. Hotel Andrea – Blackbear
11. July – Youth Lagoon
12. Kalifornia – Modern Pleasure
13. Never Be Like You (feat. Kai) – Flume
14. What They Want – Russ
15. Slow It Down (because how could I leave that masterpiece out) – The Lumineers

*The featured image in this post was created by the one and only Claude Monet