How To Love An Alpha Girl‬

‪An alpha female is strong as hell. She has a great group of friends, has self confidence, knows what she wants and goes after it with no hesitation. She is fierce and doesn’t want to be tamed.

‪Don’t try to change her. Don’t try to turn her into something she is not. She was not made to sink and to bend. She was made to swim and fly. She was made to shine so brightly. So don’t even attempt to dim her blinding light.

‪Know that she does not need you. She does not need you to be happy or to feel fulfilled. But she loves you. She wants you. She chose you. And trust me, she had a lot of options.

‪So love her back.

‪Show up for her when you can tell that she needs you but won’t necessarily tell you. Show up when she is silent at night and you know something is bothering her. She is not made of steel even though she thinks she is. She is going to break sometimes. She is going to tear. She is going to crash.

‪Don’t you dare give up on her when she gives up on herself. Don’t turn your back on her. Yes, she doesn’t need you. But she will want you to be there. She will want you to show her that you give a damn. She will want you to show her that you won’t go anywhere. That you actually live up to your promises.

‪Don’t act like she’s your possession or prize. She is a human being. Treat her like one.

‪Know that she is a go getter. Know that she is a strong woman. She is resilient. She isn’t with you for fun, or for a fling. She is with you for the real deal. She is with you because she sees something good in you. She is with you because she sees a future. Because you are someone special. And she deserves something special. She deserves someone special.

‪She won’t take shit from you. She won’t take your crap, your games, or your nonsense. She is not going to put up with that. She knows her worth. She knows her heart and her soul and she knows that she deserves someone who can give her the world.

‪Be honest with her. Tell her how you feel. Don’t beat round the bush. Don’t hide from your feelings and from what your heart is telling you. Be a good man. Be a decent man and be a better man for her and for her future.

‪If you feel your feelings are fading don’t stick around. If you feel like your heart is slowly distancing itself from hers, leave. Don’t wait. Don’t lie to her. She is strong enough to handle your leaving. She is strong enough to handle your wreckage.

‪Oh and if you break her heart? She won’t ever take you back again. She won’t ever look at you in the same light. She won’t ever smile at you in the same way again. But she will move on. She will persevere. It’s what she’s good at. Surviving and growing and blooming.

‪She will survive without your love. Believe me, she will do more than just survive. She will do so much more. Without you. 

Written by Lauren Jarvis-Gibson

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The Truth About How To Fall Back In Love With Your Life

It starts with pain. A lot of pain. You have to fall out of love in order to fall back in it, unfortunately. Maybe it was a person, maybe it was a job, maybe it’s just yourself that you have forgotten how to love. Either way, these are the hardest of days to cope with. You’ll wake up and try to chant some mantra to yourself to get out of bed like “There’s nothing I can’t do.” Instead, you’ll get stuck on those first two words like a torturous internal loop until you cocoon yourself back into the covers and say you’ll try again later.

You’ll watch your old favorite movie, or read your old favorite book, or listen to your old favorite song. It’ll be the same but the pieces of life that happened in between the last time you watched/read/listened will make the experience completely different. You’ll marvel at how some things stay the same while others don’t and an ounce of clarity will seep into your mind that these things you are feeling now will not last forever. Maybe you’ll text an old friend you haven’t seen in a while and remember when your days were consumed by this friendship and closeness. You’ll appreciate the fact that you can stay in touch so easily with so many wonderful people and you might find no matter how lonely you feel, you really are not alone.

 

You’ll spend some time with your best friends and notice how beautiful they are when they’re laughing. You’ll realize how alive they make you feel when you’re happy and how gentle they are when you’re sad and you’ll just thank whatever higher power might exist that brought you together because you honestly cannot imagine going through life without them.

You might do something for someone else and catch the smallest glimpse of the amount of work, effort, patience, and understanding your parents/guardians must have gone through to raise you. You’ll realize there has been so much done for you that you don’t even realize or remember and it might make you think twice before deciding this life isn’t really worth living.

You’ll go outside, not because you have to, because you want to. You’ll see how much bigger this world is than you and your problems. You’ll listen to someone else’s problems and admire their strength. You’ll get inspired to dig deep and find your own strength.

One day, things will have supposed to hurt, but miraculously they won’t. Someone will pay you a compliment and for once you’ll focus on that instead of the criticism. You will meet new amazing people and realize that they too will only be here for a certain amount of time. You’ll stop trying to control your life and its path and just be present in the moment.

You’ll watch your old favorite movie, or read your old favorite book, or listen to your old favorite song. It’ll be just like the first time.

Written by Erin Cinney

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You Weren’t Born For An Ordinary Life

You weren’t born to do things in a cookie-cutter manner, you weren’t born to conform to routine and go through the motions – you were born for so much more.

You were born for magic and leaving an impact. You were born to make a difference in people’s lives and achieve your big dreams. You were born to be brilliant, not ordinary, so please don’t give up just yet.

It’s time to stop doing what you think you’re supposed to be doing and start doing the things that make you giddy, the things that make your stomach feel like a million exclamation marks are exploding. Start doing things that challenge you and make you want to be a better person. Start investing in yourself and start creating your dreams, instead of slaving away over someone else’s.

You are capable of so much and you should never settle.

Don’t settle for love, or relationships, or in a career – your time is too valuable for you to waste it being miserable. There are too many paths and roads to take to stay on one that isn’t making you feel alive and in love with everything around you.

Don’t settle for someone who doesn’t respect you or treat you like a priority. Don’t get hung up on people whose attention you have to fight for. Don’t be the one giving your all to a relationship that would immediately collapse without your maintenance. Don’t lose your dreams and your spirit to a career that barely allows you to live the life you’ve always dreamed of.

There are millions of paths in this life and each person walks a different one. Everyone one of us has a different story, a different background, and a different dream – no two are exactly the same and that’s what makes us so unique.

You weren’t born for ordinary, you weren’t born to follow the crowd and succumb to routine.

Routine is what kills people while they’re still alive, it’s what makes people lose interest and stops people from chasing their dreams.

Don’t let yourself settle or become comfortable. Don’t allow yourself to ease into the comfort zone because that’s where dreams go to die.

You are brilliant and wonderful, and capable of so much but it’s easy to get lost in this world when you don’t know where you’re going. It’s easy to fall into a routine, it’s easy to just stay because it’s what you’ve become used to, and it’s easy to forget all the greatness you have inside of you when you’re used to doing the same work over and over.

Getting out of the routine you’re in is hard but it’s worth it because you weren’t born for ordinary – you were born for so much more.

Break out of your routine, make changes, quit anything that doesn’t make your cells dance and pursue what will. Ditch the unfulfilling relationships, cut the toxic people out, ask for what you want and never feel bad for chasing your dreams. You are capable of so much more than you give yourself credit for.

There’s an entire world out there waiting for you to leave your mark, it’s time to stop settling and go after it. I believe in you.

Written by Becca Martin

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To The Friends Who Will Always Be More Than Family

To the ones who know all our secrets. The secrets we’re ashamed of, the secrets we couldn’t tell anyone else, the secrets that hold our deepest insecurities, fears and weaknesses. To the ones who know all of our secrets and protect them like their own. To the ones who know everything we’re ashamed of but still think we’re incredible. To the ones who taught us that it’s okay to be ourselves and still feel loved, appreciated and accepted.

You will always be more than family. You will always be the source of our happiness and the source of our healing. You will always be the glue that held us together when we were falling apart. You will always be our angels that once saved us from ourselves.

To the friends that gave us the home we never had. They gave us comfort, they gave us security and they gave us love. They gave us a feeling we never felt before in our own homes. They made us feel like we belong. They made us feel like we’re important. They made us feel like we matter.

To the friends that gave us memories all over the world. They helped us plan the trip of our dreams. They helped us get our dream job. They helped us achieve a goal. They supported us when we had nothing. They believed in us before the world knew who we are. They gave the confidence we failed to give ourselves to pursue whatever we desired. They gave us the life we always dreamed of.

You will always be the ones who truly gave us a life worth living. A life worth remembering. A life filled with moments no one else was able to recreate. Magical moments we never thought we’d live and moments that took all the pain and worries away. Moments that made us forget that we were hurting or broken or suffering. Moments that made us hold on to life because you are in it.

Our families bring us to life but our friends are the ones who truly make us live it, appreciate it, fight for it and cherish it.

To the friends who gave us the family we never had. Thank you for all that you’ve done to make us feel accepted. Thank you for giving us a home. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for filling our hearts with joy and exhilaration every time we’re broken.

Thank you for constantly reminding us that you’re not going anywhere. That you’ll always stay with us. That you’ll always stick around even when our own families give up on us. Thank you for being everything we hoped for and more.

Written by Rania Naim

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This is Why You Should Fall in Love with The Girl Who Overthinks

Fall in love with the girl who overthinks, because she has a huge heart. The last thing she ever wants to do is upset you. That’s why she’ll replay conversations in her head again and again — because she’s worried that she said something wrong, that she accidentally upset you.

Her apologies are always genuine. Every time sorry leaves her mouth, she means it. And she will try hard to make it up to you. She’s not the type to make excuses. She admits when she’s wrong and takes action to prevent it from happening again in the future.

She is a giver and she would hate herself for hurting you. She only wants to bring you smiles and happiness and laughter. Nothing less.

Fall in love with the girl who overthinks, because she will send the most adorable texts. It might take her a few tries to get her words write, but once she does, you’ll be complimenting her sweetness. You’ll be screenshotting the conversation to save forever, to look at when you’re feeling low.

Fall in love with the girl who overthinks, because she will have the most captivating, stimulating conversations with you. She will analyze a scene from a book or a television show for hours. She will make the deepest observations about anything and everything. She will constantly surprise you by how intelligent she is.

Fall in love with the girl who overthinks, because she takes charge. She doesn’t sit around and wait for someone else to help her. She has an intricate, creative mind and puts it to use.

Because of this, she will plan out the best dates of your life. She will take you on romantic trips and spoil you with surprises.

And you will never have to worry about choosing a restaurant or finding directions, because she will have everything figured out ahead of time, down to the tiniest detail. Meanwhile, you can just sit back and enjoy your time with her. You can take in the experience and be stress-free.

Fall in love with the girl who overthinks, because she will always look out for you. She picks up on the smallest details, which means she’ll notice if your boss is getting annoyed by you or if your mother is hinting at a specific birthday gift.

And when it comes time to buying you a gift, she will always pick out the perfect one, because she’ll remember if you stared at a certain watch for a little too long or commented on your friend’s new gaming system. You’ll feel like she can read your mind, because she always knows what you want.

Fall in love with the girl who overthinks, because she will consider your feelings and act accordingly. She never makes a decision without really thinking it through, and if you’re dating her that means she’ll make sure it’s the best decision for the both of you. She won’t act selfish.

Fall in love with the girl who overthinks, because she pays attention to every little thing. That means she has observed your best traits and your worst traits. So if she is with you, she must really love you. She must have decided the good outweighs the bad.

She must be serious about spending forever alongside you.

Written by Holly Riordan

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Why Your Second Love is Better than Your First Love

In today’s society, there is so much emphasis on a person’s first love. There is almost a societal obsession with the idea of falling in love for the first time. In the movies, girl meets boy, they fall in love, and they live happily ever after. In stories like The Fault in Our Stars, and dare I mention, The Notebook, all we see is the characters falling madly in love with each other. The idea that your first love is supposed to be your only—and more importantly—your best love, is absolutely wrong. Your first love may be, well, your first, but there is something to be said about being in love the second time around.

Let me start this off with a disclaimer; if you are still with your first love, that is so great. Clearly you two are meant to be and all the best wishes for you both! However, many people cannot say the same thing. In most cases, your first love comes, and then it goes. It is rare nowadays for a person’s first relationship to be their only and last. Your first love is almost never your last.

I have to admit, there are legitimate reasons why everyone seems to be obsessed with the idea of first love. Remember that junior high crush you thought you would just about die over? Yeah, scratch that. Your first love steals your breath, knocks you off balance, turns your whole world topsy-turvy and you swear on your life that you will never feel that way again. When you fall in love for the first time, it is unlike any feeling in the world. Everything you experience is almost indescribable and everything is brand new. Your first love very literally sweeps you off your feet and you fall for each other in every sense of the term. All of your free time is spent with them and when you’re not physically with them, you can bet that you are thinking of them. Your first love is crazy, mad, passionate, and you have never felt more alive. Any remembrance of how your life was before them vanishes and you know you don’t want your life without them in it. Your first love doesn’t necessarily have to be your first relationship, either. You can go through several relationships and think that they are your first love, but when you truly fall in love for the first time, you just know.

When your first love ends, the pain is just as indescribable as the initial feelings in the relationship was. No matter how it ended, whether nasty or amicable, it hurts badly. What hurts the most though, is that you can’t wrap your head around ever feeling that way—ever again. How could you, when you were swept so quickly off your feet, when you exchanged goodnight kisses, had cute and clever nicknames for each other based on food, and fell asleep on Skype together? When your first love ends you cannot possibly believe that anyone or anything could make you feel that way again. After all, it is your first love.

Yes, it may have been your first love, but now you know it isn’t going to be your last. It ended for a reason and no matter what that reason was, it is important to remember that you two simply are not meant to be. Once you come to that realization on your own, you will find yourself in a healthier frame of mind. But still, that fear of never finding someone who will ever make you feel that way again nags at your mind. Let me tell you though, sometimes the ending of your first love—no matter how beautiful your first love was—can be the best thing that ever happened to you.

It is time to give some credit to the second love. Your second love is better than your first love for so many reasons. Think of your first love like the first time on a roller coaster ride. All of the twists, turns, loop-de-loops, plummets, and uphill climbs take you by surprise. While all of that is exhilarating and exciting, you cannot deny that it is scary. How do you know what comes next? In the roller coaster ride that is love, you never know what to expect. All of the madness, the craziness, the feelings that feel too much like obsession after a while—it’s scary. Don’t forget the pain of the first real loss of love, either. That can be compared to being sawed in half.

Your second love is still a ride on the roller coaster, but you know what’s coming. You can anticipate that next drop, the next twist, the next climb. Your second love allows you to feel calmer while still enjoying the wild rush that comes with being in love with someone. You can swear that you’ll never love again all you want, but your second love will have a funny way of changing that.

The destruction of your first love will leave you a changed person and no matter how bitter you may feel, you will be a better person for it. The bitterness will ebb when love finds you again because you will learn to appreciate all that your first love taught you. With your first love, maybe you used to throw a hissy fit whenever they didn’t text back right away or if—God forbid—they didn’t want to watch the movie you wanted to watch. When the second love comes around, you will suddenly realize just how childish that was. You will learn to learn from your first love—and your second love teaches you all of that.

With your second love comes more rationality. You are wiser, older, better. You are more aware of who you are as a person and you know more of what you want in a relationship. Maybe now you want someone who is more motivated or someone who will encourage you to be the best version of yourself. Your second love may do things that your first love never did and you just may find how much you like it.

Being in love again is not boring. If anything, it is calmer. Maybe, just maybe, you realize you can feel everything again. And maybe, this time around, it will be on a deeper level. Your first love is a toe in the water. Your second love is a full body plunge into the water. Let yourself fall in love again, and be amazed at how much love you still have to give. Love is better the second time around.

Written by Megan Salavantis

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I Don’t Know Why I’m Always Sad

I have this problem where I get sad when I have no reason to be. Someone will say the wrong word and it’s like they pulled the trigger of a loaded gun and I start spiraling out into this deep depression I can’t really explain. It’s like my entire body is imploding in on itself and everyone and everything feels so, so far away. I wonder if it’s just me or if this is just a normal part of being a human being.

But the thing is, I never seem that way. Sad, I mean. I seem moody, maybe. Annoyed on a good day, but never sad. The world looks at me as if I live in in an impenetrable bubble of optimism, as if nothing can destroy my eternal happiness. Maybe that’s who I want to be, so I pretend that I am her.

But some days I’m so sad I bury myself in blankets and stare at my computer screen for hours. Sometimes I put a movie on. Sometimes the screen is blank. If someone walks in I quickly make sure it looks like I’m doing something. “Go away,” I’ll say. “I’m busy.”

I told my friend I thought I was depressed and he said, “What do you have to be sad about? You’re a white girl with so many opportunities.” And I have to admit he had a point. But that just makes me more sad. Why can’t I be happy when I have everything in the equation that should make me feel happy? Then I just keep wondering what went wrong and I can’t think about anything else.

Some days I don’t feel much, but sometimes I feel so much that it bubbles in my gut and climbs up my throat and I want to scream and scream and scream. But I don’t know what I’d scream at or who to so I swallow it back until it creates this giant lump in my throat and I worry I’ll suffocate on it. Sometimes I wish I would.

“You’re just going through a weird phase,” my friend told me. “You’ll get over it once you’re in a more stable place in life.” But I don’t know what that looks like. I try to pinpoint a time when things will even out again but there’s no date on the calendar that says, “Today you’ll be OK.” No alarm on my phone that says, “It’s time to feel like your entire life is put together.” I don’t know what I’m waiting for anymore.

Some days it gets so bad that I can’t even see what’s in front of me and I stumble around blindly all day until I find a place to hide. I cancel all my plans because “I’m tired, I’m sorry, I didn’t get any sleep.” I know that everyone is behind the screens of their phones rolling their eyes and calling me “flaky”, but I don’t care what I am anymore. I can’t make myself care about anything.

“Everything works out eventually,” my friend told me. “It gets better.”

But I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what there is to work out. I can’t fix a problem I can’t identify, I can’t hope for something I can’t visualize, and I can’t make myself happy when all I know how to be is sad.

Written by Callie Byrnes

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The Second Time You Fall in Love...

The second time you fall in love with someone, you’re going to feel so relieved. When you get your heart broken for the first time, you can’t imagine loving someone else again or having someone else love you. You worry about your ex finding love before you do, you worry about being damaged goods. And then it happens. Someone else loves you and you can sleep well at night.

The second time you fall in love with someone, it’s going to feel different. The first time felt like a dream almost. You were untouched, untainted by anyone. You accepted love with wide open arms and desperation. “Love me, love me, love me!” So you did. And then it fell apart and left you shocked to the core. You realized that people could be cruel and break your heart. You realized that people could stop meaning the sweet things they said to you just yesterday. So when you go into it again, you’re going to keep in mind everything that you’ve learned. You’re going to say, “Love me, love me, love me…until you don’t. In which case, I would like some advance warning. Thanks!”

The second time you fall in love with someone, you’re going to compare it to your first love. That’s okay. That’s natural. You’re going to be studying the new love with judgement and wariness. “My ex never liked broccoli. Why the hell does this one eat so much broccoli?!” Discovering that you have the ability to love multiple people who are different and feel different is initially very jarring. Loving an unfamiliar body will leave you disoriented and in dire need of a map. That’s okay too. That’s to be expected. Just ask the new love for directions.

The second time you fall in love with someone, you’re going to suffer from a bout of amnesia. You’re going to poke and prod at your lover’s body and be like, “Wait, how do I do this again? How do I love you? I think it starts with us having a moment together in some coffee shop, right?” It’s going to feel scary at first. Falling in love is sort of like riding a bike though. You never really forget.

The second time you fall in love with someone, you’ll be a more sane person. Your first love is when you get all of your insanity out. You behave like an insane monster because your mind is freaking out about all these new powerful feelings. By the second time, however, you have an idea of what works and what doesn’t. It’s by no means perfect. The insanity will make a cameo at some point. “Peek a boo. I’m here! Hope you didn’t forget about me!” But you can usually shoo it away after awhile.

The second time you fall in love with someone, you will hopefully have better sex. Do not quote me on this.

The second time you fall in love with someone will still be exciting and you might even talk about moving in together or marriage. It will feel more “adult.” You have no idea what adult love actually is but you think it involves making coffee for each other in the morning and maybe even getting a dog. “This is my dog, Xan. I got him with the second person I fell in love with because that’s what you do! The first person I was in love with would’ve killed a dog.”

The second time will not be as great as the first time. The first time is an insane magical life gift that you can never reclaim. But that’s okay. The second time is more real anyway. The second time can involve some amazing love.

Written by Ryan O’Connell

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When You Realize That God is Not Done Teaching You Important Lessons

As an adult, you think when you reach a certain age that you already know too much. You’ve gone through enough experiences in life that taught you so much about love, heartbreak, wisdom, pain, healing and starting over. You’ve met enough people who taught you how to determine who’s right or wrong, who’s honest and who’s shady and generally, you feel like you have a good sense of judgment when it comes to choosing the people you want in your future and making sensible decisions in your life.

You are aware that life is full of surprises and everything is unpredictable but for some reason, you have faith that what’s coming is better than what has passed. You feel like you’ve learned enough to pass the test and get a good grade, but then something happens that shakes you. Something you didn’t see coming, something you didn’t expect, something you thought would never happen to you and that’s the moment you realize that the lessons are not over, that you’re not prepared for the test and that God is not done teaching you what you need to learn.

You slowly begin to understand that God has denied you certain prayers or certain wishes because his new lessons are going to change your mind or maybe your heart. They will make you wish for different things. They will make you a different person. They will make you thankful that certain things didn’t work out because they wouldn’t have aligned with who you want to become.

You begin to trust his timing and his plans, it starts making sense when you put two and two together. It adds up. You realize that without these new lessons, you could’ve made a decision that was going to hurt you or trapped yourself somewhere you don’t belong or with someone who makes you miserable.

You begin to appreciate the pain, the delays, the setbacks because through them you got to know yourself a little better. They led you to find yourself and your passion. They pushed you to end things and say goodbye to people you loved and wanted so you can be who you really want to be. They pushed you to be in a better place emotionally, mentally or financially.

When God doesn’t give you something you’re praying for right away, it means he’s not done teaching you what you need to learn. He’ll bring you changes that will ultimately change you and you’ll look back and understand why you had to wait. You’ll look back and thank him for not granting you those wishes right away.

You’ll look back and realize that sometimes you wished for things you were not ready for, things you could’ve easily destroyed if they were yours. You’ll realize that you still need to learn a few more lessons before you’re fully ready to embrace and appreciate his gifts and his blessings.

You’ll realize that you’ll forever be his student and he’ll always have the final say because you still won’t get all the answers right no matter who you are or how much you know. You still need his confirmation. You still need his approval. He’s always going to know better. He’s always going to prepare you for the hardest tests so you can achieve the greatest score.

Written by Rania Raim

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