20 INSTRUCTIONS FOR LIFE BY THE DALAI LAMA

1.Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.

3. Follow the three R’s:

-  Respect for self,

-  Respect for others and

-  Responsibility for all your actions.

4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.

5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.

6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great relationship.

7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

8. Spend some time alone every day.

9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.

10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and

think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.

12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.

13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.

14. Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.

15. Be gentle with the earth.

16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.

17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.

18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

19. If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.

20. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

Betrayal... forgiveness?

I felt a big betrayal recently. Not only a betrayal of the heart, but on my morals and principles. I consider myself an extremely tolerant person, that's what life has made out of me through all my difficult experiences. It has made me a person that sees beyond the natural understanding of things. I have allowed since I was a child the most horrifying of things pass by. Because I understood that some people just didn't know any better. But now as an adult I've learned that people do know better. That just like me, people have choices and they make those choices with their full conscious and awareness. This recent person knew inch by inch what mattered to me, what would wound me, what would break my heart. And with their own conscience they made that choice. And so I lay here night after night with the pieces that are left, trying to find a way to mend them, to heal them. To let those pieces know that they are not to blame for the break, even when they were the ones who broke in the end. The nights are slow and the days not as bright. And I wonder how do I forgive when there is so much anger and sadness in me. How do I forgive when I realize that I allowed this to happen?

Eleanor Roosevelt once said "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent"
So... How do I forgive him for treating me inferior?... How do I forgive myself for giving him consent?

Paintings

As I take down my paintings from the wall I start getting nauseous. It is a lot harder than I expected. I never meant to sell them, you see.  I'm not sure if I ever meant for anyone else to even like them. It scares me to think that I won't sell any... the same exact way that it scares me to think that I will. I don't know if I will feel the same way about other work I do from here on now... But those particular paintings are from specific moments in my life. One of them is a panic attack I had when I experienced a very intense situation with one of the first men I loved. And I think it is funny that it's usually everyones favorite. How could I explain to someone how that felt? Who could understand someone wanting to explain how that felt? Second by second, beat by beat exactly what my body went through in that one night. Another one I made one day was while being angry at myself for not being the good enough artist that I wanted to be. So I threw all the colors of paint I had on a canvas and angrily spread the paint with my hands and fingers. I for sure thought this one would end up in the trash, but I didn't toss it and let it dry instead. My latest one I did almost exactly a year ago. On Valentine's Day all my friends got these amazing flower arrangements and gifts from every admirer they had. I didn't even get a stem. And for a second there I felt bad about myself. Like I had done something wrong in the world and was being punished by being thrown in my face how much better women my friends around me were. And then I said... Fuck Flowers Tania! You don't need a flower to make you feel good about who you are. You like building things, fixing things, and maybe you are not the most conventional girl... but you are not going to let this one stupid day make you feel bad for being who you are, if you want flowers so badly you can go and buy yourself some. You don't need approval from anyone to feel good.

If people would know how many things I have angrily thrown at my paintings, how many times I have cried through but didn't stop painting, how much thought I put to every single detail... If they would know that I only paint because I don't know words to express how I feel about certain things. That sometimes I have no one to talk to about those things but that silent canvas. If that would happen no one would want me to price them.  How do you price moments like that?

Van Gogh (my favorite painter) only sold one painting in his lifetime and painted 860 oil paints. He never lost faith in his art... he lost faith in himself.

27 Things I've Learned in 27 Years

1. Parents are as imperfect as me
2. Moving is a tough lifestyle
3. Fighting is useless
4. Grandparents make up the best and coolest bedtime stories. My grandma had me hooked on this trilogy about a hot dog lost in a city. Twilight can suck it.
5. Scars are not the result of biting your nails
6. I should have NEVER watched Chucky
7. Masturbation is a gift of God and there is no need for therapy on this behalf
8.  Reading is exactly like wine... an acquired taste that becomes addictive
9. When I get nervous I get gassy
10. I would have married Galileo Galilei
11. I feel best when surrounded by nature
12. People are not here forever, so say I love you at least once before they go
13. Money ALWAYS comes when it needs to and leaves the same exact way
14. I love being alone
15. A flight to Europe beats any stupid Sweet Quinceanera party
16. Driving fast and dangerously can be very very fun
17. I am short (according to taller people)
18. Crying hysterically and thinking you are completely insane on your first day living in New York City is an artistic tradition practiced by many. This was confirmed by Phylicia Rashad
19. Grand Central Station was witness to the most romantic thing any man has done for me
20. Love has no right way... and no fucking instruction manual (trust me I've looked)
21. Being 21 is soooo overrated
22. 18 should be the cut off age for mixing tequila, beer, vodka, whiskey, rum and car-bombs... (Still technically working on this one)
23. I have a very intense weakness for surfers and salty skin
24. Rainbows are signs of God
25. Home is where your feet are
26. People you love don't have to stay in your life forever. You can love from afar.
27. It feels great to look at your fears and just say "Suck my Dick!" (my favorite curse phrase)

I found a letter I wrote to myself a year ago

Dear Tania:

First of all I would like to thank you for being a warrior. You have endured many adversities with your head held high and a smile on your face.  Don't allow your mind to take the best of you. You trusted that your destiny is written and that you are a mere instrument to accomplish that mission. Look at your life as that mission and let go of everything else. You have allowed yourself to open your heart to people that even within their own destiny and human conditions make you a better person. You have allowed yourself to love unconditionally. You have allowed yourself to forgive unconditionally. You have allowed yourself to be how God wanted you to be.

                                                                    You trusted.
                                                                Every bit of my love
                                                                    Tania Maria

Stranger's Eyes

It's beautiful when you find your way back through the eyes of someone else. When you meet a stranger and everything they say realigns your soul back into place. Almost as if the Universe sent a messenger to pick you up and push you forward. When someone with certainty tells you their faith in you and the greatness that they perceive from you just by their own instincts without an agenda or an expectation is when your own eyes open. Their light shines at you and heals you, even if just for a minute. When you meet those wondering eyes in the world... you think to yourself that falling down was worth it. Because you yourself are the one seeing the mirror. Which means that what picked you up is only what you see in yourself. No one can save you from you. If you stood up... then you've come a long way.

Crazy

As I got out of the airplane from my vacation I felt nauseous. Was I really going to do this? On my way to the bathroom I felt the need to cry. I went in the stall with my carry-on suitcase and began to sob. I just stood there with my hands on my face asking myself if I had gone mad. I had decided to leave my jobs and everything I know in pursuit of my dream.  Putting it all out there so that the universe could help me or break me. But even that severe anxiety couldn't take away the feeling of knowing that this was the right decision for me. I was scared and I allowed to let myself be scared. In that fear I saw all my limitations. I saw everything about me that constantly holds myself back.  I began to doubt myself, my abilities, my instincts, my talents... I began repeating out loud every horrible thing anyone has ever told me about myself that I believed.  Then I remembered the present moment. I looked around and saw the stall, saw my suitcase and the toilet paper filled with fear tears. I remembered what all my guides had emphasized... "Live in the now". And for the very first time I understood it. All I had to do for now was to get something to eat because I was hungry. I didn't have to solve my life in that bathroom that day. And so I bravely took the first step to the rest of my life. I walked out of that stall.