Tag Archives: #olyaamanproducer

Personal Growth

3 Reasons to Compete Against Yourself

25 Comments

Self-Competition Is a Gambit in a Self-Development Game

Introduction

Rustling, quickly-moving, clear-voiced, V. was extravagant and a little disquieting. Large, square face and little grayish eyes – there was nothing soft or gracious about her. Up to everything and down on herself, V. was a splendid actress but didn’t quite believe in it herself. She formed the habit of sticking pins into her dignity and this venerable instrument of her nature was suffering immensely. I always felt an impulse to pull out the pins, they did inflict so much damage on V’s vulnerable personality, and I believed she could make a better use of her sharpness.

Her conversation was of a sort that gave a large license to originality and wittiness. But she accused herself of not being like some other beautiful and successful actress (who AGAIN got a part in a movie she was auditioned for) – and that competition she was constantly in with others heated me so that it almost scorched.

Some Interior (self) and Exterior (with others) Competition is like a bad and a good joke – one is amusing to everybody you care about and whose opinion matters to you, and the other is funny only to outsiders, people of the world in which you have no place of your own. An infinity of malicious amusement lurks in those who compare themselves to others instead of finding enough will to meet the metrics and values that suit them. Because to win in Exterior Competition is possible but the reward, whatever it is, won’t do one any good.

Imagine fighting in a war for a foreign government – you end up on a winning side, the country is rejoicing, dividing treasures, lands, and you … you go home with empty hands in ill-fitted uniform and no one cares about your heroic deeds in your homeland. And why would they? You didn’t fight for theirs (you got it – YOURS) freedom.

The noble war against your rivals (negative behavior, harmful habits, pessimistic thinking, procrastination, etc.) is never ending and always self-satisfactory. You win one battle and right away plan another strategic military attack on your own chosen enemies, transforming them into your comrades on a way to a better-future-you. Every victory is adding more confidence and vitality, indolent grace and ease, charm and charisma, and with every year you look far more experienced and at the same time far more youthfully alive.

Turn on the Niagara of the Infinite Change. Determine ‘What’ to Confront.

Goodness only knew how far from the truth V.’s self-understanding was. She looked down at the world through sharply evaluating everything eyes. She was somehow always out of spirits and her life was punctuated by little and big disappointments. She lived in a constant state of competition-stupidity with others and the only salvation I could see was to recharge her self-esteem, and to redirect her competitive spirit on herself.

We live and learn, experience pain and pleasure, establish relationships and break up bridges – we change. Having made this pronouncement I want to emphasize that the modification ‘to the better’ or ‘to the worse’ lies entirely with us. Like a ship you can choose to move along a sleek and oily swell that leads nowhere or a bumpy troubled sea that will get you to a wonderful shore with a marvelous view.

The process is most likely arduous and exhilarating but the result is always pyrotechnical – and when one colorful transformation takes place you cannot help waiting, open-eyed and alert, for the next one. Change to the better-future-you is fascinating, and it demands to be continued once started.

1) Procrastination

The winter of 2017 was the toughest in V.’s life. She lost her father (her mom died two years prior) and being the only child, she was now left alone. My voice was hoarse and weary with preaching the weekend I spent with her. I came to console and pull her out of that misery she thrashed herself into, willingly and almost gladly, taking that as an excuse to her apathy and lack of desire to fight her way in life.

The battle with procrastination is simply a development of magic. You stop the baa-baa business of excuses and make an action. Deeds not words are the man’s first and most grandiose invention. With directed activity, you can create a whole new universe of your own. Charge yourself with envy to a Tomorrow-You, endow yourself with passions and faculties of your inner stronger personality that was waiting for the privilege to come up front and pronounce the sentence of power and will. A lizard person should rapidly shoot up into a lion person – that power resides in every one of us.

2) Negligence

I kicked all the clothes off the bed and chairs, made V. get up and look in the mirror. Her ears didn’t play her false – I was not very picky with words when like a policeman arresting the flow of traffic I held my hand to keep her silent and listen to the voice of reason. She popped back in self-care immeasurably during the weeks spent in her deserted family dwelling. And she had clapped the door shut behind self-love and respect long before that happened. Being almost oracular in painting symbolical pictures of TRUE success through TRUE completion I made the atmosphere palpitate, and at the end of my tirade her smile was irradiation and the best reward I could ever ask for.

3) Negative Behavior

V. had a habit of talking to herself in a mocking and resentful key. And I made a goal to change it during the week we spent together in a Turkish all-inclusive hotel by the sea. This trip, that I almost forced her to agree to accompany me to, was a transformation therapy that I prescribed to my friend. My voice sounded and sounded in her ears with the insistence of mechanical noise when I went on and on in continuous expressions of love and beauty, serenity and benevolence, exquisiteness and originality of her personality.

‘How’ to Be Busily Engaged in Self-Competition and Enjoy It

I made my best to instill in V. envy to her better-future-self, substituting the raving and displeasing desire to be somebody else. Only when she took herself and the choices she made in an axiomatic loving and respecting manner was she able to call her life her own. And starting from this turning point any defects, that she had in her own eyes, became goals – a way to flawless crystal image of her future self.

1) Be Guided by Self-Love

It was worth the trouble of looking at and admiring my renewed friend. When V. stopped her bleating, bellowing, and neighing her features started to express intense intelligence which brought her self-respect back to her eyes and self-love back to her heart. Now the atmosphere about her sent a cheerful warmth and a suggestion of comfort and ease. Her loving heart spoke to her and to others. Every intercourse was amiable because positive expectation was in the air.

2) Be Led by a True Idol

V. was wrongly choosing idols from a famous Hollywood crowd, and that was a definite failure and a pointless race that painfully oppressed her heart. This false competition like an ill-made overcoat made her look ill-fitted to life. People liked her description by others better than they liked her because no one could hear her own conversation, those were only words expected, gestures already made by someone else, and expressions approved by the mirror.

When the wind of self-respect and self-love started to blow in her sails V. became a capital person to be around and to listen to. Every human being has his shell, and her shell was her vocabulary and the whole envelope of her sharp mind. Now she was brave to be different, courageous to disagree, bold to self-express, and daring to call her-future-self the best person in the world.

Do not write your life in a variety of strange hands rather than using your own. You do this when you get into external competition. It squeezes you into insignificance when you try to be someone else instead of finding your own way, style, amplua. The only hero you should be obsessed with is ‘you-tomorrow’. There is an inspiration in this strive, you grasp at pleasure and fail to get a complete hold of it as it always gets bigger and a little farther from your reach. It remains possible and impossible at the same time. And this game is never ending which makes life a fascinating experience.

3) Be Directed by Positive Criticism and Hones Praise

V. was able to unite the intrinsic (love to herself) and extrinsic (praise and criticism) advantages and became an extraordinary personality, the one that you can drink like a healthy cocktail and never have enough of the precious taste and benefits. She found the best acting teacher in a stand-up women’s comedy show. People praised her, and she rejoiced, friends criticized sometimes, and she was grateful. She started as an out-of-stage minor character and won her way to a leading actress participating in every show in her best disguise – never rudely present, always profitably clever and wisely funny. Everything she did or said was up to the most intelligent unoffensively critical and humorous way. Ingenious people loved her, and slightly shallow minds didn’t understand and avoided her – and that was just the price for being true – likable and not so much, lovable and not so much, respected and always so.

Conclusion

Woe to those who dream of what others have and fail to see the potential in themselves. Competition with others runs you into a blind alley. It takes the truth and love to present to you an internal competition anew. To be guided by things meaningful for you is like an invocation to a sacred beauty that awaits you on this way. The world is made small if you busy yourself with the faults of other people. When you overcome your fears and strive to be better than you were yesterday – the world enlarges by your presence. Living in this state you are never in repose but forever in flight. You arrest yourself for a moment when you reach one goal and continue an endless way to a better-you. Every move you make is a smile not a sigh. The vision of ‘you-tomorrow’ should be intoxicating and reviving.

Stay tuned…

Mental Health

My Encounter With Energy Vampires and Protective Techniques I’ve Learned

24 Comments

Now I know how to spot, understand, and survive

Do not lock yourself in the secret tower of your deafness and muteness when a danger to be drained by a vampire presents itself. – Olya Aman

I became a member of ‘Pen-Friends’ club, aspiring authors of my little countrified and old-fashioned town in the spring of 2011.

There wasn’t a nerve in me this experience hadn’t twisted. It wrongs my heart to think that one of my books was so close to being buried in the coffin of a negatively false critic. The true nature of this club made me shiver with repulsion, sell my house, and change my address.

Hunting in the Night

I always loved reading and had a great natural aptitude for creating fascinating stories. I finished my book and its manuscript burned my fingers. When a friend of mine offered to spend a long winter night reading and discussing it in a company of like-minded people, I rejoiced and agreed with delight. Little that I knew what it would make me fear for the sanity of my mind and the soundness of my body.

Energy vampires prevent you from keeping your body and emotional state in health. There is nothing like a cheerful mind to stay sound and strong against any life challenge. Vampires defy positive and happy people to the teeth and do their best to wipe out the smile off their faces.

Dracula #1 — The Narcissist

We always met on the dark side of twilight and the owner of the house welcomed everyone with an uncompromising face, hard diction, and vibrating consonants. Dracula #1 was as crisp, new, and comprehensive as the first issue of a book before the folding in a cover. And from top to toe he had no misprint. But when I looked thoughtfully enough, I saw a person who admitted nothing and down faced everybody but himself.

If he could not out-argue me on the point of the value of my book, he bullied me and took my silence for agreement with his views.

A Narcissist Energy Vampire‘s face is decorated with a constant sign of grandiosity, a lack of empathy, and a craving for admiration. Such a person will collect his arrogance, self-centeredness, and ‘ME-first’ philosophy and hurl them into your face.

Dracula #2 — The Victim

Dracula #2 was very easy to sympathize with, but it was not at all easy to be of any help. She was apt to carry her head thrust forward and somewhat down in an imploring attitude as if she was looking to any available advice. But as soon as you offered one, she adopted a highly tragic and devoured by remorse air. Dracula #2 was not willing to listen, not looking for the solution, enjoying the attention, blooming only when complaining, and rejecting any possible solution.

In her company, my brains got so dry that I almost lost my wits. She made me feel sorry for the lack of inspiration, imagination, and confidence in her life.

Victim Vampires dwell in the enormous mileage of suffering, low self-esteem, and lack of self-responsibility. They will fill you with guilt, blaming your actions and behavior for every negative aspect in their lives.

Dracula #3 — The Passive-Aggressive

Dracula #3 hated the world and its inhabitants with a quiet smile on his rather handsome face. No one looked half so tranquil among this group. In his company, I suffocated from the toxic energy that saturated from his whole being. I flatted myself that he had got a tough nut to crack, but little by little he made me begin a new record of angry self-doubts.

With Passive-Aggressive Vampires, a thing promised is never a thing done. There is no way to make them speak directly and about the matter at hand. They always jump on the negative side of things but will not admit it to anybody.

Dracula #4 — The Drama Addict

Dracula #4 looked like an Arabian sheik with his snow-white beard and frosty sparkling eyes. He was a high-class expert in the art of making people cross with each other, cry to the deaf ears of opponents, and crash nearby loudly smashable objects.

Spending just a few moments near this person, I felt rather erased, blotted out from the healthy realm of normal life. He fed upon the lives of others, and to amuse himself he used a special scheme of telling lies and spreading slough scandal about people he knew.

Melodramatic Energy Vampires make you agonizingly conscious of the ‘catastrophes’ all over the world that you otherwise would not know about. They make up in drama around what they lack in their lives.

Dracula #5 — The Guilt Tripper

Dracula #5 had her hour of victory when with malicious intention she made me believe she was a trustworthy friend. And when my heart was open, she triumphantly ended any amicable intercourse, exchanging it to a pretentious smile. She invented various scenarios to make me feel sorry for the things I’d done and confided to her. Her sudden transformation was the major reason that raced my shadow away from my hometown.

Guilt Trippers have no sense of proportion when it comes to pressing your insecurity buttons. They want to imprison their misery in a false sense of power and control by blaming you for every misfortune in their life. Inventing this manipulative business, they make you do what they want.

Dracula #6 — The Splitter

Dracula #6 was very handy with tools to separate and make people jealous. She found the way to spread vile gossips about me and my boyfriend. The entire scene with my lover was an unutterable mixture of tragedy and pathos.

Splitter Vampires seek relief from their loneliness in making other people unhappy. They waste their time in the imbecile routines that go by the name of divorce and separation. It is axiomatic for them that people in a union cannot live in contentment.

Dracula #7 — The Criticizer

Dracula #7 was not tall, but he carried his head so haughtily that he looked a commanding figure and there was something cunning and sharp in the look of his closely set little grey eyes. He disapproved of every attempt of my authorship experimentations in his engaging, deep, and a little husky voice.

I almost lost an ability to think under a tyranny of his pressing personality. He reasoned well and was driving at making me doubt my book and forsake an idea to publish it.

Judgmental Vampires are virtuosos in making rude comments, judge your decisions, talking about wrongs and ‘bads’ and saying nothing nice. Being close to these people will make you feel small and ashamed for no reason.

Dracula #8 — The Fixer

After a while, I got restless as one did under the heat of a sultry summer day. Dracula #8’s advice seemed so easy to follow and never fixed anything, rather made me cease to think about my problems and let them grow and multiply till I could not close my eyes on them anymore.

Peculiar charm and vividness of her sweet talk made one forget the important meeting, skip the urgent payment, let the important opportunity leave your grip. She had a great stock of excuses that I could easily borrow with no charge but self-reproach in ex post facto manner.

Fixer or Controller Vampires walk in your life without knocking and start controlling and dictating what you supposed to do and how you are expected to feel. They do not quite put their finger on the opinions you have, because they always have their own — and those are indisputable.

Strategies for Survival

In a company of these people, I became almost not real anymore. This wretched book club made me forget all my responsibilities toward my family and friends. They had been quite ‘blowing my trumpet’ to win my confidence at the beginning. And at the end, I became a person on which they exercised their revolting abilities to drain and drench.

That was a lesson to learn and never to be forgotten. I learned to stay positive no matter what happened, and what others thought about me. Now nothing can shake the step of my intellectual pace. I believe in myself and in people I love and care about.

Assess your emotional capacity and strengthen it.

Your understanding of yourself should be a gambit in the game of life. Self-reflect with genius and do not let self-love be a theoretical feeling — do that in earnest. Only this way you will know how much of a particular person you can take. A privilege to choose what and whom to let into your life reserved to you alone.

Determine how much of a threat to you the energy vampire is.

Determine what kind of a threat is in front of you and how much of it you can take. If you still feel that your head aches, your dry sleepless eyes feel as though they were bruised from behind, and the blood is beating within your ears — the intercourse with some person was too much and you need to remove the danger.

Vampire identification.

It doesn’t quite come home to these drainers that the entire world does not revolve around them. They seem somewhat afraid of responsibility and are in constant search for victims to put the weight of it on. One distinguishable feature of their personalities is a pessimistic approach to life.

The decision to make.

Has it flashed upon your vision that we attract in our lives what we haven’t improved in ourselves? Once you embrace with strong arms the issues in yourself, address them, work through — you will feel the fragrance of freedom. Every ‘Dracula’, deprived of the opportunity to prey on you, will leave you in peace searching for a more drainable victim.

Recognize when you’re being drained by an energy vampire. Take control of your nervous organization, follow your breathing, visualize a shielding barrier, a buffer zone, where no negative influence can penetrate.

Stay tuned…