Greetings Everyone,

I hope you are all well today. It has been a while since I did my last blog. Unfortunately, I have a lot going on. Life happens. Today, I want to talk about something that is very important to me that affects a lot of people. Today’s topic is stress. Stress affects people differently. I can tell you for certainty that I am a person who is always dealing with a lot of stress. Stress comes in various forms and there are a lot of stressors. How a person deals with stress makes all of the difference in the world.

As I stated previously in my blogs, I have experienced a lot of things in my life. As a result, I am usually stressed out. For example, I am currently working two jobs. My primary job is the one where I have worked full time for the last nine years. I work with the general public serving them. My background is in Social Work and I am working in a similar capacity. I recently purchased my first car – a 2017 Hyuadai Accent hatchback model. Due to the wages I receive in my full time job not being enough to pay for the car, car insurance or even student loans, I had to obtain a second job to supplement it. For the part time job, I reverted back to a major retailer that I worked for in the past. It is not the most ideal situation, but I am grateful for both opportunities. I have worked in the latter, part time position for approximately one month. Both jobs are extremely stressful in terms of dealing with poor leadership, hostile customers and a broken system which needs to be remedied.

Don’t get me wrong, I have worked in some capacity since the age of 13. I work extremely hard at anything I do. In doing so, I had to take a long, hard look at myself and make some adjustments in order for me to serve in both roles. I know that I am a work in progress and I have a long way to go. I am human and like everyone else, I have my good and bad days. There are various issues within any job. Every job has its good and bad points. The best advice that I can offer everyone is to know your self as the things that you will and won’t accept from a job. Even with this understanding, it is best to know that sometimes you will have a situation in your life where you will have to accept more than you would like to in order to keep a job. Keep in mind that people have varying personalities, issues, traumas and battles that people are not always privy to or aware of. This is not to diminish anyone’s feelings, opinions or perception. I am just a realist who believes in examining life’s aspects from various angles. I also view the world differently than most. I am a unique person in general, and I am often misunderstood as a result. That is a factor which caused me stress in the past. As I am growing and loving me, I feel less stress.

I am someone who is more passive than I should be. As a result, I have accepted a lot of ill treatment from others to keep an argument down. Now that I am older, I can honestly say that this has been detrimental and a disservice to me. A lesson that I learned is that you teach people how to treat you, which explains some of my stresses and why I experienced some of the things that I did. I do not recommend this for anyone. The results of this acceptance has made people not want to change their behaviors and mannerisms towards me when I am learning how to stand and speak up for myself. Now that I am more vocal about my feelings and experiences, I do not experience some of the same things that I did. However, due to the fact that people have become so accustomed to mistreating me, people are not always willing to change. This resulted in the loss of some relationships, which also triggered some stress.

One prime example is the breakdown of my marriage. In terms of this relationship, I ended up dating someone I distantly knew during my high school years. We started dating when I were 19 years old. We were married by the time I were 26 years old. We separated when I were 31 years old. Things I accepted at 19, I could not accept at 31. He did not seem to understand or care about my feelings. The arguments we had became more frequent, which increased my stress levels. In fact, my health was adversely impacted by the stress of my marriage. I almost passed away due to illness after developing heart problems. Negative stress can lead to other health problems. If they are not managed, a person can die based on the health problems. I am happy to say that my health has greatly improved after the break up.

All of the extra working that I am doing has increased my stress levels because I am sleeping even less. Please understand, my sleeping patterns were not very good before the second job, as I experienced extreme insomnia for years. When my stress is extremely high, the sleeping pattern is worse. Increased stress and a lack of sleep can compromise a person’s immune system. On a personal level, everything that is spread throughout my jobs, I usually catch. I have digestive problems. Additionally, I am a first time driver, which I am still adjusting to. Driving in itself breeds a different level of stressors. Dealing with being watchful for the people around you is a challenge in itself. Not to mention the added car expenses, such as gas and maintenance. I am happy to have a car, but getting use to driving around and navigating to various destinations along with being cognizant of times has been an adjustment for me. I am trying to improve my driving skills on a daily basis. I am still learning how to properly park and pay attention to space and perception.

All of these factors has caused a great deal of stress. It is decreasing daily. One example of the decrease in stress is because I play music from the Sirius XM satellite radio. Music is my favorite thing in the world. Music has a calming effect on me, which helps to decrease my stress levels. It is important for everyone to find the things in their lives to decrease their stress levels. Another thing that decreases my stress levels is cooking. I have cooked since the age of 7 and it is my biggest talent. It is my dream to meet Gordon Ramsay. I have been a huge fan of his for years. I am also happiest around children. I love babies and I am looking forward to the day when I become a mother. It is unlikely I will ever have children biologically due to my preexisting conditions. We will see with the increases and improvements in modern technology. Developing strategies to decrease stress is guaranteed to aid in improving a person’s health and overall well being. Everyone should have an outlet. This is something that I need to personally work on.

We as people have enough things going on in our lives, and we are all stressed to some capacity. I try hard to treat everyone the way I would like to be treated because I believe heavily in the notion that we never know what people are dealing with. I don’t like to cause problems for people or stress people out. This is not always realistic. Maybe I have more empathy than most, resulting in me caring too much. This may add to my stress as well.

In my opinion, the most stress comes from employment. Many people are overworked, underpaid and under appreciated. Jobs do not usually care about a person’s plight as they are focused on productivity. This is a huge issue for me. Some jobs will pile up massive amounts of work on a person that is meant for multiple people. This leads to burn out. People spend the majority of their time at work. This means people are often away from families and struggling to pay bills. If a person is like me, they try extremely hard to uphold deadlines and maintain accuracy. This is not good. I have witnessed too many people that I have worked with over the years die. Recently, a coworker at my full time job died shortly after complaining of chest pains. The job stressed her out and I am sure she had a lot of obstacles that she was experiencing in her personal life. I feel jobs should be more understanding of what people might be dealing with.

I have been a migraine sufferer since I were 12 years old. The reasons why are unknown. When I have a migraine attack, they can be very debilitating. Years of worry and stress has led to stomach problems. In recent years, I have been finding ways to better cope with my stress. I am a huge advocate of mental health therapy. I briefly studied to be a therapist. Due to issues stemming from my past, I knew that I would not have been the most effective therapist. It is always good to know your limitations too, which can decrease some of your stress. Based on me being the truest definition of an empath, I absorb people’s emotions and issues, making them my own, which adds to my stress. It is okay to admit when you need to change the path you wanted to choose for yourself. I have been in mental health therapy off and on for years. I have been going consistently for about a year now. I am not ashamed to admit it. I needed help learning how to cope and decrease my stress after my divorce. I needed to heal other wounds from my childhood. I also needed to learn how to better deal with working. I have had different therapists who all have different styles and ideologies about life. For the most part, therapy has been helpful. There are some instances when you can leave therapy more frustrated than when you went in. I had a recent situation like this, but I will continue my treatment. Know and understand when you need other resources in dealing with your stress.

It is my hope that jobs will care more about people and less about output. It is also a good idea to work at a job you love. Jobs, please take heed and work to improve the stressors that people face based on their roles at your companies. Also, ensure people are paid a decent wage in accordance with their position and state/federally allowed levels. No one will be able to decrease all of their stress. However, make sure every stressor is manageable. I hope this opens the discussion for stress and how we as people can improve overall. Peace and blessings everyone. Best wishes. Have a great week. ~~ Rayne Elise.

Hello everyone, I hope you are all well today. One of the many things that I think we should all have is goals and aspirations. Achievement is one of the best feelings in the world. This is heightened in my opinion when a person accomplishes a goal or dream that naysayers told a person they couldn’t do or accomplish. People should form goals that they wish to accomplish. As an individual, I often come up with goals and time frames that I would like to accomplish. For example, in 2018, I accomplished two of the biggest goals that I had.

First, in August 2018, I graduated from Walden University with a Masters degree in Business Administration. I had a prior stint in graduate school from 2011 – 2012. I had attended Morgan State University for the Masters in Social Work program. My undergraduate degree is in Social Work. I obtained it from Morgan State University in 2009. I endured many obstacles in pursuit of my degree. There were many things I experienced in my life during my first stint. Sadly, I never completed the MSW program. There were many reasons why my first stint did not work. Still, I knew I wanted to pursue and obtain a masters degree. I elected to attend Walden late 2015 when I encountered an informational table at one of my medical appointments. I had been thinking about completing my Master’s degree for a while. I knew I had an interest in Business by that point. At this point in my life, I am still debating whether or not I will complete my MSW. It seems unlikely based on all of my hardships, however, I believe that we should never say never. I decided to begin my journey at Walden January 2016.

At the beginning of my time at Walden, I was met with additional challenges. First, my now ex-husband and I had one of the worst arguments ever. We were having problems for a while, but this argument signified the end of our relationship. I did well in my first two classes. By the start of my third course in My 2016, my ex-husband and I separated. Due to my mental and physical health at the time in addition to working full time, I elected to take a leave of absence. I also struggled with this third course and I did not want to fail.

Despite my separation, I still tried hard to remain civil and friendly to him. Sadly, he did not reciprocate that. Eventually, I had to permanently let him go to heal. I was saddened that I had to take the leave of absence from school. However, I realize it did me some good. Things slowly improved for me. That relationship is a discussion for another time. I did re-enroll at Walden January 2017. For the most part, my grades were good considering I still had a lot on my plate during my time at Walden. Eventually, we filed for divorce. My actual hearing was during my hardest class ever – Managerial Finance. I was grateful to God for that C. Many people in my class struggled and I do not think everyone in that class finished the remaining course as a result. When I finished my final course, nothing could contain my joy.

Many people questioned me about my choice to attend school, knowing I struggled profusely. It is not that I am incapable of getting through school, I had many factors that played a role. If I only had school to focus on, I would have gone a lot further. I still did extremely regardless.

The second thing that I accomplished was finally obtaining my driver’s license in November 2018. I wanted to go to driving school in 2000. My mother told me no. I was 15/16 at the time. I did eventually go to driving school for the first time during the summer of 2007. I also had a horrible experience at the time. That school is no longer in existence and I am not the least bit surprised. When I started working at my current job in 2010, one of my trainers taught driver’s ed on the weekends. We had been practicing off and on for years. Additionally, I went to driving school for the second time the same week I started at Walden. I tried and failed the driving test many times. I cried so much because of it. I wanted to give up so many times. Still, I was determined to pass. I passed the day before Thanksgiving 2018 and I could not contain my joy.

Current goals now are to obtain a higher paying job. I accepted a part-time position to supplement the income of my full-time job. I have bills, and it is increasingly hard to pay them. Additionally, I am now about to start repaying my student loans. Third, I want to obtain a car. I have also researched auto insurance, and the costs are astronomical. I have to eventually get my own place to live. The point that I am trying to make is the grind doesn’t stop. I work hard and I will do whatever it takes to reach my goals. I encourage every one of you to stop at nothing to reach your goals.

As you can see from my story, I have experienced a lot. I overcame a lot. I am still adding more goals and working to accomplish them. Life happens. We are not immune to the trials and tribulations of life. We might not always be able to accomplish the goals in the timeframe we want to. However, it is important to still pursue them. There are other goals that I have. I want to become a published author to fully tell y story. I want to be a motivational speaker. There is no bigger goal I have ever had than becoming a mother. I had miscarriages in the past, so I am looking at adoption. I want to do this by the age of 40.

Whatever your goals are, continue to reach for starts and accomplish them. I love you all. I believe in you. Best wishes. Stay blessed. ~ Rayne Elise.

Today’s blog is in reference to the New Year. I am not a person who says, “New Year, New Me.” Let me explain. I am a person who thrives on life lessons that I learn with all of my experiences. I have experienced many things in my life. We all have our stories. Mine gets really deep. This is not to take away from anyone’s experience. I can only speak to my story.

With that being said. my New Year is filled with how I can make my story better, instead of having resolutions. In recent years, I have experienced a lot. I had many highs and lows. I went through a divorce in 2017. I was demoted from a promotional position in 2018 because of my age, education and because people are threatened by me. I have had a number of setbacks that made me take a long and hard look at myself. I decided going into 2019, I had to let go. That is my biggest goal in 2019. Nearly one month into the year, I have let go.

You might be wondering how I have started letting go. Well, I have personally become more vocal. Being the introverted person that I am, in the past, I have tried to avoid conflict as much as possible. Now, I will tell people what I think and how I feel. Some are not receptive to it because I use to not saying anything. I knew that in order for me to grow, this was one aspect that I needed to change. I have had several encounters in recent weeks where I have had to be vocal.

For example, I have a friend. I love him dearly as a person. We have a long history. However, he can be mean. He means well. He has been supportive of a lot over the years. He says a lot of hurtful things to me. I have started telling him how I feel, which changed the dynamic of our friendship a bit. From our conversations, he does not have the most positive view of me. He asserts his opinion on my flaws. When I bring my feelings to his attention, he can be dismissive. Growing as a person has taught me that I have to love people from a distance.

It does not matter who the person is, no one is exempt from my being honest. It made me happier. Am I always right? No. Do I misinterpret conversations? It is possible that I do. I am a person with flaws. I am constantly growing. With growth comes the need to constantly evaluate and make adjustments accordingly. Being more vocal is one of the many improvements I wanted to make. There are others, but I make the adjustments on a daily basis – not just at New Years. The point of this post is to encourage you to all do the same thing. With growth, as you are evolving, it will take you out of your comfort level. Resolutions are good, however, lets be honest – people rarely stick to resolutions as they intend to. Thus, have the resolve to make adjustments and changes as needed to foster your growth. Think about it. Be blessed ~ Rayne Elise.

The most important aspect of life is self-love. No one will ever love you the way you love yourself. This is a lesson that I had to learn the hard way. I grew up with low self-esteem for various reasons. I did not feel I had the love of my mother. I was always different from everyone else. I was always different physically, mentally and socially. As a darker complexioned African-American woman who is short and declared obese, self-love is a journey that personally took me a while to learn.

I did learn self-love. It is unfortunate that it took me so long to do so, but it is something that I promote. I try as much as possible to be an example. The older I become, I realize how much of my one of my nieces has a lot of my personality. I always try to reinforce her notion of self-love in a way I wish someone did for me. However, it is best that a person has this inclination from early childhood. Let me explain a little about my plight. I suffered a lot of verbal abuse. I was heavily tormented throughout my school years. In fact, it took me to reach a high level of self-love in my thirties. My lack of self-love has impacted a lot of bad choices, such as toxic relationships.

I was in a relationship for a number of years. We knew each other since our high school years. We started dating in college. We married in our late 20s on our seventh anniversary. Our union had numerous problems in the time we were together. His self-love was around the same level as mine, which I understand now was unhealthy. By the time I started to improve my self-worth, I realized that I could not deal with a lot of the things I accepted when I was not mentally healthy enough to be in a relationship. As I learned to love myself, I began to address many of the repressed things that bothered me in my relationship. With age and wisdom, I learned that one you improve yourself, some relationships change. The biggest lesson that I learned from that relationship is that my self-image sets the tone for many of the relationships I will have in the future. If I do not love myself, no one else will love me. I do not feel as though he ever loved me. I have come to the realization that it does not matter, as I love me. Loving myself is the main thing that matters.

My journey to this level of self-love has not been easy. I had a tumultuous childhood. I have learned that despite everything, God does not make any mistakes and I am made as He intended. I am not saying that I am perfect by any means. I am flawed and I have a lot of imperfections. I am not everyone’s cup of tea. I am one of the kindest people you will ever meet. I am told this often. I am honest and I know that my good qualities outweigh my bad qualities. I continue to work on myself daily. I have seen a lot of growth, but I know I have a lot more growing to do.

The pain of my relationship especially made me take a long, hard look at myself. The aftermath of healing from my divorce also became a humbling experience because I am still picking up the pieces. I do thank him. Being in that situation made me think about lots of aspects of my life. He has no idea how much he indirectly taught me about life, love, and relationships. It is for the best that things, as unfortunately as they were, happened the way they did. It forced me to love myself enough to walk away from it.

The point of this post was to talk about how important it is to have a high level of self-love. Self-love is essential for survival and inner peace. Self-love dictates the things a person will endure and how they will navigate life. I look at my niece and so many other people who do not display a high level of self-love. We as people need to build up our children. We need to love ourselves enough to foster healthy relationships. We need to be able to teach our children how to love them. Some of the issues that plague us as people would not be prevalent if more people had a higher level of self-love. I have seen many lives destroyed because of people’s lack of self-love. It almost destroyed me. Please understand that I am in no way promoting narcissism. I am saying we as people need to value ourselves enough to live life to the fullest.

If you are someone who is struggling in this realm, I want you to do something for me. I want you to make a list of all of the things you like about yourself. We all have good qualities. We all have talents. We are all deserving of love. I love people. I believe that people are innately good despite all of the problems we have. Even if you cannot think of your good qualities, there is something who thinks you have good qualities. Think of that. Spread positivity. I love you all. Peace, blessings, and love everyone. ~ Rayne Elise.

Hello Everyone, I want to take this time to welcome you to my blog, Discovery Journey. You can call me Rayne Elise. I will try to post weekly blogs. I have so many experiences and stories that I am told my life is the making of a Lifetime movie. I want to talk about various topics. I have lots to talk about. I am a very candid and open person. I have had many experiences in my life. I feel as though we can all stand to learn a thing or two from one another. If you want to email me, my email address is EmailRayneElise@yahoo.com. I hope you enjoy. Have a wonderful day.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton