Well, hello there!
And welcome to another post from yours truly, Mr. Sunshine.
As promised since I took the week off last Monday for vacation, I have plenty of sunshine and tan lines for you this week!
And let me tell you…the tan lines are quite extreme.
I’m currently in the peeling stage, so there is just a bit of itching happening.
Worth. It.
Anyway, I guess we should get down to business.
I mean…you did come here this morning with your reading eyes ready, right?!
Go grab your morning beverage sidekick of choice and cuddle up for some words straight from the soul of the sunshine!
I don’t know about you, but something about being at the beach always gets my mind thinking.
It’s like the atmosphere of sand, water, waves, and sunshine create the perfect storm for the brain to think deeply and have epiphanies.
It happens year after year without fail.
Anyone else have this experience or feeling?
I can’t be the only one in the minority on this.
Also, anyone else experience post-vacation depression? That is also a very real feeling, but a digression on my actual topic for this week.
And with the events of the world around us and all the “noise” happening in all aspects—COVID, gun violence, political strain, differing opinions—it makes the events of beach-time epiphanies even greater…an escape from the shit happening around us.
Anyhoo, stay with me.
Whilst enjoying sand, water, waves, and sunshine this past week, I had the pleasure of reading a book entitled, You Deserve Better by Tyler Cameron.
I didn’t know anything about Tyler’s background and happened to stumble across his Instagram and immediately felt a good energy about him.
Don’t you just love it when people you meet (or don’t meet if it is just a social media relationship), give off a beautiful energy that just makes you smile and while also making everything just instantly feel better?!
Anyway, Tyler Cameron was a contestant on The Bacherlorette during season 15 and fell in love with Hannah. Ultimately, in short, he was not picked in the end and ended up being broken up with on National TV for all to see. In his book, he discusses a lot about the experience and what he learned about himself, relationships, and communication.
Google him. He is an interesting, beautiful human that deserves all the love the world has to offer.
Anyhoo, I digress.
There were several elements and themes I took away from his book that really resonated with me during this week at the beach.
And I share them with you this week.
Read on!
1. Through love, serve one another.
-This one is literally like a Mr. Sunshine mantra, so if you have not realized yet, I love to help others and serve in love. It is what I was created for on this Earth. It is what gives me the most joy. You will always find a smile on my face if I’m helping others and sharing kindness in some way, shape, or form. Period. Tyler writes, “Whenever I’m feeling down or having trouble connecting to my purpose, I find that looking outside myself is often the answer. When you get up in your own mind, you can spiral. You can easily lose touch with reality and what’s really important. But when you do something to help someone else, it lifts your spirit like nothing else.” Go try it.
2. Keep friends around who want to see you grow.
-Are the friends in your circle motivating you? Are they encouraging you to follow your dreams? Do they support you in anything you undertake? Do they hold you accountable? Do they make everything all about them? Are you friends people who take, take, take and never give back? Just like plants need elements to keep going and growing, so do we as humans. In addition, we need to weed out those in our life that kill our vibe, don’t jive with our morals, and politely let them go. Weeds kill the plants they engulf as do the weeds that we keep around in our circle of friends. There is a quote that I happened to come across while writing these words for you that says, “At some point, you have to realize that some people belong in your heart, but not in your life.”
3. Be with people who give off great energy which ends up making you feel great.
-Tyler talks in the book about how organizations have a Board of Directors and that we should always our very own “Board of Directors” with our friends. We want to surround ourselves with people who make us better. Tyler writes, “Your people are what make you.” Have you looked at those in your life recently? Are they positive people who bring light and energy to your daily or life or whenever you have the opportunity to see/hang out with that individual? Friendships can make or break us. As Tyler says, “They either inspire you to greatness or pull you down in the gutter. Iron sharpens iron–you can do so much when you have good people around you.” Do you have those good people around you?
4. Embrace the tough skin rejection gives you.
-This is a hard one for me because I do not like rejection. In fact, I would be so bold to say that I have a fear of it. But Tyler gives it a new, fresh perspective. He experienced his greatest rejection on national TV and because of that, he has grown thicker skin and have been given even greater opportunities through this rejection. For me, the scars that come from rejection are something that I’ve grown up constantly feeling. And now, as a 34 year-old, it is hard for me to shift the mindset from the fact that rejection is not a bad entity. Rejection for a job promotion might lead to an opportunity that is even bigger and better. Rejection in the dating world just might mean that the person for you (if it is meant to be), might still be out there. We need to rejuvenate and reconstruct our brains with how we view the definition of rejection and spinning it into something positive.
Well, folks. That is all I have for you this week.
Which means that I hope your morning beverage sidekick was able to last through all the words.
I highly encourage you to check out Tyler Cameron’s You Deserve Better because it is a read that gets two thumbs up from Mr. Sunshine.
And I highly encourage you to use aloe if you ever get sunburn.
And finally, I highly encourage you to come back next week for another new post.
Sprinkle sunshine always,
JP!
Mr. Sunshine Smiles 