Discovering Yourself Again- Convo w. Jonida

In this next episode, my guest, Jonida, and I talk about many things, but it starts with self-exploration and how being in a new environment can help you connect with people who show you a new side of yourself—but only if we let ourselves connect. If we are too busy with electronics, playing it safe, or other distractions, we may miss those people who can show us a new perspective or strength we did not realize we had—and we may never get to see how we can grow if we do not test ourselves in new areas or meet new people.

Transcripts coming soon!

That's it for this cup. Until next time— keep connecting!  You can follow the podcast @shareacupwithme and Share a Cup with Me on Facebook!  

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Hello everyone, welcome to Share Cup with Me. Um, again, I'm Annie, and my guest is Yonita. Um, so I don't know what we're talking about because she hasn't not told me yet. Um, but before we start, um I normally start off this podcast with kind of asking the question of like if you could currently have a drink, as this is a no-drink area in this recording studio. But if you could have a drink, what would you be drinking and why?

SPEAKER_00 0:41

I don't know the reason why, because I am not an alcoholic person, like I don't drink a lot of alcoholic drinks, but I would love uh white uh wine with some Italian food. So but the reason? I don't know the reason.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

I mean there's I just enjoy it. There's a have to be, there could be the reason. Um so what were you wanting to talk about today?

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Uh I think um I've been like for six months in America now, and um when I came here I came not in a good phase of my life, and um I just want to talk like um how we know a different version of yourself when you live in another in another place.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Yes. So self-exploration through exploration of the world or of environments is technically what you're talking about, correct? Correct, yeah. So where initially are you from? Since you said you're you had to go in super a lot of detail, just like a little bit detail.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

I'm just gonna make a short presentation of myself. I'm from Albania, it's not like a big state, but it's very beautiful state. You should all visit. I'm saying that to everybody. Um, I came here as a visitor scholar working with the Career Development Center in the UCO because in my back home in the Faculty of Economy I do the same job as career consulting. Um, this is a program where I just won it, and uh I wanted to go in a university. This is a recommendation uh to come here and to learn more. And uh far away has been a great experience.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Um but we miss you tea. Um self-expression is a huge area, so like this is an area that like I have always loved. Um how do you feel about express self-expiration?

SPEAKER_00 3:08

I can say that um I'm learn I'm learning some things of myself more, or I'm changing some things of myself for good. Um, and I think it came from here, from all the offices, from all of you that I work and I've known, also from my roommates, of also from the city that I live here in Edmond. Like a lot of things, also from the students, because I have known some students here, and um every time I meet a person in even in the shopping center or in um grocery store, uh they're very friendly. It's not like very different from my from my from my place from Albania, but here people are very very friendly. And uh as I told you before, I was not in a good phase of my life back then. Uh, and one thing that I've learned here is that you should never change yourself or your habits, uh, even if you're life-crossed with the bad people, and I'm gonna live just with bad people. I don't wanna expand that.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

No, I get it, I understand. Yeah, that I feel like everyone in general can say that they've accidentally or purposely have shifted themselves to fit or to survive a certain thing. And it's not bad or good, it's just like sometimes that's the only way we can think we can survive something, which is a really sad thing to say.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Um like you're in in your life, you're gonna have a lot of uh situation for good and for bad, and you are going to meet a lot of people that maybe change your way of thinking. Um but uh one thing that I learned here is that I'm not very like uh alone person. I do love um experiencing another cities, uh like visiting a lot of museums, even by alone here. Uh I think it's been a great experience. I have never traveled alone. Never. Like I always been with my best friend. Um but here experiencing traveling alone, going, like being more socialized with people. Um also I need sometimes alone when I go back home. Um so yeah, it's been like a great experience about that, like having two sides, being socialized with a lot of people, but also being alone with myself, like rethinking some uh things that is happening here that has happened, uh some kind of situation, and um but the most thing that I've learned is that I will never let my heart like uh change for certain situations for certain people, so I'm just gonna be me.

SPEAKER_02 7:01

That's all you can say. Um, no, I agree with that, and I think you hit on something really powerful. It's like you need both. You need to socialize with people, you need to learn differences, you need to learn similarities, you just need to like experience people in life, but you also need a time, like everyone should have a time where they have to sit with themselves and really examine of like what did that mean for me? Why did that affect me that way? If something like really like upset you or brought you joy, because like we love to say that like examine yourself, but we are always talking about like improving yourself, or like not being not churn turning or staying a worse person or making sure you become a better person, but sometimes you just need to sit with like oh my goodness, I had such a great time. Let me reminisce on that by myself so I can like remember it. Like, we don't ever really at least in the US we don't really talk about that a lot. We don't I'm not gonna speak for the world here. Um I really shouldn't even be talking for the US, but we don't always get a lot of opportunities to like be proud of being to explore ourselves because it's always go out and do this, go ahead and do that, and that's such a really sad thing.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Like, I feel like yeah, I think we need both sides. Also, where before I came here, um I have my my people that uh they told me that when you go to America you are going to know another side of yourself, like uh even with people, it's not very different from people here to Albania because we also are very friendly with uh with everybody. Uh but here the experience showed me that people here are very friendly, like even in the roads, you smile all the time, and uh it's been a great experience because, like, if you walk in the roads and someone sees you like a bag or shoes, they can stop you and they can say you like um hi, you have a nice bag, you have a nice shoes, which I think is very beautiful. In Albania, we don't do that because if we do that, we are called crazy, so we don't do that. So it's been like this is the part of being socialized, even with the people that you meet on the road, you can have a short conversation, but also staying in the silence with yourself, even for the bad or for the good situation, is very important. Um, because you can record everything that is happening and you can uh create some things like uh maybe what you should tolerate in your life and you shouldn't. So now I am in this part of being more silent, kind of experiencing myself what it's my step ahead after finish this experience in America, and um as a person I was not as quiet as I am here. Like I am like kind of rebel, as my mom says to me, because uh not that I have an opinion for everything, but if I see that something is not going well, or if I see that someone is being bad with another person, I always have my opinion about that. So, but here I'm learning kind of things that even like you need to be silent, uh silent sometimes, like you need to kind of see the situation, then you need to speak because you should keep your peace with yourself. If that situation is not going to change, sometimes it's good to to keep your mouth shut.

SPEAKER_02 11:51

That kind of reminds me of something my mom would say. Um she has a philosophy that if you disagree with someone, that doesn't mean you owe them your energy and time to speak out about it. And I'm not saying you should stay silent about everything, I'm saying because if that person is going to assume that you don't understand the situation, that you agree with them, that so forth and so on, then that normally means that like they've already made up their mind about where people stand in the world and where situations stand in the world, and so I agree, like sometimes you have to like stay silent for a little bit to figure out yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

In this situation, you need to stay silent, you don't let your energy flows in in that, but in other situations when you see that something is wrong, yeah, you should talk with quiet, not being angry.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Yes, you should yes, that's something I've had to learn the hard way is part of the reason you should stay silent in the beginning of any situation is to make sure that you're coming from it at the right direction with the right energy and the right tone. If it the energy requires you to stay silent or the environment says like needs to stay silent, then like maybe it's not like an appropriate event to bring conflict into, maybe it's not your event, uh then sometimes you need to stay silent because it's not your battle to fight. Maybe you've had a discussion kind of touching on something that Devin said in our my previous episode. She says, like, she wants everyone that is in her circle to know that, like, whether they're in the room or not, she's gonna have their side. But that also means respecting times when they've said, I don't want you to speak up about the situation, because every time someone does it, it just makes it worse. And if they've already told you that, then you should respect what they want because that's what you said you would do, which means your silence is what they're asking for. Doesn't mean it's gonna be comfortable for you, but this is life, this is life, yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

Yeah, but um I think it's good for me. It was very hard, in fact. It was a like I think it was a hard decision to come here because for real it's a big state, and uh we have this called American dream, and we think that here things are very easy for everyone, uh, for every people, but as I'm living here for uh five months, I've seen that people here struggle a lot in many things, like even with a mental health, even like being socialized, because for example, you have a far away your best friend. In Albania, I have my best friend like 10 minutes away, and if something bad happens to me, I can just like call and we are going to be together. Even with the families, we have very we don't have like very large distance, and I think this is very good because we are very family mentality, we are very connected with our family, even with the parents, even with our siblings, or or even with our friends. So here I don't have like a lot of friends, but I I see also here that people don't have a lot of time for themselves. Yes, yes, and this is like not the bad part, but this is another side of living in America, and we call this as the fast life, so I'm more like at this slower life, like going to work, enjoy a little of yourself, drinking a coffee and everything, but also I'm loving this kind of life because I do love being alone, not like every day, but I do love being alone and on myself, working on my things, but uh also love being socialized with uh with that. I had a conversation with my roommates um like one week ago, and we were speaking about the relationships and everything. She was not in a good phase of her life, uh, she has been working here for three months, and um one thing that we end the conversation uh is like you should never let the action of the other people impact you, like uh the people, the situation, it should never impact in your life. It's gonna like let it flow. Also, I say even for myself, I say that you need to experience everything. If you feel the need to cry, you can cry. If you need the feel to feel happy, feel it happy. Don't let like yourself connecting and collecting all these feelings, and one day you just explode. Yeah, like you should let everything, every emotion flow away. Um, like it's not bad if you cry, it's normal.

SPEAKER_02 18:13

Yeah, I had a previous boss, um, actually two before the one that you've met, that something that she said has always stuck with me, which is your emotions are only your body signaling to you that something has happened, and until you address what has happened that caused that emotion to arise, your body will keep signaling you that emotion, and it's not always that easy to actually figure out because it's not like you can trace it back to because some of our decisions are subconscious and some of them are conscious, and we don't always know which one has impacted us and which one hasn't, and that's kind of where we kind of need to go back into like you need to spend some time alone to kind of figure out like I was really anxious around this person. Why was I anxious around this person? And until you kind of figure out, like, oh, they reminded me of this situation or of this person, which caused this huge issue and caused this anxiety, then like we'll keep getting those signals, and yes, I agree. The US is very bad at selling. I mean, they're very good at selling the American dream, but the American dream, even to the US citizens, is not actually a realistic concept of like what life would be like now. Yeah. I think the American Dream was born back in the 1950s, 1940s. And so it's very outdated. It was kind of outdated when it was born, but it was more outdated now.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Yeah, I totally agree with you with that, but I learned that here because uh I'm very quiet as a person, even with my emotion. Like I never cry in the front of people because I need to show myself that I'm a strong girl. You are a girl, yeah, it's an obeying mentality that you should never like experience bad things in the front of the people. So even if I'm sad or even if I'm uh passing a bad experience, I never show that to my parents, to my brothers. Uh my best friend, yes, she knows everything because she's stuck with me in this life. Um but is this mentality that we should be like strong people? I'm not saying strong girls, but strong people, with I think that sometimes it's not very good because when you go in home alone, you see yourself is in the most honorable moment. So sometimes you need uh things to let it go and flows in the way they need to be. Sorry if it was important. I'm not gonna sing the song now.

SPEAKER_02 21:38

No, we can't because I'm gonna work. I cannot work up here. But I'm ready. I know, but we can't. Um no, I agree with you. Uh there's uh what was gonna say I feel like there's pros pros and cons to like Really everything. It's never this thing is bad, this thing is good. It's always so more complex than that. That I'm gonna bring on my mom into this again. Because I don't remember what exactly happened to get I got where I ended up getting this piece of advice when I was growing up. I think it was like, I don't know, high school girl drama. Um but she told me every story has at least two sides, if not more. And I feel like every situation and every group and every culture and every country has more than two sides and more than one pros and cons. And it really depends on what each person in each society needs. And we also then need to figure out the bigger stuff, which is how do we keep everyone actually safe and actually secure and like allow them because you can't really explore yourself and explore what you mean to the world when you're in a constant state of survival, it's not psychologically possible. You're too busy surviving to get past to the exploration side of loving.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

I totally agree with that. Uh, but as I said, everything's like pass away, even if you think that you are in a bad moment, everything is gonna pass. Like, I'm not gonna say that it's gonna pass for two minutes, for one week, for one month. But you need to experience all of that because in every bad situation or good situation, you always take a lesson with you. I agree. Um in what in any moment that happened. I've taken a lot of lessons in in my life, and uh in some kind of moment I was like, why I need this thing, or what this thing happened to me. But now I know some of the answers, why that happened to me, and what I learned from that, or what I need to change in some of my personal things, what I should tolerate in some kind of situation, yeah, and what I should not. Um, so yeah, you you need to learn a lot of things, so even if a bad situation happens, something good is gonna happen all the way. Because, for example, I never knew that I was coming here in in America. So I'm experiencing that now, but I never think if you should ask me like if you would ask me one year before, I will never say that I'm going to America. I would say, like, no, I'm not going in that phase of my life. Yeah. But it happens.

SPEAKER_02 25:27

So, yeah, hindsight's a blessing and a curse sometimes because you look back at bad relationships, bad jobs, bad people, bad people, and you're like, why did I not see red flags?

SPEAKER_01 25:43

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 25:43

And the thing is, we don't actually ever truly see them until we're out of it. And even if someone had pointed out red flags to you or to me in any of those situations, we can't see them because part of the times we don't want to see them, and part of the times that person's only showing, or the situation's not truly showing itself until we get out of it and we're like, oh wow. Um, I was about to say something like cuss word, and I was like, I don't know who's listening to this. Um I guess say in Albania. You can say anything about it in Albania if you want to. I am not I don't know who listens to who will listen to Albania. Um but totally got distracted.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

I know I don't remember what I was saying. About the red flags that sometimes we oh that's right.

SPEAKER_02 26:41

Okay, now I've thank you. You got me back on track. I tell my students a lot, so I'm also a career counselor, that's why she's working with her office, um, our office. I just gave you our entire office. But I tell my students because the reason why our students come to the career office is a lot of times they're getting rejections from employers or from schools, and I I never try to soften the truth for them. I try to give them the entire truth, or at least everything that I know, and then I'd be like, okay, what decision do you want to make? And sometimes we get we're put in situations or in environments or cross paths with people because we need either you either need to learn something, or they need to learn something, or less time, we both need to learn something, and sometimes it's an empowering lesson of like you're much stronger than you know, of like, for example, you came to a country by yourself that you did not expect it that you didn't expect it. You also probably didn't figure out like what we were like, they could we we could have been barbarians, I'm sure there are some barbarians in Oklahoma and in the US and around the world, but and then sometimes I've had rejections myself where I was so sure I was gonna get something or I was gonna go somewhere or I was making the right choice, and then it's only in hindsight that I'm like, if I had left and then this situation happened, or I was away from like family or friends when that situation happened, I would have been much much worse off than I was. So sometimes situations are there to protect you from new situations, or so you're strong enough to handle the next situation.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

It happens with my students also that when they get a lot of rejection, or when they are trying to send a lot of um CVs out there to the companies, or when they do an interview and they can ask them some kind of question that sometimes they don't know how to answer. But also when I was a student, I applied a lot of works, and I never started in my profession. I started as social media manager, uh, which was not my profession. So I've been working there for in a gym, working there for two years, and I think that from that work I learned a lot of things like communication skills, like being socialized with a lot of clients, like not being rude, like welcoming them. So, in every kind of things, you learn a lot of things, even the position that you are or that you are gonna be in your life. But coming back to the red flags, that thing stays on my mind every day, like you should like maybe you know a lot of persons, like they have been for a lot of time in your life, and when the things come to an end, like um and you say because I think that when uh any kind of relationship ends, the person is that person in the end is not the person that has been in the whole relationship. Very true. Like I think that that person is like in the end that he has shown to you, and that is like I don't want to go back to that, but um I think that some people are great actors all the way, that's why, but the things still stay on my mind, like I was not good knowing them. Like one situation happens, okay, he showed one part of himself, and I tolerated that. So collecting red flags all the way.

SPEAKER_02 31:32

So you have a bouquet of red flax, a bouquet from blacks. I like that. I think I saw that from someone else.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

Someone else said I learned it the hard way, the red flags.

SPEAKER_02 31:44

I think most people do learn that the hard way, and that's why the lessons stick so much, and why you can't let go of like what you did or what you didn't do in a relationship, or in just a situation, it doesn't even have to be a person, yeah, it can just be. I've stayed in jobs where for like a year and a half I worked at a bakery where he was fully sexist, and I was just young, and now I was just like, Oh, this is just the way the world is, or I need this job, and and a lot of times that is what the case is. It's like when you're in a situation or relationship, it's hard to see the red flags, and it's hard to hear the red flags because now that you have the information, you're like, Well, now what do I do with it? Like, am I able to leave this job or this relationship? What happens if I do? Can I handle that? Am I strong enough to handle that? Because that's the part of and bringing it back around to what you want to talk about, is um until we kind of explore ourselves, we actually don't know what we're capable of capable of. And so it's you have to be pushed into situations or held like accidentally or purposely held in situations, so you know what not to tolerate, or oh, this is definitely a red flag that I will never forgive because I never want to feel that again in whatever situation a relationship, and you don't know those until you actually live it, and then you ruminate on it, and then sometimes you need both the isolation and the socialization, the socialization. See, English is hard for even English speakers, um, because you need to reflect on it, but you also need people that also know you from outside and inside the relationship to be like, yes, you did ignore quite a few red flags, but they hid them really well. Or you're like, yeah, you might have been a little bit foolish, but you're not like stupid. Like the people that will actually be good for you in life, give you both sides of it because we're no one's perfect. I've made mistakes in relationships, I've accidentally burned bridges or purposely burned bridges, and so has other people. Like, we're both protagonists and villains in everyone's story, but we still need to understand where we are and accept that, like, sometimes protecting yourself makes you a villain in someone else's story, not because you're a bad person or they're a bad person, it's just you guys are kind like we're coming from in a different direction and they're clashing, and sometimes there's just no resolution, that's a clean break.

SPEAKER_00 35:03

Yeah, I agree with that. Um I'm without words, but I can say that um I think it's no age when you are growing in your life, like growing with yourself in some kind of situation. So sometimes you need more being alone to learn more about yourself, how you need to go out in the world, but also you need being socialized with your I don't know, with who you feel comfortable, like with your parents, with your friends, because I think I am a person that I need opinions from others if for my kind of situation, like even if something happens to me, I have my opinion, but also I need to ask some other people to some other people that if they think the same as me, yeah. Because I I I overthink things a lot. I don't know if this is a good or bad thing, but uh even when I speak with someone, even if I don't like someone and I need to have a conversation with that person, I always overthink the things that I need to say because I don't want to make the people feel bad for my words. That's why I sit with myself in silence thinking what I'm gonna say to not make the bad, like to make to not make the person feel bad about that. Sometimes I think I don't need that to overthink, but let the things happen because uh I think that I protect the silence of the other person, but in me I can have a battle inside myself.

SPEAKER_02 37:04

So you protect the silence in your in others, but not in yourself, not in myself.

SPEAKER_00 37:10

So this thing I need to to change, I think over the time because I can't. But this is me. That's why, but I always seek opinions to to my to my mom, to my friend, to my brothers.

SPEAKER_02 37:32

So no, I agree. I am also very similar. I will ruminate on a situation for quite a while. Um I think I was talking about the last situation that happened to me for like two or three or four months. Um but first I like I will like withdraw from the world and I will like sit with it. Um probably not great. I think I sat with like that situation for like a week of like did am I remembering it correctly? Am I over exaggerating? Was she correct on when she said that? What did they actually mean when they said that? Um, or was I just reading into it because I I was already uncomfortable, or did I not like it? It was really funny because I called my best friend afterwards, I think after a week or so of not talking to anyone about it, or at least a day or two, and she's like, So how was it? And I've spent like an hour just complaining about the behavior that I saw from that person. And she and I was like, Annie, I was like, am I over like, girl, am I over like am I over exaggerating? Am I being unfair? And she goes, Well, I don't know about that, but I know like if it didn't resonate with you as much as it did, we would spend how much fun you had on the beach. Because I was at Florida, I went to Florida at that time, instead of talking about like these behaviors that you saw, and so that kind of hit me of like so something resonated enough with me that like I my subconscious and conscious couldn't let it go, and like that's why self-exploration is important because we both need to know where our triggers are and where other people's triggers are, but be aware that like because of past experiences we will see ghosts where there are no ghosts, but we're all we will also see situations sometimes in a better light because of like because of past situations. I can read tones really well because tones is what saves me from like a worse situation happening, and so I can really understand. Um I understand people's tone a little bit more than I did when I was younger, and again that that comes with pros and cons.

SPEAKER_00 40:27

Yeah, that's why I think that sometimes you need to be more socialized when you're having a hard time, like even with a friend, like speaking, or I don't know, any kind of person that you feel comfortable. Uh, because I think that nowadays people are not being very socialized, they're being more in their phones, like not doing things for themselves, like going for a walk or drinking a coffee with friends. This is happening also in Romania too. We are so much connected to the phone, which I think that this is um not like a good thing. Also, I use my phone a lot because I need to work with that because I work also my second job, but um I think that also the phone is having effect in that because we are seeing that the younger people even us because we are young people, I'm very young. I'm 21, but I feel 21, so or 22, like telling 29 if they really care about our ages, or maybe they do, and I just don't care.

SPEAKER_02 41:59

Um no, I agree completely. I ironically on my phone I was watching uh something I think on Facebook where it was an interview for another podcast, and they were talking about how the phone is one of the reasons why we're losing connection with each other as people and the feelings and everything. I don't know if you noticed, but I took my phone off the table at the beginning of this podcast and put in my pocket, and the reason why I did that was because of this conversation that I listened to where they said that if you're having lunch with someone and their phone, and now I'll put my phone back on the table, is on the table, like maybe they're actually looking at it, or it's just out there and it's face up or it's face down. Do you feel like you can connect with me right now? He literally did this in the interview, and the guy's like, Well, no, because like it's still present, like, yes, and so like he would he encouraged the people listening during that podcast, and I will put the podcaster's name in my resource page so you guys can all find him.

SPEAKER_00 43:17

Um but yeah, I think the same as you like the phone is I think that because of the phone or because of the social media, especially, we are losing connection and feelings. Like sometimes we do a lot of things like just by a text message, we don't have like a conversation, real conversation, even with our people, yeah. So I think this is bad because I'm more like um like meeting person, like I don't want to use like a lot of phone, also I'm like not taking a lot of picture I don't like taking a lot of picture like of myself but when I go visit or travel I do love about the the place the buildings and everything because I'm trying I want to listen to that podcast but also I'm trying to stay away a little away from my phone also from my laptop because I need to do my research but even sometimes I find myself like being in the phone for three hours just scrolling and I don't know that it was passing three hours.

SPEAKER_02 44:36

Yeah like instead I could like read a book or go for a walk or cooking or finding another hobby for myself not being stuck in a in a phone or in a laptop or in the television so I think this is going to be a lot of problems for example my sister-in-law she's doing a great job with my nieces uh she's like trying to keep them away from the phones or from the tablet so she plays with them she goes to the park just for them not being around the phone or the tablet but my nieces sometimes being like feeling not good because their friends are using the phones and they are showing like did you see this video and she's like no she goes back home and she's like Auntie I didn't see this video my mom doesn't let my phone using so you need to explain her like you will have a lot of time like taking the phone staying in the phone but now that you are being a kid you need to feel the connection with parents with friends with sister with grandmother like she used the phone because she speaks with me because she's living in UK I live in Albania and she speaks with me by the phone and um I I like how my sister-in-law is learning the the nieces that's why I'm trying to stay away a little away from my phone but sometimes I can because I need to work this is the excuse well I think it's all about balance um because it's not always possible to not ever use technology or phones or computers um because I like to kind of like write for myself and so I'll use AI to like create scenes that I can read later. Or like when I'm like away from friends or when eventually I move when I decide to move locations I'll be a farther away from my family and even now like even though I'm decently close I don't always have time to like go see them or they're I'll yes at auctions for their business which you have seen and we still like it's so easier to connect with people from long distance because of technology but we're it's like we're using it counterintuitively where we now have the access to like you could go back to Albania and I could be like recalling at this time because I know that I'm awake and you're awake and we're talking and you can be like girl yes or however you decide to affirm that if you decide to affirm that but that wouldn't be possible 50 years ago we would have to write letters we would have to and like international letters take so much longer than like in your country letters and so it would be like months before we would receive our letter but now it can be a daily to like hourly thing delay for everyone or delete for yourself but we're not using it for like the right reasons a lot of times I feel like and I'm just as guilty as that as everyone because I also can do scroll for my entire afternoon. Yes but I do listen motivation videos like I do a great thing like learning and improving myself but still staying on the phone is not a good thing that I think I need to change but working every day like you need to be on the computer on the phone like because now is the part of the job but I do love the letters I do love like going back to the letters and I mean that you want me to write you letters when you go back to Albania yes okay or maybe you can email it like look at like the letter like the opposite of mothers that's like a step up for mothers or we can create a website when people can send letters to around the world that's email you're describing blanks and email technology I know one place in Paris I've never been in Paris but I was looking to one video to that three hours staying on the phone uh it was one coffee shop um where you write a letter to yourself and they can send you back by post uh after one year five years or ten years you choose it that's a counseling trick yeah and you you express that what are you expecting for yourself or how are you feeling in the moment like a letter from yourself and now I'm very curious to go there to write that letter I think I'm gonna choose the one year because I can wait as a Gemini I can wait five years I can the Virgo with me is like girl that's not actually as one as you think it is I'm Virgarizing so I have both Gemini and Virgo but um this is a great way and sometimes I think that we should write the letter to ourselves in some kind of situation and put in a box and we can reopen at any time so that for example when I was in high school I'm very romantic person really yes I'm very romantic I don't like that about myself yeah but it didn't end good any I have my no I know we talked about it but that doesn't again your situation doesn't make like what put you in that situation a bad person it just means like but I inherited it so um when I was in high school I had their bet one best friend we are not best friends anymore but we had a good idea of writing letters to ourselves like uh when we was in the first year second and in the third year of high school and we writing that in January and we already did that in December and during this period we reread it and we can make some bullet points of what how everything changes how that feeling in that moment how it feels now and I think that these kind of things help you a lot even in some kind of situation that may happen to you like in that moment maybe it's very hard for you but after one year it's not gonna be hard that's why you need to you don't need to be hard in yourself during this period so this is a great way so we need to go to that coffee shop to write that letter you know we don't have to go to that coffee shop we need to go I mean we can definitely go to that coffee shop eventually need to go to Albania first then to Paris like I said earlier money I need money to pay for it which it's gonna take a while um and for those listening what I'm about to tell you Nia can also apply to you is you can technically write yourself a letter right now and then either mail it to yourself or like give it to like someone here and then we can mail it to you in a year or five days. Yeah maybe I can do that I'll have to set an alarm for five years if you give it to me because I will forget which is another like what I'm gonna send you a reminder and you please send me the letter back. I went that also might be a good way of like because it can be like a letter of encouragement and that you can just be like girl I need the letter and we can send you the letter or someone can send you a letter there's ways around of like going to a coffee shop and totally and I'm sure there's areas in like multiple different countries and areas that like you can do that. Um but that is definitely a concentric of like what would you tell yourself five years ago or if you could write a letter to yourself and your future self what would you tell yourself or uh what would you tell your childhood self that you wish you had heard and it's it's also a very therapeutic thing because you're giving advice that you wish you had heard and you're accepting that the fact of like yeah maybe I messed up or maybe I could have done better in this area but I'm so proud of where I've where I how I've gotten here. It might not have been the cleanest road I might have had to go to an entirely different country to like figure this out but I'm here and that's all that matters yeah don't feel everybody with you for that do you feel like there's anything else that you want to talk about or you feel like when you start this conversation you want to mention I just need to say to the people that are listening that don't change your heart for anyone just be yourself and uh know how to not tolerate some things that you don't like.

SPEAKER_00 55:15

If you don't like it it's not gonna like it anytime.

SPEAKER_02 55:20

So fair point I agree with that statement. Uh to wrap up if you can have a glass of wine with anyone past present fiction real who would it be and why um in this kind of moment I can say uh my past because I need to like your past self yes myself yeah yeah myself I was like what do you mean by past no myself um so I can speak to her and saying like a lot of things how the things change for good and uh I think that but I don't know the reason why I will choose the best I think because I'm in this kind of moment to show her how proud she needs to be for herself that she's living a dream that maybe a lot of people have to live in America to experience these things and to do um something in her profession like research experiencing this big campus this university like education system and everything uh so I will choose I will choose the best to show her how proud I am for her and how things are going and is going to change that's very beautiful um yeah thank you um and thank you listeners for listening please like follow share um I want to get as many voices and connections out there in the world so people can understand how we can connect so that is my goal yeah and maybe the second interview of the podcast maybe is gonna be in Albania we will see we will see because we have a lot of people that maybe not that maybe but they they wanna talk to to this podcast I have a lot of people students colleagues we'll see how that happens because I so I think it's gonna happen so I manifest everybody can make that happen but again thanks for listening stay kind stay compassionate I know like right now in the world it's really hard but like Anita said please stay kind and compassionate and keep your heart warm um because the best things normally come to you when you're not realizing it but again thanks for listening and I will you'll hear from us next month or at least me.