problems

WhatsApp killed the relationship
WhatsApp killed the relationship 1200 899 Galia Brener

It was a long drive back home, and thankfully I was well equipped with a good book to read, two new flavors of chips I have never tried before, and some cold Coke Zero. Everything a girl needs for a comfortable ride on the train, form one end of the country to the other. Across from me was sitting a young lady with long dark hair and big blue eyes. I noticed that she was typing something intensely into her mobile phone. I could almost see the smoke of anger coming out of her ears! She continued to abuse the poor phone, pressing her sharp long nails on the screen, creating an awful unbearable sound, like nails scratching a blackboard. Suddenly, the girl aggressively threw her phone onto the carpeted floor of the train, and let out a frustrated, angry sigh. She had tears in her eyes.

I asked if everything was fine with her, and she told me that she broke up with her long-term boyfriend… on her mobile phone! To ease the tension, I jokingly said that it must have been a hell of an SMS she just sent, and that she probably used up all her messages with that long text. She looked at me, like I was from a planet where dinosaurs still existed. She answered, “SMS? Do people still use those? I broke up with him on WhatsApp of course!” The answer to a love that lasted for 3 years: a break up on Whats-Bloody-App! The poor bastard did not even deserve a good old-fashioned SMS. He was not worth the price of it. WhatsApp is for free. What the hell happened to our world?

The further technology develops, the worse personal communication becomes. People can sit and type for hours on WhatsApp, instead of hearing each other’s voice, or meeting for a drink. Digital communication literally kills our relationships. A nice chat with your partner can turn into a disaster. One wrong letter, one wrong word, one wrong emoji smiley, and all of a sudden you are having a dreadful argument. The awful thing about digital communication is that it lacks the one and most important thing… emotions! Facebook is not much better. What if your man “liked” or wrote a “too-friendly” comment on a photo of a girl that you don’t know? Or even better, his ex-girlfriend contacted him. Or perhaps you find out the guy you are dating is flirting with ten other women on Facebook? Or perhaps even seeing them all? When our beloved Internet arrived, it brought with it many opportunities, but also many complications. The Internet turned us into a multiple-choice society. You can have A, B, C, D… or all of them online. It’s so easy to flirt left and right online with hundreds of men/women at the same time. In my opinion, this killed the purity of dating and love. Instead of searching for “The One and Only,” now online it’s all about dating and sleeping with “more and more”… or sadly even “ALL.”

My friend Gloria once destroyed a new relationship due to WhatsApp, because she did not know how the program functions. She met a guy at a party in Sachsenhausen. He was a rocker with a dirty attitude. Just a nasty man who believed that he must sleep with all of the women in Frankfurt before he died. Actually she luckily saved herself by killing this relationship, but that’s a whole other story. For now we shall only look at the mechanics of how technology killed this fake love. Gloria is a WhatsApp junkie. It’s the oxygen she breathes and the digital food she eats to stay alive. After meeting this creep, she started her usual “WhatsApp Romance” with him. They would communicate only online. I asked her why she doesn’t call him, and she said that if he wants to reach her, “he” should call. After they met a few times, Claudia fell for this idiot. She always complained that it took him too long to answer. She saw that he is online and typing something, but no text appeared on her screen. This happened a few times, so she accused him of being online and writing to “someone” else. He said that he was writing to her the entire time, but didn’t send the messages because he wanted to write something nice, so he kept rewriting his messages. I told Claudia that it is true. If she saw beside his name “typing”, then he was actually writing to her. She can’t see if he writes to someone else. She was devastated, shocked and angry with herself. She tried to save the new relationships, but it was too late. He accused her of being crazy and controlling… and all because of digital communication.

Thankfully there is a solution to this depersonalization and mass confusion. Instead of sending your loved one a text message, pick up the phone and call. You get to hear their voice, feel the emotions in their laughter, and share a few minutes of your day with them. If you have something important to say, try to do it with a call, or even better by talking to the person face-to-face. This will increase personal courage and strength of character. I have a new rule for myself (I am also guilty of using WhatsApp & Co.): if I feel that I have more courage to write to someone – which is the “easy” way out – then I wait to meet with them and say what’s on my heart in person. Sometimes It’s easier to say certain things or make confrontations electronically, instead of face-to-face. This takes courage away from people, and reduces empathy. Another thing that I would recommend, which I had to learn the hard way, is please do not have discussions with your partner via written words like sms, emails, Facebook, WhatsApp, etc. This will only make things worse because no emotions can be read. Meet them personally and work things out. Do not send angry messages on your phone. You will only hurt yourself in the process. Technology kills love. Of course we are busy, and do not always have time. In such cases texting helps, but nonetheless, let’s try to keep a more personal contact to the people that are important to us. I am also guilty of this sometimes, and will start now. It’s possible to save our relationships by being more personal. Let’s not hide behind our technology and have the audacity to face the people we care about. After all, a real kiss can only happen when you look your lover directly in the eye… and not via FaceTime.

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Photo by Uwe M carl of the Carl & Friends Agency
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Your Inner Child
Your Inner Child 800 1200 Galia Brener

I remember when I was a teenager in Toronto, my girlfriends and I had our first fake IDs made to get into clubs and parties. We couldn’t wait until our 18th birthday, and tried everything to look older. Make-up, higher heels, and sophisticated clothing. Now we are double that age, and try to do everything to look younger. Funny thing that we use the same tricks to try and turn back the aging-clock: Make-up, higher heels, and sophisticated clothing. Why did we not realize how amazing it was to be young and enjoy our childhood? Why did we always want to be older?

Society expects us to be responsible. Grow up fast, get an education, find a partner, have children, take care of them, get old, retire and die. So when do we actually have the chance to live out our dreams, and have fun? As a child you are not aware of the freedom that you have. You simply grow and become an adult. Well my dear adults, now that you are finally “there”, it’s time to reverse the process, start believing in Fairytales again, and awaken your inner child. Yes, s/he is still in there, but most likely has been sleeping for the last decades. Let’s wake it up, and see what new adventures the world has to offer us!

A common problem is that people are scared to be judged by society. What will people say if they see me like this? This reminds me of a date that I had a few years ago. I met a guy at an event in Frankfurt. Let’s call him “Mr. Cool”. On our first date, we went for a nice summer walk. Along the way, I saw a fun playground. I don’t know what has gotten into me, but I ran towards it, and decided to climb the monkey bars, run on the overhead ladder, go on the swings… you get the point. I ran around acting like a crazy kid. I glanced at Mr. Cool, and I cannot even describe the look he gave me. A mix of “Jesus-what-the-hell-are-you-doing-get-off-that-swing-immediately!” and “I-don’t-know-this-crazy-girl-she-is-such-a-weirdo” look. To be honest, at that moment I didn’t even care what the ice block Mr. Cool was thinking about me, because I was having so much fun. He came to me, and I thought that he will finally join me on the swing, but instead he said, “Galia, stop it! This is embarrassing! I am a famous actor (He is indeed a well-known German actor), what will people think of me when they see me making a fool of myself on this playground?” Right at that point, I realized that it will never work out between us. Money and fame aside, if the guy cannot be easy-going and appreciate the simple joys in life, then he is not for me. Fun is not just eating at expensive restaurants, but also doing silly things like jumping on a swing together. I politely walked with him back to where we met, said goodbye, smiled, and left as quickly as possible. Why do some people take themselves so seriously? Do we really have to stick to these rigid “Adult behavior rules”, or can we sometimes let our inner child out to play? Mr. Cool called the next day to invite me to dinner, but I told him that my heart was not in it. I could not pretend to be someone that I’m not. I was looking for the one that would climb the monkey bars with me, laughing and being crazy together like children.

That is not to say that we have to ignore our responsibilities, quite the contrary! We have to enjoy ourselves and have fun while achieving our goals and tasks. When you do something with a happy heart, your task becomes a pleasure, and the result will be better. For example, if you are cleaning your car, draw funny figures on the dirty window, and send a picture of it to your loved one. If you have to clean your flat, put on some loud music and run around the house doing funny dances, while cleaning. Do what you can to make the task more fun. I know that daily stress due to work and personal issues can bring a huge amount of pressure upon us, but we must try to do our best to make this process easier for us. Being hard on yourself will not make the problems go away. You must give your “Adult-self” a chance to rest and rethink how you can ease the pressure with a good strategy. Try doing something fun, different, childish and funny in order to bring your mind to positive thoughts. Maybe then, new problem-solving ideas will come to you! The easiest way to begin is by smiling more often.

The older I get, the more I realize how special the time was when I was a child. Free of worries, free of fear, free to live and enjoy! It’s time to bring back the innocence, joy and pure form of fun. Purity. The world is missing this. We need to go back to the basics before we had the car, the mortgage, and the debts. We have to try to capture that feeling of pure joy that we once felt as children. There is much evil and hatred out there. Just turn on the news. Every day another catastrophe. Let’s try to be children of light, instead of darkness. You can enjoy by doing the simplest of things. Remember how excited we used to be when walking with our parents in the forest, looking for mushrooms? Or making homemade cookies with our grandmother, and eating them with our friends? Try to capture this feeling again.

Maybe these few ideas can help: look at photos of your childhood, play board games, take walks around fun places, go to an amusement park, throw out the “cool” attitude/personality, and be who you are, live more in the present, sing funny songs, draw, paint (even if you cant do it well!) be curious, ask questions, daydream, try doing the things you loved to do as a kid, play video games, and most important of all, never say “I’m too old”. The child within you is waiting to come out and play. So go ahead, be silly. No one is watching! And if they do, who cares?

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Love yourself and overcome your insecurities.
Love yourself and overcome your insecurities. 1200 400 Galia Brener

I would like to introduce myself again. My name is Galia Brener, and in high school people called me “Pepperoni pizza”. I had horrible acne. Grotesque pimples decorated my face, chest and back. I used to cover half of my face with my hair, and walk around like “Cousin It” from the Addams Family. I still have scars on my face and chest. Up until a few years ago, I would conceal this with heavy makeup, but now, I just don’t give a damn anymore. I threw out all of that hideous makeup. Too many years of crying for nothing!

 

Do you feel/think that: You are overweight? You have acne? You are too short? Too tall? Too skinny? Not smart or pretty enough? You feel like an alien alone on this planet because you’re different? Don’t worry, you are not alone. Listen to Pepperoni Pizza’s advice: Who cares what the others say or think. BE WHO YOU ARE, and be proud of it! “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” That’s my favorite quote from Oscar Wilde.

 

These insecurities take lots of joy and happiness away from us. For the first 20 years of my life I felt terrible about my face. Eventually, I got so sick and tired of hiding behind my hair and makeup. Those are just “illusions”. Even through the makeup, one could see the scars and acne. And even through the baggy long clothing, one can see your full curvy (beautiful!) body. So how long are we going to hide behind these “protectors”? And is this really protecting us, or making our insecurities worse?

 

My friend “Honey” is a European size 44, and is drop-dead gorgeous! She dated a man that treated her very badly. He always called her fat. Finally she had the courage to dump him. She was depressed and ate chocolate day and night to comfort her soul. Being a good friend, I ate the kilos of chocolate with her, while crying and laughing together. After we both gained one more clothing size, we decided to go to a party. Honey saw a tall, handsome, olive-skinned man with eyes as bright as the Jaguar XKR-S French Racing Blue color! He is a well-known basketball star (Let’s call him J). She fell in love at first sight! Later on, he approached her with a glass of wine, and they spent the rest of the evening chatting. Today they are still happy together. Sadly, Honey continues with her diets. She looses and gains weight, but J never cares about it. He loves her for who she is. The only person that cares about the weight is Honey herself. That’s a damn shame, because she is curvy and extremely beautiful, but doesn’t see or feel it!

 

So who really notices all of your imperfections? YOU! Sorry to tell you this, but you are your worst enemy. Just like I was mine. I hated my pimples, so I squeeze them. Unfortunately that made them even worse and left scars! It was disgusting and awful. I was trapped in my own dark hell inside of my head. What helped me later was to acknowledge and concentrate on my strengths! Are you good at art, cooking, sports, design, dancing, singing, etc? If so, spend more time doing these things and less time criticizing yourself. Do not constantly talk about your flaws with others. Instead, mention your good traits!

 

Here are a few steps that helped me to overcome my insecurity issues:

 

1: Ignore non-constructive insults, judgments and criticism about you and your body.

2: Let go of past emotional garbage. It’s a decision of letting go and starting a fresh cycle.

3: Don’t try to always please others. You’ll never be able to satisfy everyone. Think of yourself too!

4: Avoid negative and toxic people. Keep them out of your life!

5: Stop your negative thoughts. As soon as they start, block them by thinking of something completely different. Don’t give such destructive thoughts a chance to upset you!

6: Stop comparing yourself to others. Don’t copy others and accept your uniqueness.

7: Attack your worries and fears. Face them head-on! I hated going out into the sunlight with my acne because everyone could see it. I spent my days at home after school, like a damn vampire. So sad and pathetic. Enough! Face your fears! Buy that sexy dress, even if you feel that you are too curvy for it. Just do it and wear it with pride!

8: It’s time to start loving and respecting yourself. If you wont, then the others wont either! Show others how you want to be treated.

9: Set goals for yourself, and when you achieve them, reward and treat yourself.

10: Become more positive in your thoughts and actions. Be happy!

 

Please promise me that once you feel strong inside, try to help others to get to such a wonderful place as well. Look outside at what is happening in this crazy world. We are there to help each other. But before we can do so, we must start by helping ourselves. I wish you lots of good luck, strength and energy for your mission. Everything will be ok!

 

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Deal with your shit!
Deal with your shit! 1354 437 Galia Brener

Wouldn’t is be so nice to run away from all of your problems and pretend they simply don’t exist? Or imagine making a beautiful black wooden box, filling it up with all of your problems, and then burying it somewhere in the woods, or maybe even burning the box – and POOF, like magic – your problems are gone? Dream on. Unless you deal head on with your problems, they will not disappear. In fact, if you ignore or push them away, they will sneak up on you and hunt you down when you least expect it!

My very good friend Tony is experiencing this problem right now. He and his ex girlfriend broke up about half a year ago. She was and always will be his only true love. He told me many times that she is his soul mate, and he could always be himself only around her. He often told her “I feel at home with you, and you are my family.” She never judged him, and always supported his goals and path in life. He was able to let the child in him out around her, and he felt truly loved and understood only by her. To make a long story short, they broke up for reasons I cannot mention. For him it was like a huge piece of his heart was ripped out of his body, and he was hurting very deeply after the breakup. For her the pain was even more intense. However, both dealt with it in completely different ways. She cried her heart out for months, did lots of sports, got into amazing shape, developed her new business and worked out through the emotional stress and pain. She paid respect to herself, him and the relationship, and didn’t jump onto the next best man to ease her pain. She stayed alone and dealt with the breakup!

Tony on the other hand, did the complete opposite. He couldn’t deal with the pain and being alone, so he jumped onto the “third best” thing. We were all shocked to see whom he chose after his beautiful ex! The new older lady presents him with financial stability, and he is simply “comfortable” using the situation and “parking” with her. There is no deep passion running through his veins, and no blood pumping in his heart, which drives Tony crazy with love – and the sex is not that special either. His pain was masked over at first, but after some months, he found himself thinking more and more about his ex, and missing her a lot! The new lady feels that he still loves his ex, and this drives her crazy! Tony misses his true love, her touch, her smile and scent. He misses her caresses, the passionate kisses, the fun quirky character, the long talks about life and everything else on the planet. She is unlike any other women he ever knew! True love cannot just “disappear” or be substituted by some third-best option. They have been through a lot together, and such a strong bond cannot be easily replaced. I told him, had he dealt with his shit the right way, none of this would be happening. I have pity for her because it hurts very much to know that he will never love her even close to as much as he loves his ex. The new older lady tries to hang onto him with her claws and teeth… but he is slipping away.

“Working out our shit” is not only connected to love problems, but also with everyday life occurrences. For example, if you have a debt to pay out, bills, something hurts you and you haven’t checked it out at the doctor yet, you had a fight with your best friend, get a new job, lose weight, your car sounds strange, or that thing you’ve been meaning to do for years now, finish your taxes, get rid of a phobia, stop smoking or drinking, or whatever it is you need to do and have been pushing away to the side! If you don’t deal with your problems the right way, they will only cause you extreme stress and anxiety. They will sit and eat away at your brain, creating one stressful worry after another! The only way to stop this madness is to get up, take action, and solve your issues! “Action” is the only way to attack and solve problems. The most amazing thing is that once you find your power and courage to simply start, the solution will slowly come to you in the process as well. However, this will only happen if you are willing to take the first step, and take action.

Ladies and gentlemen the best advice I can give you, after falling down myself a few times is: No matter how tough things seem to be, take the first step of action. It’s ok to take baby steps at first, but it’s important to start and not drag things out! Do not burry the pain or hide the problems for a later time, find your courage and deal with your shit ASAP, or else your shit will deal with you! If it deals with you, it may bring with it health issues, stress, illness, anxiety or even paranoia. Life is a bitch, and we must all deal with our own given dosage of shit. So unless we find the courage to take action, we will be left swept aside as “victims” of our problems. And trust me, you don’t want to be a poor victim in life. Pity is handed out for free, and jealousy must be earned!

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