{"id":13698,"date":"2014-11-22T00:10:08","date_gmt":"2014-11-22T05:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/?p=13698"},"modified":"2014-11-21T20:55:24","modified_gmt":"2014-11-22T01:55:24","slug":"the-road-to-happiness-and-well-being-is-the-love-of-a-cat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/the-road-to-happiness-and-well-being-is-the-love-of-a-cat\/","title":{"rendered":"The Road to Happiness and Well-Being is the Love of a Cat"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"thrid-grade-1968\"<\/a>

My school picture back in 1968 when I was 8 years old.<\/p><\/div>\n

They say a picture can tell a story, but sometimes that is not always the case and the image can be misleading. For example,\u00a0the above\u00a0picture of me was taken back in 3rd grade when I was 8 years old. I had posted it on Facebook a couple days ago\u00a0for \u201cThrow-back Thursday\u201d and on the surface, the picture is one that evokes a reaction of \u201cAww\u201d from most people because admittedly, I do look rather sweet, precious, and innocent. A lovely moment captured in time of cherished days gone by…<\/p>\n

But, believe it or not, I was not looking for that \u201cAww\u201d moment, but rather I wanted to invite some honest conversation about a subject that plagued me most of my childhood \u2013 bullying. I figured if it happened to me, that it had probably happened to a lot of you and so this was the comment\/question I shared with the photo to get the ball rolling and make my point:<\/p>\n

Throw back Thursday – this was me when I was in 3rd grade. I was wearing thick, coke-bottle glasses in a cat’s eye style and back then it was NOT COOL.<\/strong> I was picked on and bullied for wearing glasses and am so thankful that nowadays kids can wear glasses without it being a big deal! I think maybe that’s why I love my cat ears and my leopard look – I wear what I want and I no longer care what people think of me! Did any of you get picked on when you went to school?<\/em><\/p>\n

I suspected I would get a comment or two, but I was genuinely surprised at how many people opened up to share their own stories of bullying and my heart went out to each and every one of them because the picture and comment I shared of me was just a hint of the story. A story that was actually about a painfully shy girl who was always made fun of for being the shortest one in class, a girl who was traumatized by gym class because she was not athletic and was always picked last to be on any team, and a girl who was terrified of having anyone pay attention to her because of her shortcomings.<\/p>\n

A girl who later turned into a teenager with very little self-esteem (with one particularly scarring memory of being rated a “zero” on a scale of one to ten by some boys in school as she walked by them). This\u00a0was the story of a girl who did nothing to deserve any of the wrath of her peers and would come home from school crying from the emotional pain of it all.<\/p>\n

\"Deb-and-Kiz\"<\/a>

In the case of this picture, it truly does tell the full story. It is as simple as the fact that Kizmet loves me unequivocally and I share the blessed sentiment.<\/p><\/div>\n

As people began to share their stories (of a wide range of types of bullying), some\u00a0common threads seemed to emerge \u2013 \u00a0we all moved on and it seemed to make us stronger people in the long run, we didn’t dwell on it and hold a grudge, and for many of us, our cats got us through the pain. This, of course, is hardly a surprise to us cat lovers.\u00a0We know that our cats provide us with the nonjudgmental love and companionship we want – a safe refuge to just be ourselves\u00a0without being picked on and while\u00a0I certainly don\u2019t have any scientific data to prove it, my gut is telling me that perhaps those people who bullied us in our childhoods were somehow compensating for their own insecurities and that is why they preyed on what they perceived as our weaknesses.<\/p>\n

Perhaps if they had the responsibility of caring for a pet and receiving the kind of love that they give us, they would have been kinder, happier, and more compassionate people. I really don\u2019t know, but I do know that as a result of being bullied, I will always be a kinder and more compassionate person myself because it has given me an eternal sense of empathy towards others.<\/p>\n

That type of mindset\u00a0keeps me centered, focused, and appreciative of the simple things in life. Like my favorite part of the day when my work is done and I am finally sitting on the couch to unwind before bed. I will always have a cat on my head and one, two, three or more sitting on my legs, my lap, or within my vicinity. They serve as a humble reminder that the important things in life are those that can\u2019t be measured by subjective labels such as being considered popular, attractive, successful,\u00a0or anything else. The love of a cat is bully free and while the picture I shared might appear to have dredged up bad memories for me, truly it has not.<\/p>\n

\"DSC_5058\"<\/a>

You can’t see my face, but this is me any given night of the week! How lucky am I to be surrounded by so much pure kitty love!<\/p><\/div>\n

I love that I have preserved and I love that so many of my friends that have been down the same road as me have become better people\u00a0as a result of it as well. We know that our actions – whether physical, emotional, or verbal can last a lifetime of impression and it causes us to be much more considerate of how we interact with the\u00a0world at large.<\/p>\n

So that’s it… a bit of a reflective post today. Happy Caturday to you all\u00a0\u2013 now go give all those kitties of yours a hug from me and if you feel like sharing your own stories about bullying (if you have one) to get it off your chest, please do. You are in good company and I consider our sharing like having a cup of coffee with a beloved friend!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They say a picture can tell a story, but sometimes that is not always the case and the image can be misleading. For example,\u00a0the above\u00a0picture of me was taken back in 3rd grade when I was 8 years old. I had posted it on Facebook a couple days ago\u00a0for \u201cThrow-back Thursday\u201d and on the surface, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13703,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[910,1265,911,249],"class_list":["post-13698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiration-healing","tag-bullying","tag-cats","tag-childhood","tag-feline-human-bond"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Deb-and-Kiz.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13698"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13709,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13698\/revisions\/13709"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}