happiness

Friday Feeling

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Happy Friday! I swear this week felt like it was going to be a long one on Tuesday, but somehow now we are here! I have been feeling proud of myself as I can feel myself finding it easier to let things go and not ruminate on them, while also allowing myself to feel my emotions as we are all human and emotions are normal!

From what I have been reading and listening to on podcasts, a common theme is that you need to feel to heal. Many people are running from something that happened to them in the past, or even something they did in the past, so you’ll find that they may develop addiction. Whether this is addiction to a substance, like alcohol or other drugs, or some people will become workaholics to distract themselves from their true stresses and needs, but what really needs to happen is that the trauma gets addressed.

Not many people seem to realize that our childhoods had a major impact on our psyche, and we carry that with us every day. Today psychologists are saying that a child’s personality is developed by age six, even though there is so much more development to take place, but during those first years, it is critical that certain needs are met. We may not remember everything from our childhood, but our brain does. Memories don’t leave, but they can be “filed away” so to speak, and often times the “negative” tendencies we have are stemming from some sort of childhood trauma.

Keep in mind that there are small traumas and big traumas, and also keep in mind that perception is reality. A parent may think they are helping their child by staying in an unhealthy relationship because “two parents are better than one,” but in the eyes of the child, if they’re witnessing the abuse (emotional or physical), they may not feel helped during those times.

When you were a child, the things that happened around you, or to you, were not your fault. Unfortunately as we grow older and become adults of our own, our mental health and issues become our responsibility. We can blame our parents or blame the bullies, but none of that will resolve your inner turmoil. You can help yourself, but sometimes we just need help along the way!

If you don’t have access to therapy, there are many free podcasts that can just start opening up new ideas and give new perspectives. I recommend Jay Shetty always, and I also found Gabrielle Bernstein because of an episode she had with Jay. I also recommend self help books/audio books such as “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success” by Deepok Chopra, or “The Power is Within You” by Louise Hay or “The Four Agreements,” by Don Miguel Ruiz. These are just a few of the endless options that there are!

Find something that seems fun or interesting to you. If you find that something in your life keeps coming up, dig into that feeling/situation. Ask yourself questions, journal about your feelings- sometimes just taking the time to write our your thoughts can bring you clarity, because you’ve taken the time to slow down. If you have time this weekend, make sure to take some time to check in with yourself and do a little something to bring you joy. Have a wonderful Friday and wonderful weekend!

Monday Mindset

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It’s a new week and I didn’t snooze my alarm this morning, even though I really wanted to. I was super and ready to sleep for another 25 minutes and just skip any journaling or stretching, but then I remembered that last night I was so excited to be starting my week off right, and I didn’t want to take that away from myself.

I am going to do a little yoga after this post, and I wanted to take time on here to express some gratitude this morning. Feel free to comment what you are grateful for today, or even post your own blog about it and share it with everyone!

I am grateful for my boyfriend and our relationship. I am blessed to have a healthy relationship where we can easily communicate our differences and we always make each other feel loved and respected.

I am blessed to have a home that we love and has everything we could ever need. We have clean water, heat/AC, working appliances, and we are blessed enough to be able to afford our home and utilities.

I am lucky to have a job that I don’t hate, and that allows me to pay my bills, have insurance and still be able to live a life I want. I’m off on weekends and I enjoy my schedule during the week!

I am grateful for my friends. I feel blessed to have so many different, yet close, friendships. My friends are all very different, yet all very supportive and loving in their own ways, and I am lucky to have so many good people by my side.

I am thankful for my physical and mental health. I’m blessed that I can walk, talk, eat and use the bathroom without any need for assistance, and I’m lucky that my recent physical and labs went well! I am also so grateful for access to therapy as well as books and podcasts that are helping me improve my mental health.

There are so many other things I am grateful for, but those are just to name a few. For now, I am going stretch and get ready for the rest of my day! I hope everyone has a great Monday and great week ahead!

Looking In

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I’ve been slacking on the writing again. I guess not technically because I have written a few small poems as I recently started a new, anonymous instagram account. My period was super late this month so I was feeling not the greatest and felt so tired, but now I’m on the upswing! I took a few of the photos I posted on this blog and wrote poems over them, which is something I always had wanted to do, so I am excited to be trying that out.

I am working hard on talking to myself and thinking through feelings. I have been having issues with someone in my life that I unfortunately cannot avoid currently, and I am trying my best to not give that person my energy, but I keep finding myself so bothered.

I try to remind myself that we are all humans who have our own issues and traumas, and it’s not up to me to determine how someone should act or treat others, all I can do is focus on how I treat others and how I react. I don’t want anyone to ruin my good mood or healing, so I won’t let them! I will continue to pinpoint my trigger and work through it internally and hopefully I will be able to tolerate this person more over time.

I hope everyone has a good upcoming weekend!

New Month, New Intentions

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Happy September! I am feeling so good today, and felt like writing for a bit here on my lunch break! I am feeling very hopeful for this month; I joined that writing community I previously posted about, I am focusing on my health, and I am still making sure to practice gratitude daily! We have four months left of 2022, and I want to make them count.

Life feels so much better when you live with intention. When you just let life happen to you, it feels chaotic and like there is no sense of control. Granted, there are so many things that are beyond our control, but when you take time to set intentions, check in with yourself, and feel through your emotions, it does help you to feel in control of yourself- which is truly the only thing you can control.

For me, I used to feel like my mind was controlling me, and not the other way around. I have been on my fair share of anxiety medications, and I have seen different therapists; it took years to even get to where I am now, and I know I still have work to do, but I feel like I am finally the one in control of my mind. When I feel like I am anxious or sad or angry, I take a moment to look within and start questioning where it is coming from- this alone has helped me a ton!

This month I will continue on my journey of healing and mindfulness, and I am excited to see what is in store!

Beauty in the Present

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I filled up my weekend with seeing good friends after having a week of dealing with health stuff and I am feeling so good! I am happy to see it looks like my labs and other test results came back normal, and it has been a huge relief for me. My doctor will call me next week to confirm, but looking through the results that were uploaded to MyChart, everything looks good!

I am excited to continue on my wellness journey, and I am ready to focus on getting my body moving everyday. I deserve to feel good and healthy long term, and I am the one who is in charge of that. There’s no reason to get upset with my currents habits or weight, because all I can do is move forward and take the information I know now and apply it to myself in the best ways!

I am feeling a lot better now that I don’t feel like I am always rushing or racing against some imaginary clock. I feel like taking a slow approach, building small habits over time, is truly the way that I will get to my goals. Slowing down my nervous system and my thoughts makes me feel way more in control than my anxiety ever did. Focusing on one task at a time, rather than trying to “multi-task,” actually makes me feel so much more productive!

I am realizing that taking the time to focus on one thing at a time and being intentional about everything I do, makes me feel better about my life and choices. Making sure you’re present in your life choices is so important! Being aligned with your intuition and taking time to check in with how you’re feeling will help to realize what is truly important to you and what is worth your time. Make sure you’re living life for you, you absolutely deserve it.

Celebrate Yourself

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Today is Friday and I am so excited for the weekend! My boyfriend and I are attending a friend’s wedding tomorrow, but other than that I am free to relax and take some time for myself. After how busy last weekend was for me, I am happy to be able to slow it down a bit while still having the opportunity to see friends and have a good time!

I was doing a bit of reflecting yesterday and I am honestly so proud of how far I have come on my mental health journey; I was thinking about how I was when I first moved out with my boyfriend and it truly feels like night and day. I still have plenty of work to do, but now it doesn’t feel so daunting and impossible!

When I first removed myself from an environment of constant chaos and unpredictability, my body didn’t even know how to handle the calm, peaceful life I was entering. My nervous system was stuck in a state of turmoil and I always felt like my mind was racing and I was running with it! I could never sit still and relax, instead I’d hyper focus on tasks that “needed to be completed,” and I’d feel out of control if I ever took a minute to breathe.

I still have days where it’s hard for me to sit down and unwind, but now my boyfriend and I both have learned how to handle it better. For example, earlier in the week was rough for me- I was starting my period and this time around my hormones felt super out of whack and I was feeling depressed. I honestly haven’t felt that low in quite a while, but instead of giving into that feeling, I was able to remind myself that this is temporary and has a lot to do with my cycle. I didn’t sit and think that I was going to be depressed forever, and I didn’t give myself a hard time for it.

I had told my boyfriend that I was going on a walk, which he encouraged, but I kept stalling and saying that I had things to do around the house and he could tell I was feeling anxious and overwhelmed. He looked at me and said “you need to go on your walk, and only think about your walk while you’re on your walk.” He was right, and I knew that already but just hearing it from him and out loud was something that I needed. I ended up going on my walk and I felt so much better when I came home. I cleaned up what I needed to, I showered, and then he helped me cut up veggies for the big salad I was making for the week.

It’s incredible how much of an impact that walk had on me, and I understand why everything I read and listen to about mental health says it is important to move your body every day. For me, just walking for 30-40 minutes made life feel so much more bearable, and it was nice to take some time to myself.

I feel so very blessed every day to have a wonderful man by my side who has grown with me over the years, who has learned how I operate and how to help me when I am struggling, and who loves me every step of the way. I used to feel like my brain was on fire and I was such a raging b*tch to him even when I didn’t want to be, and I knew he didn’t deserve it which made me hate myself/my brain quite a bit.

Lucky for me, he always saw the real me underneath all of the anxiety; and now I can finally see me as well. I am forgiving myself for past mistakes as I now understand why I was the way I was, and my goal is to continue healing and keeping this relationship strong, as I know we will have a solid foundation for our future together and our future as parents. That is still a couple years down the road, but that just gives me more time to work on myself!

Make sure you take time to look at who you were five years ago and then look where you are today; we all love to hate on ourselves and feel like we aren’t moving forward, but it’s a much nicer habit to celebrate yourself! Look at how you handle certain situations compared to how your past self would! Give yourself credit where it is due, and make a plan for the things you still want to work on. You deserve a happy life!

Dear Universe, Thank you.

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Every day I feel so blessed with the life that I have. I have a happy, healthy relationship with the love of my life, we have our beautiful home together with our cats, and we both have jobs that we don’t hate that allow us to live the lives we do. If you asked me ten years ago what I wanted in life, I would have said “To still be living happily with my boyfriend and be financially stable;” seventeen-year-old me would be so proud!

As I grow older I am learning more and more about myself. I am working on prioritizing what makes me happy and focusing on what I want and need in my life. I am blessed to have genuine friendships and still have good relationships with family members, and I am also lucky to be developing this healthier relationship with myself. I have definitely come a long way from where I used to be, but sometimes I feel like I struggle with trusting myself and my intuition.

In my house growing up, there were many times where I felt as if I was being accused of things that I had never done, and I also was often told that I had no voice because I was the child. I had a lot of rage and confusion building inside me throughout my younger years, but I also feel like in a way I did always have some sense of clarity: I knew what I didn’t want in my future relationships, and I knew that I would raise my children differently.

I know my parents did the best they could with what they knew, but at the time I didn’t think of it that way. I just knew that I didn’t want to be like them. In a way, I guess maybe I have been able to trust myself and intuition, but I often cloud my own judgment with overthinking and anxiety. When I think about why I am that way, I assume it would be because I grew up in a chaotic, unpredictable environment, therefore I try to prepare for all worst-case scenarios (which actually just makes my anxiety worse)! In reality, what I need to do is let go of what I cannot control.

I have seen my improvement throughout the years, and I am so proud of how far I’ve come. I find it easier to recognize when I’m worried about something beyond my control, and I remind myself of what I can control… my mindset! Worrying never helps the situation, it truly only worsens it, so why would I continue to do that? Instead I can recognize it and remind myself that everything happens for a reason, and I am exactly where I am supposed to be.

It’s easy to go into the horrific “what-ifs” about failure and chaos, but how about we switch that and ask “what if it all works out?” Instead of limiting ourselves with the belief that everything will be scary and horrible, what if we think about how we can learn and grow from any difficult situation? I know that there are so many things beyond my control, so what if I decided to just let it all go? I was so tired of stressing over everything in my life and feeling like the weight of the world was on top of me, so I decided to put it down!

I’m not going to lie, I still have rough days (I mean, I am human), but I find it easier to let go of my anxiety. I will be working on that re-wiring in my brain forever, and in addition to that I am currently working on listening to my gut instincts and learning to trust myself fully. I think my first big step in this journey was starting to say “no” to things that I didn’t want to do. I try to make it a habit to give myself time before I commit to any events, such as saying “Let me get back to you,” rather than blurting out “yes” as the seasoned people-pleaser I was. I’d say “yes” in an attempt to make others happy/not disappoint others, but sometimes it was at my own expense.

After realizing that the stress from those situations was hurting my physical health, I decided that my time is my time, and I knew I had to set that boundary. I want to spend my life doing the things that I love and that I feel aligned with. Your life isn’t truly yours if you are living it for everyone else. I think it’s important to check in with ourselves and reflect on what it is we truly need in life to be happy. I don’t think there are many (if any) people who would say they didn’t want to live a happy life, and I truly believe we all deserve happiness!

Giving Grace

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I did so well about starting my morning routine on Monday, but I haven’t been getting to bed early enough and that made it harder yesterday and today. Today I am up earlier than I was yesterday and I am here writing in my blog, so I count that as a victory!

Normally I am super hard on myself, but I am actively working on trying to give myself more grace and be the friend to me that I am to others. I have no problem reminding friends that we’re all human and it’s okay to deviate from plans or make mistakes, as long as we learn and grow, so why wouldn’t I deserve that same treatment?

Do I wish I would have stayed more consistent this week? Of course! But does that mean I should give up completely and call it a failure? Absolutely not! All I can try to do is be better than I was yesterday, and remind myself that I am doing this as a benefit to myself.

The goal tonight is to be off my phone by 9pm and asleep by 10pm, that way I can get my eight hours of sleep; this will make it easier for me to get up in the morning. I was normally in bed around 10pm for a while, but I think having Covid and sleeping all throughout the day kinda messed the schedule up.

A lot is going on around me lately that could be stress inducing, but I am doing my best to remember that I can only control my mindset and my reactions. Everything happens for a reason, and when things don’t work out, it’s usually because something better is on the horizon! All will happen as it should.