As humans we’re amazing at one very specific thing, convincing ourselves that we are the only ones in the world going through any very specific thing. The experience doesn’t matter — it can be full on heartbreak or giddy blissful joy — we’ll exist in a vacuum all the same. It’s comfortable there, we get to process, enjoy, or suffer through those feelings without having to contend with others’ opinions on them.
Read MoreStart with an exhale. I know it feels like I’m about to lead a meditation, but I promise, I’m not. I just know that if you’re feeling unsettled, your breath was probably the first part of you that clenched. You started holding it in because maybe you thought it (or something else in your life) would run out. You can breath once now and then again in a second.
Read MoreWe have a couch! Let’s start there. The journey to feeling settled in our new home has been more tumultuous for me than when we moved from NYC to Portland. There was something about Portland that freed me and something about moving back east that sacked me with more questions than answers.
“Wherever you go, there you are,” this is what my therapist tells me regularly and what I’ve been telling myself.
Read MoreOne of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in my twenties is that we abandon ourselves often. It’s human condition to do things like say “yes” when you meant “no” or ignore our gut when it’s screaming inside of us. I say “human condition” in order to take some of the weight off your shoulders — you aren’t the only one.
In fact, as early as last week, I had abandoned myself out of fear of rejection. Instead of expressing my needs explicitly I wordsmithed them so that the other party never even knew I was making a direct request. I made it seem like a suggestion, but I still internalized their rejection as a personal reaction to my ask.
Read MoreLet peace stay. These three words have been heavy on my mind lately and also hard to swallow. I had a lot of ideas of who I was and the kind of life I had to live and very few of those ideas were full of abundance and even less were full of peace. In working to challenge many of the limiting beliefs I have about myself, I had to answer the bigger question of “what do you do once you’ve challenged the lie?”
Read MoreWho are you on the other side of realizing you should have done something differently? Whenever I feel caught (whether I’m “catching” myself or being “caught” by someone else) my knee jerk reaction is to hide in the corner of my mind where my ego lives. I feel small and get defensive. Over the years, I’ve learned that pausing does me better than any of the first words that I want to say or scream.
I’ve been thinking about this lately because I called myself out for the way I’d been moving through parts of my life. Instead of healing wounds or relationships, I was staying in the safe space that resentment and anger create for us. It’s like a small fortress that protects you from the hard memories or bad feelings, but also makes it impossible for anything good to enter. A lot of times when we’re living in that fortress we don’t need to be punished, we need to be encouraged and held.
Read MoreAre you turning to your relationships for support or have you made it a habit to go at life alone?
Let’s start with the science before I tell you a story about vertigo.
In the New York Times, Eric Ravenscraft writes, “Research from U.C.L.A. suggests that putting your feelings into words — a process called ‘affect labeling’ — can diminish the response of the amygdala when you encounter things that are upsetting. This is how, over time, you can become less stressed over something that bothers you.”
Read MoreI’ve plopped my laptop on our windowsill to write this to you. I’m sitting on my pup’s bed because our couch is still not here. Today I almost cried on the phone to the customer service rep, who is most definitely not at fault for the month long delay or the deep desire in my heart to feel a little more settled in our home than I feel right now, but who got the diatribe of my frustration all the same.
Because sometimes we just can’t help it, you know? I’m trying my best out there in a world that doesn’t always meet me where I am and I know you’re trying your best too. I know you see the good in your day, just as much as you notice the bad. But, I also know it’s harder to shake the bad, especially alone.
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