How I Feel After Finishing The Artist’s Way

I signed up for a writing habits class back in December. My top goal when I signed up was that I wanted to have a more consistent, sustainable relationship with my writing practice. I wanted to rebuild my habit from scratch mostly because by the end of 2020 I felt like I had very little of it to hold onto anyway. While I didn’t talk about this publicly, I spent a better half of last year working on a book proposal that didn’t end up selling.

From a marketing and business perspective, I completely understood the why and the how. On a personal level, I was gutted. The book was memoir personal essays and not selling it felt like the world reflecting back to me that I wasn’t a good writer, that my story had no value, and that I couldn’t write the kind of stories I wanted to spend my time on.

blog, personal growth, creativityVivian NunezMay 5, 2021creativity, creative block, the artist's way, writing, productivityComment

Tips For Flying and Traveling With A Dog

Before we got a puppy in 2020, my boyfriend and I spent just as much time traveling as we did in NYC. Our work required us to travel often and visiting family meant getting on short flights regularly. While I know I don’t want to go back to the level of travel I was doing pre-covid, I know travel will still be a part of our lives and we considered this when getting a puppy.

Our move to Portland was the first time we went on a plane with Chauncey and he did so well. I had the benefit of having his emotional support animal paperwork completed which allowed me to take him out of his carrier and cuddle him, both for my support and his.

5 Distractions That Help Ease Puppy Separation Anxiety

Over the last few months at least 60% of my Google searches have included the words “puppy” and “separation anxiety.” When we first got our mini-dachshund he didn’t present anxious. He was vivacious, hilarious, and super cuddly. He still is all of those things, but in addition over the last year he’s struggled with both social anxiety and separation anxiety.

After talking to many vets, his overall experience isn’t that strange for a puppy who has been brought up in quarantine times. We are the only humans he interacts with regularly and for a long time in his puppyhood he didn’t even have the chance to really interact with other dogs.

blog, lifestyle, wellnessVivian NunezApril 16, 2021puppy, puppy blues, puppy separation anxiety, personal growthComment

What I've Learned Moving Across The Country (How I Feel About Portland Now)

We have lived in Portland now for more than half a year. Time has moved both so quickly and so slowly.

For context, moving across the country to Oregon from New York last fall wasn’t a decision we made lightly as a family or for me on a personal level. Leaving New York was the first time in my life that I’ve lived somewhere other than New York City. We left behind our friends, the environment our careers thrived on, and my family. All of this aside, if I had to sum our move up in one sentence it would be — the best decision of my life.

blog, lifestyleVivian NunezApril 14, 2021cross country move, portland, oregonComment

My April Mental Wellness Routine

I’ve been writing these recaps monthly since January and am officially entering the second quarter of the year feeling pretty proud of myself. Writing down my mental wellness routine is a new habit for me. I, like most people, got used to managing my mental health on a day-to-day basis and never put time aside to see the routines I was forming.

Comparing the last few months to each other has made it clear that I’ve been missing out on an opportunity to understand myself better. In January I was pretty locked in on growth and setting up a successful morning routine for myself, but if you jump to March’s wellness routine you can see just how much the winter months impacted me.

blog, mental healthVivian NunezApril 12, 2021Comment

The Little Things I Do To Manage My Anxiety

I think I’ve lived with anxiety my entire life. I can remember being 7 years old and telling my mom that I had a really bad stomach ache and didn’t want to get in the car. She thought I was just feeling physically off, but looking back I know now that my stomachache was a symptom to a larger reality. My anxiety manifests in my stomach, in the tension in my shoulders, and in a looming fear over most things in my life.

I wasn’t officially treated for anxiety until I was 21 years old and started therapy. My long-term care routine for my anxiety has up until now been talk therapy. It’s helped me so much to have a dedicated space where I can work through the ins and outs of how (and sometimes why) my anxiety manifests. I’ve written before that this last winter re-triggered a lot of dormant fears and anxious reactions. It has been a time when I’ve especially turned to the small ways I can help myself manage.

blog, mental healthVivian NunezApril 8, 2021anxiety, tactics, habits, mental health, mental wellnessComment

How To Spring Clean Your Mental Health Routines

It is April and the sun is officially out in Portland. After a few months of struggling with my mental health it’s also starting to feel like I have a light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to how I’ve been feeling. I’ll dive in more on a separate post about what this past winter has taught me, but first I want to share how intentional I’m being with spring cleaning.

Last weekend I started dividing up my books into two piles, those I was going to donate and those I was going to keep. I’ve been committing to a more minimalist lifestyle, which includes paring down my closet and most of the things that I keep just for the sake of keeping them. I’m embracing the same spring cleaning tactics when it comes to my mental health.

blog, mental healthVivian NunezApril 6, 2021mental health, spring cleaning, routines, habitsComment

Create A Mental Health Defense Kit

During one of my first therapy sessions way back when, my therapist lovingly stared my way and said, “You need things outside of yourself to help anchor you on bad days.” At the time of her telling me this, my bad days were very, very bad. My hours were consumed with anxiety or depressive thoughts. The idea of cultivating a full roster of actions or safe spaces I could turn to on bad days felt incredibly difficult because I barely had the energy to walk out of the apartment in the first place.

Thinking back on those days, it was the most humbling season of my life. The perfectionist and problem solver in me wanted to be able to sit down for 15 minutes and brainstorm her way to a quick fix. Mental health doesn’t work on quick fixes though. Each day became a challenge and a reminder that the only way out of a bad day was through it and the only way through it was with acceptance and understanding the difference between what I could do and what I wanted to do.

blog, mental healthVivian NunezMarch 30, 2021mental health, grief, anxiety, coping, how to cope, how to cope with bad mental health days, lossComment

My March Mental Wellness Routine

February was by far one of my hardest months yet. I kept my mental wellness routine simple as a result of knowing that going back to the basics was going to be what served me best. My biggest struggle (or trigger) over the last few months has been how rainy and grey it has been. I’d never been one to wrestle with much seasonal depression, but this year it hit me tenfold.

What helped over the last few weeks was to stay to myself and to simultaneously give myself things to look forward to. March’s wellness routine has consisted of more of the same.

blog, mental healthVivian NunezMarch 15, 2021Comment

A Vet Answers: What Do I Do For Puppy Separation Anxiety And Puppy Blues?

There were so many things that I couldn’t have imagined would come with puppy parenthood — long nights, unexpected “do we think he actually ate that?” accidents, and lately a big focus on both our puppy’s mental health and our own.

We got Chauncey last spring when we were already a few months into lockdown in New York City. Given his age (he’ll be 1-year-old on March 9th!) the only world he’s really known includes us being home all the time and having very limited contact with other humans or the outside environment. We didn’t realize just how much this small world setup would impact him until he got all his shots and was able to start going on walks in NYC. He hated it. We would have to drag him to make it as far as the corner and we’d both be frustrated and anxious that we would just turn back around and go home.

When Your Mental Health Takes A Dip, Don't Think Of It As A Step Backwards

I’ve been taking more baths lately. That can read as applaudable levels of self-care, but personally it’s actually one of my biggest tells. Taking a bath for me has always been calming, but when I’m doing it daily I know it’s a response to a hard season.

Baths become my own version of time out.

blog, mental healthVivian NunezMarch 1, 2021grief, mental health, anxiety, seasonal depressionComment

How The Artist's Way Is Helping My Mental Health And Creativity

I’d seen The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron on bookshelves for years, but had never picked it up. To be honest, I only picked it up in January because it was the main read of a class I had signed up for through Literary Arts. Sifting through their website a few months ago, I was drawn to the course because it said it was dedicated to helping students cultivate a writing habit, which is something I felt I was missing.

I could have never imagined what the first six weeks of the class - and of working through The Artist’s Way - would actually entail. True to its name, it is a recovery workbook and it weaves into more than just your creative life. I still have six weeks to go in the program, but I have already felt such a shift in my own process.

The Benefits I've Seen From Taking Daily Vitamins (Love Wellness Review)

Towards the end of last year a few things became abundantly clear to me:

I am closer to 30 than I am to 20
I had no real physical health routines that grounded me in the midst of life changes
My body had taken a big toll over the last few months because I was walking a lot less

I’m so committed to my mental wellness routines that I sometimes forget I live in my body and that a part of that is a responsibility to nourish it in the right ways. Every part of our being is interconnected and ignoring one part sends ripple effects through them all. I know this because at the end of 2020, I was feeling the most sluggish, bloated, and uncomfortable in my body that I have ever felt.

blog, wellnessVivian NunezFebruary 15, 2021daily vitamins, physical health, wellness, mental healthComment

My February Mental Wellness Routine

January was one of the hardest months I’ve had in the last year. I am definitely hitting my COVID wall. All I could think about these past few weeks was how much I missed the old routines that were so mine a year ago and now are nonexistent. It hasn’t helped that the days in Portland are so short right now. At its worst the sun was rising close to 8am and setting by 4pm. The grey cloudy skies got old pretty quickly and I missed the sun, warmth, and just a visual reminder that life didn’t look like how I felt.

The strain I’ve felt on my mental health is something I’m working to relieve. As a result, a lot of my February mental wellness routine is catering to where I actually am versus where I wish I was (in sunny Mexico and feeling like life was great and COVID-free). While part of me is frustrated because I wish the same things would work all the time, the truth is that my routines have to iterate to respond effectively to my mental health.

blog, mental healthVivian NunezFebruary 11, 2021mental health, mental wellness, yoga, writing, journaling, the artist's way, therapy, routine, habitsComment

How To Stop Failing At Journaling

I have to be honest - the title is clickbait, mostly because I don’t actually think you can “fail” at journaling, but I do think that most of us think that we do. I have stopped and started journaling so many times over the last few years. Each time I started for a different reason and stopped for a different reason.

The most harmful perspective we can own when trying to journal is that there’s only one way or one reason to do it. Each of us are navigating so many different lived realities at any given moment, if journaling is a tool we’re using to navigate those times then it’s bound to be as unique as our circumstances are. It can feel like because there’s a label for it “journaling” that it should be as structured as “eating” in that you do it at a specific time and for a specific amount of time.

blog, personal growthVivian NunezFebruary 9, 2021journaling, journal, growth, personal growth, mental health, creativity, writing, habitsComment

January Reads: 3 Books On Connection, Hard Lived Experiences, And The Biology Of It All

January was a rough month. Apparently I’m not alone because we’re all seemingly hitting the same COVID wall, at the same exact time. In an effort to try to bring myself some joy and comfort, I’ve been working to list out the better habits that have come from a whole year mostly at home. I wrote about my list making habit earlier this week.

At the top of that list is that I’ve been making more and more time to read. I spent so much of the beginning of my career hustling to be as productive as possible and traveling a ton that if I got through one book a month it would be a miracle. Now I’m getting through so many and they’re bringing me joy in different ways.

What We're Trying To Ease Our Puppy’s Anxiety (Plus Our Own Puppy Blues)

Our puppy struggles with anxiety. I struggle with a lot of puppy blues as a result.

Back in November is when we first had the “official” conversation with our puppy’s vet. Our biggest comment to her was honestly that we just wanted our pup to feel safer and more excited moving through life. Back then everything from a walk to a car ride felt like we were triggering his trembles and shakes. Leaving him alone hasn’t been an option for us since we got him and his stage-5 clinging makes it hard for us to work effectively at home. We knew that nothing would change over night, but we wanted to be on a better path.

blog, mental healthVivian NunezFebruary 3, 2021puppy, puppy blues, new puppy, puppy parent, puppy anxiety Comment

Write A List Of What Is Helping And Hurting Your Creativity

I am drowning in the dark gloomy days of Portland. At the top of my list of things that are currently hurting my mental health, creativity, and overall quality of life are gloomy days I cannot control. On the right side of a column is a long list dedicated to all that is helping me in this exact moment.

One of the ways we trip up when assessing our quality of life is to measure it up against the ruler of what used to make us happy or to only notice the things that used to make our days harder. While those details are amazing to have in our back pocket as context, the only way we’re going to address our right now is to notice our right now.

personal growth, blogVivian NunezFebruary 2, 2021creativity, personal growth, mental healthComment