The Guilt of Feeling Happy and Mantras to Find Your Joy
I am a steadfast habit tracker and goal seeker, always aspiring to do/see/feel/experience more. It’s the way I’m wired; I barely even think about this side of me, I just live into it. But while I’m constantly on the hunt for more, I recognize that I’ve got it pretty good. (I wouldn’t say I have it all, I think it’s crass. It’s also untrue.) I get to stay home with my children and soak up every little moment with them I can before they grow up and leave the metaphorical nest. I have a partner who works hard so I can stay home. We’re all in good health, and I get to use my brain in ways that fuel me creatively, getting paid to do something I love. As someone who has known her calling since she was young, this is deeply satisfying.
6 Meaningful, Captivating Books to Gift This Holiday Season
You may have heard the rule about gifting: want/need/wear/read. It’s cute, and it rhymes so it’s easy to remember. But I say why not skip the first three and just gift a book? Or several? I’m steadfast in my belief that books make the best gift. They don’t dip in and out of fashion, they can be passed around or reread, and they can take you out of your world and into another. Books teach us lessons and help instill empathy within readers. They are, in short, the perfect gift.
I've Been Tracking My Habits for Three Years: This is What I've Learned
In the fall of 2019, I was gifted a beautiful journal. Beyond the allure of a cloth-bound notebook and a fancy pen to use with it, I was sucked into the journal the way I get sucked into a good story: passionately, obsessively. It was a habit-tracking journal, and every single day since I opened the notebook up, nearly three years ago, I have tracked my habits.
3 Meaningful Ways to Practice Self-Care as an Introvert
Listen. There are a lot of introverts out there observing the world as it turns, quietly contributing as much as everyone else—just differently. It is an extrovert’s world, and trying to find our place within it can be exhausting to the point where a single work meeting can take it out of us introverts, let alone a day’s worth of meetings. Add to that the inherent need to spend time with family and friends, and an introvert can be pulped by the time they get home.
The Benefits of Anxiety and Why It Might Actually Be Your Superpower
It was the last thing I wanted to do, but I signed up for it anyway: to read some of my writing in front of an audience. I was so anxious about it, so afraid that I might freeze while in front of everybody, that I might panic and cut my reading short so I could be anxious in solitude, that I practiced immensely. I read and reread my piece aloud to myself. I cut words I stumbled on. I shortened the superfluous. I practiced some more. And when it came time for me to get up in front of a big group of people to read my own writing—I didn’t trip up on a single word. Not for three minutes.
It took until I sat back down in my chair afterward, hands shaking, adrenaline still coursing through my veins, thick like syrup, that I realized I had done it without messing up at all.
4 Practical Suggestions to Help You Get Unstuck
We have all become mental Olympians these past two years, bending everything we once knew and trying to shape it into something that will work in the new landscape we’ve been thrust into. If our time making adjustments has taught us anything, it’s that stagnancy is the antithesis of success.
Those who didn’t pivot to accommodate the new state of affairs we’ve found ourselves in were left paddling furiously upstream (or worse), while those who were able to drop what they’d been doing and implement new ways of operating found themselves skimming along the surface with less effort, less fear, and less doubt. By no means was everyone able to adapt, no matter how willing they were. Sometimes it takes a lot more than the will to pivot in order to evolve to meet our environment’s new demands. Other times, though, we are able to unstick ourselves and find ways to keep paddling along.
Treat Your Mind Like Your Home: On Being Proactive About Your Mental Health
We will do anything to make the physical spaces we live in beautiful. We will clean out the closets, get rid of clutter, and wash our windows. We will swap out the old with the new and refreshing. We will do all of this and not even give it another thought.
But our minds — the only spaces we truly cannot leave — often receive less love and care, less priority than our physical spaces. Our minds are hidden, the illnesses plaguing so many of them are invisible, and as such, our mental health is often not making it to our lists of priorities.
The Perennial Nature of the Relationships That Matter
I don’t have an immense amount of friends. I’m not the kind of person who acquires a friend during each new phase of my life, collecting them along the way like souvenirs from places I’ve visited. Nor would I ever have a birthday party with fifty of my closest friends and family members — and I like it this way. Instead of many, I have deep.
How to Support a Friend Who’s Going Through a Rough Patch
Let’s get really diplomatic about something quick: Life is weird. Some days are marvelous. Some days feel impossible, and those days can easily blur into weeks, sometimes months. When that happens, we need our community to be there for us to hold our hand and bring us back to the days we can marvel at. And when a dip like this happens to our friends, we need to be the ones reaching out our own hands.
How to Make Time for Reading, No Matter How Busy You Are
I recently was engaged in my favorite topic of conversation: books. My friend told me that when her children were young, she would get up at 5:00 each morning to read. I found that to be so charming. I pictured the scene: a hot mug of coffee, a cozy sweatshirt, a delicious novel. It sounded idyllic, minus the 5:00 a.m. part. I mulled over how unusual it was for someone to wake up early to do something that’s not high up on the list of things to complete in a day. She’s the only person I’ve ever heard of to do such a thing. But the more I thought about it, the less awestruck I became. I manage to find plenty of time each day to engage in my favorite pastime. In a way, I, too, set an alarm for reading; it just doesn’t go off at 5:00 a.m.
I Love You, but I Choose Me: On Parenting and Prioritizing Yourself
The glitter reflected the light like a setting sun shining through a thousand icicles. Rising over the letters beautifully scripted with school glue, the different colors bled together and formed the most magnificent piece of art, right on my kitchen counter. It was stunning, truly. It was also lunchtime. I was hungry, I was tired, and the four-year-old at my elbow had just knocked over a second jar of glitter. There was glitter on the counter, glitter on her hands, glitter on the floor, on my pants, even a dusting on the wall.