It’s currently January of 2022, and I’ve been taking better care of myself these past
couple months than I did in the first 10-ish months of 2021. I’m eating better,
sleeping better, doing yoga daily, reading for fun again, just to mention a few things.
As a result of all of that, the lows are not as low as they were; the highs are higher.
Here’s the important part: I haven’t been torturing myself to get here. I don’t wake up at
5am, because it’s in the middle of a cold, dark winter and I’m not
insane. In fact I get up at 8 or even 8.30. My showers are so hot they burn my skin,
because cold showers make me miserable and I’m not trying to do that.
So, what have I been doing, then? Well, first, let’s go back in time a bit…
Have you ever had one of those moments where you catch your reflection in the
mirror and think to yourself “I don’t like where this is going.”
It may be the way you look, the way you feel or a combination of both,
which is what it was for me, as I spent most of 2021 in a slump.
The wake up call I needed came from none other than my father.
It was a sunny day in fall, and I was putting my decade-old rain boots on (as I’d do regardless
of weather because they were the easiest pairs of shoes to just stick my feet in and easy was what
I was going for), ready to take my puppy out on a walk. The right leg of my pajama pants, which
had become my attire even outside of home, got tucked inside my boot, while the left one did not.
My dad gave me a look and said, “don’t you want to at least tuck them both in?”
And that was it. That was the moment I caught my reflection. I mean, if my quiet dad decided to
comment, I must’ve really reached a low point, I thought to myself.
Obviously it wasn’t about how my pants were tucked or untucked,
but about how it signaled something bigger than that. I had let myself go.
I still left my pants unevenly tucked. But something changed. And this is that
story - the story of how I slowly got (and still am getting) myself out of a slump.
I’m going to be talking about three principles. And I truly believe that, by continuing to live
by them, I’ll have a pretty solid foundation to build on. After all, without a solid base,
everything will fall over. BODY I
Phiolsophy: “Slow is smooth. smooth is fast.” - U.S. Navy Seals
I think there are two ways of approaching things in life 1)
Dip your toes to test the water 2) Jump right in and take it from there.
There’s a time and place for both, and your approach will depend on
a lot of factors, like, the situation at hand and the objective.
I do, however, think one of the things we may be getting wrong about change is that we often think
it must be this grand, drastic shift in order for it to matter or to mean something, but it doesn’t.
Personally, I decided early on that I was going to ease my way out of this slump.
This was the philosophy I had:
“I’ll try this thing, and if it makes me feel good, and it seems like the right thing to do,
I’ll do more of it.”
Having that philosophy in place, here’s what I did with it:
I. Revisit the basics
I believe the self can be split into two:
- Our inner selves - so things like, our thoughts, emotions, beliefs, desires and purpose.
- Our outer selves, so things like, how we present ourselves, the way we dress and groom.
That could be a whole video on its own, but typically, if I feel out of balance,
I’ll immediately look inwards. This time, however, I started outwards.
For months, I’d been wearing PJs outdoors and stained sweaters, thinking
“I’m wearing a jacket on top and I’m just walking my dog,
so no one will see it, and besides, who cares, it’s just a lil toothpaste stain”...
not realizing that it wasn’t about whether or not someone would see it, it was about me knowing.
And so I wondered, could it be that things like the way I dressed and my
grooming habits (or lack thereof) were contributing negatively to my
well-being? “Probably”, I thought, but to what extent?
So, on that day, I decided that going forward, I was going to care more about my outer self.
I went through my closet, left some stained pieces to be tossed,
and some that were itchy or just not something I felt good in, to be donated. I also got myself a
couple new pieces and a pair of loafers that I ended up feeling super cool in. It felt good.
I invested in a couple new skincare products. As
someone who’s been using a super affordable routine for years, I felt I should try to
spice it up for myself. Couldn’t hurt! And it’s made my routine much more enjoyable.
Is it because of the products or is it the novelty of it all? I don’t know for sure, but
how about we don’t question our happiness too much, and just let it be.
Again, always dipping the toes. I didn’t drastically purge my closet overnight or
throw out all of my old skin care products.
My takeaway isn't that buying new things will pull you out of a rut, but
the point is to dress the damn part! When I look good,
I feel good. Or put differently: when I don’t feel good about myself, everything else fails.
Besides paying attention to my clothes and my skin, I paid attention to
my body and mind, and we all know the basics of those: rest, food, movement.
If you follow me on instagram, you know I’ve been cooking more.
Another thing I’ve been doing, only for about a week now, but definitely worth mentioning,
is getting back into yoga, and I’m doing it every single day. It’s become
the highlight of my morning, and it honestly feels healing to both the body and the mind.
II. Don’t be a brick collector (life is now, don’t wait too long)
The brick-collector syndrome is one that I’ve made up, because I needed something to describe
myself. In a nutshell, it’s when you get stuck doing research,
planning and thinking about the things you want or need to do, instead of actually doing them.
Like, the yoga example. I just happened to be on YouTube, saw a 30 day challenge,
and immediately pulled my mat out and did the practice, in my nightgown.
Because I knew that if I allow myself to think about it too hard, like
“Do I have time for this? Should I do it later?
Where are my workout clothes?” chances are, I would’ve put it off and never started.
Thinking is good, but sometimes, it’s good to put a limit on how much we’re
going to allow ourselves to think about this thing, so tell yourself, for example
“If I don’t get started with this thing within 30 seconds, that’s me deciding I’m not doing it.”
And look, I get it. Sometimes, we just want the circumstances to be perfect. Like,
we all want to wear our nicest yoga outfit, clean our room and light a candle before going down on
the yoga mat. But that whole thing is a bonus, not a prerequisite for you to do the damn thing.
III. Just for fun is crucial
I’m really bad at doing things just for fun. Like, at the very least
I want to have some sort of documentation of that experience so that I can have footage
for future videos. And while I enjoy capturing moments, it’s still serving a
purpose and some goal, which defeats the whole point of doing things only because it’s fun.
I’d also have a hard time reading books that weren’t somehow obviously
educational. Now, don’t get me wrong, learning is fun for me, but it’s not
just fun. The point is also to, well, learn, and to apply those lessons in various areas of life.
I know I’ve been in the wrong for thinking that reading fiction and fantasy are, for the
most part, a waste of time. They absolutely are not, and I believe they can teach us a lot more
than certain self-help books ever can.
I’d love to know your thoughts on fantasy and fiction being or not being educational/inspiring.
Like, do you feel like reading fiction is purely enjoyable, or do you personally
learn things from it, too?
So, what I did is I went on goodreads, looked for some popular fantasy books and found the
Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson which people are absolutely raving about. It’s my
first time reading fantasy since reading Harry Potter which was literally like 10+ years ago.
Now, am I going to finish it?
I don’t know yet. But I’m giving it a try, just for fun, and that matters.