Reeminiscence: August 2020

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Life in quarantine, or just generally in this time period, has been a true challenge for many including myself. I can't deny that at first, I saw this current situation as a relief, a much-needed pause from everything, needless to say, I was extremely short-sighted. Shortly after, things started to get worse around me, although I am physically healthy and I am extremely grateful for that, keeping up with all the sudden and one-of-a-kind changes around me has definitely been a remarkable challenge.

Keeping my spirits up and my mental health in check now require more time and effort than ever. It seems so easy to let loose and essentially just give up on yourself, especially if you already have a history of compromised mental well-being, but I am here to tell you that it is also possible to maintain your health during this chaos, it just requires more time and effort but I'm sure you'll be very proud of yourself when you commit to your well-being and experience the satisfying results.

Not long ago, I started implementing some activities into my daily routine to help me stay well in these times and I noticed that they remarkably help me get through the day feeling better so I decided to share them with you:

1. Have something to wake up to every morning:

I went out of my way to find a remote internship that starts early-ish in the morning so that I have some discipline around sleep hours and not resort to sleeping for over 9 hours, trust me, I can do it. It definitely was a privilege to not put a time limit to any everyday tasks like sleeping, showering, or meals; because that was what I really needed coming out of a jam-packed academic term at university. But too much of a good thing can turn negative pretty quickly, which did happen, so I figured a daily structure that I can keep up with would definitely do the trick and it did!

Now I need to consider my bedtime and wake up at a reasonable time in the morning as well as make sure that I accomplish something during the day. I can't emphasize enough the importance of giving your day some structure so that it's not pointless to get up in the morning or take your bedtime into consideration.

2. Take care of my health:

I am definitely not the epitome of health and well-being in a human form, but I know the implications of an unhealthy lifestyle very well; as they make up the core of my studies, so I would say, they're pretty hard to ignore and turn a blind eye to.

I try to sleep well, drink enough water, by keeping a water bottle nearby and eat more healthy food, but also have the treats that I love in moderation; because balance is something I am trying to work on at the moment.

3. Have time for myself

Speaking of balance, too much time for yourself, surprisingly, can be counterproductive. I find having "me time" or "alone time" a great way to recharge, but too much of that can lead anyone to feel isolated and left with their own thoughts that don't always tend to be positive and encouraging especially in these troubling times we live in. We need other people's insights, preferably, people who have our best interests at heart.

I personally find that I tend to enjoy "me time" more when it's earned. The feeling of unwinding after doing some work that was more on the demanding side is just priceless, but then again, you may be different, so try to find a balance and a custom routine that works to make you feel recharged and fulfilled.

4. Try to work out pretty regularly:
Excercise has an endless list of benefits that I'm not here to elaborately talk about, but the one benefit that really stands out for me is the sense of achievement that I get when I finish a pretty challenging work out session. For instance, I first couldn't do a single push up, no, I'm not exaggerating. Now I can complete the entire set when I'm working out to a youtube video!

I mean, that's an achievement to me and it took time and consistency to finally get there. To you, it might be finishing an entire programming course or taking the first class in a language course. Anything that you can make measurable progress toward can be really helpful in making you feel better in general.

However, exercise, in particular, has proven in so many ways to be beneficial when it comes to mental well-being. So, I wouldn't pass on this opportunity if I really wanted to feel better. Starting with a simple, beginners' 10-minute workout video on YouTube and working out alongside it can be a great way to ease yourself into a new habit, or maybe just get some exercise for the day. It doesn't need to be a habit, just do it when you want to and it'll still help you out a lot.

5. Self-care is taking care of yourself and your needs:

With the spread of this term all over social media, its meaning can be often misconstrued. We can get the sense that self-care is laying in bed eating chips while binge-watching shows endlessly and it couldn't be further from the true meaning of self-care. Self-care, in my own interpretation, is to make decisions that will make you proud of yourself.

Looking after yourself is also something you should be proud of yourself for doing every day, and to me, it is self-care. However, engaging in fleeting-pleasure providing activities is not something that I personally would recognize as self-care in particular.

All of these practices have been really helpful in making me get through these challenging times, but I think it's important to understand that I, too, have days when I would rather stay in bed and not actively face the day, but the more I keep doing the above activities on "normal" days, the easier I find it to get myself out of bed and ready for the day ahead of me.

Even though you've reached the end of this post, you don't have to leave just yet! Take a look at these other posts I published recently:

Coping with long-term adversity & hopelessness

Things to do in lockdown/ self-isolation

Why it is so hard to be productive right now

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Not long ago, I picked up an E-Copy of the book: "The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now". I was interested in self-improvement at the time when someone recommended it and shortly after, I found myself getting the book on my tablet and reading it every day. I wasn't too into reading when I started reading it but I was already interested in the topic and it wasn't a super long book with several hundreds of pages so I wasn't put off by it. Add to that how it is structured; the author, who worked in counseling "twentysomethings" and guiding them, would give her most memorable clients a pseudonym and basically tell their stories; showing how their lives turned around after listening to her advice.

This was such a great way to hook a reader like me, who enjoys reading interesting stories, as opposed to sets of do's and do not's. Consequently, I would pick up my tablet every night before going to bed and start reading. I absolutely enjoyed the flow of the book and I think it was very well-written, not to pretend to be a critic, I am only speaking from my own point of view as an individual reader who gets bored of books pretty easily. I noticed that most nights, I would only put my tablet down when it was getting too late and I should be sleeping.

I loved the stories presented in the book, they were real, no sugar-coating was involved, just raw real-life stories. I also really liked how the author shared her own stories that also held an element of "I'm not perfect either". I found myself relating to almost each one of the clients in some way. I was eager to see how they would choose to change their lives. Oftentimes they had to make notably difficult decisions to induce change in their stagnant lives.

I honestly felt both intrigued and anxious; Intrigued to find out how those strangers' lives would turn out to be after making a change and taking charge of their own lives. Yet, I felt anxious when I thought about my own life; many of the decisions they made to change their lives for the better, seemed feasible at first and not too dramatic. But with persistence, and with persistence I mean years upon years of putting in the work and investing in a single decision they made like taking that job or getting married, which seemed like a leap of faith to me.

It showed me that a dramatic change in your life doesn't happen overnight, rather, it is often a result of investing time and effort for years to "get there". But do you actually "get there"? What does that even mean? Nothing is guaranteed, but it's best to try anyway, was the major notion I got out of the book.

It is both scary and exciting, a bit depressing too if I'm honest. It's exciting when you have a goal, work toward it for years, then eventually get what you want and live the way you always wanted to live. However, it can also be depressing when you consider the possibility that even when you try your hardest for years, you might still not get where you wanted when you first started. So, in a sense, starting to "Take action" and "Take ownership over your life" can set you up to make the best decision in your life and get where you want eventually. But let's not ignore the very possible occurrence of the other narrative.

Another point that didn't sit well with me was how easy it is for twentysomethings' lives to change entirely, even for the rest of their lives, based on some advice they took. Even the author herself expressed her worries toward this idea especially at the beginning of her career. She expressed her contentment when one of her clients emails her to thank her for the advice she gave them that later changed their lives. But she also expressed how she would like to get a peek into the lives of her other clients who hadn't called or contacted her in years. So I guess the positive outcome usually outweighs the negative?

Don't get me wrong, I am the first one to tell you that you are the only one responsible for your future and that "waiting for life" to happen to you is one of the worst things you could ever do to yourself. But there are many variables and uncertainty that make "taking action" not the be-all-end-all solution. But then again, I will keep taking action, otherwise, nothing will ever happen in my life, but I need to keep in mind that all I can do is try and that the outcome is not always in my control.

Keeping this in mind keeps the fear of the unknown at bay as well as not making "taking action" such a scary step to take. I guess I had mixed feelings after finishing this book, I even watched the author's TEDx talk afterward to make sure I understood her point correctly. After all, I enjoyed reading the book and it helped me take control over my life, especially the professional side of it; it's one of those books that make you want to take action after reading them. But please remember that direction is much more important than speed; a timeline is important, but where you're going is just as, if not much more, important than when you're arriving.

A significant section in the book presented the idea of declining fertility after the age of thirty, again, more time-urgency, but this time around, it's urging you to be in a committed relationship and have babies before thirty? While time-urgency usually proves to be helpful when it comes to careers and professional life, it often makes things worse when it comes to relationships. Rushing to get to the next step in a relationship before it's the right time is never helpful, even though I acknowledge the scientific fact that "egg-quality," as well as other factors related to childbirth, tend to be better earlier in an adult woman's life. I also got the notion that relationships should be treated and looked at in the same way as a career, which just doesn't sit right with me.

All that being said, I still think the author had good intentions, giving us a matter-of-fact presentation of life and being more on the blunt side without sugar-coating, which I appreciated and found really refreshing. I will probably read the book again at some point in the future. I'm sure I'll get more out of it and maybe change my mind about how I perceived some of the points presented.

Overall, it's a book that evoked many thoughts and brought many feelings to the surface. It emphasised the importance of "starting your life" right now and not waiting for life to happen later, which I personally agree with to a large extent. The author made great and rational points that need to be looked into and considered, so I would still advise you to read the book, and maybe tell me what you think in the comments below when you're done reading it.

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Not long ago, my university offered us free access to online courses and to me, watching courses online was one of those things I never knew I needed until I actually tried, especially considering the fact that now more than ever, there's plenty of room for boredom and time wasted doing nothing in particular. If you know me, then you know how much I despise wasting my time, if I'm not advancing professionally, I better be doing some work on the inside and improving my thought patterns.

For the longest time, I had really destructive thinking and it had several negative outcomes in my life. Not very recently, I decided to put an end to it. It's not an easy decision and it most certainly doesn't happen overnight, and I am aware of it, but I committed to the journey and I decided to be patient with myself.

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That being said, it might not come as a surprise to you that when I had access to free online courses presented by top professors and experts, I was really grateful. At first, I started advancing in my field of studies but then I thought that maybe there could be helpful resources for me to grow on the inside and improve my thought patterns. So, I started searching for Psychology courses and came across a very laid back and relaxed course about positive psychology. I never thought I would finish it or benefit from it in any way, but surprisingly, I did both of those things.

The information in the course was not groundbreaking, but here's the thing about mental health — just like negative thought patterns were built slowly, positive ones require repeated exposure to helpful information to build up over time. I can go on for ages about this topic, so without further ado, here's what I learned during the positive psychology course...

Coping with "Chronic" adversity

How the course was structured, was that the main tutor sat at a round table joined with four adult professionals who either needed positive psychology to be better at their careers/ roles or were already in a career involved with positive psychology.

One of the participants deals with individuals with chronic issues in her career. She presented three helpful thoughts that she wanted her patients to remember whenever they feel hopeless because of their seemingly endless issue(s). Whether it is a longlasting or "chronic" physical or mental health issue, I personally think that the thoughts she presented can help either way.

Here's what you need to remember next time you feel hopeless about something that you seem to be stuck with:

1. You're not alone in this: no matter what type of problem you happen to be dealing with, there's a good chance that someone else in this big world feels the same or is dealing with the same problem as you are. We tend to feel isolated and alone when we're stuck in a negative thought pattern and hopelessness consumes us but taking a step back to remember that someone somewhere feels the same as we do, can make the whole thing less burdensome.

2. There's always something positive you can focus on: I tried to phrase this in the least insensitive way possible; because I know how hard it is to shift your focus from a negative situation you feel hopeless about, let alone see anything in a positive light. But oftentimes when we are too sucked in a tunnel vision that we can't see anything other than the problem, we amplify it even more and it grows to consume us that we fail to even acknowledge the presence of many blessings in our lives.

This is not to blame anyone who feels stuck, rather, it is a reminder that if we exerted the same effort focusing on the positive aspects of our lives, we would feel so much better and generally more grateful. The problem doesn't disappear simply by shifting our focus to something more positive, but it certainly helps us cope and see things with a more well-rounded view and not from just one point of view.

3. Things change: Nothing lasts forever. We know this to be true generally, but we sometimes forget that it applies to adversity too. Just because our minds sometimes make it seem like we're never getting out of a horrible situation or that how we feel now is going to be how we feel forever, doesn't mean that it's true. Our thoughts can sometimes be wrong.

We may have formed these thoughts based on our feelings, but feelings are not facts; just because you feel stuck, doesn't mean you are actually stuck. And even if you are, change will always be an integral part of this universe. Almost nothing stays the same, so why will you?
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Next time you feel stuck in a thinking pattern that convinces you to be hopeless and implies that there's no way out, make a conscious effort to remember those three things and notice how you feel afterward.

Let me know how you're holding up in these times.

You might also want to read:

THINGS TO DO IN LOCKDOWN / SELF-ISOLATION

WHY IS IT SO HARD TO BE PRODUCTIVE RIGHT NOW?
check out the mentioned course here