Visualizing Your Best Self

February 24, 2016January 6, 2018 ~ Lindsey ~ Leave a comment

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As I continue to shape and define the kind of site I want Morning Wellness to be, I’ve noticed an instinctual gravitation toward writing on topics related to finding ourselves (through vision boarding, values clarification exercises, and asking ourselves weird-sounding but research-supported therapeutic questions, to name a few).

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Today I want to share an exercise that’s not only related to defining our goals and desires, but also believing that we are capable of achieving them.

When you think about the big things that you want to do in your life, can you picture them happening? Are your dreams clear enough that you can envision them, and is your confidence strong enough that you believe they could happen?

In doing my own self-reflection, I realized that having goals doesn’t necessarily guarantee confidence that you can achieve them. And that sucks. If I have a professional or personal goal and my mindset is just, “Yeah, I think that I could possibly do that in a couple years if all goes okay,” then how am I going to go about working toward my goals? It’s not an attitude that encourages going the extra mile, taking risks, or making ourselves vulnerable. It encourages leaving everything up to fate and just hoping it ends up okay.

I found this Best Possible Self visualization exercise on the Greater Good in Action website, and I think it’s perfect for anyone looking to define what they want in life and build confidence that they can achieve it.

Visualizing Your Best Possible Self

Picture living the best possible life you can imagine. Reflect on different areas of your life – your career, friendships, family relationships, romantic relationships, health, habits, creative pursuits – and imagine them reaching their greatest potential.

For 15 minutes over the course of two weeks, write continuously about this best possible future. Get detailed – where are you? Who’s there? What specifically are you doing? Putting aside your anxieties and barriers, simply write about your best possible future, as if it’s the most possible thing in the world.

Researchers have found that people who completed this practice over the course of two weeks got a positive mood boost.

Why not give it a try? I’m going to! I know that I could use some help in clarifying what exactly I want to make of my life and build my self-confidence around my creative capabilities.

For more details on this exercise, be sure to check it out here.

I wrote Monday about valuing ordinary moments, and this post isn’t meant to discredit that. I wholeheartedly believe in the power of small moments, and I don’t want to ignore them in favor of extraordinary ones. I think there’s a way to balance appreciation for the ordinary moments with working hard to create extraordinary ones.

So, this week’s Morning Wellness reader (and writer) goal: be grateful for the ordinary moments while believing you will certainly live extraordinary ones too.

Finding Joy in Ordinary Moments

February 22, 2016January 6, 2018 ~ Lindsey ~ Leave a comment

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What do you think about when you picture yourself experiencing the utmost amount of joy?

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I’ll tell you how I would have answered that a few weeks ago. Picturing joy would mean imagining living a life that was perfect. I’d have the exact job I want and I’d be successful – people in my professional field would know my name and be familiar with my work, and non-social workers would also know all about me because my influence would be just THAT great. I’d be living in a spacious (but cozy) and gorgeously designed (but not over the top) house with windows-a-plenty. My partner and I would be in complete harmony – no arguing ever and no fear, anxiety, or challenges would come between us. I’d be spiritually enlightened, eternally calm, and yeah, hella stylish.

My view of joy changed when reading

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Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly. Brené conducted research to determine the difference between happiness and joy, and she found this:

“Participants described happiness as an emotion that’s connected to circumstances, and they described joy as a spiritual way of engaging with the world that’s connected to practicing gratitude.”

— Brené Brown

This idea was interesting – that, theoretically, we can be happy but not full of joy, or full of joy but, in that moment, not necessarily happy.

Reading on, I was stopped dead in my tracks by her other discovery about joy:

“Joy comes to us in moments.”

In talking with research participants who have experienced great losses,

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Brené found that what they missed the most was simple, ordinary moments. She writes that we are at a risk of letting joy pass us by if we disregard the ordinary moments while chasing after the extraordinary ones.

It makes so much sense. In a life that puts such a significant value on being busy, on “hustling,” on making it, on getting out of the suburbs and moving to the city, on being somebody – there’s pressure to live an exciting life, and a fear of living a boring one. Our focus leans closer toward achieving more than it does toward being grateful for what’s in front of us.

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I think we can take this concept of joy coming to us in moments and use that to cultivate joy in our everyday lives. We let the simple moments pass through us and we often don’t think twice about them because they’re ordinary. They’re the every day. They’re your boyfriend’s jokes, they’re your sister’s text messages, they’re your best friend’s phone calls to just see how you’re doing. They’re the real, authentic, life-shaping moments of connection we have with each other that will just slip through our fingers if we aren’t careful, because we’re used to them.

But we don’t have to let that happen.

We can put down the books about finding our happiness and we can stop picturing joy as a result of a perfectly crafted, Instagram-ready life. We can stop thinking we’ll be happy when we’re more successful, with more money, with better clothes, with a perfect relationship. We can stop with these broad ideas of concepts that will make us happier and instead, look at what’s right there in front of us and what always has been.

Imagine that big beautiful house with the high ceilings and big windows.

Zoom in and picture yourself sitting on your leather couch in your designer dress and your manicured nails.

Zoom in and picture talking to your partner, with your great careers and your awards hanging on the wall.

Zoom in and picture the small smile on his face when he reaches for your hand and asks what you want for dinner.

That’s the joy. Not the house, not the windows, not the dress or the career. It’s you, your partner, and the feeling of palms pressed together.

Let’s stop seeking joy. We already have it. Now, let’s savor it all.

How to Cure a Really, Really Bad Mood

February 17, 2016January 6, 2018 ~ Lindsey ~ Leave a comment

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I woke up on Wednesday last week with a feeling I hate so much: constant thoughts of today’s gonna suck, I have nothing to look forward to, I’m gonna be so bored, why am I not in bed, why am I not eating candy, why is this happening because I work so hard at happy living and self-care and THIS SHOULD JUST NOT BE HAPPENING.

But sometimes…it happens anyway. My brain was not a cool place to be that morning.

So I tweeted out to the world wide web, the millions of souls browsing the internet and waiting to answer the discussion-worthy, provocative question:

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…No one answered.

So, girlfriend was left to answer it for herself. I decided that I did not want to have a horrible day, so I was going to test my question out: When you’re in a bad mood, is it better to try to be positive and pretend you’re having a great day until you are having a great day, or is it better to just be mindful of where you are at, notice how you are feeling, and accept that it’s happening and that it too shall pass?

I decided I would spend the first half of my day following the advice of Instagram girls drinking green juice everywhere: be positive, fake it til I (hopefully) make it, and create the day I want to have. I knew I wouldn’t remember the details of this experiment, so I wrote down a kind of thought-log as it was happening:

7:13 AM: Wrote tweet, which prompted this whole idea. Seriously not in the mood to be any sort of positive, but I’m doing it for you, my sweet, sweet readers.

7:59 AM: I get off my uneventful bus ride and the “ugh” feelings are going strong. I remember a psychology experiment I learned in PSYC 101 that suggested that people who put a pencil in their mouth laterally get a mood boost, because it shapes their mouth as if it’s genuinely smiling. So, in my horrible mood, I force myself to smile for a minute.

8:03 AM: I think about the idea that affirmations, or repeating specific phrases to ourselves, helps shape our beliefs, so I repeat in my head, “I am in such a good mood today! I am in such a good mood today.”

8:04 AM: I feel like a serious freak.

9:12 AM: I’m bored, cranky, and starting to think this is an impossible task. I continue to say in my head, “I’m in a good mood today,” but I realized that specific positive thinking might be more effective.

9:57 AM: I have my most meaningful revelation – to stay positive, I can’t dwell on the negative. So simple but so important!! My bad mood would really amp up when I’d have thoughts like, “Did she just look at me weird? Am I annoying?” or “It’s seriously only 9:45 AM?” When I had these thoughts, I had to literally stop myself from taking them any further and just move on to thinking about something else. To stay focused on Operation: Good Mood, I couldn’t entertain those thoughts, even a little.

10:12 AM: A task came up at work that I was stressed out about. Bad mood creeped back in. I decided to just take care of it immediately instead of letting it linger and procrastinate…and voila! Good mood starts creepin back to where I want it to be. My brain. (I need more coffee.)

10:32 AM: I checked my phone and noticed my blog views went up. No, not to an insane kind of number, but still, it went up. I let myself get really excited about this. Probably disproportionately excited, to be honest. But I let myself really feel proud of this accomplishment, and my mood boosted.

11:13 AM: I went on Twitter and followed a professor I knew from Grad School. I feel really embarrassed writing this (and I truly hope she is not reading), but again, I’m sacrificing my pride here. I actually got like…a little buzz from following this professor, because it felt somehow exciting and risky. Twitter is a place for my personal thoughts, and it also heavily features posts from this blog (which is vulnerable for me to think of sharing with an actual grown-up mental health professional). I honestly got a little kick of adrenaline from it. The point of this isn’t how lame I am (though you can go ahead and glean that as well), it’s that doing something small that felt slightly risky gave me a mood boost too.

Noon rolled around, which was my cue to switch to the more mindful approach – feel your feelings, accept them, and exist with them – and I didn’t practice it…because I didn’t need to!

I am honestly surprised to tell you – the “fake it til you make it” method worked.

The tl;dr version of this post:

Things that didn’t work when I tried to change my bad mood into a good one:

Plastering an unauthentic smile across my face
Repeating vague affirmations, like “I am in a good mood today!”
Dwelling on any negative thought whatsoever

Things that did work when I tried to change my bad mood into a good one:

Completely avoiding any negative internal narrative that I wanted so badly to engage in
Eliminating stressful tasks as soon as possible
Getting (overly) excited about small positive things throughout the day
Taking a small, low-impact risk (i.e. emailing a professional role model, texting your crush, submitting a creative piece to a publication)

I hope you find this helpful next time you want to kick your bad mood to the curb!

Thumbnail photo from Artem Kovalev.

Why It Doesn’t Matter If She’s “Doing It For Attention”

February 15, 2016January 6, 2018 ~ Lindsey ~ Leave a comment

Good morning, everyone! Today I’m happy to share a post I wrote for I AM THAT GIRL, an organization working to build empowerment and healthy lifestyle choices in girls everywhere. Check out the site and my original post can be found here!

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From grade school throughout college I heard it way too often, usually paired with an overdramatic eye roll: “She’s just doing it for the attention.”

It could be a response to almost any adolescent or young adult cry for help – cutting, burning, excessive drinking, or suicidal threats. According to Healthyplace.com, 1 in 5 women engage in self-injurious behavior, and 90% of those women begin doing so as a teenager. This is a huge amount of girls, making it no surprise that rumors of self-harm and suicidal threats run rampant throughout gossipy school hallways.

Hearing that someone you know purposefully hurts herself or wants to kill herself is really scary. I think that’s why it can be so easy to dismiss – if we tell ourselves that she is just saying this for attention, we don’t have to worry about the horrible possibility that she might actually kill herself. It’s just for attention, we think. She wouldn’t actually do that.

And here’s the truth: Yes. She IS doing it for attention. She desperately needs attention. And we need to give it to her.

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I think a lot about mental illness and how it compares to physical illness. If someone complains that they have a migraine, she’ll be met with an outpouring of support. “That’s so horrible!” friends will say. “Can I get you a water? An Advil? Here, let me dim the lights for you.” Someone who explains that she cuts herself or is thinking of killing herself isn’t always as lucky. Her friends might wonder if she’s doing it for attention, her mom might worry that she is being manipulative, and a lot of people might pretend that she never even said anything because they are so unsure of how to respond to such a scary statement.

As girls who support other girls, we need to stop thinking of attention-seeking as an absolutely, no-questions-asked negative behavior. When a girl makes an intense statement like this, we need to fight our old way of thinking – the thinking that tells us that she isn’t serious and that we should change the subject – and make the choice to give her the attention she is looking for. She is going through something that’s hurting her. She wants someone to listen to her.

A lot of people are afraid that talking to their friend about suicide will only make things worse. This isn’t true. If your friend is thinking about hurting herself, it actually helps to talk about it, because it lets her feel heard and it allows you to learn more about why she is feeling this way (Kevin Caruso, “Suicide Myths,” Suicide.org).

When you hear that someone is thinking of hurting herself, listen to her without judgment and she will feel understood. Encourage her to get help. You could even offer to go with her to a school counselor or a mental health professional. Help her get the positive attention that she so desperately deserves.

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If you or anyone you know is feeling suicidal, please get help! Call 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or visit their website to chat online with someone who can help: http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

PS: Follow my blog with Bloglovin!

When Compliments Get Weird

February 10, 2016January 6, 2018 ~ Lindsey ~ Leave a comment

Good Morning and welcome back to Morning Wellness, the blog that dissects weird and extremely specific emotions that are experienced by maybe no one except me.

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I’m just kidding – I really hope that’s not your interpretation of this blog – but this entry might be pushing it.

Basically, this week I’ve been thinking a lot about when compliments go wrong. I’m not referring to trying to compliment someone but accidentally offending them instead (though that is another cringe-worthy situation) – I’m talking about those moments when you try to be nice to someone but something weird happens in the middle that turns it around and makes you feel like crap.

The other day I was at lunch with someone who is an authority figure/mildly (okay, majorly) intimidating. She was talking for a long time about her workout habits, which entailed waking up at 4:30 and going to the gym for 6 days a week, plus eating a diet that complements her fitness routine. I was obviously impressed and was also looking for a way to connect with her, so I gave her a genuine compliment and said, “That’s so amazing! I would be so tempted to just not go to the gym, and I could never not eat sweets!”

Her response was something I didn’t expect at all: She tilted her head, crinkled her nose and said, “Really? It’s not hard.”

Like…I was weird for thinking it would be hard to wake up at 4:30 every morning and not eat sugar. I almost can’t even explain it, or why it made me feel so strange. I think it was because I was searching for connection in that moment – a potential bonding experience between us, with me saying, “Wow, that’s incredible, I’d find that so difficult,” and her saying something like, “Yeah, it’s definitely tough, but I’m motivated” – that would leave her feeling good because I expressed admiration, and would leave me feeling good because I was able to give her a compliment.

But instead, her response put me on the defense, and I sort of stumbled over my words. “Yeah! That’s not hard for you? It’s just me??” and she just kind of shrugged, and the interaction just totally did not go as planned. I felt like her response had some deeper implication – that I was lazy and had a bad work ethic because I would find it hard to go to the gym that much – and I sort of quieted up and coiled into myself, ashamed that I had chosen to speak up in the first place.

I’m not writing this to put any blame on this person…and anyway, it’s totally possible that you’re reading this like, “What Lindsey? That is so not a big deal, you’re just sensitive,” which could be entirely true, since I’m a Pisces (just kidding, I have no idea what it means to be a Pisces).

My big realization with this situation was really just that we can’t say anything with the expectation that we’ll get a certain response. Cause we really just don’t know. We only can control what we will do and say, and that’s really all we should focus on: saying what we think is kind, good, and intelligent, regardless of the response we get.

I don’t regret initiating the conversation, but if I had to do it again I think I’d change my response to her reaction. Instead of getting defensive and ashamed, I would just say, “Yes, I find that very admirable,” and be confident in the intention behind my initial comment. I can’t control whether this person thinks I’m weird for wanting to sleep and eat cupcakes, but I can control my own response and let go of my expectations.

Fighting For Our Dreams When It Just Ain’t Happening

February 8, 2016January 6, 2018 ~ Lindsey ~ Leave a comment

This whole blogging experience has been super vulnerable for me, but today I am challenging myself to crank it up a notch and just be really honest about what’s been going on with me lately.

I moved to Los Angeles after finishing my Master’s Degree in Social Work in August. I’ve really liked being here and am getting used to the California vibes, which are very real and very different from what I grew up with in Illinois. I’ve been held back from really feeling great here though, because of one huge problem: I cannot get a job.

And trust me, I’ve tried. My big barriers are that I don’t have a car yet (and lots of jobs require driving to clients’ houses) and that I am not bilingual, so sometimes it’s difficult to even find anything to apply to. Being in a new city, I also am limited by not really being familiar with the agencies in the area and not having any social work connections.

I have had small spots of hope: there was the agency that found my info and contacted me for an interview but was located way too far from me; the agency that called me to interview while I was home on holiday vacation and found a candidate before I got back to LA; and, most significantly, there was the agency I interviewed with last week that I was really excited about, until the very end of the interview when I was told the job required that the therapists own a vehicle. All of the small hopeful moments so far have ended with disappointment, which has been really hard on my heart.

I’ve been thinking a lot about writing this post because I just want to be real with you guys. I want to remind you that, even though I write about mental health and positive living tips, I have serious struggles just like you do. Life can just feel unfair. I am so positive that I have the passion and skills needed to work at the places I’ve been applying, and I still haven’t gotten a job. These jobs require a car, but I can’t afford a car if I can’t find a job. It’s just this seriously frustrating, disheartening experience, and I’ve been living it over the past 6 months as I work a temporary job to make some money.

During this process, I’ve felt really, really hopeless at times. I’ve worried that I’d have to give up my dream of being a therapist. I’ve worried I’d be seen as a failure by my friends, my family, and yeah, even my blog readers. I’m still a little worried about that.

As hard as it was doing that interview last week and finding out at the last minute that the job required a car, I learned something. I learned from my responses in that interview that I am still, despite all of this struggle, so, so passionate about my future work.

I had to cry a little (a lot) and heal a bit, but the next day, I was thinking about me, and about any of you that might have a dream that just isn’t happening right now. And I just think that when we are so motivated, and so passionate, and we can just envision ourselves in our dream role so vividly that it absolutely must happen…we’ll be okay. I have to intentionally remind myself:

My passion will lead me to where I want to be.

I am loved by my family and friends unconditionally.

I am more than giving up.

I’m writing this for the reader who can’t find a job, who is worried about the future, who wants something so bad she can taste it but it just isn’t happening.

We can’t stop trying. We’re in the middle of a valley right now, but there will be mountains. We’ll keep up our hustle, but we’ll relax when we need it. We’re in this together.

If anyone’s going through something similar and wants to talk about it, my email is morningwellnessblog@gmail.com. Sometimes companionship can be really healing. I wish the best for you, and thank you, readers, for letting me feel comfortable in my vulnerability.

Let’s stay strong & do this.

Is there a right time to say “I Love You”?

February 3, 2016January 6, 2018 ~ Lindsey ~ Leave a comment

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The feeling of a new relationship is absolutely electrifying. You want to be with your partner all the time. You’re actually smiling at couples kissing in the grocery store. Your stomach is a big bouncing knot of affection, excitement, and nervousness.

Oh, and maybe even love? Yeah, let’s talk about that.

Saying “I love you” in a fresh relationship can be three tiers of terrifying: 1) What if my partner doesn’t say “I love you” back? Will that ruin everything? 2) What if I actually don’t love my partner? Because what even is love? And how am I supposed to know if this is it? 3) What will my friends say?!

My friends and I all coincidentally entered our first relationships around the same time, and to be honest, I remember an air of judgment surrounding discussions about when everyone said, “I love you.” One friend said it after one year – way too long. One said it after a month and a half – too quick! Strangely, there was never any sort of unanimous belief that a certain couple did it just at the “right” time…it always seemed to be a little soon or a little late.

I regret that judgmental thinking, because as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that there is no such thing as a “right” time to say, “I love you” to your partner. I wish I could tell you there was, cause that would sure eliminate a lot of the anxiety around the whole thing. But really, the answer is tricky but simple: you say “I love you” to your partner when you feel that you love your partner.

I know that sounds vague, but when you’re in it, I think you kind of just know. I remember my “I love you” story so clearly. We were gazing into each other’s eyes (romance makes clichés feel normal, okay?) and kept reciting these words back and forth that said everything but I love you. “I like you so, so much,” I said. “I care about you so deeply,” he said. “You mean so much to me,” I said. And this went on and on while we held back what we truly wanted to say, what was about to burst out of our mouths at any moment if we finally just let ourselves stop holding it in. And so at last, he did. “I love you.” I felt like I’d lived my whole life for that moment. What an honor it was to say it back.

If you’re in a relationship and stressing about the “I love you,” don’t. There’s no wrong time. Good relationships are built on trust and vulnerability, and the confidence that your partner will accept you if you show him or her your deepest feelings. Yes, it’s a risk, but sometimes risks are worth taking. And if you feel something, or even think you feel something, you owe it to yourself to express it.

Thumbnail photo by Samuel Stratton.

Active vs. Passive Relaxation

February 1, 2016January 6, 2018 ~ Lindsey ~ Leave a comment

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I’m the kind of girl who overthinks and over-complicates simple concepts, but hear me out: it’s a good thing.

Or, that’s what I tell myself.

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So lately I’ve been over-thinking and complicating the concept of relaxation. By nature, it’s simple – it’s having free time, unwinding, doing whatever you want without worrying about responsibility.

But as a self-care enthusiast, I’ve had a lot of time to relax in the past few years, and I’ve noticed that there are two kinds of relaxation: passive relaxation & active relaxation.

I think I made those terms up but I feel like they sound kind of legit, right?

I would define passive relaxation as unwinding without intention. This is the kind of aimless relaxing that we do when we lay on our bed scrolling through various social media feeds (I’m talking about when you start out checking your Instagram like normal and then click on this profile and this tag of this person and then that person’s best friend and suddenly 20 minutes have passed and you’re looking at photos of Lisa Rinna’s daughter’s boyfriend. What the?). Passive relaxation also happens when we fall into the Netflix trap, sitting down to watch an episode and then realizing we finished a season.

Active relaxation, on the other hand, is unwinding purposefully. This means spending your free time in a way that relaxes you but still re-energizes your spirit somehow. This could be reading a good book, knitting/crocheting, coloring, drawing, writing, working on your website (ahem), taking a walk, and the list goes on. It’s really just the idea of finding the things that feel relaxing to you and dedicating time to them. I think this is especially effective if your active relaxation activities are something that taps into your creativity, or your ability to create something tangible that means something to you.

It honestly took me a long time to figure out that my passive relaxation habits weren’t working for me. In my mind, this was my free time, time to not think about anything and do whatever I wanted. This led to excessive consumption of Netflix, Youtube, social media, and iPhone games that did absolutely nothing for me. It would come to be time for bed and I didn’t feel like I had just relaxed for four hours, I felt like I’d wasted them.

Active relaxation is a little hard to get used to, because it does still kind of feel like you’re busy, but you’re really just busy with doing things that make you feel good and help you grow in some way. Going to bed, you feel like you really used those free hours, and you feel good about the evening you just had. Active relaxation is like productivity without exhaustion, because you’re simply being productive in doing things that relax you. You’re finding the balance. You’ve realized that watching one episode of Parks & Recreation makes you feel good, but watching six in a row makes you feel like mashed potatoes (which is a real feeling that I have definitely had).

This week, let’s try to notice when we’re passively relaxing and see how it makes us feel. After passive relaxation, are we tired? Are we fulfilled? Do we wish we had more time to relax, or are we satisfied?

Let me know how you actively relax in the comments!

How I Self-Cared in January

January 27, 2016January 6, 2018 ~ Lindsey ~ Leave a comment

I was planning to go easy on the posting this week — I just made my big move from WordPress and feel like I may still have some site-designing to do. BUT this is my last post of January and I made a commitment to write about my self-care practices at the end of each month, so I’m doing it! I’m trying to stick to the goals I set for myself this year – crazy, right?

Relax & Glam

I took a long vacation from work for the holidays, and I took advantage of it by pampering the f out. My sister got me my first Lush products – a face mask and a bath bomb – and I couldn’t believe how much I loved them! If you’re a bath-taker, I highly recommend you try a bath bomb. It’s kind of a chalky sphere that you just drop into the bath water once you’re done filling the tub, and you watch it fizzle, spilling out an amazing color and scent. It must have essential oils inside it to make it smell so good, and I also thought it made my skin softer. It’s perfect for when you really deserve a treat. The face mask I got was freshly made, so it had an expiration date of about two weeks after purchasing, and I thought it was cool that the ingredients are so natural.

Read

I’ve been loving Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly so much that I’ve already written a post based on it…and I haven’t even finished the book! No matter how much I love a book, I can find myself getting eager to start the next one about halfway through the first, but I’m really trying to stick to intentional reading this year. I want to commit to one book (or okay, one fiction book and one nonfiction book) and use that as motivation to read more, finish the book quicker, and move on to the next one! I’m certain I’ll write more posts based on Daring Greatly. Brene uses actual research to support her thoughts, but she writes in a seriously approachable way. Her book is sort of a model for what I want this blog to be; a resource that inspires women to get comfortable with their thoughts and emotions, take ownership of them, and always try to be the best version of themselves possible.

Listen

I’m a pop music lover through and through, which often leads to embarrassingly over the top enthusiasm when a Justin Bieber song comes on at a restaurant. In high school and college I was a true music elitist, which in some ways was great, because I just loved music so much that assessing it as good or not good and analyzing why was fun and meaningful for me. But in another way, it kind of negatively influenced my ability to just think, “Hey, I like this song!” without internally agonizing over whether I was too embarrassed to listen to it. So…thats something I’m working on. But in the meantime, I’m comforted by the album Art Angels by Grimes, a super up-beat, feel-good pop album that also is something you can talk about at parties for a couple extra cool points.

Etc.

TV: This month I finished watching the Netflix series Making A Murderer. Guys…I don’t even know if I’d recommend it. It’s super depressing in regards to how the social justice system works, and it just really crystallizes the ways that class, education, and family history shape what happens to us. Definitely an interesting and eye-opening series that has taken the nation by a storm because it makes just that crazy of an impression on you.
Health: This month I stocked up on mason jars so I could have easy grab-and-go containers for smoothies and overnight oats. These are some recipes I’ve been using: Peanut Butter Overnight Oats (really perfect for bringing to work) and a Berry Smoothie with only a few ingredients!
Fitness: I wrote about my 2016 goal to get more active, and I’d say I’m doing…okay. Which is a lot better than bad! I have been stretching almost nightly and am going to do this yoga video for the second time this month today. This goal is allowing me to practice the thought that doing something (no matter how small) is always better than nothing.

How did you practice self-care this month? Comment below!

Continuing on with our regular scheduling…

January 27, 2016January 26, 2016 ~ Lindsey ~ Leave a comment

Head on over to morningwellness.com for more mental health and personal development goodness!! Mmmm, that super offish URL is lookin’ so sweet, isn’t it?

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morning wellness

where mental health meets real life.

Visualizing Your Best Self

When you think about the big things that you want to do in your life, can you picture them happening? Are your dreams clear enough that you can envision them, and is your confidence strong enough that you believe they could happen?

Visualizing Your Best Possible Self

Finding Joy in Ordinary Moments

“Joy comes to us in moments.”

How to Cure a Really, Really Bad Mood

I am honestly surprised to tell you – the “fake it til you make it” method worked.

The tl;dr version of this post:

Why It Doesn’t Matter If She’s “Doing It For Attention”

When Compliments Get Weird

Fighting For Our Dreams When It Just Ain’t Happening

My passion will lead me to where I want to be.

I am loved by my family and friends unconditionally.

I am more than giving up.

Is there a right time to say “I Love You”?

Active vs. Passive Relaxation

Let me know how you actively relax in the comments!

How I Self-Cared in January

Relax & Glam

Read

Listen

Etc.

How did you practice self-care this month? Comment below!

Continuing on with our regular scheduling…

Head on over to morningwellness.com for more mental health and personal development goodness!! Mmmm, that super offish URL is lookin’ so sweet, isn’t it?