Last night I lost it.
I was too tired because I didn’t sleep enough. I was too hungry because I didn’t eat enough. I was too sore after an injury because I didn’t rest enough. I hadn’t done enough. And so, I wasn’t enough. I wasn’t patient enough. I wasn’t understanding enough. I wasn’t trusting enough. I lost it. Tears over nothing. Tears over everything. It may have seemed like it came from nowhere but it came from everywhere. That’s what happens when we don’t give ourselves enough. And the truth is, when we don’t give ourselves enough, we aren’t able to give anyone else enough. Don’t forget to focus on doing enough for yourself. Sometimes that might mean you need to focus on doing less for others. Find the space between selfishness and selflessness and live there. Give yourself enough so you can be enough. (Follow Changing Perspectives on Facebook)
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I’m going to let you in on a little secret about change.
Walking away from the things and people that drain your energy is one of the hardest things you can do. Ever. Even if that person or thing leaves you bruised and broken over and over again, making the decision to leave it behind and step towards a life that is more authentically you, is terrifying. Like leaves your palms sweaty, gives you a pit in your stomach, and sends your heart racing - terrifying. You begin to worry about all the people that won’t understand. You start a repetitive loop of all the “what if” scenarios. You decide that it’s just not worth it - change would be too hard. But, sweet reader, I promise you it IS worth it. All of the pain and fear and hard work of walking away from the life you know and walking towards the life you deserve is worth it. I hope that someday you find the courage to take the first step away from the hurt and turn your gaze to the horizon of possibility. A beautiful horizon of possibility - that’s what exists for you once you decide to take your future and your happiness into your own hands and go after the things you want. I promise you that there will be moments where you doubt your decision. There will be moments where you start to turn back towards the pain because the devil you know is greater than the devil you don’t know right? Remember this - there’s only one way to find out. You owe it to yourself in those moments to keep moving forward. Keep moving towards your goals and away from the painful past. Even when it’s hard. Even when it feels uncertain. And someday, hopefully in the not too distant future, you will take a deep breath in for just a moment and catch a glimpse of the life you used to know, a glimpse of the shell of the person you used to be, and you will smile. You will smile and notice that your heart is light, you are surrounded by true support, and you are on the right path - all because you believed you were worthy and took that first step towards change and possibility. (Follow Changing Perspectives on Facebook) Today was one of those days.
You know what I mean when I say "those days" because we all have them. Those days are the worst. Today was filled with dogs who found some sort of exciting thing in our fenced-in backyard and did not want to come inside, leaving me schlepping around my backyard in my pjs with a container of deli meat trying to reason with an 8 year old stubborn pup. Today was filled with ransacking the laundry room to find the game jersey that had to be worn to school today - only to realize that it had been left in the other parent's vehicle and was nowhere near us. Today was filled with my freshly washed favorite post-workout hoodie smelling like old cooked food when I pulled it out of my bag, rendering it useless. Today was filled with finding evidence of mice in my kitchen as I was rushing to prepare a birthday cake. Today was filled with yet another Facebook Marketplace buyer backing out last minute. Today was filled with still not knowing what time my son's practice is ending today and scrambling to arrange a pick up that would not interfere with our work schedules. All of this was before 10am. Naturally I felt all of the feelings. I wanted to scream into my pillow. I wanted to cry out of frustsration. I wanted to send angry messages. I wanted to cancel my patients and crawl back into bed. But, instead, I took 3 deep breaths and considered how I could reframe my morning. Sure, my morning was filled with all of the things that make up one of "those days." But, it was also filled with so much more. It was filled with trashcans already at the curb, placed there lovingly by my husband before he left for work. It was filled with an adventurous pup who just a few months ago had a cancer diagnosis and might not have been here right now were it not for his great doctor. It was filled with the knowledge that tomorrow we get to celebrate a birthday with my favorite people in the whole world - people who love my boys with all their heart. It was filled with back to back appointments with patients who show up regularly for their therapy appointments and commit to the hard work of self discovery and growth. It was filled with reassuring phone calls from my husband with a plan for our new little mice friends. It was filled with check-ins from good friends who make it a point to just reach out and say hi. For all the annoying parts that made this morning one of “those days,” there were even more parts that made it a good day. Listen, I’m not someone who believes in “choosing happiness” or not allowing yourself to feel the crappy feelings. When you have a morning like I did today, it’s completely normal and acceptable to feel all the feelings about it. But then we have to look for the good parts. Even if they are hard to find. Even if there aren’t a lot of them. I promise there are always some good parts. There is always some glimmer of hope to hold on to. Let those good parts be what defines your day, not the other things. So, yes, today was one of “those days” - those days where lots of stuff went wrong. But it was also one of “those days” - those days where I get to count my blessings and lean in to all the glimmers of hope. I’m going to let you in on a little secret about change.
Walking away from the things and people that drain your energy is one of the hardest things you can do. Ever. Even if that person or thing leaves you bruised and broken over and over again, making the decision to leave it behind and step towards a life that is more authentically you, is terrifying. Like leaves your palms sweaty, gives you a pit in your stomach, and sends your heart racing - terrifying. You begin to worry about all the people that won’t understand. You start a repetitive loop of all the “what if” scenarios. You decide that it’s just not worth it - change would be too hard. But, sweet reader, I promise you it IS worth it. All of the pain and fear and hard work of walking away from the life you know and walking towards the life you deserve is worth it. I hope that someday you find the courage to take the first step away from the hurt and turn your gaze to the horizon of possibility. A beautiful horizon of possibility - that’s what exists for you once you decide to take your future and your happiness into your own hands and go after the things you want. I promise you that there will be moments where you doubt your decision. There will be moments where you start to turn back towards the pain because the devil you know is greater than the devil you don’t know right? Remember this - there’s only one way to find out. You owe it to yourself in those moments to keep moving forward. Keep moving towards your goals and away from the painful past. Even when it’s hard. Even when it feels uncertain. And someday, hopefully in the not too distant future, you will take a deep breath in for just a moment and catch a glimpse of the life you used to know, a glimpse of the shell of the person you used to be, and you will smile. You will smile and notice that your heart is light, you are surrounded by true support, and you are on the right path - all because you believed you were worthy and took that first step towards change and possibility. As I was listening to my sons tell me all about their impromptu baseball practice session at the field the other day, critiquing each other’s stance, swing and follow through, I realized that life is a lot like getting up to bat in baseball.
The People Your fans Behind you are your friends. They are the people in the crowd who are there for you and want you to do your best. They know when you need to be cheered on and when you need them to be quiet. They get you. Fans of the other team Behind you may also be some people who are not your friends. They wouldn’t mind seeing you strike out because they are there to root for someone else. People only there for the snacks Then there are the people that are just acquaintances. They are the people behind you who are totally uninterested in what you are doing — they are taking selfies on their phones and carrying on about something totally unrelated to your at-bat. Even though they are neutral, you still might not want to make an error in front of them. Your coaches Then there are your role models. They are your coaches. You look to them for guidance and advice. They motivate and push you. The umps Let’s not forget about the authority figures in your life. Perhaps they are bosses or others who are quick to judge you. They are the Umps, ready to call you “out.” Your teammates But, as you make your way to the plate, you also feel the presence of your team. Your success is their success. Your failure will also be felt by them. Maybe they are cheering you on, chanting your name, reminding you that they believe in you. Your opponents Then there is the other team — waiting in the outfield, watching your every move. Willing you to strike out and send them a nice pop fly. Does any of that seem a bit like how real life goes? It does for me. I can identify people in each of those roles: fans for my team, fans for the other team, neutral acquaintances, people quick to judge or point out my errors and also my team who has my back. Once you are in the batter’s box, all that other stuff fades away as you face off with the pitcher. The Fear
I have seen countless batters step into that box throughout my years as a baseball mom. One single bad experience can set some kids into an incredible slump. Great hitters suddenly freeze, afraid to swing the bat. Some confident batters suddenly find themselves jumping out of the box because they have grown afraid of being hit by a ball again. Others lose their focus and can no longer seem to make contact with the ball. I have spent many seasons cheering on my sons, hearing coaches remind them that baseball is in large part about confidence, focus and staying in the box. Look around. What is it like in your batter’s box of life now? 1. Who is cheering you on? 2. Who wants you to strike out? 3. Who is part of your team? 4. How are they supporting and encouraging you? 5. Who are your coaches and how do they motivate and bring out the best in you? 6. How does it feel in your batter’s box? 7. Do you need to make some changes to your stance? 8. What are you thinking when you step into the batter’s box? 9. Is your fear of striking out so great that you just stand there, frozen, as the pitched balls fly by you, hoping they are called balls and not strikes? 10. Are you so scared of being hurt that you back out of the box on each pitch? 11. Do you lack confidence in yourself so you find yourself closing your eyes and swinging wildly at any pitch? As you move through this week, notice all of the children who are taking to the fields with their gloves, bats and balls. Let those images be a reminder to you to take some time to reflect on your life and what it is like in your batter’s box. How can you regain your confidence, drown out the negative noise behind you, lean in, keep your eye on the ball and smash it out of the park? The other day I fell into a sinkhole. Again.
You know the kind of sinkhole I’m talking about - the metaphorical kind. The kind that opens up and drags you under, disrupting your life - usually without warning. This same stupid sinkhole has plagued me for years now. Each time it gets patched up, the fix only lasts for a short while before it becomes dangerous again. Over the years, I’ve learned a lot about the sinkhole. I’ve learned what causes sinkholes and how you can try to decrease your chances of encountering them. I’ve learned how to add supports and reinforcements to reduce the risk of falling into the sinkhole. I’ve learned to make the sinkhole more stable so that I could more safely move near it. I’ve learned how to calmly drag myself out of the sinkhole each time it swallows me whole. I’ve learned to minimize the toll the sinkhole has on my life. I’ve learned to normalize sinkholes - afterall, we all hit sinkholes sometimes. But, the other day I fell in it again. My reinforcements hadn’t worked, minimizing it hadn’t worked, normalizing it hadn’t worked. Nothing had worked. There I was again - inside the sinkhole. I was powerless and defeated - again. When people tried to help me out of the sinkhole, I yelled at them to go away, or I ignored them, or I begged for them to tell me it was ok to be a mess because I was back in the effing sinkhole again. And then my child fell in behind me. Of course he did. It was only a matter of time before this happened. Afterall, he’s watched me and this sinkhole for most of his life. If I couldn’t avoid it then how could I expect him to avoid it. That’s when it hit me. I needed to be done with this sinkhole. Like, completely done. I’ve tried everything to keep the sinkhole from being a looming force in my life. Everything except one thing. I have never decided to stop letting the sinkhole be in my life. I COULD make the one choice I hadn’t yet given myself permission to make. There are always other routes we can take to get where we need to go. Maybe those routes will take us longer to get where we are going. Maybe those routes won’t make sense to those people who have never fallen into the sinkhole or who can’t imagine that particular sinkhole being so bad. Maybe we’ll be judged harshly and criticized for my decision to take a new route. But, the truth in life is that there will always be criticism. There will always be people who don’t understand us. There will always be people who disagree with us. There will always be sinkholes. When the sinkholes become too big, too scary, and too damaging we CAN take away their power in our life. We CAN stop allowing them to dictate how our journey goes. We CAN stop allowing them to wreak havoc in our life. It was time to do it. So, together my child and I pulled ourselves out of the sinkhole and decided to drive away. One last time. We didn’t look back. Beep beep!
It’s your struggle bus captain checking in again. This week I am 4 weeks post surgery and when the doctor told me the hormones would be awful for up to 4-8 weeks, he wasn’t lying. Yesterday I had a mini panic attack because the football stadium seats felt too steep and I was afraid I would topple to my death. Then I cried because my freshman’s football coach sent a text for everyone to meet for dinner and it felt so nice to see something so normal. And then an hour later I was filled with so much rage that I wanted to find a total stranger that was trolling online and give her a piece of my mind. Seriously. Then I ate chocolate. And cried some more. And picked a fight with my husband. And cried about what a terrible person I am and how my face is full of acne. Whew! How many of you can relate to days like that? The truth is - days like this can happen to all of us - even without crazy hormones. Whenever we start to listen to all the negative thoughts in our head, it’s easy for all our good self-care practices to simply fade away. self-doubt inner criticism imposter syndrome guilt shame They really don’t do us any good. Ever. So, anyways, I’m here to say that sometimes some days and some weeks just don’t go the way you want them. It’s ok. Let yourself feel your feelings. Sometimes it’s really ok to cry and eat the chocolate and fantasize about what you want to say to the internet trolls. But then take time to center yourself. Reset. Remember who you are at your core. Keep moving forward because you deserve the life you want. And on the really hard days, don’t forget to pick your head up and look around. You aren’t the only one on the struggle bus. There’s lots of us here with you - reach out when you need support. Beep beep! See Less I have a confession.
All around me this week people are sharing their posts from a year ago - posts from when our lives as we knew them came to screeching halt. Although those 2020 feelings of dread, fear, and uncertainty are there beneath the surface and I can easily tap into them, those feelings are not how I define my memories of the past year. I remember things a bit differently. I remember my oldest son walking around in a bike helmet all day on a dare from his brother because what else was there to do? The photos from that day will forever make us chuckle. I remember pulling out all our board games to pass the time, working our way through all the boxes that filled our hallway closet. Those games allowed us to share laughter and create memories. I remember learning Tik Tok dances much to the embarrassment of my sons. Somehow those silly songs now hold a special place in my heart. I remember group FaceTime calls with my friends as we showed our stashes of toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Those calls brought us closer and provided me with a connection I desperately needed. I remember creative date nights at home planned by my husband. His Dominican feast on the day we were supposed to be traveling alone to Punta Cana certainly did not replace our trip but it was a pretty good back up plan. I remember sitting at our kitchen table every morning. That tiny table that somehow fit four humans, their four laptops, and mountains of paperwork became the center hub of our home as we all made the switch to remote learning and remote working. I remember watching the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe and Star Wars catalog as a family - twice - once in the release order and once in chroniclogal order. Those films became the soundtrack of our year. I remember crafting a new kitchen island as a family after on a whim I said we needed a bigger space to do our work. Now that Island anchors my family and serves as the gathering place in our home. I remember building a new patio as a family, brick by brick, because our backyard would be where we would spend our entire spring and summer. Even now under cover of winter in New England, that patio makes me smile as it is a piece of my family’s heart. I remember hugging my sister, brother in law, my nieces, and my nephew for the first time after the initial lockdown. In that moment, standing in my dining room with tears in our eyes, we all decided that we needed to be in each other’s bubble always. I remember spending time with friends outdoors when at times it almost felt like normal life. I remember how when we struggled we were there for each other. I remember how we all adapted. I remember how we learned important lessons about ourselves and our family. I remember how we decided to make lasting changes to our lives. I remember laughter. I remember joy. I remember love. I remember hope. I remember that the year we were forced inward and were forced to slow down was also the year when we learned how to stay connected and truly enjoy life. I remember that we found out just how lucky and loved we truly are. There are times in everyone’s lives when the bad stuff hits.
Sometimes the bad stuff hits all at once. Sometimes the bad stuff hits gradually over time. Sometimes the hits are so bad that you don’t feel like getting out of bed, leaving your house, or answering your phone. Sometimes the bad stuff makes you turn inward. Sometimes it makes you implode on yourself. Sometimes it makes you explode on others. No matter how you react to the bad stuff, one thing is shared — the bad stuff exists for all of us at some point in our lives. As I have been reflecting on our shared experiences with the bad stuff lately, I have been considering them within the context of this time of year. Spring is almost here and with it comes a collective shift of our focus to the future. This is a time of reflection and goal setting. At times like these, I always turn towards inspirational quotes to keep me grounded in reality while also striving towards my goals. This, one of my favorite quotes from Theodore Roosevelt, made it’s way into my social media feed the other day. It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.― Theodore Roosevelt For me, this quote is about being your best, striving for greatness, and setting up the best future possible for yourself, knowing that it will take fight, courage and, sometimes, even failure. But, really the quote is so much more. It is a quote filled with questions:
The reality is, though, it truly doesn’t really matter whether you succeed or fail. What matters is that you are out there — you are in the arena. You are trying. You are doing. You are living. And, until we know failure, loss and sacrifice, we cannot truly appreciate the sweetness of success and all the beauty life has to offer us. So, to the person in the arena, with the face marred by “dust and sweat and blood,” look around. If you take a moment to pause your battle and take stock of where you are right now, you will see that you are not alone. There are lots of us in the same arena and while we all are fighting versions of our own battles, our own bad stuff, some of us are here to help fight each other’s battles as well. This arena can be a scary, dangerous place but it isn’t a vast empty space. The arena isn’t a space in which we all fight our own battles; instead, the arena is a place where we can gain strength from each other and from knowing that we are not alone. Reach out to those around you in your arena right now and let them help you fight your battles and your bad stuff. The real living in life, after all, takes place in that space between failure and success. It takes place in the arena. Ladies, I have an important message for you.
You know that voice in your head — the not so nice one? The one that tells you all the ways other people are better than you. The one that tells you that you aren’t smart enough, pretty enough, funny enough, skinny enough, nice enough, rich enough, talented enough, popular enough. The one that tells you that you are a bad mother, bad friend, bad sister, bad employee, bad wife. Yes, that voice. Guess what? She lies. She’s wrong. She’s become too comfortable in your brain. She lies. She’s become too familiar. You don’t need to listen to her. She lies. You don’t have to be perfect. No one is perfect. You don’t have to have it all figured out. No one does. You don’t have to be able to do it all. No one can. When that voice starts ringing in your head, picture yourself turning down her volume, like you would on the tv or radio. Remind yourself that she lies. Turn up the volume on all the good things about yourself. You ARE enough. You DO matter. You ARE loved. That’s the only voice that you should listen to — the kind one. That’s the truth. |
Mental healthNow, more than ever, we all need a little support to help get us through the rough spots. With all the pressures of life, it can be a challenge to find time to not only take care of yourself but also to truly understand who you even are anymore. Archives
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