Tag: Books

Loneliness is a public health crisis in the making

In an ever-connected, ever-monitored, ever-watchful world, people have never been so lonely.

There’s been some emerging bodies of research around isolation and loneliness, a stark reminder that we are social animals. This article summarizes some of the research being conducted, stating that the physical and mental effects of being chronically lonely can be devastating. I’ve been reading articles from various angles fairly recently, and the science is becoming quite clear, having a consistent support network of people that value you, is really important to not just our emotional health, but mental and physical health as well.

What’s more difficult, is that our physical support systems are shrinking, creating situations where our kids, partners, and few others are becoming our ONLY social circle outside of our jobs. Even a lot of employment situations are allowing more remote work, decreasing the number of other humans throughout the day, that we come into physical proximity of. I bring this up because having situations where your only social outlet is your partner, is not only unhealthy, but unsustainable.

It’s not uncommon to see couples as their only sources of human interaction, which means you spouse is now your best friend, your counselor, your housemate, your coparent, your accountant, and also your romantic partner. I know from experience that this is even more common if you have kids. My partner and I go to work, come home, parent, and then go to bed to start over tomorrow most days. Throw in a sick kiddo, shittons of homework, and after a couple weeks, you’re all fraying around the edges.

Last week I came home one day from work, only to realize that one of the kids was the second human I’d spoken to since I started my workday ten hours earlier. I was stressed out, frazzled, and having a hard time focusing. She caught on, because kids are incredibly intuitive, and asked if I was ok. I took pause and really thought about my day. I had a very demanding day at work, where I was quite focused and accomplishing several tasks, but I hadn’t talked to anyone save for a coworker I ran into in the break room.

Thankfully, given the nature of my work, these are rare days in which I speak to no one, but even after just a single day, I was experiencing the effects. Imagine not talking to anyone for several days in a row? No thank you.

The moral of this story is that we need people. We need support from our tribes, whomever they may be. Don’t think that you have to have a huge network of people, but rather a few quality individuals that are in your circle who CARE ABOUT YOU. Be that person for someone else, too. We all need it. Our physical and mental health will thank us later.

Thanks for reading.

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Wake Up

When I typed in “bed”, to search for a photo to go at the top of this entry, there were quite a few clocks similar to the one I chose above. It’s very strange that searching for a bed, I get a clock. However, it’s rather fitting, given the title.

Waking up, is quite literally the very first thing we do each day. Not “being awake”, as to many of us “awake” is a much different state than “waking up”. For a large portion of us, the thing letting us know that IT IS TIME, is often a loud thing in our ears. Whether it’s an alarm clock, a child, pet, or partner, something jolted us from asleep, to awake.

I, personally, take issue with this jolting part. I’m sure many others do too. However, unlike many people, at least in my life, I do not like snoozing. I typically, if left to my own devices, just get up when I wake up. Recently, my partner has been quite persuasive in encouraging me to remain in our warm, comfy bed a few minutes longer than I would otherwise. I silently think he’s using it to feel better about himself snoozing a bit extra, but don’t tell him I said that. ;)

In reality though, I tend to oversleep and wind up rushing, rather than allowing myself a few extra moments of relaxation before stepping out the front door. When you have a small child, spare minutes are really helpful. Especially since my kiddo is a sleeper. She will sleep 10 hours or more if I let her. Unfortunately, like her father, she’s also a night owl. I’m an early bird, so her bedtime is early, because she has school and I have work. Also, she takes forever to wake up more days than not. It’s annoying trying to coax a preschooler out of bed at 6am, without a major fight.

I know there are some kids like me, and you are all my people. I’ve never been a sleeper, not even during my partiest of party years. I was always on time for work, even after virtually or actually zero sleep the night(s) before. I wasn’t even a sleepy child. But I think the reasons for that are more anxiety related, and maybe they still are.

Which leads me to discuss the real topic of today’s blog. The sleeping habits of my family was merely a segue.

There’s a new culture about that’s gained popularity and a name. Woke. I’m by no means an expert on popular culture in any fashion, but I pay attention to things. Woke culture seems to be heavily intersecting with Call-out culture which has shone a light on a number of really great things, but I also think that they can be really damaging in certain contexts.

Trust me when I say that I’m an absolute advocate for human, animal, and environmental rights. I’ve spent the majority of my adult life as an activist, but part of me wonders, what happened exactly to letting others do their own thing, as long as they’re not hurting anyone else? I had a teacher in high school say that my rights as a person end at the tip of my nose, or that my rights do not extend to a place where yours are being infringed upon. So, who are people that are telling me that I’m wrong for doing X,Y, or Z, if it’s not affecting them in any way? I’m just over here, doing my thing.

If I’m over here being an asshole, I fully deserve to be called out, but if I have purple hair (which I do at 38 yrs old), who cares? If my partner and I have tattoos and have the nerve to swim in a public pool, who gives a shit? Why do people suddenly feel entitled to give me or him or anyone else flack for that?

The short answer: you don’t. Knock it off. End of discussion. Pretty simple. Stop it. The end.

But meanwhile there’s politicians trying to legislate women’s bodies, the rights of trans people, and profiteering from war and gun violence. There’s something seriously wrong with this. If you want to call anyone out, let’s call out our legislators. Call your congressmen and women. Get woke to real shit and let’s be working toward equality and rights for us all. Instead, there’s a bunch of infighting, bickering, and worse. Knock it off. Your rights end at the end of your nose. You don’t get to be in charge of anyone else’s body, mind, rights, etc. Stop it. End of discussion.

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Manifesting Destiny

background balance beach boulder
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

While listening to a book by Wayne Dyer, he said something to the effect of “There is nothing humans can dream, that they can’t conceive”.

Anyone who has taken 9th grade U.S. history knows that the United States was colonized based on a term coined “Manifest Destiny”. Simply put, god told some guys that they had to do it. They had to colonize from coast to coast, because it was their destiny.

Do I think that the universal creator (whomever that might be) gave the impetus to drive Westward, pillaging and destroying everything in their path, losing countless lives on all sides of the mandate? Not a chance. Do I think a pack of dudes got together and said, “out there is the great unknown and we think that it should be ours, no matter the costs”? Absolutely.

Now, what do these things have in common, since Wayne Dyer is the last person I’d think of when I consider forcible anything? Humans thought of a thing and made it happen. They created their destiny and created what they saw before them. These colonizers had zero idea of what they could expect to find, they had no clue how far away it was, or even IF the other coast really existed. They basically just went for it, sight unseen.

Manifestation is the same thing, at its core. We think of a thing, and work towards it, with nothing more than the picture we see in our heads of what it might be like. Then we create something to that effect, in our own reality.

I know there are infinite people out there preaching the gospel of “The Law of Attraction” and “Manifesting“. There are countless gurus for one to choose from, should you be interested in any of these kinds of things. I’m certainly not claiming to be one. But what I can say, is that I’ve moved mountains in my own life by believing that it’s possible, and busting ass toward whatever it was that I was looking to achieve. The key is to have faith that you can do a thing, that the thing is in your grasp, and that you’re laser focused on making that thing a reality in your life. Simple, right?

Not always. Manifesting requires a singular focus on a thing you want. Everything that you do, say, and think has to be toward that end. I’ve tried a whole bunch of techniques to hone my focus, and depending on the thing I’m working towards, sometimes the technique can change. Sometimes I meditate on the thing or use a gratitude list/journal. Other times, I post affirmations that remind me of the path I’m trying to stay on. Regardless of HOW you focus, the point is THAT you focus on the end goal, that you’re unwavering in the fact that it is already yours (it’s just not in your hands yet), and HOW you get there is not even remotely important. I know from my own experience, the path to attaining a goal is NEVER what I imagined it would be. It’s virtually never a straight line. There are course deviations, detours, and roadblocks along the way. Potholes abound. However, the trick, is never giving up and staying the course until the goals are realized in your life.

I’m still new to positive focus and “manifesting”, for lack of a better term. But I can say that looking back, I’ve had some really wonderful successes that I may not have realized were exactly the same as the techniques I’m learning along the journey. Is that to say I’m independently wealthy? Nope. Working my dream job? Uh uh. Have the 6-pack abs I’ve always dreamed of? Hardly. However, I am stronger, healthier, happier, and wealthier than I was six months ago. I’m also armed with the knowledge that I can be self-employed, that I can create something beautiful out of positively nothing, and I have the universe on my side with everything that I do.

By no means does that mean I’m on cloud 9. I still have real life to deal with. Not everything is roses. I have a lot of struggles, debt up to my eyeballs from a closed business, and all the daily bullshit of life (like traffic and preschool meltdowns). But HOW I SEE THEM, has changed drastically. I see all these things as lessons and methods of guiding me toward the path I’m seeking. I feel less stressed, more patient (though, I lose my patience often. I’m working on it), and generally more optimistic than I was previously. It’s good. And most importantly, I FEEL good. That’s what really matters, right? I feel good. Hopeful. Generous. Grateful. Challenged. And most of all, I feel love, all around me and within me, radiating out. Now, THAT, is what really matters.

Thanks for reading.

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Racing rats

This week has effectively sidelined all best laid plans. I was working from home, which I cannot express my gratitude for the ability to do, so I was highly distracted and pulled in many directions. I felt like I was a piece of taffy being pulled, almost to the breaking point, in a few instances. My kiddo was demanding and couldn’t understand that I had a meeting with my boss over video. She was frustrating me to no end. Because I was home, she thought it was party time. The pets thought this, as well, it seems. On any given day, they spend several hours in their crates without issue, and yet, if I put them in there during an important virtual meeting with my global team, all hell breaks loose. If I were ever to have a remote job, I’d have to invest in an office outside the house, because juggling all these demanding creatures is for the birds.

So, as anyone that is following along can attest, I didn’t even come close to my writing goal this week. On one hand, I could be angry or frustrated with myself for not keeping up on a thing that I not only promised myself, but promised others. However, I know that life happens and sadly, I’m only a human, as I’ve mentioned in this blog countless times. I have to be able to give myself the grace to not achieve what I intend sometimes. I would not lambast a person close to me because they were busy with family and work obligations, and didn’t make time to write a blog for a few days. Would you?

Again, as I’ve mentioned, I’m going to create space for myself, as if I were a close friend or family member. Doing this, is exceptionally challenging when running the rat race.

For a brief moment, I got to leave the race, and run my own. There are parts of that I miss desperately. There are other parts of that scenario, in which I would never wish on my worst enemy. But overall, the experience was beautiful and stressful. The new race that I’m running is a familiar one in many ways. I’ve traveled this path before, and it’s predictable in it’s construction, despite the location being different. The challenge to this race is multifold. Dealing with people is often the most challenging part. Beyond dealing with the same people day in and day out in a confined space, is the work itself. Most of my daily activities revolve around the same two or three tasks, more or less repeating themselves for at least eight hours a day, five days a week. It’s truly exhausting to “look busy” when in fact, you’re bored to tears.

In my race, I have a hard and fast rule. If at the six month point of any position, I am not riveted by the work or exceptionally loyal to the people I work with, I cut the cord. There has to be a reason that I say past six months. Does this look great on a resume? Nope. It’s surely hurt my job search in the past. However, I am not going to be miserable for an indeterminate amount of time, simply to make my resume look good to someone I’ve never met, in the possible future. It’s not how I’m wired. My time and energy are too valuable. And I respect my employers more than just occupying space that is not a good fit. I respect their time and money, and want them to have someone who LOVES working there. If it’s not me, I’ve got to move on.

In our personal lives, how often do we endure things that do not serve us? How do we allow things to continue that are draining, exhausting, and leave us bored? How many times do we let emotional vampires suck our energy completely dry? This is why I cut it, when things no longer serve me. If I don’t have a reason to stay, I’m out.

Once upon a time, I thought this was weakness. I thought that I was a coward for bailing out on things that did not excite me. However, I realized that it takes an incredible amount of courage to not only make a rule, but to stick to it, without question. It’s also an investment in yourself, by appreciating your time, energy, attention, and emotional awareness. You have to understand your feelings to pin point all of these things. The rat race may still have to be ran, but we do have the power to decide how we run it.

Thanks for reading.

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Bliggity Blog

joy painting brush
Photo by Bekka Mongeau on Pexels.com

Life is funny sometimes all the time. It certainly sucks less when you approach it with a sense of humor.

This week has been challenging and I could have definitely changed how I reacted in a few situations. But I’m human and still learning and growing. I’ve made an internal promise that I will no longer talk to myself in a way that I would not talk to a person close to me. I’ve even done my best to curb the internal dialogue in my head, the one that loves to concoct stories about my worth, which are simply not true. I’ve also fallen short of my goal of four times per week, writing this blog. I am fully aware that I have made a few choices to do something else with my time, and am not beating myself about it, as I would have in the past. Again, human being, with humans in my life that also require and deserve my attention.

In positive news, we here have decided to make some healthy, positive changes to our daily routines. The primary one is getting a gym membership at the local YMCA. I’ve been out of competitive sports for a number of years and I have decided that my sedentary lifestyle as of late, is creating problems in my psyche. I have been using time and childcare as a crutch for why I couldn’t work out, and finances are finally lining up the way they’re supposed to. This Y also has a daycare center onsite, which will be really convenient when my temporary work assignment ends. Additionally, when the weather is garbage in the upper midwest, we will have a nearby place to workout and warm up.

I’m really excited to have something to do in the evenings that isn’t dealing with pets and home and nonsense adult things. Instead, we can be active, and do things that are healthy for our minds and spirits. My partner is potentially less excited than me, but he will live. The kiddo doesn’t even know what it means, but she’s going to the gym to hang out with other kids. And learn to swim. That’s also something I’m very excited about. She needs to know how to swim for so many reasons. We live in a state where “lake life” is a real thing. Oddly enough, after living in a sun state for several years, she still doesn’t know how to independently.

In addition to having a rad place to exercise close to home, we are just doing our best to live our best lives and be good humans. I’ve been doing everything I can to be positive and patient with all things and people who cross my path. Being grateful has helped significantly with all these things. I’ve been listening to tons of audiobooks from the library website, which has added enrichment to my days, and provided much insight into humanity. This habit has allowed me to focus on a number of things that I’m working on. And that makes me happier in general.

Thanks for reading.

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