Tag: coping

Five things I’m grateful for: Bloganuary Entry #9

Gratitude, as defined, is the quality of being thankful.

And it is truly the key to life.

I love the current movement towards finding reasons to be grateful and ways to express gratitude daily. Sometimes I feel like it’s all too easy to forget that there are so many things in every single day that we should be grateful for. The simple act of waking up every morning is a gift. It’s an underappreciated gift. It’s a gift that is often taken for granted, and sometimes it’s not even acknowledged at all.

Last year, I bought a gratitude journal. Every entry was devoted to the things in that day that I felt gratitude for. I felt like it was super easy to think of every bad thing going on around me, but I truly needed to see the brighter and bigger picture, and I needed to realize that I had so much to be grateful for. Sadly, I was hot and heavy with my entries in the beginning, but things slowed down over time. So I’m happy that this prompt came up, because it’s a great reminder to get back to acknowledging everything that I have to be grateful for. Which is a lot.

So here is what would be in my gratitude journal entry today. Today I am grateful for…:

Medical care: I could go on and on about this one. Reliable, affordable, competent medical care is just hard to quantify or even explain, so all I can say is that I’m extremely grateful to have it.

Supportive and loving family: My family is just awesome. I am grateful that I feel this way about my family, because not everyone is able to say that about theirs.

My devoted partner: Whew chile! After what I’ve been through the last few months in addition to the pandemmy, lockdown, and the craziness of the last couple years…he has both driven me crazy and kept me sane all at the same time. And I legit would not have it any other way. I am so extremely grateful for him.

Delivery services: I cannot say enough about the way that delivery services has gotten me (and the world) through the past two years. USPS, Fedex, UPS, Amazon, food and grocery delivery, and any of the shipping partners that aren’t mentioned…they have truly stepped up in these crazy and scary times. I could go on and on and on and on about their sacrifices and their hard work in a time when things are uncertain and terrifying.

Animals: I don’t currently have a pet, but that doesn’t mean that animals have not been therapeutic in my life. I swear, I can watch animal videos all day if you let me! They brighten my day, make me laugh, and just bring me entirely too much joy.

So now that I’ve made this post and this list, it’s time to pull out my journal and get back into the practice of making sure I fully acknowledge all of the wonderful things, big or small, happening around me each day. There is entirely too much to be grateful for, and when it’s super easy to talk about what’s wrong in the world, I need to just as easily remember the good things around me.

If you had to pick something that you are grateful for today, no matter what scale it’s on, what would it be? I’d love to hear it!

justamarylandgirl3 Comments

Comfort Zones: Bloganuary Entry #2

Black woman standing in front of a city window.

I am an introvert. I used to think I was shy. And maybe in some ways I am shy. But I’m by definition, also an introvert.

I love spending time alone, I recharge by being by myself, and dealing with crowds, even people that I know well, exhausts me. Simple things like sending an email to more than two people, or attending a group outing with more than two attendees…stress me out and cause me a great deal of anxiety. I make myself small and quiet to detract attention from myself. Even at my own wedding, I did not want people to focus on me.

But my mother taught me at a young age that I had to push through situations like these, and over the years I have learned tricks to get me through. Even when I feel dizzy. Even when I want to vomit. Even when my blood pressure shoots through the roof. I push through and apparently many people don’t even notice exactly how miserable I am in the spotlight.

So most people laugh when I tell them I’m an introvert or that I hate non-intimate groups or that I truly do not enjoy being around people that I don’t know well. In their eyes, they see a person who adapts to crowds effortlessly.

With that said, becoming a blogger and wrangling social media requires stepping outside of my comfort zone each and every time I hit publish. I agonize over every single picture and every single post. I inspect every miniscule pixel and weighing every pro and con of posting. Many times, after hours of adjusting and editing and filtering, I just delete the post entirely. I have hundreds of pics from 2021 alone that never made it to an IG post or story, because I just could not calm my nerves enough to push the post button.

And don’t get me started on being a business owner that suffers from Imposter Syndrome. A business owner that has to exude a certain confidence, that has to make the ask every day for people to buy my products. A business owner that has to generate captions and ads, and constantly engage in the world of social media, because that is the way of business nowdays. There’s not any room for an introvert in a world where reels and stories and lives and tik toks are the way to find your potential customer, engage with them without being pushy, promote your product and keep your business relevant.

My comfort zones are close and tight. Self-promotion is hard. Asking for someone’s attention is anxiety-inducing. So every time I post a blog post or story or picture or reel, I am an introvert that has stepped far outside of my comfort zone.

Are you an introvert? How do you step outside of your comfort zone?

justamarylandgirl4 Comments

A Reflective Moment

Photo by Sarah li on Pexels.com

I got some sad news this week about the passing of a high school classmate. The whole thing just hit me in such a weird way. I wasn’t particularly close to this classmate, but I went to such a small school in a small town so everyone in my school knew everyone in some way. Even as a grown-up 25 years after graduation, if you hear a name, you immediately remember the classes you had, or how you went on a class trip, or how you crushed on so-and-so’s older brother, or how you used to play kickball in the cul-de-sac.

So I heard about this classmate, I saw a recent picture of her, and though I could see remnants of the person I remembered, her face in the picture carried the weight of the mental illness that she lived with throughout her adult life. I had no idea. She was a popular girl. A cheerleader. Cute as a button and sweet as can be. Her life was supposed to turn out perfectly. She was supposed to be the one we admired at the reunion because everything turned out as perfectly as you’d expect for the adorable, smart, bubbly cheerleader from high school. She rode on floats and got lifted to the top of pyramids. She was kind. Seeing that picture, with the wrinkles and dark circles, yet with the slight glimmer of the cheerleader from days past that I remember…and reading the family tributes about how things were for her later in life, it all just settled on me so heavily.

Of course your life is more than a picture, and there’s no telling what twists and turns life can throw at anyone over the course of 25 years. You never know what people are dealing with and what demons they battle. You don’t know what trauma they encountered or how that trauma impacted their life. She wasn’t someone I’d keep in touch with but she’s definitely someone I assumed would go on to great things and someone I thought would live well. It threw me for such a complete loop.

It’s all just a weird and sad reminder to be grateful for my health, to not make assumptions about what someone is going through, to live while I can, that life is short and that tomorrow is never promised.

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Kindness Matters. Always.

I woke up this morning with a buzz in my ear…and here it is.

Kindness. Matters.

Once more.

Kindness. Matters.

You may have seen on my social media, on my etsy shop and on my blog that I call myself a kindness advocate.  Let me explain a little.  Judging comes very easy to me.  Always has.  Expectations and opinions flow through my veins.  It is only through some serious growth, and a few hard lessons, that I realized that I’m not always right and kindness truly matters. 

Giving the benefit of the doubt matters. 

Understanding that everyone is different matters. 

Realizing that everyone’s circumstances are different, their backgrounds are different, their response mechanisms are different, their support systems are different…and that all of that matters.

It took me well into my 30s before I realized that how I think, how I react, and what I do is not always right.  That was a hard pill to swallow.  Lol.  I realized I’m not always the smartest person in the room and that I’m definitely not always right.  I don’t always have the answers, and there are other ways of doing and thinking that are better than the way I do it.

I realized that you really have to hear where a person comes from and how they got to where they are in life before you can really understand their position, their mentality, and their actions. 

Maybe you would have done things differently if faced with the same set of circumstances, but maybe not.  I had to really examine how many times I’ve made a bad decision, one that others in my exact situation wouldn’t have made, and how I had to learn from the mistake to truly appreciate just how bad of a decision it was.  Most of the time, the decisions were things I could recover from.  But some did change my life in more permanent ways. But should I be judged or should someone be mean to me because I chose a wrong path or because I made a decision they wouldn’t have made? I don’t think so.

But every interaction may not afford you the opportunity for a deep dive into people’s lives so that you can understand exactly how they got to that street corner, or wound up in a financial bind, or whatever.  It may only be seconds of time out of your life that your path crosses with someone.  And that’s when you have to decide.  Would I rather spend these seconds judging, being mean, ignoring, or getting riled up?  Or would I rather realize this is a human being that got here by means of which I do not know, and that this person could use a couple of dollars, a sweater, a drink, a meal, a smile, or at the very least, for someone to not add to the weight on their shoulders by being mean to them?

My choice is compassion.  Or rather, the choice I hope I make each time is compassion.  Kindness.  Generosity.  I’m working each day to train myself to make that choice, and to advocate for people to consider compassion as their choice.  It’s not always easy, and it doesn’t come naturally all the time.  But that’s what I am working towards each day.  Kindness always.  Even when it’s really, really, really hard.

Through my apparel, I try to emphasize positivity and good vibes.  I try to always smile, and I try to see the good in every person I interact with either in person or on social media.  I’m not always successful, trust me.  But it is something I actively strive for each day.

These days we are all coping with unprecedented stress. We are in a situation we may not see again in our lifetime. We are all figuring it out and we are all trying our best. And we all deserve a little kindness.

Do you have a personal attribute that you are working on? What made you realize it was time to work on that particular quality? What do you do to motivate yourself to work on it? Do you have any tips?

justamarylandgirl

My Response When I Feel Unfulfilled at Work

I reached out to a friend recently. The last few times we spoke, I felt like things were very one-sided. You know how it can go…you reach out, you keep the convo going, you ask all the questions, you get little feedback. The convo follows a similar negative pattern each time you speak, so you say to yourself “ok, I’m not doing that again.”

But of course you’ll do it again. This is someone you consider a friend. And they are a friend for a reason.

Today I felt like I wanted to reach out again after a few months had passed since we last spoke. I kept the topic pretty light…anything new, recent home projects, funny stories, things like that. And I noticed it was a matter of time before we circled back to the same complain-esque type conversations. She hates work, work sucks, I don’t want to be there, I hate it there, etc.

So…I felt like…idk, some type a way.  This complaining, almost using the same verbiage exactly…has not changed in over five years!!!!  So as a friend, what can I do?  What can I say?  I asked the usual questions.  Have you thought about other jobs?  Have you thought about classes?  Have you thought about hobbies so that your time outside of work can possibly fill some of the work satisfaction voids?  And the response for all my questions were essentially a resounding “no.” As they always have been.

Now, I don’t want to seem like my life is SOOOO together or that I don’t suffer from the occasional negative work attitude.  But I realized long ago that I had some decisions to make when it came to my work-life balance and what I expected from my 9-5.  Is my job amazing?  Heeeelll no.  lol.  But…I have a few options.  1) I could find another job.  2) I could boost my qualifications so that I could move up or move around where within my current employer.  3)I could get over it.  Or 4) I could live so fully outside of work that I don’t place a super high level of importance on “job satisfaction.”  Those are the options I felt like I had.  Everyone may feel like they have different options, but those are the ones I decided that I had. 

But basically, it was unlikely that the job I had was going to change.  So I could either find a new job, change myself, or change my attitude towards the job.

Ultimately, I chose a weird hybrid of those three options.  1) An opportunity to change departments presented itself, so I grabbed it.  2) I made connections and I sought out opportunities within my agency to grow and be visible, so that I could put myself into a position for promotions and mobility in the future.  And 3) I investigated and implemented avenues outside of work to be my own boss, which ultimately changed my attitude towards my 9-5 job. I wouldn’t say I feel completely fulfilled, but it rarely occurs to me to hate or dislike my 9-5 job. I found other ways to find fulfillment, and I’m quite happy with them.

WHAT IS YOUR GO-TO RESPONSE WHEN YOU ARE FEELING UNFULFILLED?

One of my responses is to learn something. 

Nothing too heavy, just some quick self-learning type thing.  Like how to purge my closet in three easy steps, or how to make easy banana bread.  It almost doesn’t matter what it is, I want to immediately feel like I took an action to better myself in some way.  And quick learning usually does the trick.

Another thing I do is I immerse myself my side hustles.  There are SO many things to learn and there are SO many resources available when it comes to side hustles, I find something, read it, implement it, work on it…whatever. To feel fulfilled, I typically need to feel like I’m gaining control over something,…like I’m finding actionable steps that can lead me to a desired outcome, or like I’m learning something about myself that can help me cope with my current situation or make my current situation better in some way.

Here are some things I did that recently helped me when I needed to feel like I was taking action

1)Listened to a few episodes of The Mindful Kind Podcast.  These are quick, 10-ish minute podcasts about mindful and intentional living.  I particularly loved her episodes about over-apologizing and how to take things less personally.  I also added a few more podcasts to my playlist.  They are such a good way to entertain and learn simultaneously! Nuggets of knowledge that you can implement immediately…that’s my jam!

2)Tried The Little Red Window’s tutorial on making clay trinket dishes.  Ummm this is my new passion now and it has transitioned into keychains and earrings and wine charms and coasters and whatever I can think of…I’m feeling an etsy shop coming on!  Here is a peek inside my new ceramics studio (aka the kitchen counter…lol).

3)Worked on my existing hobby of making beaded jewelry, which is a nice compliment to the clay trinket dishes I’ve been creating.  So I’ve been doing them both as I have spare time.  Here is a bracelet/earring/trinket dish set that I made recently for my sister.

4)Researched and created new styles for t-shirts, including more cities, states, hbcu’s, and customization options.  If my main job isn’t fulfilling, that’s just motivation for me to rev the engine on my side hustle.  Here is a style that I launched recently that immediately started selling as soon as I put it in my etsy store. If you like the style, let me know how I can customize it for you!

5)Downloaded and started working through some e-books related to my business, including A Guide for Procrastinating Bloggers by The Black Princess Diaries.  This e-book made me examine some ways that I procrastinate and helped me think of steps that I can take to avoid procrastination. Ummm…needed that!!  I had some immediate take-aways after finishing the e-book!

What do you do when you feel unfulfilled at work or in life? Do you have any tips? I’d love to hear them!

justamarylandgirl