Reminders - Blog Posts
Trying to do the time-blocking thing today!!! Let's see how it goes.
we were meant to live slowly!!!! we were meant to savor moments and feel unabashedly lazy and frolic and smell the flowers and laugh with our entire hearts and love with our entire souls!!!!! don’t ever feel guilty for resting!!!!!! don’t ever feel guilty for slowing down!!!!!! enjoying life shouldn’t be something you’re ashamed of
(grabs you by the shoulders) you have to make room for new experiences in your life. you have to go through the unpleasant work of leaving your comfort zone, even if just for a few minutes at a time. because if you don't, your brain will trick you into stagnation. you will start to believe that the world can barely fit you in it. but that's not true. it's the opposite way around. you can fit the whole word inside of you. your task is only this: to welcome it with open arms
hey friendly psa/reminder that with the seasons changing right now, a lot of people with mood disorders (and even people without them) can get all messed up and wonky from that so try to go a little easy on yourself if you find yourself spiraling or getting emotional a lot lately okay? youre doin your best. love u
MAKE LIFE EASIER FOR YOURSELF
JUST COOK IT BADLY AND COOK IT AT YOUR OWN PACE
TAKE BREAKS
BRING A CHAIR INTO THE KITCHEN
BUY TOOLS TO MAKE YOUR LIFE EASIER
Are all my cut vegetables the same thickness???? IT DOESN'T MATTER IT JUST NEEDS TO BE CUT AND COOKED
"The recipe called for (insert food that you don't like) so I have to add it." YOU CAN DO WHATEVER YOU WANT FOREVER FRIEND DITCH THE INGREDIENTS
THERE'S NO POINT IF IT'S NOT SOMETHING YOU WON'T EAT WHY TORTURE YOURSELF
SMACK THE GORDAN RAMSEY IN YOUR HEAD MAKE WHAT YOU WANT YOU ARE THE HEAD CHEF HERE
It’s important to remember that affirmations are not meant to be said just when you’re ready to believe them. We practice affirmations so that we can offer ourselves reminders of kindness and do our best to act on them. It’s okay if you can say “I deserve good things” but can’t believe it yet. The goal is to gently work yourself up until you can.
Griping over every little detail, sometimes blurs out the whole picture. Take in life as a whole, what will nitpicking get you?
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but if you let something slide because you were too shocked to react in the moment, you can bring it up the next time you talk to that person, you can text them, you can let them know it won’t slide again in the future. you don’t have to just accept that behavior indefinitely because you couldn’t gather your thoughts to say it made you uncomfortable when it first happened. you’re not making anything awkward, you are giving someone an opportunity to show care for you, and telling them you trust them enough to change their behavior. there is literally nothing wrong or bad with voicing discomfort even if the moment has already passed.
I kind of wish that the idea that you can just be was a little more mainstream.
Like, having drive and ambition is great. But it gets drilled in kids’ heads that there is some pressure to constantly be looking for the next move up, to be bigger than life. It wears you down to never be satisfied.
Not everyone is destined for greatness. It just doesn’t suit some people.
There’s nothing wrong with having a quiet life, making enough to get by, having a small apartment where you’re comfortable, and just living. You don’t have to constantly be looking to go onward and upwards. Sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is to just be.
Can you give me some advice related to bpd, please?
Okay :). First and foremost, I want to clarify that these are based on my lived experiences with BPD. That doesn't mean they're all right or wrong; what works for me may not work for you. With that being said, here are some little things I tell myself often
Emotions are fleeting - What you're feeling isn't going to last forever, and that's okay. You're not going to always be in agony! However strong and terrible, this feeling has to fade at some point, so keep going. We experience such strong emotions in BPD and I feel that we experience blindness to the end of our feelings, that is to say, we don't realize that this probably isn't the worst thing ever and that our emotions do pass! You have survived every mood swing up to this point, and as time goes on you can learn to cope better and better with whatever is thrown your way.
Forgive yourself - In life, it is inevitable that we are the bad guy at times. This can be really hard to come to terms with when you have BPD, because of our tendency to use black-and-white thinking. Few people are all good or all bad, and that includes you! So, for all those moments where we were wrong, let's forgive ourselves and promise to do better. Let's learn from our mistakes, see what we could have done better, and work towards it. We aren't all bad or all good, we are simply nuanced and complex human beings working on ourselves!
Not everybody leaves, but also loss is not the worst thing in the world - In BPD we often face that terrible fear of abandonment, but it's important to remember that in healthy relationships, people don't just leave out of nowhere. When that fear of abandonment strikes, ask yourself if it's based on facts or if it's your mind trying to spiral! "Do I have evidence that I'm being abandoned? Is this fear based on reality?" But it's also important to remember that loss is a natural part of life, and so we need to learn to cope appropriately. In many ways, people come and go. Whether it be through death, break ups (friends or romantic), moving, or any other ways; we don't stay in the same spot and with the same exact people forever and ever and ever, and that's ok! Friendships can be lifelong but someone has to die eventually like, it's ok that nothing is exactly as concrete as we'd like it to be. Live for the now, enjoy what we do have instead of fearing for the future that will probably end up alright anyway!
Live in the now - Continuing on from my last point, mindfulness and staying in the present are really important. It isn't healthy to spend every waking moment fearing the what-ifs and possible future. Allow yourself to enjoy the moments you have for what they are now, and allow the future to come when it comes. That's not to say throw everything to the wayside and live for today only, moderation is important! A little bit of worry now and again won't kill you, but it's not fair to yourself to be so preoccupied with every little thing that could go wrong instead of focusing on what is happening.
It's okay to let go - Similar to my third point, letting go is okay! Realize and understand you cannot feasibly control everything and everyone around you. That's ok. Things won't always go your way in life, and although it feels nice to be in control, sometimes what we perceive as being "in control" is detrimental. Allow yourself to let go sometimes, and be in control other times. It's about finding a balance in life. It's ok to not have everything you want right now this second, it's ok that mishaps happen, it's ok that the people around you may not think like you or agree with everything you say or do. All of that is part of the complex experience of living, and that's okay! That's all I have for now, but I hope this helps you somehow. Always remember that to get better we must put in the work to heal, it won't come easy but it'll definitely come! We just need to keep at it and keep going, to use our coping skills and be patient and kind to ourselves. Love you.
my heart goes out to anyone who was made to feel stupid for caring too much. anyone who was laughed at or "cringed" at for being themselves. anyone who cried silently so they don't be a burden. anyone whose love was taken for granted. anyone who feels unsafe in their own bodies. to anyone who felt devastated because others failed to be humane enough. it's not you, it's them. i hope you find a way to love yourself again. you're not alone. you're important.
1. Allow yourself the uncomfortable luxury of changing your mind. Cultivate that capacity for “negative capability.” We live in a culture where one of the greatest social disgraces is not having an opinion, so we often form our “opinions” based on superficial impressions or the borrowed ideas of others, without investing the time and thought that cultivating true conviction necessitates. We then go around asserting these donned opinions and clinging to them as anchors to our own reality. It’s enormously disorienting to simply say, “I don’t know.” But it’s infinitely more rewarding to understand than to be right — even if that means changing your mind about a topic, an ideology, or, above all, yourself. 2. Do nothing for prestige or status or money or approval alone. As Paul Graham observed, “prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you’d like to like.” Those extrinsic motivators are fine and can feel life-affirming in the moment, but they ultimately don’t make it thrilling to get up in the morning and gratifying to go to sleep at night — and, in fact, they can often distract and detract from the things that do offer those deeper rewards. 3. Be generous. Be generous with your time and your resources and with giving credit and, especially, with your words. It’s so much easier to be a critic than a celebrator. Always remember there is a human being on the other end of every exchange and behind every cultural artifact being critiqued. To understand and be understood, those are among life’s greatest gifts, and every interaction is an opportunity to exchange them. 4. Build pockets of stillness into your life. Meditate. Go for walks. Ride your bike going nowhere in particular. There is a creative purpose to daydreaming, even to boredom. The best ideas come to us when we stop actively trying to coax the muse into manifesting and let the fragments of experience float around our unconscious mind in order to click into new combinations. Without this essential stage of unconscious processing, the entire flow of the creative process is broken. Most importantly, sleep. Besides being the greatest creative aphrodisiac, sleep also affects our every waking moment, dictates our social rhythm, and even mediates our negative moods. Be as religious and disciplined about your sleep as you are about your work. We tend to wear our ability to get by on little sleep as some sort of badge of honor that validates our work ethic. But what it really is is a profound failure of self-respect and of priorities. What could possibly be more important than your health and your sanity, from which all else springs? 5. When people tell you who they are, Maya Angelou famously advised, believe them. Just as importantly, however, when people try to tell you who you are, don’t believe them. You are the only custodian of your own integrity, and the assumptions made by those that misunderstand who you are and what you stand for reveal a great deal about them and absolutely nothing about you. 6. Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity. Ours is a culture that measures our worth as human beings by our efficiency, our earnings, our ability to perform this or that. The cult of productivity has its place, but worshipping at its altar daily robs us of the very capacity for joy and wonder that makes life worth living — for, as Annie Dillard memorably put it, “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” 7. “Expect anything worthwhile to take a long time.” This is borrowed from the wise and wonderful Debbie Millman, for it’s hard to better capture something so fundamental yet so impatiently overlooked in our culture of immediacy. The myth of the overnight success is just that — a myth — as well as a reminder that our present definition of success needs serious retuning. As I’ve reflected elsewhere, the flower doesn’t go from bud to blossom in one spritely burst and yet, as a culture, we’re disinterested in the tedium of the blossoming. But that’s where all the real magic unfolds in the making of one’s character and destiny.
Maria Popova, “7 Lessons from 7 Years” at Brain Pickings (via universityandme)
The mistakes you’ve made do not invalidate everything you say/do/achieve for the rest of your life.
(via michael-julian)
A note to incoming STEM major freshmen and high schoolers who are thinking of pursuing science:
you WILL take more than one STEM class. every single semester. so will every single other STEM major. no one will feel bad if you think you have a hard course load because you’re in more than one STEM class. it’s just not happening.
that being said - here is the god’s honest truth, coming from someone who’s overloaded in courses 4 out of 5 semesters (because they wouldn’t let me do so my first):
1) everything you think you can’t do, you can, and then some
2) everything you think is the hardest thing you’ve experienced, you will overcome, and then face even harder challenges, which you will also overcome
3) if you love what you’re doing - really, truly, love what you’re doing - you’ll be ecstatic that your entire schedule consists of just that. taking only STEM classes is awesome when that’s what you want to devote the rest of your life to
basically what I’m getting at with this is -
If you think you can, you can. If you think you can’t, you’re right.
"To paraphrase Walt Whitman: 'You are vast. You contain multitudes. Now let them live.'"
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, not look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books. You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, you shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.
Walt Whitman, Song of Myself (via unsociabledoll)
Things I tell myself as a reminder.
If you want something you never had. You gotta do something you never did.
If it's a million to one. I'm gonna be that one.
The only way to go is forward
One step at a time
Remember, this is a little hurdle for you to succeed
It's okay to lose battles. You're here to win the war.
Failure is a part of success.
I'm worth fighting for.
You can wake up any day and decide to change the person that you are.
I am enough.
I walk in abundance and increase in abundance.
Hope it helps :)
Reminder
Your sadness is valid.
Your frustration is valid.
Your pain is valid.
Your jealousy is valid.
Your hurt is valid.
Your disappointment is valid.
Your shame/guilt is valid.
Your regret is valid.
Your anxiety is valid.
Your happiness is valid.
Your enthusiasm is valid.
Your passion is valid.
Your love is valid.
Your emotions are valid.
No matter what your emotions are, they are valid. You are allowed to feel.
But that does not mean your reactions may be valid too. You cannot hurt other people because of your emotions. You are responsible for your reactions to emotions.
Responsibility does not dismiss your validity of feeling a particular emotion.
Reminder
It's okay if you didn't achieve the things that you worked hard for.
It's also okay if you did.
It's okay if you feel like you didn't try harder.
It's also okay if you did.
No matter what people say, you did your best.
If you didn't achieve the goal that you said you would, people will say "She didn't try hard enough"
If you did achieve the goal, they would say "She sacrificed too much"
No matter what, people will talk
So, be gentle to yourself.
Reminder!
Your worth is NOT defined by:
Grades
Appearance
Weight
Height
Nationality
Gender
Race
Religion
Work
Degree
Illness
Disability (mental/physical)
Income
Your worth is not defined by anything. You are definitely worth it. You are enough. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Reminder
Your pain (physical/mental/emotional) is valid even if nobody can see it
Your pain is valid even if you have no physical symptoms
Your pain is valid even if there is no physical injury
Your pain is valid even if others tell you it's not
Your pain is valid even if you do not have a life threatening disease
Your pain is valid even if you don't have a diagnosis
Your pain is valid even if you do have a diagnosis
Your pain is still valid even if nobody believes you
Your pain is still valid even if you are too "young" for the problem/issue
Your pain is valid even if the health care advisor/anybody tells you that it's in your head
Your pain is valid no matter what the conditions are
Your pain is valid.
Pain does not discriminate between age, gender, race, nationality etc. Just because you can't see pain, doesn't mean it's not there.
Progress is still progress!
It doesn't matter if you hadn't done the things you were supposed to do. It doesn't matter that if you finished 1 thing out of 4 things. You don't have 3 more things to do, you have 1 less thing to complete.
It doesn't matter if you had relapsed after a day or 3 of productivity and healing into a spiral again. What matters is that you get back up and start again. Because now you're a bit stronger and more resilient than before.
It doesn't matter if all you did today was getting out of bed, eat and change your clothes while you did nothing else. Appreciate yourself and give yourself the credit you deserve for doing those small things.
It doesn't matter if the only thing you did today was to focus on existing and on yourself alone. Be proud of surviving till the end of the day because you made it through knowing that there was a possibility of you not making it.
Progress is still progress. It doesn't matter if you take small or big steps. You're taking a step and that's all that matters.
Reminder!
It's okay:
If you're not currently interested in studying
If you've lost interest in some thing you like/love
If you need a break
If you just need to sleep for the whole day and be lazy
If you just want to watch/binge shows and movies
If you don't feel chirpy sometimes
If you feel sad/angry/or any other emotion
If you feel stressed or pressured because of work
It's okay if you are not okay
P͏s͏s͏t͏! H͏e͏y͏, I͏ h͏o͏p͏e͏ y͏o͏u͏ h͏a͏v͏e͏ a͏ g͏r͏e͏a͏t͏ d͏a͏y͏, I͏ l͏o͏v͏e͏ y͏o͏u͏! O͏k͏a͏y͏, b͏y͏e͏! 💕🧡💛💚💙