"Within every storm there is intention, strength, and beauty"
Ever since I was a little girl countless people have referred to me as an old soul. Being an old soul is often associated with having experience, wisdom, or a deeper understanding of the world around you. Am I an old soul simply because of all I have experienced, and been witness to, in my mere 29 years? Furthermore, many believe old souls are individuals who have learned from past lives or even incarnations.
We all lead super full lives, there's no question about it. And maybe, there's a priority in your life that you'd like to spend more time on. Maybe it's your family, your partner, or your friends (or all of the above!). Maybe it's a hobby that you absolutely love but never have time to devote to. Or maybe it's a whole new activity- you'd like to take up yoga or sign up for a local art class. But you just never seem to have the time.
What if I told you, that you could literally increase the number of hours in the day? Just kidding. I'm not magic (my Hogwarts letter got lost in the owl post!).
To be totally honest with you guys, I wasn't sure if I'd be able to swing my Loving Lately post this month. The sh*t basically hit the fan last Friday night and our world blew up a little. Loving Lately has hands down been one of the best things about this year for me. I take writing for the blog very seriously and my writing process and timeline is usually pretty planned and precise. But this post? Well this post is going to be messy and raw and vulnerable and probably unedited.
Anxiety was always an invisible, heavy backpack that I couldn’t take off. Ten or so bricks that I carried around with me everywhere, but that no one else could see. I lived this way for much of my life, struggling (often privately) with the weight of anxious thoughts that fueled a large part of my every day life.
In this piece I really wanted to showcase others perspectives as opposed to just mine. The flip side of the coin. The stories of those who provide love and care to us. Who nourish us and allow us to be who we are. To feel what we feel. I decided to briefly interview four of the most impressive caregivers I know (excluding my husband, as ours is a story for another time): my grandmother, my mom, my dad and Stacy
Millions of times I’ve wanted to write about you and me. But I’ve never really had the right words. I’ve started and never finished so many pieces, there being no way to wrap what we are up into a neat little bow.
One of the biggest roadblocks to the management of our mental health is rooted in our innate fear of failure. So many of these self-help books by big name motivational speakers can often do more harm than good. Readers often end up feeling increased pressure to solve their issues in the inspired “go big or go home” mindset of some of these authors and become discouraged when they can’t adhere to these massive changes for an extended period of time.
Why do we do what we do each day? We make thousands of decisions, speak thousands of words, and think thousands of thoughts, all in just 24 hours. Even when we're sleeping! I’ve learned that we all run on programs, kind of like a computer. We have foundations, things we believe about how to live life, that run in the background as we go about our days.
