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Text of the page (random words):
ow to make intentional choices with my time and energy and how to honor my personal needs temperament and capacities many of my blog posts address my ongoing effort to spend more time doing things that strengthen me in the long term and less time doing things that deplete me the problem is some of the counter productive behaviors i m drawn to actually feel pretty good in the short term can you relate we ve been going through a tough time in my household lately my mom who is 84 years old and lives with me and my husband has a number of health issues she has been hospitalized three times in three months and now she s in a rehabilitation facility it s been challenging in the quiet moments when i m not talking with one of her doctors or a nurse or a case manager when i m driving home from visiting her i feel overwhelmed more than once i ve thought to myself i m trapped i m drowning how much more can i take what about my own health i d like my life back please yes i m a bit melodramatic enter the reward as someone who decided six years ago to stop rewarding myself with alcohol because it no longer served me i ve become acutely aware of the many other treats that i use to temporarily boost my mood my recent go to rewards include a pack of reese s peanut butter cups grabbed while checking out at the grocery store and quickly consumed in my car purchases i don t need more 50 off holiday wrapping paper another kitchen gadget or a second pair of nine dollar pajama bottoms a quick and then not so quick scroll on social media despite my commitment to take a break for a couple months though i am well aware that these rewards are like tiny bandages on a gaping wound i find it hard to deny them to myself why can t i give myself sweets cheap stuff and cat videos if i want don t i deserve them however the positive effect of these treats dissipates quickly much like drinking they need to be repeated over and over and the cumulative effects are not so positive also when i m feeling majorly stressed out i m less inclined to do things that are more challenging but worth the effort such as going to yoga and dance class hiking meditating reading novels and working on my second book the less i participate in these activities the harder it is to get back into them about a month ago i was in a serious funk and i finally forced myself to get outside in the sun and take a walk within five minutes i could feel my mood lift the same thing happened when i returned to dance class after a months long knee injury i had forgotten how much i enjoy dancing and watching all the other people in the class dance their joyful energy is contagious and life affirming high on my really need to do list are attending caregiver support group meetings whenever i can connecting with friends and asking for help even when it feels uncomfortable i had to scale way back from my part time job which i truly enjoy i didn t want to do this but as i accepted more responsibility for helping my mom i had to release some responsibility elsewhere i know i can t do it all my promise to myself for this new year is to balance living in the moment with taking care of myself in ways that i know will leave lasting positive results but i can t say i won t grab the occasional cookie for my trouble or one more pair of pajama pants my latest social media reset december 6 2023 december 6 2023 bittersweetnugget leave a comment photo by rodion kutsaiev on unsplash a few days into my current social media cutback a notification flashed on my phone announcing that my screen time was down by 16 percent i m hoping next week will show an even further decline as i continue to curb my mindless scrolling i ve written about my complicated relationship with social media before and this probably won t be the last time here are a few ways that my social media consumption is getting under my skin lately for me social media provides ongoing evidence that comparison is the thief of joy a quote attributed to teddy roosevelt as i scroll through facebook and other platforms i feel as if i m not doing enough in my life and i m not posting enough online how do these folks do so much every day and have the time to write about it i must be doing something wrong or maybe i m just plain lazy on instagram i can t help but watch many of the suggested reels the platform serves up somehow instagram knows that i am a sucker for watching videos of supermodels walking in fashion shows before after shots of women with and without makeup and celebrity cosmetic surgery transformations i can t believe i am telling you this why am i mesmerized by this stuff i ve started feeling more than a bit disturbed about the path we are headed down where more and more of our lives moments are photographed and posted online i m guilty of this too and i worry about the long term effects of living with this camera and potential audience in our mind how will this behavior affect us long term as individuals and our society as a whole i may have to do a whole other post about how when i searched for an image to go with this piece only women were shown taking selfies as a self published author with a book to promote i fear that i m not using my social media accounts in the most effective way i stopped posting on tiktok because i kept hearing that authors need to post three or more times a day and there s no way i m going to make that happen but then i m also concerned that the time i spend on social media is distracting me from finishing my second book is there any way to get this balance right i still believe there is much to be gained from interacting with social media it allows me to stay in contact with people from my past and even my present who i rarely if ever see in person over the past year and a half i ve used social media to learn how to self publish my memoir and in the process i ve met other authors from around the world i ve even done podcast interviews with shows produced in the uk and south africa when utilized as a tool social media works for me but when used as a form of endless entertainment or as a way to avoid doing the next thing on my to do list it leaves me feeling empty and anxious it is a ruthless time killer and soul suck so here i am yet again taking some time off from social media for the month of december i m trying to significantly reduce the number of times i pick up my phone just to see what folks are posting i may visit specific accounts in an intentional way to gain information but the scroll scroll scroll is on the back burner i ve found that i like posting in my stories every day but i m going to experiment with sharing mostly original content instead of posts i ve found through scrolling then in january and february i m going to buckle down and finish my second book during that period i ll limit my social media time to posting updates about this forthcoming book and whatever else feels critical every time i do one of these cleanses or reboots or whatever you want to call them the benefits are undeniable i always say that who knows maybe one day i will just leave social media altogether it hasn t happened yet and as an author who hopes to build a dedicated readership it s hard to walk away but the least i can do is develop a more thoughtful approach to how i spend my time on screens especially that little one that fits all too easily in my hand leave it october 20 2022 october 20 2022 bittersweetnugget 2 comments photo by jon koop on unsplash about a month ago i was walking my dog one morning when another dog walker approached from the opposite direction she stopped and held her dog s leash taut then she said firmly leeeave it i had heard people say this before to their presumably excitable dogs urging them to ignore distractions particularly of the canine kind but for some reason it made an impression this time what a great motto for humans leave it i have a hard time leaving all kinds of things alone here are just a few of the many an unreturned text from a friend my mother acting in a way that doesn t make any sense to me a disagreement with my spouse a silly mistake i made at work a car honking behind me at a traffic light a decision i m second and third guessing that project i know i should be working on i fret and fuss about these things letting them take up way too much real estate in my brain you might have heard about sitting with your feelings especially if you listen to guided meditations or are part of the recovery community sitting with your feelings observing them and letting them calmly pass is a good thing i m not trying to avoid that step i promise what i am trying to resist is being sucked up into a tornado of emotions for decades i let my anger fear embarrassment self pity frustration and sadness consume me the feelings would grow more intense as i fed them the fuel of my indignation and paranoia it became difficult to extricate myself from one of these storms i would grow more upset as the issue took on epic proportions meditation has helped as has journaling though the effects of these are more cumulative than immediate in the moment deep breaths can do wonders reminding myself of the pointlessness of getting all worked up can also be helpful not long after the leave it encounter i was working a booth at an event where i was selling my book i had a large mirror standing on an easel mimicking the bathroom mirror where one might leave themselves an inspirational message on the table i had provided lots of brightly colored post it notes and a bunch of sharpies for people to write affirmations and stick them to the mirror they could also take one if there was a message that spoke to them most of the messages were short such as i am cared for you are enough i am healing a woman stopped by my table and informed me that she had a message to share but it was kind of long i encouraged her to write it out telling her that it might be just the message another person needed to see that day she wrote not everything or everyone deserves your energy do not respond do not reply do not be provoked or provoke protect your peace there it was i was not alone in my struggle no more than half an hour later a different person was looking at the mirror and i heard them exclaim yes after contributing their own affirmation and chatting with me a bit i saw that they had taken the protect your peace message this beautiful soul friended me on social media and i was delighted to see them share that post it with the world plus a dazzling selfie they took in my mirror surrounded by all those colorful positive messages we are all so much more alike than we realize we all wrestle with negative emotions that want to grab tight and pull us down into the vortex the next time this happens to you try telling yourself to leave it hey if you haven t grabbed a copy of my book yet please take a minute to check it out a snake in the basement can we conquer our fears july 28 2022 bittersweetnugget leave a comment photo by jérémie crausaz on unsplash since moving into our lush lake community ten years ago i ve had to dial down my skittishness toward bugs and other creatures we share our wooded neighborhood with all kinds of wildlife and slowly i ve grown more comfortable with walking through spiderwebs and dodging flying insects that look downright prehistoric but lately the snakes have been out and about first there was a snake in our back yard and then one in the front yard one day i couldn t walk down the stairs from our deck because a large black snake was slithering its way up the steps a week ago my husband emerged from the basement and informed me that he had seen a snake in the storage room it s one thing to be forced to give a snake a wide berth in the great outdoors but the thought of one slinking around inside our house made me shiver well i announced i guess i ll never go in that storage room again throughout the following days i pondered my predicament staying out of that room forever was not a practical solution we could ask the local wildlife wrangler to remove the snake but it had already disappeared by the time my husband went back down a few minutes later we started jokingly referring to snakey and wondering where it might be this helped bring some levity to the matter might it be possible to conquer my fear after all i ve been working on my emotional growth over the last five years so i have some insight into the challenge of personal change like many humans i ve developed stories about myself and the world these stories started in childhood and center around my insecurities and fears my brain repeats them as a way to keep me safe from scary things i m too chicken to do that i m jumpy and high strung i d never try anything like that i m anxious and paranoid this is just who i am does leaving such stories intact grant them too much power can they be replaced i m not a big fan of the fake it til you make it philosophy i don t think the most effective way to change is to tell yourself something that your mind knows is not true what s worked for me with other long held beliefs has been a more gradual process of 1 trying to understand why i adopted a certain story 2 questioning its ongoing usefulness and 3 imagining how my thought patterns might evolve with the snake this looks something like as a kid my family life often felt beyond my control and i transferred that fear to other things that threatened my sense of security like bugs snakes and other creepy crawlers does continuing to subscribe to this mindset serve me now not really i believe it is possible for me to be careful around potentially dangerous snakes without getting so distressed that it negatively impacts my life thus when i needed to go down to that storage room yesterday because my husband was otherwise occupied i did so i banged on the door before opening it and announced loudly to any snakes that i was entering the room i kept my eyes peeled did what i needed to do and exited quickly and calmly i even went in there again later in the day i think we can rewrite our stories we can change assumptions about ourselves that feel fundamental to our identity now don t expect me to go adopting a snake anytime soon but if i can tame this fear even just a little bit it will help the next fright seem far less menacing why life doesn t have a skip button june 6 2022 june 6 2022 bittersweetnugget 1 comment photo by kyle glenn on unsplash about a month ago i was driving around one morning running errands for my book signing that evening in case you haven t heard i ve written and self published a book my heart was racing in anticipation of a gathering centered around me and my memoir i was anxious about speaking in front of a group and imposter syndrome was rearing its ugly head my brain said to me i ll be so glad when this is all over what the heck why did i want this special moment to be behind me adrenaline was flowing through my bloodstream but there was no ...