Happy November!
Ok, so if you’ve read my previous blog post, you know that I’m experiencing a transition in my life and that I’m trying to embrace all of the feelings that come with it—both the good and the bad. How is it going? Well, I’m on my third glass of wine tonight. This is the first week I’ve fully had time to sit in my feelings and you know what? I don’t really like it! LOL.
The first week after my year long contract with a client ended in October, I went on a road trip. The second week was a very stressful week with the election (very happy with the results even though it took 5 emotional days to find out!) plus I was called back to work for a couple days with my previous client This week, I haven’t had any distraction. No paid work and no road trips. Just me, myself, and I. I’ve been very productive personally though. I’ve done some purging by cleaning and organizing my apartment, running errands, and making calls to customer service to fix things. Errands, tasks, and cleaning take up so much time. I don’t know how people get any of these things done with a full-time job. If I didn’t have free time this week, these items would still be on my to-do list.
It’s very lonely not having to interact with people through work, even if it is via zoom nowadays with the pandemic. The pandemic has really exacerbated the situation because of social distancing and not being able to travel freely during my time off as I would normally. I don’t know how I did this last year. Last year, I devoted most of the year, after quiting my job, to working on my cookbook. I was very determined and spent the first 6 months of last year cooking everyday with very little social interaction and very minimal consulting work. And all of that was self-imposed. Now, it has only been a week and I’m already uncomfortable. How did I survive last year?
I’m trying to surrender to the discomfort while still moving forward. I finished two new books this month—The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck and Psychopath Free (recommended by my therapist). I enjoyed The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck. It preaches embracing your problems because they provide opportunities to improve. It also discusses toxic positivity, which is something I can definitely relate to. I feel like the toxic positivity thought process is popular right now (and also super annoying), especially in Los Angeles. Having feelings and discussing and working through your problems are human and all parts of the healing process. But people sometimes get uncomfortable hearing about your problems and want to solve it or spin it into a positive immediately. Before sweeping everything under the rug through phrases like, “sending you love and light,” “good vibes only,” “try to be positive,” or “let’s try to reframe that,” take a minute to acknowledge the shitty problem and the negative (real and human) feelings that accompany it. Those “negative” feelings are helpful in catapulting you into changing a shitty situation into a better situation. If everything was happy all the time, then we would never change. All emotions need to be felt and explored in order for you to learn more about yourself, heal, and move forward.
Anyway, that’s my two cents for now. Thought it would be helpful to publicly journal [blog] while I’m in my state of discomfort.