When I was struggling to figure out monthly challenges in the past few years, I had no idea how tough it would be to plan them when I’m isolated at home. Even though many of my challenges don’t involve me leaving my house to do them, my motivation while isolated is nowhere near it normally is. I don’t feel the push to do a ton every day. Some of this is due to physical exhaustion and some of this is mental exhaustion. This isn’t an easy time for any of us, but I’m trying my best. I am working on being gentler and kinder with myself because it’s so easy to compare myself now to myself before. But we are living in a different time and that’s not a fair comparison.
Because of those factors, my monthly challenges lately haven’t been very intense. They have mainly been about taking care of myself. Last month, I challenged myself to stay hopeful. And for the most part, I think I did an ok job with that. I paid attention to the news to see how things were progressing with testing and cases in LA. The news was sounding better. Things were starting to be able to reopen. Even if I wasn’t going to go to places, I was hopeful that them being reopened was a good sign. And I was staying hopeful that we were through the worst of this wave (I still fear another wave in the fall, but that’s another issue).
But then at the end of the month, it became harder to be hopeful. Not because of the pandemic but because of police brutality. I was saddened to see those stories happen, but I tried to stay hopeful in amplifying the voices that needed to be heard and working on being a better ally. I wasn’t quite as hopeful as I was before, but I also became more aware of the racism and discrimination out there that I might have been blind to before. I found hope in seeing people taking action and learning how to take action myself. I am hopeful that one day, we will find a way to have systematic change with law enforcement and how people are treated. I am not hopeful that it will happen soon. It will take a lot of work and we cannot let up.
This month, my challenge is related a bit to wanting to be hopeful. I want to work on my health. This is about both my mental and physical health. For my physical health, I need to find ways to work out harder and I need to eat better. Those aren’t easy, but they can be done. And they are things that I have been working on for a long time.
But more importantly, I want to work on my mental health.
I am overwhelmed with everything going on in the world and it would be so easy to retreat and hide. But the more I learn about racism the more I know that I cannot use my mental health as an excuse to avoid hearing these stories. I need to find a purpose and actionable things to do whenever I hear stories of police brutality or racism. I need to find a way to not let these affect my mental health because I need to be a source of amplification of voices who may not have the same privilege that I do. I need to find a way to turn this activism into a positive thing for me and not an upsetting thing. This is a huge shift in my mindset, but I know it will be for the better. If these situations don’t make me run and hide but instead make me feel like I can help and seek ways to do so, I will be a better ally for so many people. I will likely be able to handle other stress in my life as well, but that is not my focus. My main focus is to turn the feeling of being overwhelmed or sad into the push to get to action.
I have already been working on this idea. Yesterday was Blackout Tuesday where we were not supposed to post on social media. Originally, I thought that meant we were supposed to stay off of social media and I was planning on doing that. It would be an easy way to avoid and hide from things. But my friends corrected me and said it was not about being silent but about sharing and amplifying the voices that should be heard right now. And that’s what I did. I found posts from leaders in the Black Lives Matter community and shared them. I took time to educate myself, find reading and watching lists, and followed new accounts that I know would continue to share information. I didn’t hide and avoid things because that would have been easier. I took in the information, which wasn’t always easy, and made sure to share it. And I feel like I felt better doing that than I would have if I didn’t.
Hopefully, I will be able to continue to strengthen and repair my body and mind this month. My mind is the priority to me because I know that being able to be focused and taking action is more time-sensitive. I know that it is needed now. And I am hoping that doing that will lead to other positive changes with my mindset and how I react to things that might be negative or upsetting. I want to be a voice of change and not a silent supporter.
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