I don’t like when I have short posts on here, but I’m sorry this is going to be one. I’m struggling right now with some really bad nausea and pain that has really made yesterday (when I’m writing this) drag on. I did too much and I should have taken it easy, but I didn’t. I did things that I know made my nausea worse and I didn’t take care of myself the way I know I need to.
I’ve also been dealing with a severe lack of sleep lately. This isn’t due to my pain and nausea, it’s a bad habit that I’ve been struggling to break. I’ll write more about this tomorrow but I’ve been having a lot of nights with only 4 or 5 hours of sleep. Having those nights occasionally isn’t great, but it’s tolerable. Having them for an entire week or two really makes it tough and makes me feel like I need to nap. On Sunday, I ended up taking 2 different naps that were each over 2 hours long. I needed that time to get other stuff done, but clearly I needed the sleep more. But I should have gotten that sleep overnight and not during the day.
Pushing myself to my limit when I’m not feeling great is a recurring issue for me, but it never seems to go away either. I knew that I was doing too much, but that didn’t stop me. I just wanted to push through and see if I could get it all done (I did) and see if it might not wear me down like it normally does (unfortunately, I had the same reaction as always). So I’ve had to find where I could cut back on responsibilities so I could take care of myself. And writing this blog post was something I felt like I could cut back on.
I know some people would say this is a sign to not blog every day, but if I planned things out better I would have gotten this post written sooner and what happened during the day wouldn’t have mattered. But I didn’t do that and I’m sticking with my commitment to myself. Plus, writing posts like this shows that even if all my posts around this one were exciting and happy that my life isn’t always like that. I struggle just like anyone else and that’s exactly what happened to me yesterday.
Hopefully tomorrow’s post will be better and I will be feeling more like myself and more rested.
Posted onMarch 15, 2019|Comments Off on A Bit Of Self-Care Fail (or Maybe I Was Hard On Myself)
As I wrote in some postsearlier this week, recently I was pretty sick. I’m sorry for the short posts those days, but honestly I was really taken down by this bug. It was really hard to do most things, including type. I am so lucky I work from home and it’s not the busy season because I didn’t have to do a ton of work while I was feeling my worst. And I didn’t work my other job while I was very sick because I knew I couldn’t be accurate with checking information online. But that job is flexible with hours so I can make up what I missed over the next few days or weeks.
When I first noticed symptoms that I was probably getting sick, they weren’t too bad. I was hoping I could beat the bug before it got me really sick and I think that mindset stuck with me. When things started getting back, I was still trying to pretend that I wasn’t that sick and that whatever I had last year was actually worse. Now that I’m finally over the hump of this bug, I can say that I probably was actually sicker than last year yet I didn’t take care of myself as if that was true.
I don’t know if I didn’t want to admit that I was as sick as I was or I honestly didn’t think it was as bad, but whatever the reason I think that maybe not thinking this was that bad was the reason why I’m still dealing with this a week later. I’m significantly better than I was a few days ago, but I’m still not 100% and I’m wondering how long it will take me to get there. I’m exhausted every day in the afternoon and I could probably nap multiple times a day if I had the chance. I’m trying to not nap too much because it messes up my sleep schedule, but sometimes I have to cave and just sleep for an hour or so.
I’m usually good at taking care of myself when I’m sick. I know that because I live alone I have to not overdo things. If I’m too tired to get things done that need to be done, there’s nobody else in my house to do it. I could always call a friend to help, but I’m stubborn and like to do things for myself. And I was ok with letting go of some things in order to make sure I had the ability to do others (I did delivery food more than I want to admit because it helped me not need to go to the grocery store). And I don’t think that going to some workouts this week hurt me since I was not working nearly as hard as normal. Just getting some movement in during the day helped since I did the class in the morning when I was feeling my best.
But besides the few little self-care things I did this past week to take care of myself, I really didn’t do as much as normal to be gentle to myself while I was sick. I was getting very frustrated that I couldn’t do things or that I was taking longer to get something done and I wasn’t letting being sick be an excuse. I don’t know why I was so hard on myself but I know it was happening multiple times a day. I would blame so many other reasons for things not working out without considering that while I’m sick that maybe I shouldn’t have the same expectations that I would have when I’m feeling normal.
Even with not feeling totally better I’m still noticing I’m being hard on myself. I have to keep reminding myself that I’m still recovering and I don’t want to do something that will keep me sick longer. I know that I have friends and family that don’t have the luxuries that I do with being gentle on themselves when they are sick. They have jobs they have to go to no matter what or they have to take care of a child or elderly family member. I know that I am lucky that I don’t have to stress about that and I should appreciate it, but it also makes me feel bad when I’m not doing everything like normal when those other friends are able to do that while they are sick.
I’m lucky that I don’t get sick like this that often. I used to deal with multiple bouts of strep throat a year before I had my tonsils out and it was pretty awful. I think on average I get sick like this once a year and it’s not always this bad. And I am getting better at tolerating being sick and making sure that I am not completely bedridden or unable to do anything during that time. But I might have taken that idea a little too far this time and forgot that I should not stress about being normal when I’m sick.
For now, while I finish beating this cold I’m going to work on doing a few extra self-care things that I probably should have been doing all week. I’m hoping that being kind to myself for the next few days that I will finally be over this bug and back to feeling fine. I’m ready to be back to the normal me and to not have to worry about feeling sick and lethargic.
Posted onMarch 1, 2019|Comments Off on Bringing More Good Things To Me And Others (or Happiness and Self-Care)
I have had some very good monthly challenges in the past, but I’ve been feeling really good about the ones I’ve been working on for this year. I still may change things up as the year goes on, but I’ve been really focused on finding things that I think will really be beneficial. I don’t want them to just be something I can easily do or not think about. And I want the thoughts about them to all be good things and not annoyed that I need to do them.
My challenge for February was to put more positive things on Twitter. I became aware of how much news related stuff I was posting online and most of the time the news I posted was negative or scary. I don’t want to hide from the realities of the world, but I also don’t want that to be my only focus. I know I have always enjoyed to see positive posts that other people share on social media, and I wanted to do the same.
This ended up being a very easy thing for me to accomplish. I set an alarm on my phone like I have for so many other things to remind me to do a positive tweet. I usually did it before the alarm went off, but it’s always good to have the reminder. I also created a Twitter list of accounts that post positive things so it was easy for me to find something to share every day. And I loved having that list because I did use it for more than just finding what I wanted to share online. When I was having a down moment, it was a great resource to have to cheer myself up. I did find this challenge benefitted me as well as other people who saw it on my Twitter feed. And I plan to keep this up indefinitely because I liked the results it had.
This month my challenge will be something that will only benefit me, but it’s ok to have a selfish challenge from time to time. And this one is related to self-care which is something I have been working on for quite a while. I’ve been getting better at finding regular acts of self-care that I can do, but I know there are so many more things I can do that will make me feel better about myself.
I’ve been pretty good about skincare when it comes to my face. I haven’t always been amazing, but lately I’ve been really on top of things. I know this had to do with having the stitches in my face and having to be so careful with washing my face and taking care of the incision. I also love using different products on my face when I find something that isn’t quite right. I have a few different masks depending on my skin’s condition at the time and I also have different spot treatment options when I need them.
I know that skincare for your face is usually what you think about when you hear the word skincare. And honestly, I’ve been like that too. But I’ve been ignoring the rest of my skin and I’ve noticed that it’s starting to show. Growing up, I know I wasn’t as good about putting lotion on my body as I was for my face. I don’t know why I just didn’t do it, but I didn’t think about doing it. I’m much better about it now, but I know that just using lotion isn’t enough for my skin.
I do use special soap on my skin and I’m lucky that it doesn’t dry my skin out. And I have some lotions that I like and they seem to help. But I still have skin issues that aren’t managed just by washing and moisturizing my skin. I have dry skin issues and uneven skin issues too. I haven’t really looked into what I could do to fix those things before, but I’m feeling motivated to do it now.
I’m not totally sure of all the skincare things I want to do for my body, but I want to get myself into a better skincare routine. I got a dry brush a long time ago as a swag bag item and I’ve never used it before. I don’t know if using it every day will be right for me, but I want to try using it regularly so I can figure out how often I should dry brush. I also want to look into the lotions that I use and see if there is a better option for me. I have tried in-shower lotions before and I love the idea of them. But they haven’t been right for me. But I’ve been hearing about new in-shower lotion options that might be better and I know that putting lotion on immediately after showering is best (and I definitely wait too long after showering to put on lotion).
I don’t think there are masks that I would be using on my body, but I want to research other things I can do. Maybe there are things that I’m not doing correctly or skipping out on that can make a big different in the appearance and feel of my skin. I know that I’m starting from having things seem pretty decent so far, so I’m not expecting a huge difference. But I also know having the ritual of different self-care practices can be a lot more for mental health than physical health.
This will be an interesting challenge to do this month because I’m actually starting the month out-of-town (more on that next week). I don’t know how many things I will be able to do when I’m not home, but that could be good time to do some research. And hopefully by the end of the month I will have a good skincare routine I can share with you all and I will feel like my skin is looking better.
I’ve written about laziness being self-care for me sometimes. I can be very obsessed with getting things done sometimes and I know that it can lead to burnout for me. And when that happens, it usually takes me a while to get back to normal and I’m in this endless cycle of making up for lost time with being busy and being lazy. Finding the balance is a struggle that many of us have and I know a lot of us have been working on it for years.
While I don’t think I have the balance figured out, I had a small victory for me in finding it. This is the season of holiday parties and it can be very overwhelming. If I went to all the parties that I was invited to, between last Saturday and this Sunday I would be at 12 different events. This is not me bragging that I’m invited to a lot of things because many of them are with a lot of the same people or just something casual. But because they aren’t big events, I feel like I should make more of an effort to attend them. When it’s not a big deal, I can feel like I don’t have as many excuses to stay home.
I was supposed to attend a holiday party for an organization I’m a part of earlier this week. I had been looking forward to it and it was on a night that I didn’t have anything else so I thought I’d have no reason not to go. Of course, life never goes the way I expect it to go and this week is the week that I have my worst nausea and pain. And while I know I can push through it and will be doing that other nights this week, I had to prioritize myself and realize that staying home would be the best thing for me.
While I don’t love missing out on an event because it’s always a great opportunity to meet new people (especially now when I really need to find a new job!), I also know that if I go and I’m not feeling my best that I won’t make the best impression either. There would have been a chance that I would have driven to the event and already feeling like I’m ready to go home. Then the entire time that I would be there, I would be watching the time and wondering when I had been there long enough to feel like I had been social so I could go home. And that’s just not what I want to have as the impression that people would have of me.
So I stayed home instead of going out to this event. I didn’t do much at home besides catching up on podcasts and job hunting, but it was exactly what I needed to do for myself. Sometimes being anti-social is more important than being social in order to take care of yourself. And I think I’m not feeling too guilty about staying home because I have so many other events happening this week and weekend. I did not stay home from the only event I had this week and the rest of the week I’ll be bored and wishing I had plans. I found a balance and had to pick which events were a bit more important for me to go to than others. And while I could have picked a different event to skip and gone to the one I missed, I also know that I should be feeling better as the week goes on and that played a factor in the decision too.
I know that holiday burnout is a real thing and I see it happening to so many friends as well as myself. There’s no need for me to put so much pressure on myself to do it all when I know that nobody is expecting me to do that. And with self-care being a very important thing for many people right now, I imagine that if anyone wondered where I was and asked me about it, they would understand if I said I needed to do some self-care and stay home. I’m working on self-care being more than just things I do for myself but also including doing nothing when I know that is the best thing for me at that time.Â
This isn’t a recap of my current monthly challenge (I’m only a few days into it), but it is related to it. I’ve been working on finding myself again and getting back to me. And I really thought a lot of that was going to be stuff about my emotions and feelings and that I needed to reconnect to myself that way. But over the past few days I did a few things for my outside that really did help me feel so much better.
I’ve been getting better about doing self-care and taking care of myself, including things like skincare and beauty. I have noticed that I have looked better on the outside since I’ve been making more of an effort on those things. I don’t know if weekly sheet masks are really making my skin better or if doing those sheet masks is bringing down my stress which is helping my skin look better, but either way it’s working. I know that physical beauty isn’t everything, but when you don’t feel at your best it can be a hit on your self-esteem and how you feel about yourself.
Since I have been doing all these new self-care things, I really didn’t think that doing some more beauty stuff was going to make a difference. But there were some beauty things that I have been slacking on for a bit that I finally got a chance to do. A lot of this slacking has to do with not having the money to do it, but it also has to do with timing.
The first thing I did for myself was getting my eyebrows done. I know this is a luxury thing to do, but for me it almost feels like a necessity. My eyebrows are pretty crazy to begin with, but I cannot trust myself to do the work on my own. I don’t even try to use tweezers because I will overdo things and pluck way more than I should. I don’t want to do any damage to my eyebrows so I try to get them done professionally on a regular basis. When I went to cheap places, I would try to go once a month or every other month. But those cheap places were not worth it as I would get burns from wax and other issues from them. So I go to a slightly more expensive place (but still on the cheap end of things) and I can’t go as often.
My eyebrows weren’t the worst they have been, but they weren’t great. And I have something happening this week that I want to look my best for so I wanted to get them done. Even though this wasn’t the most dramatic eyebrow makeover I’ve had from getting them done, just having them look clean and professional really helped. Since I don’t wear a lot of makeup on a regular basis, having my eyebrows look good makes a big difference in my appearance.
The other beauty thing I did recently was getting my hair done. I used to be much better about getting my hair done on a regular schedule. Since I color my hair, when I don’t get it done it’s usually very noticeable. It used to be bad because I went lighter with my color, but since I’ve been going darker my roots don’t show as much. But since I’ve been getting more and more gray hair, now it’s really bad! When I was getting it done, my friend who does my hair said I’m about 30% gray now. I started going gray around 20, but it got drastically worse in the past 2 years. Now, my gray hair is all over and there’s no way to pretend it’s not there. I do have powder I can use to cover them, but it still needed to be done.
I was going to have my hair done around my birthday, but I put that off because I didn’t do a big birthday thing. Then I was thinking about doing it in September, but because I can’t afford to get it done as often as I like I didn’t want to do it then and have my hair look bad for Thanksgiving. I put it off longer than I would have liked to, but I finally got it done this week when it was looking really bad.
I like to take before and after photos of my hair, and the before ones are always much worse than I look on a normal basis. I always remember to take them right before my appointment, but that’s when I haven’t done anything to my hair. I just wash and condition it and let it air dry. Normally, I put product in my hair after it’s washed and I blow dry it. So my before picture has much more frizz and random curls than I do on normal days. But you can still tell a big difference between the before and after photo when you ignore the style of my hair.
The color is back to what I like it to be and you don’t see any gray or weird color changes from the top to the bottom of my hair. My hair was also super long and looking stringy so it was cut and shaped. It looks like a lot of length was taken off, but it’s actually not that much. In my after photo my hair is curled a bit so it looks shorter. I still had about 2 inches taken off to make it look healthier, but it’s still long. I have toyed with the idea of going short again, but I still love it long right now.
Before getting my eyebrows and hair done I didn’t think it was going to make that much of a difference, but it really did. I feel so much better about myself and just much calmer about things. It’s so weird how working on how I look on the outside made that much of a difference about the uneasy feeling I’ve been having. I still need to do more work on myself and I’ll recap that at the end of the month. But for now, I’m just so glad that doing something that seemed so frivolous really ended up being a big deal.
It’s almost the end of the year! I can’t believe that in 2 months it will be 2019! And with the start of November I am recapping a monthly challenge and sharing a new one. While this year as been the year of more abstract challenges, I feel like this might be the most abstract one and a bit tough to explain. But first, I want to share how my October challenge went.
I wanted to continue building on my challenge to not shop online by being much clearer on what I wanted to buy when I did shop online or in person. I did do some online shopping last month, but it was much more deliberate than it has been in the past. I did work on using my Amazon wish lists and just leaving things in my cart online to not shop until I had something I really needed. Then I would reevaluate what I was actually going to purchase. The only time this didn’t work was with ordering a bra online because I thought I added both of the ones I wanted and it only had 1 in the order. Since I really wanted both (I think the women reading this understand that when you find a bra that fits you want it in multiple colors to go under anything you might wear), I did 2 orders back to back to get everything ordered that I was hoping to have. It wasn’t impulsive or done for just convenience like I had in the past, which is a good sign.
For shopping in person, I got much better about making my lists. I usually would make a list on a sticky note before I went to the store and that helped a lot. I wasn’t forgetting things at the store like I sometimes do and I was cutting back on how often I had to go to the store. I did still have some impulsive buys when I saw things I wasn’t expecting (like the Wonder Woman sheet mask I saw at CVS when I was getting contact lens solution), but it was much less than before. I still took my time when shopping and wandered around the stores, but it was more of seeing what else is out there than trying to figure out what I wanted to get. I had already been doing shopping lists from time to time, but I’m glad I forced myself to do them more often and I plan on keeping this up.
Now for November’s challenge, I really struggled to figure out what I wanted to do. I had lots of little ideas, but none of them seemed to really connect to me or feel worthy of a monthly challenge. Some of them were things I was already planning on doing this month and that almost felt like a cheat since it wasn’t a new challenge. I probably was thinking about this since the beginning of October and by this week I still didn’t have an idea of what I would do.
But I was inspired by a phone call I had with my aunt the other day. We usually talk every week (we discuss the tv shows we both watch), but we had been having trouble connecting on the phone so we hadn’t talked in almost a month. We both have been dealing with lots of randomness so it wasn’t either of our faults that the phone call took forever to happen. And while we were talking we discussed what was happening in our lives. And I just kept saying some variation of how I just don’t feel like myself or like I’m back on track to normal life.
I don’t know exactly why I’m feeling like this, but I know that some of the smaller challenge ideas I had for this month are a part of that. I am struggling with money right now and it’s a huge stress on my mind. Worrying about money as often as I am right now isn’t what I’m used to. I do worry about money, but not like I am right now. My food has been off too, but that is due to lots of different factors that I’m trying to resolve. My sleep has been a bit of a struggle, but it’s slowly getting better and I’m closer to the amount of sleep I know I need to get. And some things are just piling up and I’m so far behind (like catching up on podcasts or reading) and I can’t figure out why this is happening or where my time is going.
So this month, I’m trying to find myself again. I don’t know where I went or what happened, but I need to fix this. It’s such an abstract challenge and I have no idea how I will measure if I am successful or not, but it’s exactly what I need to do right now. This is similar to many of the other abstract challenges I’ve done this month, but this time I’m not being specific on what I’m trying to accomplish. I just want this uneasy and unsettled feeling to go away and to feel like I know I can and should. And I want to do whatever it takes to make that happen and I’m not sure what it will involve.
I know some of the things I need to work on and what I can do to try to fix them, but I don’t know if those individual things will make me feel more like me again. It might take other things that I haven’t thought of that I will discover as the month goes on. And having this challenge as open and general as it is will allow me to do what I discover I need to do. And hopefully in a month when I recap this post I will be able to share that I am feeling much more like me (even if I’m not all the way there yet) and will know what changes I needed to make in my life to get there.
The busy season at my day job should have started a few weeks ago. When it’s the slow season I might only have a few customers over an entire shift. But when the busy season kicks in, I can be on a phone call, have 2-3 customers in the chat system, and still be missing a call so I’ll have a voicemail to return later. When it’s the slow season, I feel bored sometimes and miss the craziness of the busy season. But when it’s busy, I can wish that it just would calm down so that I can catch my breath.
For some reason, we aren’t having the same busy season that we normally do. Ticket sales are similar to past seasons, but I think more customers are using the website and not calling in to ask things that are on the website. We do still get customers calling in and sometimes we get funny questions. My favorite recurring funny question is when a customer calls and says “I see the show this weekend is sold out. How many tickets left does that mean?”. There are only so many ways I can say a sold out show means that tickets are sold out. But I think more customers are realizing that our website is very accurate so they aren’t calling in to ask that as often or they see that our website has the menu and location so they don’t call us to ask.
It’s been a bit boring with the slow season continuing later than normal, but this week I’m actually grateful for it. I knew this week would be the week that I’d be nauseous, but it’s taking it out of me more than normal. My nausea isn’t necessarily worse than other months, but it’s affecting more parts of my life. I’m dealing with bloat which makes clothes not feel right and just makes me uncomfortable. And I’m very fatigued even though my sleep hasn’t changed from my normal schedule. I’m just feeling off and not like myself. So I’m happy that I don’t have to stay upbeat while juggling multiple customers.
I’ve gotten very into working on self-care lately and I have noticed so many positive changes in my life. But normally self-care feels like I’m doing something for myself like reading or doing different beauty routines. But right now, self-care for me is literally to do nothing. Being lazy and napping if necessary is my self-care this week. I don’t necessarily want to be in a habit of being lazy because I have worked hard to beat that in the past. But I also know that right now this is the right thing for me to do for my body and mind.
I know that I need to take advantage of this right now because any day the slow season can switch over to the busy season. I have noticed it has picked up a bit in the past week, but it is still much slower than I was prepared for. And hopefully I don’t need to be lazy for that long. I know when my nausea typically ends and I would expect these other issues to go away at the same time or sooner. I’d love it if I was only dealing with nausea by the end of the week. I never thought I would be hoping for nausea, but I guess it’s the lesser of two evils right now in my life.
I do have a bit of guilt because I know that I should be doing other things, but I’ve been working on understanding that maybe a bit of guilt is going to be a part of my self-care. I have other friends who struggle with self-care because they have that same feeling and knowing that has actually helped me. I thought it was a problem for just me and that maybe it meant that self-care wasn’t doing what it should be doing. But knowing that other friends feel the same way made me realize that it might just be something that many of us will deal with. Girls are raised to be accommodating and pleasant (which can bring up so many other issues), and taking time for yourself almost goes against that. But so many of us are retraining our minds to think differently about it.
So for now, my self-care practice will be a lot of doing nothing, and that’s absolutely fine and perfect with me.
Posted onAugust 2, 2018|Comments Off on So Much Reading (or Really Taking Advantage Of The Library)
As you may have seen from recent posts of mine, things have been a bit weirdfor me. I’ve been going through some things and I know I’ll be through them soon enough. And fortunately, some of these issues have already started to resolve themselves and things are feeling a bit more normal again. It’s still not totally normal, but it’s so much better than it was just a week ago.
Whenever things are weird for me, I do try to find the moments of normal where I can. I’ve learned in therapy regarding my panic attacks that you focus on what is in front of you and real and hold on to that to get over the panic. And when things are weird, I find the normal things and hold on to those. This time of weirdness seemed like it was endless and I couldn’t find much to hold on to, but I was able to connect more than ever with reading and used that to work through things.
I’ve always been a big reader and I am always reading something. For longer than I would like to admit, I bought a ton of books. Even when I got my first e-reader I bought a lot of e-books since they were pretty inexpensive and way too easy to purchase. When I got my Kindle, I was in the same bad habit with buying books since it’s so simple. But when I got more serious about my financial situation, I realized book spending was the one I needed to cut back on and that’s when I got a new library card so I could take advantage of the library again.
I rarely go to the library near me to get physical books because I do love to read on my Kindle. I still love reading physical books, but my Kindle is really convenient and easy. And I don’t feel like it’s looking at a computer screen since it is a reading only Kindle and not the tablet type (like my iPad is). And the library e-book selection really is great and they have been good at getting the books I recommend. So even if the books I’m looking for are a part of their collection when I’m looking for it that moment, more often than not they will purchase it and then I can get the e-book.
I also love how it’s so easy to get a Kindle book from the library. If I’m in bed and finish a book I can just go to the library website to find a new book and have it sent to my Kindle instantaneously. We live in a world of instant gratification and this is one of the best examples of it. I have gotten close to the borrowing limits from the library, but I haven’t gone over just yet. I have a feeling it’s only a matter of time before that happens though.
It’s not always easy for me to find new books to read, but I do look at Kindle recommendations (I just don’t purchase the books) and there are a few different websites that share when new books are released or can recommend books based on other books you’ve liked. Lately I’ve discovered a few new book series that have been fun to read and I’ve been flying through them.
While things have been weird, I have done a ton of reading. It wasn’t just that I was loving what I was reading (although that is a part of it) but it really was just helping me feel centered and away from any issues I had been dealing with. It was my life-preserver for that moment and I think that reading is a pretty healthy one to have compared to what other people might turn to in moments of weirdness. It also helps that right now is the slow time at my work so I have been able to spend a lot of time during my work hours reading as well.
There have only been a few brief times where I wasn’t as big of a reader as I am now. My entire childhood was surrounded by books. So many life moments are remembered by what books I was reading at that time. In college I still read, but it wasn’t something I did every day and I think that had to do with how much reading I had to do in college. But in my last semester of college my class load was pretty much only 1 day a week so I had lots of free time and got back into reading. And since then my love of reading has only gotten stronger and stronger.
But now, I feel like my reading obsession is the strongest it’s ever been. I’ve found a new love for reading beyond just the act of reading. It helped me feel sane when I know that things could have been worse for me. It is my greatest act of self-care and I don’t know if I really considered reading self-care the way I do now. I’ve always considered it a habit that makes me happy and have it on my happiness checklist, but that feels like something different to me. I’ve never considered how good for my mental health reading could be and I’m so glad that I had it to turn to when I was struggling recently.
It’s so weird when I look back at my monthly challenges as they rack up throughout the year. This year and last year I didn’t really have challenges planned out the way I did the first time and many times I’m picking a challenge out at the last minute. And as I’ve been looking back at some of the challenges I’ve been doing this year, it seems like the common theme has been that I’ve been doing more selfish challenges. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as I’ve been realizing that I’ve been putting myself last quite a bit, but I do think I want to work on other types of challenges in the future. But this month won’t be the month to change.
First, a quick recap on last month’s challenge. I did not use my pressure mat every single day, but I did use it more often than not last month. I do want to get into a better habit of using it because I do feel the difference when I take the time to use it. I’m still looking at guides online for ideas of ways to use it and lay on it, but most of the time I just like laying on my back letting it work on my neck, shoulders, and back. It feels really good and I have enjoyed not having some of the back and neck pain I’ve been dealing with for a little while. I’m working on a system of when would be a good time each day to use it or maybe a plan for what days I will use it in different ways, but it’s a work in progress.
Last month’s challenge wasn’t my most successful one as far as consistency goes, but that’s what inspired this month’s challenge. About 2 1/2 years ago I read the book “Year Of Yes” by Shonda Rhimes and it was so inspiring! It made me realize how often I was saying no to opportunities that I really should have taken advantage of. I was scared for a variety of reasons to say yes to things and I knew that I needed to stop letting that hold me back. While I didn’t say yes to everything that came my way, I was saying yes much more often.
I’ve tried to keep doing that whenever possible and when I had to turn down an invitation or couldn’t do something I wanted to I felt so guilty about it. I hated to let someone down and even though I know that I wasn’t letting people down if I couldn’t attend something, it still was in my head that I was. It’s a tough habit to break but I’ve been working on this feeling for a while.
But then this year I’ve been doing some more things to put myself first and not feel like I have to say yes to everything. My first challenge this year was related to that with allowing myself to be selfish. But that didn’t connect with me as much as it should have and I have been back in the habit of saying yes more often that I probably would like to and feeling guilty when I say no. I am not trying to be totally selfish and that is something that I don’t think I could ever do, but I do want to feel ok saying no when I want to and not have the feelings of guilt.
The one aspect of my life where I have been more successful with this has been with dating. And I’m not taking about saying no if a guy is pressuring me to do something (if they try that they will regret it). I mean not going out with a guy just because they asked me out. I’ve realized that I have been having dates with more quality guys lately. There still have been some duds, but they are not as often as they were when I started back on the various apps. As someone else pointed out to me, I’ve been getting more selective and willing to block or unmatch with someone who I don’t want to talk to anymore. I don’t have any guilt over doing that and I’m more than happy to stop wasting my time with someone who I don’t want to meet.
Obviously it’s different to say no to something a friend is inviting you out to compared to blocking a guy online that you’ve never met and is starting to bother you. But it’s still the same idea and I need to take some of the lack of guilt and fear I have with guys and apply it to other parts of my life. I need to find the balance with putting myself first and still being a good friend to others and taking chances on things that I might not automatically think I should do or attend.
I think that the reason this has been so tough for me to do has been that I’ve worked hard on saying yes more often and now I’m out of the habit of saying no. And I’ve had a lot of fun saying yes to things when I originally felt like I should turn down. I also like having fun and random things to do because it gives me things to write about.
I’ve realize in the past month or so that I do need to be more selfish. I don’t think saying yes got me sick, but I think stressing about doing things might have made my cold thing last longer. I also think that feeling down had a lot to do with trying to force myself to do things I wasn’t sure about and the guilt I felt if I didn’t go. I have spent so many times making my monthly challenges about being selfish and reconnecting to myself, but I haven’t really been able to accomplish it the way I needed to.
So this month, I’m working on saying no more often. There will be a lot of fun things to do this month (it’s my birthday month!) so I’ll have lots of things I want to say yes to. But I also know there should be plenty of time to work on saying no or at least allowing myself time to debate if I want to say yes or not. I’m not sure if I’ll be successful in this challenge or not, but I am giving myself a much more measurable challenge and something that has action steps to it.
I’m not exactly sure what I am hoping this month will result in for me, but I’m excited to see how it goes and what happens. If nothing else, it will give me some more self-reflection and permission to focus on doing what I want to instead of what is offered to me.
Posted onJune 6, 2018|Comments Off on Checking Out Face Haus (or Making Skincare More Routine)
I’ve been on quite the self-care kick lately. This is a good thing and I’m glad that I’m doing it. I wasn’t necessarily neglecting myself before, but doing all these things does make me feel better. And while feeling better is a very important thing, I also want to look better which is why a lot of my self-care has been skincare stuff. Pretty much all of the skincare things I have been doing have been at home, but this week I had the chance to change that.
My friend Michelle is an esthetician. Previously she worked at Burke Williams and I went there for a facial with her last year. But I hadn’t done one since then. It wasn’t that I was necessarily putting it off, but going to Burke Williams was kind of a full day experience (or at least a half-day). Not only would you go there for whatever treatment you were getting, you also would wander around and use the different amenities there. It was awesome to do that, but it felt like a special treat.
But now Michelle works at an amazing new place called Face Haus. The idea of Face Haus is that it is a skincare bar where you come in for your facial and then go on with your day. It makes facials much more affordable and something that feels like a part of a routine instead of a splurge. I was so excited when Michelle got the job there and I couldn’t wait to come in to see her! And I had that opportunity to do so this week before the Santa Monica location (where she works) officially opened. I was so excited about this and knew that my skin needed it.
Walking in, it was immediately a totally different vibe. Everything is open and bright as opposed to spas where it is dark and in a private room.
At first I was curious about the idea that everything was one big room, but the more I thought about it the more it made sense. If I was coming in for skincare and just skincare (compared to going somewhere for a day of relaxation), why should it be in a cave? This way just made sense for the idea of Face Haus and the concept that getting a facial should be a routine part of life.
I also loved that with the no-frills set up the price was no-frills too! All of the facials there are $65 and there are add-ons that you can pick if you’d like. Some of the add-ons include peels, microdermabrasion, eye treatments, and LED light treatments. Since this was before the official opening, the staff there were working on getting all the kinks worked out and I was able to get a lot of add-on treatments. I trusted what Michelle felt like I needed and went with all her recommendations.
She started with the standard facial by cleansing my skin. I wasn’t taking notes during my facial so I’m sure I’ll get the order of the next few things wrong, but I believe next was my first add-on of microdermabrasion. I’ve never had that before and she started on the lighter setting so I could get used to the sensation, but it didn’t hurt at all so she could work with the regular setting. Next I believe was cleansing again to get any of the leftover debris off of my face. And then I had the LED treatment.
I really had no idea what the LED treatment would be like. They use a combination of 3 different lights. The blue light kills bacteria that causes acne, the red light is anti-inflammatory, and the amber light helps skin produce more collagen and elastin. The treatment was about 20 minutes but Michelle was sitting next to me and we were chatting so the time went quickly. And of course I made her take a photo of me getting the treatment because I wanted to see what it looked like. And it was way crazier looking than I expected!
It was bright when I was getting the treatment, but nothing too crazy. And they do offer goggles to help block some of the light, but then the light is also blocked from helping the skin around your eyes. I decided to start the treatment without the goggles and see if I needed them, but I never did.
After the LED lights the rest was pretty much the standard facial steps with a mask, moisturizer, and oxygen blast. My skin felt incredible when it was all done (I didn’t take an after photo because it was a bit red from all the treatments like it always is after a facial) and I felt really refreshed and relaxed. The facials take about an hour, but I thought it would be much longer with the add-ons, but it was still pretty much only an hour. That is perfect to fit into a regular day without needing to do it on a day off!
In an ideal world, I would get a facial every month. I’m going to try to do that but for sure I’m going to go at least every 3 months. I want to make sure my skin continues to look amazing and I know that I need to do more than what I can just do at home. I almost started to compare this to going to the dentist. You brush your teeth every day but you still go to the dentist for a deep cleaning. I wash my face every day, but I should go to a professional for a deep cleaning too! Of course, getting a facial is 1000% better than going to the dentist.
If you are in LA, I highly recommend going to Face Haus! If you can go to their Santa Monica location, make an appointment with Michelle! But they also have a location in the valley and they are opening more around the city. And I have a feeling that people are going to love this concept so much that they will be expanding even more!
A Low Key Post (or I Guess Things Come In Threes)
