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We Should Probably All Be Doing This...

"I've tried. It's not for me." - About 90% of people when you ask them if they meditate (and about 99.9% of people who went to see Cats.) I'm in the 10% of people who mediation works for. However, 90% of the time, I don't do it. What is wrong with me?! Are we even living if we aren't self-sabotaging?! I'm making a huge mistake. Meditation is dope and I need to take it more seriously. A lot of us probably do.

In my quest to be a highly-optimized person, I often do things that garner the opposite result. My brain runs a million miles in every direction trying to take over the world and spreads me too thin. Quarantine is... not helping. I think "Wow! I have all this time to do ALL of the things!" and then I take off like I have a jet-pack strapped to my back and slam right into a brick wall. Oh, then add hella anxiety about the world-wide pandemic, you know?

Tara Branch, mediation teacher and author, spoke with Vox recently in a piece about meditation during COVID-19; "When we're in a fight-flight-freeze mode, our limbic system has basically hijacked us, and we lose contact with our prefrontal cortex, the most recently evolved part of our brain, which has to do with executive functioning and making good decisions." (If I ever come out with a line of Tequila, I will call it fight-flight-freeze) She then explains that the mindfulness we get from mediation helps us regain control of our prefrontal cortex. Woo!

Y'all, that's enough for me, I'm gonna jump back into this again. While I'm meditating, I admittedly feel just a little bit silly and fear that I'm not going to get anything out of it but almost every time, I find that it shifts my entire day and allows me to reconnect with my focus and purpose. Focus and purpose > Trying to do it all, all the time. They say meditation is a practice and MAN, do we have time to practice right now! 

Here is a great meditation resource that I turn to frequently! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pLUleLdwY4

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/3/18/21181644/coronavirus-covid-19-mindfulness-meditation-anxiety

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National Asparagus Month

Yep. It's National Asparagus Month because of course it is. It is ALSO Get Caught Reading Month which is a great reminder for me (and probably a ton of other people) to get the fuck off of my GD phone at night and pick up a book instead. Life is so strange right now and it's becoming increasingly easy to get lost on our phones when we don't know what else to do. How else are we supposed to stay connected other than sharing Tiger King memes and trying to learn the "Savage" TikTok dance? TELL ME! #2020problems. 

I've never been a great reader. I'm super practical so I get bored easily with fiction and much of the nonfiction I typically like feels too stressful to read (Johnathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind is fantastic but oh-so-triggering to read right now). The fact of the matter is that I need to get over myself and figure it out if I want to be productive and learn during this time. I welcome the pressure of this month's suggestion that I get lost in a book.

Connor Goodwin agrees with me in The Atlantic saying that reading during this time gives him something to look forward to and that "In fact, it might be the best antidote for the psychological toll of a socially distanced life." He makes a great point. Time feels endless and wobbly right now and many of us are craving something that will demand our attention and make us actually focus rather than just sit on the couch and see how many chips filled with salsa we can fit into our mouths at once. *I'm not eating right now, you're eating right now STOP JUDGING ME*

PLUS, books don't make your pee smell.

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/04/quarantine-book-clubs-living-mountain-reading-antidote/609742/

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It’s Not Easy Being Green

Ok, maybe it is. Or so one of my oldest friends is trying to teach the world with her new social media presence, @easy2bgreen. We LOVE a Kermit reference as a tool to fight climate change! This crusading friend of mine, Madison Micucci, is a New York City-dwelling broadway star with a passion for our earth mother. She JUST started her account and has already help me knock some harmful eco-habits I didn't even know I had. BOOM. 

One of my favorite posts so far is about recycling. You know what they say, "zero waste is next to godliness." Right? Every day, I am overwhelming flummoxed over the fact that there is so much GD plastic in the world. People often aren't aware of the difference between plastics and how to avoid the bad ones or find alternatives. Enter this earth-saving,  champion of a gal. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_K9SoBDgu0/

Madison reminds us that if we "MUST buy plastic" to "make a concerted effort to opt for the rigid type. All the other flimsy plastic is a complete nuisance when it comes to repurposing and is almost always avoidable. She also reminds us to opt for metal over cardboard when it comes to buying soup, beans, or sauce because they had to go and ruin that cardboard with a lining made with, you guessed it, plastic-like shit. Not cool. 

Personal action accounts like these are my favorite to follow. They not only inform but show me how to put information into practice. It's easy to feel like trying to save the world is completely helpless. Being consistently taught through Insta posts about how to make an impact makes the load seem just a bit lighter. YAY! Visit @Easy2bGreen on Instagram and learn about the little things that make a BIG difference from a lady who knows her shit.

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But Enough About Me...

Mid-20’s, abusive boyfriend, loss of father, crippling anxiety. It’s a wild cocktail. This is the recipe for one of my best friends, Cameron’s* life a few years back. Cameron had everything going for her but the pull of a manipulative partner and the sudden death of a parent took a big ol’ toll on her life. My bright-eyed, life-of-the-party babe was feeling like a victim and was downing way too much wine and filling every conversation with her woes. Enter shaky hands and weakening friendships. Then she realized, ‘whoa, Dad probz wouldn’t want me to live like this’.

Cameron is beautiful and has a contagious smile. She changed for a while but as I look at her now, I see the happy Cam I knew 10 years ago when we were frolicking around Manhattan eating Pizza at 2am and screaming musical theater songs. She’s back but it took a while. “I was just drinking too much and only hanging out with this one person and I had friends who felt like my friendship was very one-sided and didn’t want to be friends with me anymore. I had to rebuild those relationships.”

Rebuilding is hard AF and most people don’t know where to start. She had asked me once on the phone if she talked about herself too much, I paused for ZERO seconds and said, “love you but yes.” Cut to Cameron asking me how I was on our phone calls a week later…whoa baby! It was unnatural for her at first. “It felt like I had to think about it..” she tells me, looking up at the ceiling trying to recall this time that seems so foreign to her now. “Then it became second nature every time I would talk to someone I cared about to ask them about themselves”. YASSSSS to the repetition of healthy habits leading to concrete changes!

Master of Social Work, Wendy Lustbader, says about depression and those stuck focused on themselves, “The light of compassion for others doesn’t reach us in there, yet that is precisely what would help us emerge.” DEEP. In another mind-blowing quote about being of service she says,

“It’s tough to oppose the selfish impulse long enough to reap the ample benefits of reciprocity, the giving-and-taking that in slow increments rewards and enhances relationships.” (Psychology Today, 2015)

Preach, Wendy, preach! We gotta give if we wanna get! When our mind is focused on the world around us rather than inward, we don’t have time to feel bad for ourselves and we climb out of toxic patterns.

What Cameron was experiencing wasn’t a rare phenomenon, Shit happens to us. A lot. And it makes us forget that we aren’t the only people on the planet and that the world doesn’t revolve around us (unless you’re Beyonce and then, well, bow down b**ches). Active listening is a DOPE way to strengthen our relationships, people want to talk about themselves and they want to be listened to. When we step outside of ourselves and involve ourselves in the lives of those around us, we become better friends and happier, more fulfilled people.

*name changed for privacy

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/life-gets-better/201503/get-out-yourself

ALSO! There is an incredible podcast episode from School of Greatness with Lewis Howes with transformation coach, Chris Lee on active listening. Listen HERE

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WANTED: High-Impact Volunteer Opportunities

A few months ago, I was driving along minding my own business when BOOM!, my mind was blown to smithereens by a podcast. Being interviewed was Dr. Nadine Burke-Harris, the first EVER surgeon general of California, no big deal just badassery of epic proportions is all. She was talking about ACES. Never heard of it? Samesies. Honestly, it's blasphemous that this term isn't ubiquitously present in our dialogue about mental health. The acronym stands for Adverse Childhood Experiences (parent in jail, food scarcity, abuse, neglect, alcoholic parent, etc.). The more ACES, the higher the risk of developing chronic illnesses as an adult due to changes in brain chemistry (i.e. effects from heightened fight or flight hormones like adrenaline and cortisol). This shit is wild.

GOOD NEWS THO, that brain chemistry can be reversed in many cases with one. caring. adult. relationship. Enter CASA, Court Appointed Special Advocates, a national organization that appoints advocates to those who have entered the foster care system due to abuse and neglect. These children typically have high ACES. I had heard about this organization through multiple sources in the months prior and thought, "I can be that one, caring adult! I have free time to save lives!" I had been craving an incredibly meaningful volunteer opportunity and this was it. 

Pic of me getting my CASA certificate: V PROUD.

Don't get me wrong, the training was hashtag #extensive but worth every second. What could possibly be more important than helping to protect and advocate for a child? Nothing, that's what, duh. Once assigned a case, an advocate goes to work for the child (social workers are on the case but are typically woefully overworked and the turnover is worse than that of the Trump administration), and advocates for everything they need to thrive. 

In 2018, there were 437,283 children in foster care. ( US Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System) That is..... a lot. And while this work isn't for everyone, a lot more people could be doing it. At least that's how I felt. If we want the world to be a better place, we need to invest in the future. Kids=future. For more information, visit NationalCasa.org

Check out Dr. Nadine Burke Harris' TED talk HERE if you know what's good for you.

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Let’s Talk. No, Really.

I hate talking on the phone. UGH. Well, I think I hate talking on the phone. The few seconds before a call are filled with dread. How long will this take? I can just catch up with this person later. I'd rather just send a text. These are the thoughts that run through my head. Yet to my surprise, every single time, it's not so bad at all. I almost always hang up with a smile on my face. I think it's going to be a chore but the truth is, it increases my mood.

I started making more calls about a year ago because I realized that it was the best way for me to maintain strong friendships. Who doesn't like to hear that someone was thinking of them? I'm not alone in dragging my feet to do it, though. On her podcast, The Happiness Lab, Dr. Laurie Santos Ph.D. cites a study from the University of Chicago that highlights this phenomenon. The study asked commuters on certain train cars to commute in silence and others to converse with their fellow travelers. What they found was that those who conversed with "significantly happier" than those who did not. (NPR. 2014).

Human connection is good for our mental health. We think we want to keep to ourselves and that it'd just be better if we could have our space not have to get into a whole thing. We are wrong. The next time you're feeling like you just want to isolate and have some 'me' time, consider that the opposite may have a more positive effect. It certainly does for me. I'll still probably let a few go to voicemail, though....

Listen to The Happiness Lab: ‘Mistakenly Seeking Solitude’ HERE!

https://www.npr.org/2014/12/02/367938704/study-shows-riding-the-quiet-car-is-crushing-your-spirit

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Land of the Free, Home of the People Who Weren’t Taught Enough About How to Participate in Government

I spent last Saturday doing something almost no one I know has done and that most people couldn’t even tell you the definition of. I was canvassing for the Democratic primary. I was yelled at and ignored a lot but also met lots of doggo and new friends. Many people I know hardly make it to the polls on election day if they do at all, let alone know about midterm elections, primaries or how to support a candidate aside from voting.

Americans, as a whole, are woefully unaware of how to participate in government. In 2016, CNN reported that ‘only about 34% of Americans can even name the three branches of government”. WOOF. It’s not your fault, though! This shit is confusing and we never really learned about it in school the way we should have (I’m looking at you too, taxes…).

What’s even worse, is that many Americans don’t realize how much every individual voice counts (sup, county totals) or feel altogether hopeless. This could explain why voter turnout for the highly polarizing and widely covered 2016 general election was at a TWENTY-YEAR record low. (CNN, 2016)

Here’s the deal, government isn’t perfect. It’s super messy, frustrating and upsetting at times but it doesn’t work unless we all pitch in. The geniuses at crooked.com have compiled a bunch of info in one place and their site is an incredible resource to learn how to get involved. Your voice matters, that’s not just a line.

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Do things happen for a reason? I’m not sure. I don't know if there are greater forces in the world trying to teach us lessons or if things are more binary and, as they say, "shit happens". But on January 26th, when Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna died in a tragic accident I had a thought. If things like this do happen for a reason, I think it's to give the world a dose of humanity in the aftermath.

It's an incredibly moving, beautiful and restorative thing to watch people at their worst moments come together and display such heightened acts of camaraderie, compassion, and caretaking. To see people waking up and be reminded that they must reach out to their loved ones while they can is inspiring and just what our species needs in such a polarized and tense world. These are the moments that make life beautiful. KTLA reported that there were some 1,300 basketballs left at the Staples Center in tribute to Kobe Bryant. Over 8 million people followed his wife, Vanessa on Instagram in the days after and reached out to her to support her. These people expected nothing in return, they simply wanted to put love into the universe.

Whatever the reason for people leaving us too soon is, it sucks. A lot. The beauty afterward though, is not something to be overlooked. It reminds us to love harder in the future and to marvel at our magnificent capabilities to love, feel and be.