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[sincerely-sophie-soliliquie-blog]

Being nice to myself

Today had some wins and some losses. And as I sit here near its end and reflect, I feel the need to voice this reminder. Be gentle with yourself. Be kind to yourself. Be generous with yourself. The failures do not, in any way, cancel out the triumphs. 

I didn’t get up early today. Didn’t roll out my yoga mat or take my pup to the park like I intended. 

I did spent almost the whole day out of my house, helping a friend. 

I did eat three delicious meals, prepared by and for myself, to nourish myself. Even though my mom offered to pick up something on her way home from work and the option to feed myself passively instead of actively was tempting. 

I did take my medicine, make my bed, read my book. 

Today is not a loss. I will not allow myself to make myself feel bad for not checking off some boxes when I’ve checked so many others. 

Tomorrow I will wake up and have another chance to make lots of little decisions that carry me in the direction of health and wellness and sustainability. How hopeful is that?

[sincerely-sophie-soliliquie-blog]

It’s a celebration

Life can be so bleak sometime - so gray and icky and stale. So this year, I’m resolving to find more reasons to celebrate. Does that mean hosting more craft nights and movie nights and vegan potlucks with my roommates? Oh, 100%. Does it mean making a big fuss about Fridays and trivia night triumphs and new months and years and moon cycles? Absolutely. But it also means celebrating the good choices I make each day rather than bemoaning the less-than-good ones. 

And on this, the first day of a brand new year, I gotta say I fucking killed it. Especially considering how hideously, horribly low I’ve felt the last few weeks (months). 

So here’s all the shit I did right today, because there’s nothing wrong with patting yourself on the back.

- Woke up at 7:45 to the one and only alarm I set. I changed the alarm tone to wind chimes and I gotta say, it made a huge difference. I’m proud of myself for choosing to get up and stay up. 

- Opened all of my blinds first thing in the morning and let the natural light in. No more hibernating. No more hiding. 

- Let my pooches out and fed them breakfast instead of holing up in my room and passing off the responsibility to someone else. 

- Started the book Ben and I agreed to read together, from afar (The Shipping News, Annie Proulx). He reached the first stopping point we decided upon weeks ago, and I kept making excuses not to participate in this thing that I knew would make me feel good. And it really, really did make me feel good.

- Made my bed and tidied up my room. The book I’m reading about anxiety (First, We Make the Beast Beautiful, Sarah Wilson) recommended I try making my bed each day, as does pretty much everyone else. So I did the damn thing. 

- Rolled out my yoga mat and did a 35 minute morning flow with my mom. It’s been too long since I did that, which seems especially dumb since I am fully aware of how much yoga helps me and how much better I feel when I practice consistently. 

- Followed through with the plans I made with my friends last night, and even coordinated logistics with a group text. Eating tacos with my best friends from high school sure felt like a celebration. 

- Didn’t beat myself up when I chose to order a taco with cheese despite my intention to recommit to mindful eating this year. I enjoyed my food and mentally recommitted afterward, promising myself I would be more intentional in my choice of nourishment when dinner came around. And I freaking was.

- Shared good conversation over a lavender latte with my friends after lunch instead of allowing the bad habit of plopping down in front of a screen, or our respective screens, in the same room. 

- Ventured to the grocery store with Allie to purchase fresh ingredients for a healthy meal, despite the anxiety a trip to an oversized super market generally causes me. 

- Cooked fresh, yummy Thai quinoa bowls for my whole family. We chopped veggies, plated the food in a pretty way, the whole deal. Putting time, energy, and effort into nourishing myself and the people I love was definitely a win. 

- Baked magical vegan pumpkin chocolate chip buns (cookies? bread?), just because. Spending time in the kitchen, both cooking and cleaning up, felt important today - like something I need to be doing way, way more of. Also, I’m really looking forward to having one for breakfast tomorrow with my coffee. Looking forward to stuff feels great. 

- Ended a day well spent with the most magical bubble bath of my life. In the dark, with a candle,  a cup of tea, and a new album to listen to. I’m not sure why I’ve never actually brought a candle into the tub before but it was a game changer. I felt truly and deservedly relaxed for the first time in a long time. 

- Took my medication. I really thought about not taking it, but I told myself to be quiet and then took it anyway. 

- Sat down to write this. 

[sincerely-sophie-soliliquie-blog]

Unpopular Opinion: I wholeheartedly believe in New Year’s resolutions

I can’t help it - I love a fresh start. And maybe it’s my anxiety talking - my constant need for a clean slate, a new chapter, a beginning wherein I have the opportunity to be different and better than I was before. 

And yes, resolutions may be silly. And yes, there is nothing inherently special about the moment the clock strikes midnight on the last day of an old year. But even so, I’m going to set some motherfucking intentions, because now seems as good a time as any. And because I believe that there is power in naming the goals - in pointing to something and saying “That. That is what I want. That is who I’d like to be.” 

So here is an incomplete and vague list of things I’d like to accomplish, practices I’m hoping to cultivate, and changes I intend to make in 2019. I’ll definitely fuck up more than I succeed, but the magic is in the trying again.

1.  Continue to lean into and expand my yoga practice, because it makes me feel strong and capable, and things that make me feel strong and capable are definitely things I should be doing regularly. I want to care for my body and check the endorphin box as often as possible, because they say that helps  people with anxiety/depressive disorders and I can use all the help I can get. 

2. Meditate, even when I hate it and it makes me feel like a crazy failure who is incapable of quieting my mind for five freaking minutes. Meditate, because I can’t keep ignoring myself forever. 

3. Get outside every damn day. Even when its rainy or cold. Even when every atom of my body demands that I remain on the couch. Outside is where I am happiest, and in 2019 I am going to put myself in the way of happiness as often as possible. 

4. Continue taking steps towards my passions and keep figuring out what kind of life path will make me most happy. Practically, this means diving into my massive GRE prep book, scheduling a test, and researching grad programs. Impractically, this means sitting with myself even when its hard and asking myself lots of difficult questions. 

5. Read. Nonfiction, YA, Memoir. Articles and short stories. Poems. Read until I remember what it feels like to be transported beyond myself. Read until I feel awake and empathetic once more. 

6. Write. On the daily. Even if it’s just to express how much I don’t feel like writing. Write and then write some more. Disavow perfection. Write imperfectly. Write so that I don’t overflow. Write so my life does not remain unexamined. 

7. Take my damn medication. Take my damn vitamins. Eat my damn vegetables. Drink less caffeine and more water. Get good sleep. Take care of my physical shell in all the unglamorous, unfun ways that keep me afloat. 

8. Spend significantly less time staring mindlessly at screens. Spend significantly more time staring mindlessly out windows, into eyes, and at my dog.

9. Find a therapist. Speak with them honestly and regularly. 

10. Lean into rituals that I find value in, even when my dad makes fun of my sage and essential oils and tarot cards and calls me a crunchy new age hippy. Honor the power of repetition, of creating habits, of finding some clarity and lightness when things get heavy. 

11. Keep my space tidy and refuse to indulge my OCD when it tells me that the only joy is in cleaning up a massive mess, rather than maintaining a space that feels comfortable. Refute the compulsive extremes with consistent cleanings, so that when a project arises I can no longer insist I need to clean before I can begin. 

12. Rediscover my love for music and listen often and with thoughtful focus. Do not avoid the feels it inspires. 

13. Practice being present with the people I am with, and loving on them even when loving on myself feels impossible. Model the care, compassion, and generosity in my relationships with other that I hope to cultivate in my relationship with myself. 

14. Be kind to myself when I fuck up. Don’t quit.  

Cheers - to a new year and another chance to get it right. 

[sincerely-sophie-soliliquie-blog]

On frailty, fear, and trying anyways.

In college, my favorite professor once told me that you had to write to consider yourself a writer. It seemed so obvious to a class of creative writing majors that we laughed, but he didn’t stop there. He challenged us further, asking how many of us could say that we wrote at least seven hours a week - just an hour a day - beyond what was demanded of us by our professors. 

I can’t speak for anyone else in that classroom, but I found myself unexpectedly shaken. In that moment I knew I didn’t have what it would take to pursue writing in any real way. What I lacked in diligence, consistency, and lots of practice I made up for with enough skill to receive the gold stars I craved - validation that I was smart and capable and going to figure it all out somehow.

College was oftentimes agonizing, and undoubtably full of growing pains, but looking back it just seems idyllic. My brain was constantly fed and challenged. My mind was active and voracious as I read article after article for classes about poetry, environmental justice, literary theory, and sex worker rights - classes I loved. On top of that, I got out of bed almost every day when I was in school. I (mostly) expressed myself honestly to the people around me. I (mostly) remained afloat. 

I’ve crashed, since. Not all at once, but eventually - inevitably. I’ve taken a leave of absence from work - from I job I enjoy surrounded by people I care for. A job I feel paralyzing, obsessive anxiety about. 

I felt myself failing, falling behind in the weeks lost to debilitating, depressive episodes that left me ignoring my friends and sleeping through days on end. I finally admitted defeat and ran back home to my parent’s house in Wisconsin.  

Don’t get me wrong. I’m proud of that decision. I feel strong and brave for admitting I need help. I’m also just beginning to recognize how lost I am. And that’s really scary. 

I don’t know, all of this is to say that a writer writes, and even though I haven’t considered myself to be one of those in a long time, I consider myself to be a lot of other things: my beautiful rescue dog’s human, first and foremost. An amateur yogi, guitar strummer, and cross stitch hobbyist. A reader. A plant-based and intentional eater. 

Writers write. Writers write and yogis roll out their mats even when they feel fluttery with anxiety or heavy as concrete. Writers write and musicians make music, frustratingly imperfect as that music may be. 

I am committed to devoting my time and energy to practices and passions that nourish my soul in the year to come. What’s more, I’m committed to leaning into these practices even when I feel like a stranger to myself.

Even when I don’t want to try. Especially when I don’t want to try. 

Because our decisions affirm our identities. Look - really look- at where you invest your time and energy. Look, and then let that tell you the story of who you are. If you are unhappy with the story you see, as I am unhappy, invest elsewhere.

I want different things to be true of myself than I see reflected in my decisions  lately. Days spent absorbed in screens, learning nothing, producing nothing, consuming mindlessly. In 2019, I want to affirm my identity with the choices that I make. 

I’m going to stumble and make lots of mistakes, but when I do I will be generous with myself. I will challenge my perfectionism and focus instead on just doing the damn thing, because isn’t it better that it just gets done?

And I’m going to journal about it here, whenever I have something to say. I am going to let things overflow, rather than keep them bottled up inside. I am going to provide my weary, wind-tossed brain a safe place to land every so often. I am going to proceed with all the sincerity and candor I can manage. 

Our lives are just a series of little decisions - every life is, I suppose. I made a good one tonight, writing something down for the first time in ages. Letting something go. 

I’d almost forgotten what it felt like. 

Like growing lighter.