whativelearnedposts-blog

[whativelearnedposts-blog]

Self Care

“Self care is important. Here are *some* of my tips for where to start:

Drink some water. It is nearly impossible to drink too much and you always need it. I put lemons in mine because I like the little bit of tart that it adds, but you can really add whatever you like. Or nothing. Whatever sparks your fancy.

Take a bath. If you don’t have a bathtub or don’t like baths in general, take a shower. Use this time to pamper yourself: exfoliate your skin, wash your face, shampoo and condition your hair. If you want to, shave. Use a soap that smells like heaven and lather yourself up so that you can smell like that for as long as possible. When you get out, put on a lotion/moisturizer that you like. If you are doing all of this in the evening, put on the most comfortable pj’s that you own. Maybe spray yourself with a cologne/perfume/something that smells nice so that you can continue to linger in the scent of self care.

There is no shame in taking a nap. Even if you are not sleeping, naps can be a great way to just unwind. Turn off the lights, close the blinds, find somewhere comfortable, and spend some time allowing yourself to just be. If your mind is wandering (same), turn on some soft and calming music. Do what you can to focus on things that make you feel good, but don’t get angry at yourself if you trail back into the negative thoughts. Noticing that you are no longer thinking “happy thoughts” is a step forward from thinking them in general.

Make a list of as many things you can think of that you are proud of, specifically things about yourself. This can be as grandiose or restrained as you make it. You can be proud of your grades or your job or graduating high school or getting your driver’s license. You can be proud because you drank water today (go you!) or because you are looking for ways to take care of yourself online (this one may seem a bit offbeat, but looking for help is getting help, and it doesn’t really matter very much where you look).

Take a walk. From the perspective of someone who has been in the kind of depression that makes your body feel heavy, I know that even getting out of bed is like climbing a mountain. But taking a walk doesn’t even necessarily have to mean leaving your house. Think about the last time you ate anything, or left your bedroom at all. Was it more than two or three hours ago? If it was, or if you can’t remember when it was (same), then take a walk to the refrigerator or the bathroom. And if you have the energy/desire to go on a long walk through the city, then do it. Movement is good for your body, no matter the amount. *

Talk to someone - anyone. Text your mom. Call your Great Aunt Pearl. Send a Facebook message to an old friend. Call one of the hotlines or visit one of the websites linked below to talk to someone who is willing to listen. Sometimes it is easier (at least for me) to talk to someone who has no previous bias about you or your situation/life.

Make silly faces in a mirror. Keep doing so until you can’t help but smile. If silly faces aren’t working or you need something quicker, just smile. Several studies have been done that prove that just smiling can trick your brain into feeling more happiness, even if only a little bit. 

If you are going to do something that scares you, chew gum. Natural human instinct is that if you are eating (or chewing) then there is no danger because you wouldn’t be eating if something bad was happening. 

Gum is good in all sorts of situations. If you are cutting onions, chew gum. I had a teacher in high school tell me that doing this helps because most people chew gum with their mouth open and breathing from your mouth instead of your nose prevents crying. I don’t ever chew with my mouth open (because it drives my dad crazy) but if you do, then give it a go!** If you have a headache (I usually use it for migraines), chew some gum. If the gum that you normally like to chew is a softer texture (idk if that is the right word), try chewing one more piece than normal. My personal theory as to why this works is because it stretches out some of the muscles in your jaw that are probably tense from the headache.*** If you are angry and need to get out some aggression, put some (quite a bit) of gum in your mouth and see how long you can chew all of that. This will get you to focus on something other than you anger, will give you something mildly (and healthily) aggressive to do, and gives you a bit of a challenge to accomplish. I have found that if I give myself little goals in individual tasks - ones that I know I can do - and write them down then I feel a sense of accomplishment and success (that leads to pride) over having completed something. If you happen to be someone who does drink <almost> too much water **** then chewing gum will help A LOT. Gum is the answer :)

* If getting out of bed is too much for right now (I know the feeling), then take some time to stretch your muscles while in bed. Make sure that you aren’t laying in one position for too long.

** If you are like me and don’t chew gum with your mouth open but still want to try my handy dandy trick, try singing/mouthing the words to a song or talking to someone while you are doing this. Be careful to not get distracted though! 

*** I do not have any scientific evidence of this working other than personal experience. Also works with bagels.

**** I was on a crazy high amount of lithium for a while (having a good psychiatrist is V important) and I was thirsty ALL THE TIME. I couldn’t stop myself from drinking. Unless you have been told by a doctor that you are drinking too much water, then you probably aren’t. I am not a doctor though, so maybe ask one if you aren’t sure?

I think that sometimes people who aren’t experiencing any kind of mental illness assume that self care is easy, or the opposite: has to be extreme. Contrary to this (completely irrational) thinking, you do not, in fact, have to plan a week in Cabo in order to find inner peace. Some of the tasks that seem like things that everyone knows how to do or that seem like they should be simple aren’t always such minuscule tasks. Everybody has to start somewhere, even if somewhere is getting out of bed.

*LINKS* 

https://www.7cups.com/

http://blahtherapy.com/     this one has the option to talk to a licensed therapist, but does require a “low fee” to do so. Do what makes you the most comfortable, but I personally would just talk to one of their “anonymous strangers.”

*HOTLINES*

Depression Hotline: 1-630-482-9696

Suicide Hotline: 1-800-784-8433

LifeLine: 1-800-273-8255

Trevor Project*: 1-866-488-7386

Sexuality Support:1-800-246-7743

Eating Disorders Hotline: 1-847-831-3438

Rape and Sexual Assault: 1-800-656-4673

Grief Support: 1-650-321-5272

Runaway*: 1-800-843-5200, 1-800-843-5678, 1-800-621-4000

Exhale - After Abortion Hotline/Pro-Voice: 1-866-439-4253

Please do not hesitate to ask for help. Your life matters. I’m pretty new at this tumblr stuff but I am always ready and willing to listen. 

I feel like “Enjoy :)” is kind of inappropriate for this post in particular, so we’ll go with 

Good Luck <3

[whativelearnedposts-blog]

Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

Albert Einstein 

[whativelearnedposts-blog]

Teenagers

Read everything. Don’t take anyone’s crap. Sing in the shower. Kiss a boy. Kiss a girl. Kiss a stranger at a party. Punch the wall, then patch it up. Scream into pillows. Pick flowers. Paint your bedroom walls. Paint your nails. Paint your face. Dye your hair. Take one puff of a cigarette and put it out because it tastes like death. Drive around your town at 3 o’ clock in the morning; notice all of the things that you wouldn’t have otherwise. Wander around a local museum and ponder the meaning of life. Learn everything you possibly can about a random subject; use this information to impress your friends. Learn a new skill. Learn a thousand new skills. Memorize all of the lines in a movie, then turn off the sound and see if you can quote the whole thing. Stand on a rooftop or a cliff or the top of a hill and scream as loud and as long as your lungs will allow. Take good selfies. Take bad ones. Post one of each on social media. Passionately sing a sad song with your bedroom window open and wonder if your neighbors can hear all of your feelings. Go to a poetry reading and - with a completely straight face - read the lyrics to a popular/upbeat song. Buy flowers; hang them upside down in your bedroom and pay attention to their gradual decomposition. Pull an all-nighter for something other than homework. Try to sleep with all of the lights on. Take a hot bath and follow it up with a cold shower, or the other way around. Cover your eyes and feel everything; notice the textures of the things that you touch every day. Get out 1 (one) piece of paper and write on it until there is nowhere else to write. Burn the paper. Start a collection of something ridiculous, like eraser shavings or bent-out-of-shape paper clips. Dress up like a super hero and stop at least one petty crime. Try everything and live more than you survive.

I like to tell people that “I’m a real adult!” when in reality, I’m technically still a teenager. Some of these things are things that I have done, and some are things that I wish I had. You are only a teenager once. After that the rest of your life will go flashing before your eyes. So take it upon yourself to experience as much youth as your heart/soul/mind/body can take.

Enjoy :)

[whativelearnedposts-blog]

1) Naps are always the answer.

2) Water tastes better when it is cold

3) Smiling never hurt nobody. Do it every chance you get.

4) Dancing like no one is watching doesn’t necessarily have to mean that people are watching. Sometimes it just means dancing because no one is watching.

5) Saying the word “buns” 35 times in a row is a proven way to make yourself smile, if only because it is super weird.

6) You are never going to learn anything if you don’t do it once. So take the cooking class, strum a guitar, paint a sunset, buy a cheap pair of false lashes and put them on badly. Nobody is good at something the first time they do it.

7) Likewise, you are never going to find things that you like to do if you never try them. Go to karaoke. Paint daisies on your fingernails. Ride a roller coaster. Drive a fast car. Ride on an airplane. Eat sushi. I can 100% guarantee that you wouldn’t like tumblr if you had not logged on once.

8) Sometimes it is okay to not understand something. Sometimes. Not always. Asking questions is okay, but sometimes there aren’t any answers. It’s okay to understand why your eyes are the color that they are or what the plot of the book you’re reading is. You don’t have to understand what the meaning of life is or why the mean girls at your school are so mean or how the world decided that left is left or right is right (?). And that is okay. *

9) The things that you allow to occupy your thoughts are the things that are going to occupy your life. Negativity attracts negativity, and positivity attracts positivity. It takes some serious dedication and practice, but take it from me, someone who has been there done that, you can control your thoughts. All it takes is baby steps. One drop of a happy thought in the midst of a thousand angry ones can start a whole ocean of happy thoughts. And a happy thought doesn’t have to be some big ordeal; it can just be “my bed is great�� or “wowee the word ‘buns’ is hilarious.” Everybody has to start somewhere, even if “somewhere” is rock bottom.

10) Chances are, you aren’t going to end up spending the rest of your life with the first person you fall in love with. If you are anything like me, you have fallen in love with a different person every day since kindergarten. And if you are anything like me, the person you fell in love with in kindergarten has probably moved to a remote island off the coast of god-knows-where in the Atlantic Ocean. With that being said, fall in love a thousand times an hour. Picture the rest of your life with them, name your babies, dream about growing old with them, and do it all over again with someone new. Hopes and dreams aren’t categorized into specifics. Hopes and dreams are “someday I’m gonna travel the world and speak 50 different languages and see ALL THE THINGS!” They are “I can’t wait to settle down in a cozy cabin in the woods with a fireplace and hundreds of blankets.” They’re “I’m gonna break hearts and ride a bad a$$ motorcycle and wear leather everything.” For me, they are books/stories that will never be written down; different ideas for different forms of me.

11) You are changing the world right now. Ripples make waves and waves make tsunami’s. Just by existing you have put (at least one) drop in the ocean and that means that you have added something to the universe - something important. Changing the life of one person (trust me, you have) is changing the course of the rest of eternity. Even just smiling at the cashier at Target is changing the world. 

12) It is very much okay to be in control, and it is very much okay to not be. There are some things that say “frick yeah! I have my crap together!” Those things are the things that give you a healthy understanding of control. It can be your colorful pens, or your messy bedroom, or your hair, or your makeup, or your mismatched socks. Because if you want to line up your pens in rainbow order so that they line up with the edge of the desk and are all facing the same direction (same) then DO IT! And if you want to throw s#!+ around your living space then DO IT! Those things are worth controlling because those things are under your control. That being said, there are things that you won’t be able to control, like the overwhelming scent of cheap perfume in the ladies restroom or the obnoxiously loud neighbor who is mowing the lawn at 9 am in the morning on a Saturday. These things, while mildly infuriating, are out of your hands, and therefore need to be let go of. If there is anything that OCD has taught me, it’s that my time and/or energy should not have to run out because I spent it all being angry at the things that I could not change. 

13) Celebrate EVERYTHING. There is a lady bug on my window! How cute! The radio in my car can get REALLY LOUD! That’s so cool! There are no limits to the things that can make you happy, so find happiness in every detail. Go ahead, make a big deal out of your dog’s 39th month living with you. Turn the music up all the way and open the window and sing/scream it as loud as you can. The possibilities are endless, my dear, and I encourage you to take them and run !!

14) Tell everyone that you love them. Or don’t. Or only tell some of them. You are not required nor expected to be the sole source of love and fulfillment that someone else wants. But if you do want to walk through the mall and tell strangers that you love them, then who is stopping you?

15) There are very few problems that cannot be fixed with food. Tired? Eat something. Angry? Eat. Sad? Eat. **

*If you do understand the things mentioned, good on ya! Share some knowledge with me!

**Good things are no longer good when they are overused. Proceed with caution.

“Happiness can be found in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.” -Albus Dumbledore. 

Here are some of my little tips for self care and happiness. Do what makes you feel good, whatever that is.

Enjoy :)

[whativelearnedposts-blog]

The Basics

1) You Do You, Boo - Your life belongs to YOU. Not your mom. Not your best friend. Not your SO. Do with it what you want. And don’t think that you are required to do anything that anyone says, especially if you don’t want to do the thing.

2) You Are More Than Your Insecurities - Everyone around you is listening to the voice in their head that tells them what to do/how to live their life. Maybe your little voice is telling you that you are ugly/stupid/worthless/unloved. That little voice is WRONG! “Beautiful” is not something that can be defined. Beautiful is freckles and red cheeks and tanned skin and skinny and thicc and small and tall and green eyes and brown eyes and blue eyes and black eyes and gray eyes and gray hairs and black hair and brightly colored hair and sandy blonde hair and thin hair and thick hair and no hair. Whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever you look like (there is no way whatsoever that I could possibly ever list all of the gorgeous things that make up who you are) - everything about who you are is beautiful. As far as “stupid” and “worthless” go, I think about the quote by Albert Einstein who said “If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” The scores you get on a test or your grades in High School are not an accurate representation of your intelligence. Maybe you have dyslexia. The difficulty you have reading has zero relevance to the overall brilliance of your mind. Far too many people spend far too much time telling people - children/students especially - that their standardized test scores and knowledge of the stereotypical “useful talents” are the only way to determine where you will go in life. But just because math isn’t your favorite subject or music makes more sense to you than the chemical formula for blah blah blah doesn’t by any means say that you will not “go” anywhere in life. Aside from that rant, you are loved. I know because I love you ;) I am very much a person who believes that everyone deserves love in some form, even the people of the internet who have never heard of Little Old Me <3

3) Self Care Should Always Come First - I use the Analogy of the Airplanes a lot (probably too much, but whatever). If you are on an airplane that is crashing, the flight attendants will tell you to put on the oxygen masks that drop down from the ceiling. The thing that makes this particular scenario relevant is that they tell you to put the mask on yourself before you put it on whoever is next to you that cannot put it on alone. The point of these instructions is pretty simple: you can’t take care of anything/anyone else if you are not taking care of yourself. I get it. You love your friends. Maybe your BFF just had a bad break up and needs someone to listen to and comfort them. But if you haven’t slept in 36 hours or you just got through having an anxiety attack or you have had your own share of bad/traumatizing break ups, then you are only going to drain your batteries by giving yourself up when there is nothing left to give. If the idea of giving too much seems selfish (I have wrestled with the idea) then switch up your perspective a bit. You are ~probably~ not going to be very much help to someone if you aren’t emotionally “there.” I’m not telling you that taking care of your friends is a bad idea; I’m just saying that taking care of yourself is a good one. 

So there you have it: three of the most important things that I have learnt over the course of my life up until now.

Enjoy :)