The Best Part of this Week: The best part of this week was sitting through the parent teacher conferences on Friday and hearing all the wonderful things my kids are doing.
I celebrate: one of my co-workers left this week, which was very sad, but we celebrated him with an impromptu chat on video and it was fantastic.
I am grateful for: going climbing after taking a long break and getting back on the bike too!
This week, I exercised: I did so much exercise this week! 50 mins of core exercises, 50 mins of arms exercises, 40 mins of other strength classes, 60 minutes on the bike, 35 minutes of yoga, 15 minutes of HIIT, 50 minutes of stretching, 2 hours of walking, and 3 hours of climbing!
This week, I said yes to: going climbing!
I said no to: going harder on the bike so I could make sure to heal.
I honored my values (love, learn, peace, service, gratitude): my 100 days of radical wellness plan is helping here. Thinking about these more.
Top Goals Review:
Work: started changing cal, wrote down what to talk to L, started next steps for NBU.
Personal: started new plan
Family: took walks with J. spent time with kids each day just listening but I need more here.
My mood this week was: present.
I am proud of: all the exercise I did this week.
I release: all the work i didn’t manage to finish this week
Here’s what I learned this week: that I can trust myself.
“Here is my thesis, and it will not be the last time that I tell you this: You are going to die. I will, too. We have to make choices about time because we have the nite gift of one existence. You should make your art.”
This book is written for artists. Even though the author does an excellent job defining what an artist, I couldn’t decide if I was one or not (which maybe means I am not), but I decided to put that aside and just enjoy her solid advice.
“The more you give time and resources to your art, the more you’ll understand paid employment as something that supports your art and life. We get this backward, thinking that we are on the planet to work and earn money. Let’s ip it—we earn a living to pay for our lives.”
The book is divided into different sections that cover different areas of worry: time, work, asking, money, fear, grief, other people, education, thinking+feeling, isolation, marketing, death+god. Each section dives deep into that area and explores what is holding the artist back and gives ways to shift that thinking.
“It is said that we are not responsible for our first thought. We are responsible for our second thought and our first action…Our first thought could be steeped in fear, judgment, old thought patterns, and stories; perhaps it’s distinctly someone else’s voice—an ex, a family member, an authority figure from long ago. We’re not responsible for that first bullshit thought. We are responsible for our next thought, the second thought, which we consciously conjure in response to that first thought. Then, we’re responsible for our first action.”
There is so much gold in this book. Regardless of if you’re artist or not, I am convinced you will get solid value out of this book. And if you’re an artist, you might get even more. Above all, the author makes this excellent reminder (you can substitute “your art” with anything else that’s meaningful to you):
“Your life is finite, and you should make your art. Things will get in the way and you should still make your art.”
with gratitude to netgalley and chronicle books for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
This is a cute book that’s a super fast read and is full of scientific studies that highlight specific habits that would help you be happier.
Here’s one of my favorite ones: “Don’t want to take time to bake? Take a whiff at your local bakery! Many studies report that basking in the aroma of bread can put you in a positive mindset. In particular, the Journal of Social Psychology reported that shoppers were more likely to tell passersby that they dropped belongings if the shoppers were standing near a bakery smelling of freshly baked bread!”
The whole book is full of little gems like this.
with gratitude to netgalley and Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed Press for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
I love this “Love Poems for…” series so much! If you have worked in an office, I recommend this one wholeheartedly, I laughed and laughed and laughed as I listened to it. Absolutely joyful.
I am most definitely not the target audience for this book and really should have done more of my due diligence on the author before I requested it. Even reading the introduction would have been enough to see that the author is personally interested in a start-up/VC culture and even though she often says the book is meant to be used for any kind of career journey, as a person who lives and works in Silicon Valley, there’s a lot of the jargon and mentality of that culture in this book. Which I certainly am exposed to plenty and didn’t really need more of.
While I liked the idea of the framework the author puts on the process of figuring out the next steps for your career, so much of this book is just not viable for you unless you’re in your twenties or single. Or at least not viable if you have responsibilities like kids and a mortgage and cannot leave your day job to “shadow” other jobs.
There’s nothing wrong with this book. I think the framework the author lays out might be totally viable for others but just not the right thing for me with where I am in my life/career.
I do want to highlight one major caveat however. There are a lot of references to people who “made it” despite not finishing a degree, or not starting out in a job with secure paycheck, etc etc in this book. Oprah and Steve Jobs, and Zuckerberg are exceptions. There are way more people who drop out of school and don’t become billionaires or people who take risks that derail their lives in ways that aren’t easily recoverable. I do think taking calculated/thoughtful risks, especially early in your life, is a good thing, but I am weary when all the examples all the time are the exceptions and not a full picture.
But then again I’m a parent so maybe I am optimizing on being safe.
with gratitude to netgalley and Dundurn Press for an advanced copy in return for an honest review.
Ps: I will not rate this book on goodreads because I don’t want to skew the rating since I am the first review and it’s not the author’s fault that I am not the target audience for this book.
“The skills in this workbook will increase the flexibility of your emotional system and, in the process, build your tolerance to emotions such as anxiety and depression. Learning that you can tolerate your anxious or depressed feelings is how you recover from the uncomfortable feelings that are limiting your life.”
This is a fantastic and practical book if you suffer from anxiety or depression. The book is full of specific techniques you can use to move through different ways in which you’re emotionally inflexible as the authors frame it.
Once you get clear on your values and set goals, the book is divided into different sections to help you build flexible attention, thinking, action, and tolerance. There’s also a section on gratitude and self-compassion.
“Ultimately, your recovery depends on having both meaningful goals that are in the service of your values, as well as a clear plan to achieve those goals. A goal is not the same as a plan. The goal is the destination you hope to reach; the plan is the set of distinct steps you’ll take to reach the goal. Most important, your recovery depends on your willingness to change your behaviors or actions— and connecting your actions to your values will help you do this.”
As the authors introduce each technique, they give examples of different characters who each have different anxiety/depression-related problems and they show how the character uses that technique so you can see it in action and then they have an empty form for you to fill with your own data. This makes it really easy to understand the technique and see it applied.
“Deep and lasting change—the kind of change that transforms your life—begins by building your tolerance to your intense anxious and depressed feelings”
I really liked this book and will be using several of these techniques throughout my life.
with gratitude to netgalley and New Harbinger for an advanced copy in return for an honest review
I’m finding that so much of saying yes is about letting things go. Especially my thoughts and random attachments to things having to be a certain way. I’m paying attention to the judgemental, worried, and angry voices in my head. And then instead of reacting because I assume they must be right, I am choosing to slow down and notice them.
And then, if I can do that, then I can question them. Do I really believe that? Is that really true? Must it be that way?
Questioning these assumptions, judgements, default states has been very enlightening. I am noticing all sorts of things about myself.
And then I am gently trying to let them go. One at a time.
I am more successful with some than others but I am still grateful for the noticing. One step at a time.
Yes to letting things go. Yes to paying attention. Yes to grace. Yes yes yes.
Ok so here we are, a week of testing done. I haven’t really thought through all of my reflections yet. But here are some thoughts.
Movement: the amount of movement I’ve chosen appears to be too much. I will have to play around with it. But the way it encourages me to stretch daily and do a variety of exercises throughout the week is excellent.
Nutrition: fantastic encouragement to get more fiber, protein and veggies in. Not doing well with water but love the encouragement.
Body: the cold showers might be a nonstarter, but otherwise I’ve done more for my body this week than all of last year!
Soul: will have to solve the meditation and journaling situation but I am loving the encouragement to connect more, to do art and to learn. So far so good.
I am looking forward to seeing what 100 days of this will do for my life. There’s a lot here so I plan to give myself plenty of grace along the way, too.
What a crazy ride this book was! The blurb said it was a mix between Room and Gone Girl. I absolutely hated Gone Girl with a passion and Room made me super sad so I wasn’t sure if this one was for me but then I needed something fast and good and the reviews were so high that I decided I should give it a chance.
I didn’t stop reading it until I finished. The audio narration was excellent and the whole time I knew there was something messed up but I just couldn’t put my finger on it so I kept going, waiting for things to unravel. In the end, this was way better, for me, than Gone Girl though the Room-like parts did make me very sad but because it was in and out of that part of the story, it didn’t feel the same deep sadness Room felt like for me.
If you like psychological thrillers and weren’t triggered by the content of Room, you will like this one.
I had read that this book was fantastic so even though the blurb didn’t sound like my type of book, I grabbed it anyway. In the end, I am glad I read it but I do think it wasn’t my type of book. The pacing of the story is interesting because there’s so much action but also so much description so it felt both fast and slow. I liked the different characters and how complex they each were in their own ways. I liked how it didn’t feel stereotypical. The whole time I was reading it, I thought it would make an excellent movie.
We had parent-teacher conferences this morning. My kids have been doing school from home since mid-march of 2020. They have been home almost an entire year. Neither kid has seen a friend in that time in person.
No one.
As they presented their projects and successes and growth areas from the first semester of sixth and tenth grades, I kept feeling deeply grateful for everything. Grateful that they are finding ways to thrive despite these circumstances. Grateful that they are still finding ways to connect with friends and foster new relationships. Grateful that they are so resilient.
And grateful that we’ve been able to both be there for each other and give each other the space we need. We’ve had tough moments for sure and may still have many more but on the whole, we’ve all been making it work.
This wouldn’t have been anyone’s first or second or third choice. But we are here, and we’re finding ways to lean in and make the most of it.
Yes to leaning in. Yes to seeing them and the ways in which they shine.
