It’s not about avoiding the anxiety or the difficulty, it’s about learning to sit with it, think through it and slow down the racing thoughts.
Is what you’re worried about something that is happening now, is it a real event in the future? Will it happen to you? Can you find a solution for it that will prevent it from happening?
If you answered no, then put the worry away (Yes, I understand; easier said than done if you’re a worrier!). It is beyond your control, and you can only make a difference if you can effect change. If you answered yes, make sure you can actually find a solution, then do something, instead of letting the anxiety create inertia in you. Do something, if you can.
It does help to feel the feels, to sit in the vulnerability (I love you, Brene Brown!♥️), but you need to make sure that the wallowing does not make you all pruney. The goal is to be familiar with the anxiety and the vulnerability, so you can slow the thoughts, find a solution if you can, or understand that you have no control over events, to shake it off so that you have energy reserves to deal with the fallout instead.
Some days carry grief quietly. Tonight, let it speak, then let it rest. — Unknown
I’ve put off dealing with a lot of things – the inevitable grief that comes from losing both parents whom I love very dearly in a span of 4 years, the end of relationships that I thought would stand the test of time and personal growth, accepting burnout, and the need to step back from toxic environments. But my body and my mind had other plans. They both demanded that I stop and step back.
The Universe also conspired to give me the time to actually start dealing with everything. Things fell into place, and I had the time and space. Also, it was deal with things or basically unravel. I was deathly afraid of unravelling in public, and there were times when it was touch and go. I had to deal with what was going on in my head, my heart, my body, and my soul, or else I really would lose it in a way that I would find it hard to recover from.
One of the things I had to sit down and deal with was the unexpressed grief I’d been carrying with me for so long. It was eating away at me. I needed to sit down, open that box, and look inside.
Grief is never linear, and the process is not straightforward. There are peaks and troughs in the rhythms of grief. There are days when it hums quietly, almost unnoticeable in the background. There are days when it feels like it’s a loud, thundering wildebeest stampede, coming to trample you. Everyone’s experience of grief is different because we move through life differently. We weave through the stages of grief according to our own capacity and capability. And however we do that is okay. It is our individual journey.
Sometimes it will feel like you’re moving back and forth — rebuilding might mean you’re moving in reverse, like you’re facing an identity crisis before you reach a point of understanding. Sometimes you need a wave to crash over you and completely destabilise you so that you can reach a point where you’re stabilised and grounded, because you have a deeper understanding of yourself and what you’re going through.
It’s okay to wail and rail and to let out your grief. That’s part of it. Let it out. Let it shout. Express it. Then let yourself rest and recover.
When you choose to be positive, you choose your future. — Unknown
Woke up way too early again on a Saturday morning. I have been working through a lot of personal stuff and the thoughts are noisy and intrusive. I’ve always loved Brené Brown’s advice to sit in the discomfort of one’s vulnerability, because exposure to discomfort builds tolerance and resilience. So I’m choosing to sit with the head full of noise. Picking out the strands that I can pick out will help, and telling myself those that I can’t can stay jumbled. They’re for sorting out another day.
@yellywelly
We’re told these days that we can choose our future, that we can control what happens to us. If we manifest using specific words, if we behave a certain way, if we one day decide to radically change our lives in pursuit of the future we want, if we eat less/more of certain foods…it all boils down to controlling something we haven’t even experienced yet.
The only thing we can control is how we react to our environment. We react to our environment through small daily actions that become routine and habitual. When things become routine, they become predictable. This is how you can predict the future.
“But predictable is boring!” I’m sure a lot of you will say. And to that I say, NO IT IS NOT! When we habitually strive to find joy, when we routinely try to look for the positive, it becomes second nature, it becomes part of who we are, and that’s how we bake positivity and hope into our future. When we choose to view everything as potentially filled with light and joy, we choose a future filled with exactly that. The future will always be an unknown quantity, but if we sit with the knowledge that, whatever it is, there will always be hope that it could be shining, shimmering, splendid, that is the exciting part of it all.
What small thing will you do today that your future self will thank you for?
I know that every day is different. Life, these days, seems to be more challenging than usual. So many people have been saying that they’re finding everyday that little bit more difficult.
I’d like a purely good day, though. One where I don’t have to pivot the mindset. I know the low mood might have something to do with my recent anxiety issues. Nevertheless, I’d like a really good day, please. Or at least a pause in the sleep deprivation, the overthinking, and the over-worrying. I’m exhausted.
I’d really like to have the opportunity to get off the spinning world for a bit and just be in a bubble.
Yes, yes, I realise that that might be called a vacation. But going away for a holiday is a band-aid. I’d like to not to rip the band-aid off. I realise that there is a lot of work to be done and I am prepared to work. But really, I’d just like a sunshiny, smiley, happy day.
Success is a journey, and every single day is a beautiful mile. — Unknown
I’m going through quite an anxious period in my life. Because it feels like everything is up in the air and I don’t necessarily know which way is up. I have this list of (inspirational) quotes and, because I’m pedantic and persnickety (I also like old, interesting terms), I will go through the list, one item at a time, in order. I’m in the section of my quotes that seems to be one quote after another about success. It’s making me anxious because, what have I got to say about success? My current situation feels more like a disaster, and so far removed from success.
But okay, let’s not make this about me. Or at least, let’s try.
What is your definition of success? Some people are planners, and success is ticking off items on a list to get to the end of a project. Some people are thinkers, and success is finally arriving at a conclusion after testing ideas. Some people are creatives, and success is finally breathing life into a body of work. But all this is success in relation to productivity. For some people, there is no need to produce; success is being able to have a good day, to have a chance to laugh, to breathe, to just be.
Is it just me, or does society these days focus on having something to point to, where we say, “I made that!” It just feels like we’re on this perpetual hamster wheel of production. It feels like everything has become a commodity and the measure of success relates to a list of assets, and in order to build that list, one has to either produce or acquire.
I enjoy pace and I enjoy the challenge of finding solutions right away. I know I can sprint along with the best of them. But lately, I’ve been feeling exhausted. I’ve been questioning the constant need to chase…everything. Maybe this is why I feel so lost, so disconnected. Maybe I’m missing being able to have time and space. Because while I know I can do things quickly and efficiently, I like to be able to process, at a pace that is my own, in an environment that is less frenzied and frantic. But when success is only measured by what you can show for yourself, the journey — the wrestling, the questioning, the becoming — gets dismissed as inefficiency. But that part of the journey is where the real work happens.
Have we forgotten to appreciate the time it takes to travel? Have we forgotten that the journey isn’t just merely arriving at the destination? Have we forgotten that it’s the experiences between departure and arrival that make the journey? That’s where the lessons are learned. That’s where the memories are made. That’s where the experience is created, where expertise is gained. Because while you have a destination in mind, the things that happen in between change where you get to.
Tomorrow is not a threat. It is a promise.— Unknown
I’ve been going through a really anxious period in my life, filled with uncertainty. I’ve been vacillating between feeling convicted that I’m doing the right thing, and then doubting my decision to put myself (my health and my self-advocacy) first. I’ve not been sleeping. I think my subconscious has been dreading the future because there is so much uncertainty about it, and it has been preventing my brain from switching off and resting, thinking there is danger when I get to tomorrow.
When you are a person who lives with anxiety, the future is something that is an unknown space where anything and everything can (and if your anxiety is to be believed) and will go wrong. But that’s the thing. Tomorrow, the future, is unknown. So while there is the possibility that things could go wrong, there is also the equal possibility that things could go VERY right.
Maybe that’s the reframe that needs to happen: tomorrow, the future, IS NOT a guarantee of danger. There is every chance that things could go very right. Maybe that possibility is the best thing to hold on to.
I’ve been quietly working on something on the side for a while now. It’s taken quite a while to get it to where it is (mostly because I kept starting, restarting, editing, red-penning it to hell). But I finally shared it on LinkedIn! 👀 So what did I do?
I created the 28 Day AI Challenge Workbook — a structured, printable workbook that walks you through 28 AI tools across 4 weeks, one tool at a time. No jargon. No coding. No assuming you already know what any of it means. AI kind of intimidated me. Everyone around me seemed to be talking about it like it was the most natural thing in the world and I was just… nodding along. I didn’t want to admit I had no idea where to actually start.
So I decided to do something about it. I wanted it to be an honest, practical guidance and hands-on exercises that help you actually get to grips with AI rather than just reading about it.
It covers everything from ChatGPT and Claude to image generation, video tools, automation and beyond — and it’s written for people like me. People who are curious but have been putting it off. EAs, PAs, admin professionals, anyone in a busy office role who suspects AI could genuinely save them time but doesn’t know where to begin.
I’m really proud of this one. It started as a personal project to stop feeling so daunted by AI and it turned into something I genuinely think could help a lot of people. Also, I had fun using post-its to map out my process and decide what I wanted to include in it!
It’s available now as a digital download.
Please would you help me by buying it? I would really appreciate it! The link to get it is below!👇
So I watched The Life List on Netflix again, and, of course, I bawled like a baby! I promise no spoilers, especially if you haven’t seen it. It’s the kind of girly romance movie that presents an idealized, pre-packaged view of love and romantic relationships. I’m not a cynic, not by a long shot (I’ve read too many Julia Quinn novels several times over to be jaded), to be cynical about love, even after the implosion of a relationship that I thought would last forever. I do sometimes smirk at the sugar coma sweetness of the Hallmark Channel formula movies. But the “true love test” in the movie had me thinking. In the film, it said that if you could answer yes to each of the 4 questions below, it was TRUE LOVE.
1 Are they kind?
2 Can you tell them everything that’s in your heart?
3 Do they help you become the best version of yourself?
4 Can you imagine them as the father/mother of your children?
The questions make me smile. Because I can hear myself saying to someone at 25, “Love isn’t just a feeling, it’s a decision.” and seeing their look of confusion (in hindsight, that should’ve been a red flag, but I ignored it) and me patiently explaining what I meant.
Love is a decision. It’s a commitment. Because you decide, for better or for worse (whether it involves the permanency of marriage or not), to love this person, in the good and bad days, when tempers flare and patience wanes, when the sickness is disgusting, when the ick is hard to shift and when disagreements happen. It’s a commitment to stay and work things out, even when things get tough, damnedly uncomfortable and when they don’t particularly look rosy. It’s a promise to stay. It’s a vow to work on improving, changing for the better, and growing together. It’s saying “I got you” to this person and really having them, making sure they know you have them. It’s a pledge to stay accountable to this person. It is an unwritten but very binding contract to work through the warts, farts and smarts that come with adult relationships.
Being loved is an intrinsic need because it encapsulates affection, respect, acceptance, protection, and accountability. Every person has a deep-seated need for it, whether they care to admit it. Love isn’t easy but if you have it, wouldn’t you want to hold on to it, nurture it and cultivate it?
I’ve never shied away from talking about my mental health struggles and the journey I’ve been on – still on to be completely honest but I’m in a much better place now. But I think I’ve shied away from actually properly writing about it.
18 months ago, someone I worked with asked me if I was okay. I did what I usually do at the time and pasted the brightest smile on my face that I could and said that I was fine. It took that someone sitting me down and asking me if I was REALLY okay because, they said, they could see it in my eyes that I wasn’t okay and that my non-okayness was starting to reflect in my work. I’d been in difficult situations before and work was the balm to my soul. I could make work work for me. Work helped me cope. If my mental health was starting to affect the one thing that kept me sane and on an even keel, I had to finally admit that I wasn’t at all well. Whilst admitting you have a problem is a step in the right direction, it can also be a rabbit hole that you can go down and never come out of again. That someone talked to me about counseling, the resources that were available, and offered me the support that I didn’t know I desperately wanted. That person might have just saved my life.
I did what helped me the most when things started to get on top of me. I read and I wrote. I read about my situation, what I felt I needed to figure out, what my options were. I went online, I read through things, I looked at my options, talked to people who’d gone through the same things. I made a pros and cons list. Then I chose a course of action. I got help. I talked to somebody. I talked to a lot of somebodies going through the same things I was going through, professionals who could help me figure out what course of action to take and sort out the spaghetti bowl of tangled thoughts and emotions in my head. It was a lot of work and it took a lot of tears and it got really, REALLY dark for a while. I’m in no means done with this journey, but now I am properly smiling again, from the heart.
While I think my love for my family and my faith foundation is too established for me to feel so hopeless for me to consider unaliving myself, I did have thoughts and I knew exactly what I needed to do if I decided to actually do what to me would’ve been the unthinkable. But I think my colleague asking me about how I really was saved me from a downward spiral that I was trying to ignore. I believe that if they hadn’t asked the question, I would have ignored everything until it would’ve been quite difficult to extricate myself from the mental tangle I’d allowed myself to be ensnared in.
We need to be brave enough to ask after people around us. We need to learn that asking the difficult questions are important. We need to create safe spaces where people feel secure enough to make themselves vulnerable. We need to break the stigma and start the conversation about mental health. We might just save a life.
Please, please dear friends, make sure you make YOUR mental health a priority. Make sure you take time for yourself. Make sure you practice self-compassion. Kindness and compassion are important for humanity, but it is equally important that we are kind and compassionate to ourselves too.
It’s okay to not be okay.
It’s okay to ask for help.
If you need it, the meds are there to help too.
Remember that addressing your mental health issues is a journey, you don’t heal instantly. Every step forward is a victory. Take the wins. If you get a setback (and believe me you will, because the work is a habit-setting exercise in the most basic of terms), don’t let it stop you; pause, breathe, find your bearings and find your path, then move forward.
Things you do, when you’re home, alone and recuperating from a bout of Covid, is listen to music…or at least I do! Possibly much to the chagrin of my neighbours, I blast my music out and occasionally warble out loud and pretend I can sing. One of my favourite songs is All Mine by Shedaisy
My favourite lyrics are: My loss My lonely My mistake Mine only Mine all, mine all
This song used to fill me with a lot of regret and latent sadness. Because when I used to listen to the song, it just felt like I was accepting status quo and the blame for something that wasn’t entirely something I could control. It felt like I was paying lip service to myself, the people around me and the entire universe and saying “yep, it’s my fault!” because it was expected of me, and that I was going to be blamed for it anyway. I think my rebellious subconscious nature objected to this acquiesence and was trying to stage a strike against just accepting the blame completely and accepting the full weight of responsibility.
These days, I’m completely happy to raise my hand up and say “Yeah, I f*cked that one up – all on me!” because it is all on me. I have no one else to blame but myself. My personal landscape has changed and I am now in the driver’s seat of my life. Well, okay, the somnolent Christian in me knows that I’m not really in control because God has a plan. But I am allowed choices and the choices I make, while possibly crap and not in keeping with what He has planned, are my choices and I am actually prepared to face the consequences of those choices. Because the choices were mine, I was not coerced, gaslit, forced, or bullied into making those choices.
I know I need to gain a better grip on the steering wheel of my life and the intention is to do that. I know that the renovation isn’t going to be quick, because there are so many horrible habits I need to unlearn, so many learned responses I need to decondition and so many thoughts in my head I need to silence. I need to have better conversations with myself and I need to stop the self-sabotage. I need to stop hearing A’s voice naysaying in my head.
I am definitely a work in progress and in no way nearing completion. But at least I am not working towards a blueprint of me that I have control over.
Yellywelly 