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The Month of March, Part 1
Spring is the season of new beginnings and I suppose, in a way, this is a new beginning; albeit not the one I had envisioned or hoped for. It was the middle of the night when I decided to go to the emergency room. In my sleepy daze, I debated going right then, since I figured it wouldn’t be too busy. But I was exhausted, so I decided to finish out the night in my own bed and go first thing in the morning. It was the last night I would sleep in my own bed for days. I googled my symptoms, and came up with “a rare disorder that…
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Untitled Musings, Pt. 1
Valentine’s Day. National Random Acts of Kindness Day. National Love Your Pet Day. The shortest month is packed with days devoted to showing love and kindness. And yet… showing that to myself has been hard. Years of self conditioning had me believing that I don’t deserve love, kindness, and respect, least of all from myself. One year ago today, an evening with four people and four bottles of wine ended in what I now consider hitting rock bottom. One moment I was fine; the next, the bottle of wine hit me and every negative thought I’d had over the previous several years bubbled to the surface and out of my…
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Perfection is the Enemy of Progress
Yesterday, a dent was made in the never ending, always expanding To Do list: I finally completed my first paint pour. Back in August, I set up the canvas and bought the acrylics, but it wasn’t until yesterday that I gathered everything together and actually, literally just did it. Why did it take so long? I have this unrelenting need to be perfect in any- and everything that I do. Never mind if it’s my first time trying. Why bother if it’s not great? What’s the point in doing something if the end result isn’t excellent? The point is to do my best, with where I am and what I…
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Good Riddance, 2020
T minus 3 and counting down to the end of this dumpster fire year. At least in a few hours we can all rehash the joke that hindsight will, quite literally, be 2020. I’ve been trying to write a post for days, for weeks even, and am honestly torn between having too much, and at the same time nothing, to say. Usually, I just write from the heart, but have been feeling this slow building pressure which has now reached its boiling point and is about to spill over. All throughout December, I put off finalizing something, until now – hopefully getting it in just under the wire. This year…
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Thanksgiving Gratitude 2020
How easy it is to slip back into old habits. Over the summer, things were looking up. Now, with the shortening of days and the grim news that seem to envelop us on a daily basis, we all need a little positivity, a little good news, a little light, wherever we can find it. Yesterday, a large part of the day was spent writing, stream-of-consciousness style, to get out all the things that I’ve had swimming around inside for the past few months. I figured if today is a day for gratitude, yesterday was to expel the negativity so it was no longer simmering. But fear stopped me from publicly…
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Learning to Love the Legacy I’ll Leave
Recently, a compliment was passed to me through the grapevine, regarding my writing. Not only did it come out of the blue, but since I haven’t posted anything for close to two months, I was unclear (yet pleased) where this had come from. Almost daily, since my last post, I’ve tried to write something. Anything. And for at least the first half of October, I did. Nothing I expanded upon, nothing finished, nothing to the standard or caliber I wanted it to be, but still, it was something. Something to get the thoughts out of my head, and hopefully out of my mind. One year ago, a guest blog I…
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Gratitude Post, Part 1
Retraining yourself to notice positivity is one of the keys to emotional intelligence, and as someone who’s always been drawn to the glass half empty, pessimistic side, attempting to keep a daily gratitude journal has been an interesting challenge. Today’s post is 3 good things that occurred last month; a written reminder for those times when I'll need it.
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How To Stop Overcomplicating Life and Learn To Focus On The Things That Are Meaningful To You
I haven’t posted, or even written anything not resembling stream of consciousness, for about a month. July was split between devoting my energies towards trying to please someone who cannot be satiated, leaving little left over for me; the other part was spent trying my damnedest to muster up that little bit of energy that was left, in hopes of moving forward along a path which would be beneficial to Future Amanda. A month ago, I began taking a mindset class. I knew it was time to course correct, again, because for years, my mindset had been slowly declining. Even the work I had done throughout the previous year didn’t…
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A Limiting vs. Growth Mindset
Six months into 2020 and it still feels like a bad joke. We’re halfway through the year where I promised myself that I would finally ‘put up or shut up.’ While in the beginning, my path wasn’t completely mapped out, I didn’t think that where I am is where I was going to be. I also didn’t envision dealing with a pandemic. Who would’ve ever believed that their nightmares would suddenly become reality? That disrupted every plan I had in the works. It brought forth obstacles that, in the beginning, I couldn’t even fathom. But this is not news. Everyone has been affected by this situation, in one way or…
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Progress Begins on the Other Side of Comfort
What’s the point? The seemingly existential question of life, it’s also a question I’ve been asked regarding this blog. What’s the point? The goal? The endgame? Why am I doing this? The answer probably needs to be condensed, more concise, but the why is so layered. It started as a way to do something for me. A form of self-care, if you will. So many thoughts in my head, competing for attention, that I needed a place to get them out. For at least one year, I had debated starting a blog, and people were so supportive of the idea, that I finally decided to actually do it – instead…