Hi there, I’m @beauty_in_between and I’m a college student in the Pittsburgh area. This is my first blog post on SOVA so I thought I’d share a little about myself and my recent progress in striving for my professional goals while still struggling with fragile mental health.
This is a letter I wrote while journaling my feelings about a friendship breakup:
Maybe this is just my family, but I come from a very traditional Italian/Greek household where my life is literally a spitting image of the family from My Big Fat Greek Wedding (no, seriously…). Despite my very young age, my different family members are CONSTANTLY asking me questions regarding my love life, and it is exhausting. Between my grandma asking me when I will meet a boy, to my mom asking if I have gone out on any dates yet, and even my sister asking why I don’t share information about my dating history and experiences!
I feel a sense of clarity after journaling. It’s as if I’ve handed all of my anxious thoughts to the paper, taking some of the weight off of my mind. But journaling can seem daunting. How do you start? What even is journaling? I’m no expert, but I’ve been on and off journaling throughout my entire life and have recently gotten back into the groove of (somewhat) daily journaling. In this article I will tell you about the benefits of journaling and will give you some tips for starting. If you already journal, I hope this can offer some new inspiration as to how you can approach it.
Being a student in the midst of a global pandemic has thrown the unexpected directly at us. It has repeatedly heightened the worry and fear of “am I on the right path?” “is this all worth it?” and of course, “am I good enough?”
We all have things that we turn to when we need to improve our mood. Many also have things to turn to when depressive and anxiety symptoms start to surface.
While I have never been a huge on New Year resolutions, I do try to come up with new ways to start the year off in a way that helps me to become a better version of myself. For example, last year I set the small goal of flossing my teeth every night, which has now turned into a habit. Trying to focus on what I can control throughout the year has been a challenge through 2020, but it has also helped to remind me of all of the little things I can control.
One of my biggest coping skills is practicing one of my endless hobbies. Whenever I feel like my feelings are going to swallow me whole, I try to use a hobby to channel that energy. This is where it helps to have multiple hobbies.
You don’t need me to tell you that this year has been a very stressful time. With the year coming to a close, I want to take the opportunity to find some techniques that will help me take a step back and work on relaxing and be more mindful. If you ever feel like you are getting stressed or overwhelmed, try one of these activities and see how it can help!
Given the past year and the ongoing conversations about how important self-care is, you might be considering more ways to explore and include coping mechanisms that really help you. This can be the predictable ones like exercising more, incorporating more meditation practices, and journaling and writing things down, and you may have added a bunch of relevant items in your online shopping carts to help support these goals.
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