Self Care

One of the hardest parts about anxiety is how much stress we put on ourselves. There are countless times throughout the day that I am focusing in on something that isn’t important. There are times in the day when I have to tell my body to relax, to bring my shoulders down from up at my ears. There are also days when my depression and anxiety are playing tug of war with my body and I feel used up and sore. My body goes through physical strain because of my mental battle. During the worst times, I would struggle to get out of bed. I would feel like there was no point in trying to get better because I would just have to start over the next day. An endless, looping cycle that seemed to have no positive benefit other than making my mind and body stop for a couple minutes.

When I was first told about self-care, or rather when I first read about it, I was hesitant on the idea. What would one day of care do for me when I was miserable every day. How could a self-care day change how I’m feeling at all, let alone for a long period of time. I said it was dumb, pointless and not worth it. When I’m sad I’m just going to stay in bed and not doing anything. Then I actually tried a self-care day. I wasn’t feeling anywhere near my worst, but I was stressed with my job and other issues and staying in my room all day was making me more and more anxious. I said that I’d give self-care days the old college try. I put on some comfy clothes, hit up a Starbucks and got my favourite drink and then went to the library. I got a couple books out and then went to a bakery right down the street to get some fresh bread for dinner and a scone for my breakfast the next morning. I meandered from shop to shop, soaking in the sunlight and feeling the bustle of my neighbourhood begin with the good weather. It’s a feeling I haven’t forgotten in a year, and it’s a feeling I love to recreate.

These days aren’t always about spending a lot of money and going out. Sometimes it can be little and sometimes it can be big. There are so many ways to self-care, and it can all be personalized to you. Self-care days should also not be done too often because once you overdo it they aren’t as special.

I’ve put together some ideas for self-care days, and some of my favourite things to do. Next time you have a bad day at work, come home and try out one of these things, or wait until the weekend and have a whole day to do it. Next time your anxiety is spiking, take a step back and do three deep breathes and then spend a couple hours focusing on yourself. If you don’t put yourself first, no one will, it’s up to you to keep yourself healthy.

**while self-care days can, in fact, be staying in bed all day, I try to stay away from those days for the most part. For one, when you do spend that one day in bed say every two months or so it makes it so much more relaxing! And two I think a great thing about self-care is getting up and going outside. You’re getting fresh air, doing some exercise and getting away from screens which can be a drain on our mental health a lot of the time.

Self Care Days

@Home

• clean your room
• get a healthy snack/meal
• light a candle/ spray something pretty
• do your nails/ a face mask
• pick your favourite thing to do on the internet; Pinterest, Netflix, Youtube
• put away all the things that are triggers and are upsetting you (anything from an ex, work)
• do something silly or weird; sing into the mirror, jump on the bed, dance with your pet!  Have fun with it

@Going Out Alone

• wear your favourite outfit
• make a playlist before you go out
• try doing something you wouldn’t be able to do with other people
  • movie you want to see, shopping at different stores
• buy yourself something; food, clothes, new candles, a book etc
• go ice skating
• go to a park /feed some ducks
• read by the beach

With a loved one

• hang out with someone that will be non-judgmental about your feelings
• make sure you do something that you want to do
• avoid triggers or place that will upset you
• Sweat! Go to a gym class, out dancing or on a bike ride at the beach
• grab a coffee and talk about how you’ve been feeling

Self Care Every Day

Carving out self-care days is incredibly important, but what is also important is carving out time every day for yourself. It can be the smallest thing like petting your dog or taking a bubble bath and listening to your favourite music. There are a lot of things that you can be trying. Sometimes self-care means making sure you drink more water and to cut out the soda. Self-care is extremely personal and targeted toward what you really need. So if you can’t dedicate a whole day to yourself, take 10 minutes and do something that will make you feel better.

Challenge! 

For your next couple self-care days, why not try making them for a specific part of your life that you feel has been lacking a little bit? Take one of the 8 Dimensions of Self-Care and see which one is the weakest for you. Then try making a self-care day (or moment) about that dimension. For example; as a young person who has just started learning about savings, and investments I took a whole day to learn and organize my finances. It was able to give me peace of mind about the future as well as a schedule on how I would be saving my money.

 

Happy self caring!

 

I Tried: Meditation Every Day for a Month

The benefits of meditation have been well documented everywhere, from religions like Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism to self proclaimed yogis to scientists. The only problem with it? It’s actually pretty hard. Who would think that sitting around and not thinking would be so incredibly difficult. I’ve always tried to implement it into my life because the benefits are some great for my own mental health. But every time I sit down to try and do it, my mind gets over taken with every thought possible. Let’s say I’m having a bad day because I can’t move on from something that had happened recently and it was making me upset. I would try meditation in order to help clear my head; but the problem is that I can’t find the switch to turn it off. I just think over and over and over about that one thing that is really bugging me. Or say I’ve had a really busy week and I’m about to have a really busy weekend. I’ll try and meditate so that I can clear my head but it ends up just being a inward focus on all the things that I still have to get done. That’s when I realized that I’m only meditating when my brain is already overflowing. I need to start when I’m not stressed, or freaked out or upset. I have to start on the days where I can try and keep my thoughts down. So I’m going to try meditating every day for a month. I know in this time I’ll have my stressed out days and I also know it’s probably going to be difficult to start but we’ll see where this process takes me.

The Experiment:

Week 1: I decided that it would be a good idea to record myself and how I was feeling before and after each session to see what my mind set was like. The first week was rough, I was not feeling great at all and had way too many things on my mind. I aimed to meditate for 3 minutes this week as a good starting off point. This first day went alright, I stayed as focused as I could. I put music on in the background so that I would stay concentrated on that rather than on my own thoughts. As the week went on however I kept slipping up and either forgetting to meditate and leaving it till the last minute, or constantly checking how much time I had left because I didn’t want to be left with my thoughts. By the end of the week I told myself to do it for as long as I could stay focused instead.

Week 2: Week 2 was difficult. I had a ton of work so I was completely losing track of time. My meditation time ended up being right before bed instead of at a time of day when it would actually be useful for me. Halfway through the week I had to set up a reminder in order to keep track of when I had to do my meditation. For week 3 I am going to try and meditate in the morning when I wake up and actually get some good out of the time.

Week 3: This week got easier, I started to meditate at the same time every day.  I did not meditate in the morning but instead decided to continue to do it at night so that I would have an easier time going to sleep. Not only did I have my alarm set, but every day at 9pm my sister would call, text or come into my room and tell me to meditate. I had help with staying focused. The more I kept at it, the easier it was to stay focused. By the end of the week I was able to completely clear my mind for 5 full minutes.

Week 4: I tried to incorporate different breathing practices this week while meditating. There are multiple different apps that help with this kind of thing and each day I tried a different one. My favourite ended up being the app called Smiling Mind , a Australian based company that had guided meditations that really helped keep my mind focused.

I really enjoyed this experience and now that it’s June I will try to continue the practice. I don’t know if it is realistic for me to do it every day, or every day at the same time seeing as life is crazy and I have other things to be doing but I really enjoyed trying it out for a month. I would highly recommend trying this out and trying out different apps. The one that worked for me may not be for everyone but there are so many to choose from that it is worth the research.

Wonder Woman: A Review

43 years. That’s how long it’s been since Lynda Carter graced TV screens with her version of Wonder Woman for the three season program. The new Wonder Woman came out June 2nd and obviously I had to go see it opening day. I know I don’t really write reviews on this blog (that’s normally on Salt and Vinegar) but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to write about a truly incredible movie and woman that is Wonder Woman.

I’ve been counting down the days till June 2nd since they released the day the movie would be coming out (look in my day planner, I was ready). I knew I had to go the opening day, I had to show my support for the movie as soon as possible. I bought tickets for myself and my mom for the 10 o’clock 2-D showing. We got to the theatre half an hour before the show started, there was no line to get into the theatre like there was when I saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows years ago, but the theatre filled up rather quickly and I was lucky enough to have three people sitting directly beside me that couldn’t stop talking or looking at their phones through the entire movie. Not to let them ruin my movie experience I blocked out their antics and enjoyed this movie that women everywhere have been waiting for for 43 years. In the first half hour of the movie, the amazons dominated the screen, practicing their fighting skills, leading one another and listening to each others opinions. In their first fight scene against the men, I couldn’t contain my happiness. Seeing an army of women being so badass was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen (a very professional synopsis I know).

Chris Pine’s character, Steve Trevor, was introduced around this time as well. I was worried how they were going to portray him, would they keep him too docile to make Diana seem overpowering? Would they make him too chauvinistic and make their relationship too unrealistic? Thankfully they managed to keep him the perfect representation of what men of that time are like while also being incredibly soft and charming. There were times when Steve played the superior being role, it was never truly dismissive but more to teach Diana and show his care for her. Other male characters however were apparent in blowing her off just because she was a woman. It was good to see a mix of the two, rather than lean to heavily one way and make the men a real enemy of the entire movie, and also not making men seem totally weak in comparison to Diana.

I was also incredibly worried that the movie would follow suit with the other DC movies and have the plot be too dark and obvious. Honestly, while watching Batman vs. Superman I was able to tell what the entire plot of the movie was going to be in the first ten minutes. Thankfully they seemed to take some notes from Marvel and lighten up the dialogue with many of the characters. They also managed to introduce characters that were not just white. Samir a Moroccan man and The Chief a Native American man were part of the crew that accompanied Diana on her quest to find Aries. Throughout the movie they even bring up their limitations of being POC’s in a white dominated world. Samir talking about his love of acting but being born with “the wrong skin colour” and The Cheif discussing how he does not choose a side in the war because he has no place left because Steve’s people took his land. I was incredibly surprised and delighted to see that they would add these bits to the movie. Not only was this movie a step forward in feminism and the movie business but it also highlighted issues that affected people other than just white people.

Another of my concerns with the movie was if they were going to overpower the love story of Steve and Diana or if they were going to use it to their advantage. When Diana starts fighting for love, and her true powers comes out I felt that they did it just right. Yes the initial push for that power came from the love for Steve, but it also didn’t feel forced. It felt like she felt love for all beings, not just Steve. Her fighting for love felt very feminine and pure rather than just lusting after a man she had only met a couple days before. Their relationship helped one another grow to become better people and more well rounded fighters which was a great moment in the movie that I wasn’t sure if they could pull off.

Leaving the theatre I felt great, like women had been shown on this platform as something other than just docile creatures that followed in a mans footsteps. It felt incredible to watch Gal Gadot do such a good job at a movie that was so highly anticipated by so many. I asked my mom how she felt about it. She grew up idolizing Lynda Carter and the power she carried for young girls as Wonder Woman. My mom liked the movie but also said that Lynda Carter would always be her Wonder Woman. I think that’s totally fair, and understandable. I’m glad that kids can now have their own Wonder Woman to look up to. I can’t wait to see all the merchandise for her everywhere and all of the Halloween costumes that I’m sure we will see this year. Just like Rey’s character in The Force Awakens, Wonder Woman is showing young girls that they can kick ass just like their male counter parts. Sometimes we’re the ones saving the men, and that shouldn’t be forgotten.

 

The Alamo Drafthouse Debacle.

Alright let’s just get this out of the way because I’m tired of hearing about it. The Alamo Drafthouse decided to have a screening for women only to see the new Wonder Woman movie in the first couple weeks that the movie comes out. All of the proceeds from the event would be going to Planned Parenthood. When I first read about this I was overwhelmed with how happy I was about it. I wanted to fly down to Texas just to experience this with my fellow women and enjoy our first superhero movie in the entire time that I’ve been alive. I thought (naively) that this would be taken pretty well, one showing of a movie for women? Not a huge deal, it’s literally just one showing. Sadly, and not surprisingly I was very wrong. Men all over the world needed to come out of the woodwork and explain why it wasn’t fair that we would get such a generous and special treat. I read comment after comment of men talking about how “if it were a men’s showing of Superman it would be a huge deal” . Well as my favourite article I’ve read on the subject said; “Asking why there isn’t a men’s only showing of Superman is the same as asking why we don’t have White History Month”. Sit back gentleman and think about this for a second. Once men start to face the same issues as women in the entertainment world (I’m not even going to open it up to other fields, lets just leave it at movies) then there can be criticism about a screening for women. Until men are underrepresented, underfunded and sexualized at every turn, there should be no debate as to why women want this screening for themselves. These women are not getting a sneak peak of the movie, those kind of rights are reserved for movie critics and as we can see the movie critic career is heavily dominated by men (check it out ). So really, more men got to see the movie before women did. Next let’s think about the two complaints filed by attorneys that say these showings are breaking equality laws. This is Wonder Woman’s first movie in 80 years. Marvel and DC have had combined 19 male superhero movies before there was one female hero. It is so surprising for woman to have this one moment that men are literally filing lawsuits. The pettiness in me thinks we should be filing lawsuits for inequality of how women have been treated in the superhero world. For example, have you ever looked at female superheroes on the movie posters? Take a look at some of my favourites:

yep, this is definitely how I would be walking down the street with two guns in my hand. Gotta make sure she looks as sexualized as possible.

How about the docile woman that needs the man to save her. Not the fact that Natalie Portman plays a badass scientist that is literally helping Thor throughout the entire movie.

Yeah, I shouldn’t have to explain this one.

Listen men, I get it. The world has revolved around you for so long the thought of women wanting to have something for themselves after being overly sexualized in movies for as long as we can remember is just out of the question. But unfortunately that won’t deter us from enjoying ourselves and kicking ass in the process. I’ll highlight this one more time; Wonder Woman is not for you. This movie is not about you, this movie is not looking to you to judge it and say if it’s good for women. This movie is for us to have and to enjoy in the piles of male dominated movies. This is for us, it will always be for us, and we will be unapologetic about it.

WCW: BrainCandy Podcast

I am a huge fan of Mtv’s The Challenge. My sister and I have watched every season together and we are obsessed. And with being obsessed with reality challenge tv shows, you get invested in the people. Like I LOVE Laurel, she is a real life Wonder Woman and hero to me. My sister and I both love CT, and root for him every time he’s on the show. When Diem died, my sister and I both mourned her because she was such a kick ass person and just so strong. But I’d have to say my favourite competitor is Sarah Rice. She’s been on the show a long time, and she’s seriously the coolest lady ever. She’s got a bunch of tattoo’s but is still really feminine which I think is awesome, you know with societies view on tattoo’s and how they are bad and…. you know what, that’s a different rabbit hole to go down. Back to Sarah, this woman not only competes on this really cool show but she’s also in school for her masters because she’s actually super smart! Reality television stars gets this perception that they’re all stupid. While I can tell you that there are some people that are all brawn and not brain, Sarah is different. She’s super athletic and she’s super smart. And in the last season The Challenge: Rivals she was paired with Johnny. Johnny was my favourite, I loved how he played the game (sometimes) and I liked his personality of being funny and riling people up, even when it didn’t need to happen. So in the last season when Johnny and Sarah were teammates and long story short they made it to the finals and if they won Sarah was going to use her share of the money to put herself through school. The catch was, whoever did better from the guy/girl pair they either got to split the money equally or keep it all to themselves. Johnny and Sarah won, but Johnny kept all the money for himself and left Sarah with nothing.

So fast forward to present day, Sarah has said she won’t be doing any more challenges. I was disappointed until I started following her on Instagram and I found out that she has a podcast with another member from The Challenge, Susie. The podcast is called Brain Candy. Now let me tell you, I have never had a crush on anyone’s mind like I do on Sarah’s. This podcast is awesome. I can’t even begin to explain it. Not only do they talk about behind the scenes stuff from The Challenge (!!!) but they also discuss so many relevant and important issues. In the first podcast I listened to they talked about Disney and their thoughts on the new Moana movie. Within the first ten minutes Sarah was crying about how much she liked the movie and how important it was for POC to see representations in movies. Not only that but Moana kicks ass! Sarah got so worked up over this and all I could think of was, “this woman is awesome”

Here is an episode from the podcast, from there take a look around and maybe join their book club or get some merch. I promise if you’re looking to find some awesome women who know how to use their brains to better the world then this will be the place for you.

Volunteering- CN Tower Climb

I remember doing my 40 mandatory hours of volunteering in high school and I hated it. I thought it was useless for me to go to my friend’s mom’s work and help out with kindergartners. I also hated that we were made to volunteer. Why make us do things that we didn’t want to do, especially since we couldn’t graduate if we didn’t have it done? Now fast forward five years later,  I’m 22 in a job where I work from home. Most of my friends do not live in the city so I don’t see them as often as other people may see their friends. I’m also still pretty bummed out about my breakup that cut out a group of people I had begun to see as friends. These kind of things can make someone start to feel pretty lonely. One day I was on Facebook and I saw a video that said “By 2020, two thirds of the worlds wildlife will be extinct”. That statement freaked me out, and I immediately looked online at what I could do to help. I looked up a ton of places to help; the WWF, the Toronto Wildlife Foundation, The Humane Society and then some cat shelters. I saw that the WWF was having their annual CN Tower climb and thought it would be something fun to help out with.

Fast forward to April 8-9 (the day I am writing this post), I’ve got to be up at 4am in order to get ready and get to the CN Tower by 5:30. People will start running at around 6:45-7am so we need to be ready once that happens. Once people started coming in, and I was handing out water the day really started to get going. With about 10 other volunteers we spent our two days handing out water, cheering people on and directing people to where they needed to go once it got hectic. I volunteered both days, but most others did not. There were about three of us that actually came both days. I also noticed that a lot of the people that came decided to volunteer just because they could. We were all between the ages of 18-60 and I thought that was pretty cool. I was expecting to see a lot of students being forced to come out on their weekends and being very grumpy about it. Fortunately there were only one of those (he was actually very nice he just did NOT want to be there). I met four people that go to school in Toronto specifically to learn English, two of them were from France, one from Switzerland and one from Mexico. When I asked why they were volunteering they said it was because they just wanted to. It was so endearing to see people who have no real ties or allegiances to the city come out and help. The last thing I noticed that really made me happy at the event was how thankful the WWF members, and the runners were of the volunteers. One runner came up to us and said “thank you for everything you’re doing, it’s so great to see you guys so peppy and spirited this early in the morning for us”.  I didn’t volunteer in order to get praise from anyone, I did it for myself mainly, and for the animals. It was a really great experience and I know I will absolutely be doing this again next year.

I wanted to share this experience because I learned an important fact, one that I am glad I learned so quickly in my young adult life; volunteering is awesome. Yeah, I had to wake up early, yeah there were some not so nice people, and yes I spent my weekend working but I also got to meet some really interesting people who taught me things about themselves and their home countries. I got to help out people who are making a positive change in the world, and I got to experience what the CN Tower run is like. I also think it is important for people like me, who struggle with making friends, mental health issues, and a general feeling of boredness to go out and volunteer. I was forced out of my comfort zone this weekend, I had to talk to thousands of people all day long. I had to smile all day, which might seem like nothing, but my neutral face is a scowl/frown look. So standing there from 6-12 trying to look friendly and approachable made my face physically hurt. Next time you’re feeling alone, or bored or just like you want to help out, seriously look into volunteering somewhere. You won’t regret it in the end.

I also got to see the sunrise from the top of the CN Tower, such a great moment to experience.

Journal: Through an Anxiety Attack

I do this to myself. WHY do I do this to myself. I literally know exactly what the outcome is going to be. And yet here we are, I’m looking. I’m actually hoping something is there so that I can get angry. Why do I want to see it? Why do I want to find it? What is wrong with me? Who actually looks for this stuff that will hurt them. I do, because I’m an idiot.

I’m looking at her instagram, I’m looking at them together. I’m looking at the one person in the world that has hurt me more than anyone with the person I hate more than anyone. I knew it would be there. I expected it. We have enough similar friends now that I get to see it everywhere.

I’m just staring at this picture in the car. I’m staring and staring and staring and looking at their stupid faces that shouldn’t mean anything to me. But they do, all it reminds me of is how stupid I feel that I still care. And I can’t tell anyone I still care because then people will tell me I have no self esteem, that I need to move on, that I’m better, kinder, smarter, actually going somewhere with my life.

But I can’t, and I can feel my heart beating in my throat. I can feel my pulse in my wrist and I’m just holding my hands together so that they could please stop shaking. I need to hold this in, I can’t have a panic attack in the car. I can’t go full on panic in the car, I can’t do it. But I’m lightheaded, I have a headache from telling myself to shut up and I’m trying not to cry. I could throw up with how hard I’m trying to keep my body from exploding. I need to stop, they don’t care about me, why the hell do I care about them so much. But I can’t stop. I can’t calm down. I know I’m going to throw up, I can feel it. It’s the worst part, it’s the only part I can’t hide. It’s the physical evidence that this moment is killing me.

It’s moments like these where I think everything I’ve drilled into my brain is worthless. Take deep breathes casey; no. Think about what makes you happy instead; no. Talk to someone about it, just reach out; no. I can’t make myself feel better right now, I’m not going to be able to change how I feel. I can’t even reach out to anyone because it’s been over for so long.

Instead I’m just sitting in this car, feeling like my stomach is on a rollercoaster and it won’t last long and my heart beating so fast that it actually hurts. I want to close my eyes so that I don’t feel dizzy but then I see that stupid picture and everything that shouldn’t matter to me but it does. It does matter and as much as everyone wants to tell me that it shouldn’t, it does.

Photo Diary: #marchismagical

For the month of March I participated in #marchismagical, an instagram challenge that is shaped to make you remember what is important to you and keep you thankful and honest with yourself. I’ve put together all of the days in which I was able to post. Follow @galadarling on Instagram so you can participate in the next challenge!

 

Day 31- My Wish

Day 28- Wanderlust

Day 27- Fantasy Life

Day 25- My Passion

Day 23- Favourite Place

Day 22- Flowers

Day 20- I’m Reading

Day 18- Favourite Artist

Day 17- Best Babes

Day 15- Favourite Quote

Day 14 – How I Unwind

Day 13- My Crush

Day 10- A Cause I Believe In

Day 9- #tbt

Day 7- Makes Me Smile

Day 5- Someone I Admire

Day 4- My City

Day 3 – Someone I love

Day 1- #radicalselfielove

My Trip to Vancouver- Travel Journal

Anyone that knows me knows that I love Canada. I am it’s biggest fan. Here’s the catch though, I’ve never been outside of Ontario. Yes, I’ve been to the United States and even Mexico, but I haven’t been to any other part of Canada. My aunt is living in British Columbia at the moment, a spur of the moment decision to just pack up and move to try living in a new province (which I greatly admire and think is really ballsy and cool) and I thought it would be a good idea to visit her. I told myself that 2017 would be my year, that I would do as many fun things as possible and that includes quick decisions to book a flight to Vancouver and check out a city I had never been to before.

So before I left I made a list of things that I wanted to see and do while I was on my trip. First things first; find some good food trucks. Since Vancouver is a pretty warm city throughout the year (warm for Canadian standards alright, 14 degree weather in February is pretty great to me) they get to have the advantage of food trucks year round. In Toronto, most of my beloved food trucks shut down for the season around October. The next thing was to do one thing to face one of my fears, so I decided I wanted to cross one of the suspension bridges that you can find in North Vancouver. The next was to take in some scenery, check out the mountains, the ocean and the wildlife. I also wanted to discover downtown and see how Canada’s third biggest cities downtown core matched up to Toronto’s. I also wanted to check out Granville Island which I had heard was a popular spot to go to.

I arrived in the city at 10am PST and 1pm EST. That means I was up at 5:30am (!!!!) and on my flight by 8am. As a person that was not a morning person that was hard to do. Plus I had a five hour flight ahead of me and a cab ride to my hotel. When I say there is a Ferneyhough family curse on sitting near screaming children on planes, I mean it. I got stuck near this child that was screaming at the top of his lungs before we even took off. So my day did not start out the way it wanted to.

When I landed all I wanted to do was sleep, but I had to get to the hotel. My dad gave me a call and told me to take the Sky Train rather than a cab because it is easier and cheaper. The Sky Train  was the best decision. Once I bought my pass (the “compass” pass which is like a presto pass, or metro card in NYC) and got on the train, there was a great view of the city, and I got dropped off right outside of my hotel (okay more like two blocks away, but still pretty good)! Throughout the time I was in Vancouver the Sky Train came in handy a lot, I took it to get to my aunt who lives in Coquitlam, I took it to get to Burnaby, Lougheed and around the city of Vancouver. If you’re comfortable with public transportation and don’t want to spend money on cabs this is a great substitute. Also, Uber hasn’t been set up in Vancouver yet, so the ease of that wasn’t available.

So my first goal: food trucks. Before I had left I had heard of this one food truck that was supposed to serve some really good fish tacos. Now when I say I am a fish taco fiend, I mean it! Every year at the Toronto Food Truck Festival I track down Busters Sea Cove and get there unreal fish and shrimp tacos. No fish taco has gotten as close to perfect as these but I decided to give Tacofino a try.  I ordered a fish taco and
and then walked around trying to find a place to eat them. Let me just say, this taco was stuffed. It had so much cabbage, fish, sauces, everything just piled on to this corn tortilla. It was totally worth it. So if you’re ever in the mood for fish tacos in Vancouver, try and scout out this truck or go to their restaurant in Gastown which is all up in the link I’ve already shared.

For the first day I tried to have a relaxed day. I had been up for a long time, had a child screaming in my ear and really just wanted to sleep. I spent the day checking out the downtown core, another of my to do’s while in the city. I love the size of the city, it was pretty easy to walk around the main part of the core without having to get on a bus or the Sky Train.

Friday I spent the day checking out the scenery. British Columbia is beautiful, all I kept saying was that I can’t believe how beautiful it is! Like really, seeing those mountains every morning was such a treat, living near them seems to just be a dream. Stanely park is a must go to if you’re interested in Canadian culture and nature. After our walk around Stanely park the next thing to do was to go to Lynn Canyon to go across the suspension bridge. Now, there are two different suspension bridges you can check out, Lynn Canyon happens to be the free one. The other, the Capilano bridge costs about $35 and there is a whole park that you also get to check out. Because of time, the Lynn Canyon suspension bridge would have to do. Now let me just say that I have a big fear of heights. But I’m not afraid of being up high, I’m more afraid of falling. Falling out of the sky is probably the freakiest thing to me. I go cliff jumping when I go camping which is different, at least I’m falling into water. Here’s a picture of the bridge. Now I made it to about where that woman is 

standing and then I turned around and went back. Do you see the amount of people in the middle of the bridge! There was no way I was going to try and walk around them while this bridge was swinging around. But I’m still proud of myself, I saw the waterfall, I looked down, I did everything I told myself I would do.

Vancouver is a rainy place, I knew that before I got there. I knew it was going to be wet and I was prepared. However, rain brings my mood down and therefore the best thing to do on a super rainy day is to stay indoors. On Sunday, the rainiest day of all was the day we went to Granville Island. The island, for me, can be compared to St. Lawrence Market, and the Front street area of Toronto. It’s very arts based, with a lot of play houses lining the streets, independent art stores and breweries placed in nooks and crannies of the island. I loved it there, the food was delicious and the views of the city were gorgeous. On a warm day I could just imagine that this island is packed full of families spending the day out shopping and playing around. 

From a chocolatier on Granville Island 

Vancouver is gorgeous, British Columbia is gorgeous. I’m so happy that I finally got to go across this great country that I live in and see the other side of it. It is Canada’s 150th birthday, and there is no better way than to spend it explore our great nation. I live in such a big country, it’s such a treat to be able to finally discover what all of it holds. By the end of the summer I hope to visit more of Canada and spend some time getting to know this great country.

The Problem with Being Dismissive

The dreaded phrase: “You have to choose to be happy”

I remember one of my dons in first year university telling me this. We were talking together and she said that happiness is a choice and that I need to be choose to be happy”. This is a phrase that almost everyone with some form of mental illness has heard in some variation

“You have to not stress about it” – anxiety

“You have to let it go”– OCD

“You just have to try and eat”– Eating Disorders

“Try not to think about it” – PTSD

and my personal favourite, which can be related to any and all:

“There are people out there that have it way worse than you” 

All of these sayings, while trying to be helpful, are actually dismissing the way the people feel. It leads to the person feeling like they are not being understood and therefore choose to hide how they feel or turn to other outlets of taking out their pain. It’s common for people to not understand why these phrases are harmful. On the outside it feels like they’re helpful. To a person without depression that goes through a breakup, “choosing to be happy” is easier. It’s easier for that person to stop feeling sad because they tell themselves to. When someone with a mental illness goes through the same thing, they are feeling a whole different set of emotions. Let’s say, your girlfriend just broke up with you. It was only because the two of you had grown apart. There were no issues with abuse, or cheating or being mean to one another, you still loved one another but you knew the relationship wasn’t right. To someone that doesn’t suffer from anxiety you can feel sad about the lose of the relationship, mourn it for a while and then move on. In the exact same scenario with someone with anxiety, they are thinking that their girlfriend lied, it wasn’t just growing apart, it was them specifically. It was something that they had done that was the reason she broke up with them. It will take longer to get over the breakup, and a lot more time to realize that it wasn’t anyone’s fault. So when you tell that person to move on, or to get over it, it isn’t that simple.

Obviously no one goes into a conversation with negative intentions. Of course all you are doing is helping your loved one overcome whatever struggle they are feeling. Unfortunately if you don’t know the feeling it is hard to understand and sympathize with it. Instead of trying to figure it out, or tell them what you would do try some of these options instead:

• Be patient
• Learn as much as you can- never stop educating yourself
• Be there
• Let the person come to you first
• Create a comfortable environment for the person to be in
• In social situations, ask if the person is comfortable, but don’t push for their opinion if they are uncomfortable giving it

Now let’s go back to what I was saying before. “You can choose to be happy”. Well let’s break down this saying shall we? First let’s think about depression, there isn’t just one type. There’s major depression, seasonal depression, and postpartum. And with each of these types there are causes behind each. Yes, some of the causes are past trauma’s which can be overcome with a lot of mental work and help from others and medication. There are also underlying and chemical reasons why people are depressed. First off, women are more prone to depression than men, especially if it is a family trait (which is often the case). Then there is the chemical makeup of your brain that makes the way people with depression think different from everyone else. This is because there is an imbalance of neurotransmitters in the brain and spinal cord. Many times, to stop this from happening, and to right the problem in their body, people with depression will go on medication in order to level themselves out. So when you say to a person that is not on medication (or on it for that matter) that they need to choose to be happy, well you aren’t only dismissing their symptoms but you’re making them feel like they should be ashamed that they can’t just make themselves snap out of it.

In my personal experience, once I went on medication it was easier to move on from situations that had previously made me anxious or depressed. But here’s the thing, only after I started going on the medication was I on an equal playing field as someone who didn’t have depression. So now, telling me to choose to be happy isn’t as outrageous. I’m just now learning to use my own thoughts to feel better. But before, when I wasn’t on medication for seven months, exercising five times a week and actively trying every day to keep my mind at ease, I would not be able to just “choose to be happy”.  At that point, I couldn’t really choose anything at all.

Trust me, I understand that it’s hard to understand mental illnesses. It’s hard to come to terms with the fact that someone you know and love is going through something that you can’t easily repair. But that’s the problem with mental illnesses; they aren’t easily fixed. It’s not going to be easy, and that’s why the most important thing you can do is be there for someone. Just let them know that you will be an unbiased listener when they need it, or a friend when they need to get out and be distracted. Or even be the proactive friend that goes to their house and make sure they’ve eaten, showered and gotten dressed for the day. One day, when I was living on residence in university, I hadn’t come out of my room in two days and my roommate had gone home for the weekend so I was by myself. Two of my friends came to my room, knocked on the door (for about ten minutes) until I opened it, and made me get up and go eat with them. I’ll always remember that because, they didn’t judge me for being sad and they genuinely wanted to spend time with me. They didn’t pester me with questions when I didn’t feel like talking, we just went out to eat.

So if you ever have someone you love come to you and ask for you to just be their friend, and be there for them, don’t dismiss their feelings. Let them be as sad, emotional, uneasy as they need to be and help them work through it. Don’t throw their emotions to the side because you don’t understand it. Everyone is going through something, and it’s hard to get up the courage to ask for help, especially when there isn’t any real cure for it.

ps. I’ve gotten a lot of my info from some really great sources. Here are some links if you want to learn more, or want to know where I got my information.

9 Best Ways to Support Someone With Depression– https://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/05/08/9-best-ways-to-support-someone-with-depression/

What is Depression- http://depressionhurts.ca/en/about/causes.aspx

How to Help Someone with PTSD– https://www.helpguide.org/articles/ptsd-trauma/ptsd-in-the-family.htm

Anxiety and Depression Association of America– https://www.adaa.org/understanding-anxiety/depression

Creativity and What it Means to be Creative.

You know what I think is really important. Creativity.

The Left and The Right

We always classify ourselves as a right or left brain person. I was always “left brain”, I’m a philosophical thinker, who loves being creative and coming up with new things. My one sister is a “right brain”, she is analytical and scientific and logical. We’re both supposedly so different. I grew up wanting to be an actress, I loved the idea of just talking in front of the camera. At my classes I had no fear of making a fool of myself. In school I was best in my Drama and English classes. I loved writing short stories, I loved creating  a character who had their own personalities and stories. But I also liked to mirror myself within them. I even wrote and directed a play with my best friend in our senior year of high school. That was my outlet. That was what I used to feel and be creative. Now, finished school and needing creativity somewhere else, I’ve put it back into writing. I put it into my blogs and into my personal writing (the stuff I’m too scared to share with the world, and too vulnerable for people to see).

My sister is a runner, she can run faster than anyone I’ve met. In elementary school and high school she would win all of the meets she went to. I remember one year she had pneumonia (which none of us knew about at the time) and competed in a race and still beat half of the girls running.  In school she excels in the science courses. The courses I could barely make it through, she was getting 90’s. She can probably name every bone in the body and all of it’s muscles. When we go hiking she will explain to us what our bodies are doing and how it is all working. That’s just “how her brain works”.

I used to think that I was cooler because when we classified our way of thinking, my way was bright and vibrant and colourful. Whereas the other was dull and structured and boring.Just look at the picture above, would you really want to be classified as a left brain from this visual representation? It was only until recently that I realized that everything we do is creative. Every part of our lives has creativity within it. If you really think about it, what job doesn’t have some type of creativity linked with it? Let’s look at my sister, she’s in school for kinesiology. She works with the human body, she works with it’s movements, it’s weaknesses and strengths. Imagine the creativity that comes out of that. She could come up with new ways to stretch, new ways to help deal with muscle fatigue, the possibilities are endless.

I feel like creativity has become this mystical term. It’s reserved for the arts and for the people that wield its tools. Artists, actresses, painters, musicians, writers, screenwriters, poets, dancers. This are the careers we think of when we talk about creativity. But I think that’s wrong. Creativity is coming up with an idea, a new idea, that will help something come to fruition. A scientist creating a cure is just as creative as a writer. A doctors ability to come up with a new way of helping patients with depression is as creative as a dancer creating a cho. The label of creative shouldn’t be reserved anymore. It should be shared, we shouldn’t be a right brain or a left brain. I love to write, I love to create stories and plays and poems. But I’m also very particular about organization. All my writing is in different books, I organize my entire life in a planner, I like to know ahead of time what I want to write about for both blogs. My sister studies harder than anyone I know, she can tell you every bone in the body and probably all of the muscles. But when she works out, she can come up with a sequence of movements that will help her stay in shape, and totally kick my butt when I try and join her.  If you look at the picture above on the left side it says: “I am a scientist” and on the right side it says “I am creative”. It’s time we bridge the gap and start to view the brain as a whole.

*Note: after writing this article I actually came across another article about Neil DeGrasse putting the bed the myth of both sides of the brain, here is the link. He puts my thoughts into words perfectly. 

Creativity Block

If anyone has ever tried to do something creative and got stuck they know exactly what it feels like to have a creativity block. The best way I can describe it is this; having a will to write or create but it’s blocked by “the fuzz”. To me, the fuzz is something that blocks my brain and all the ideas I have from getting to paper. Sometimes the fuzz happens because I have so many ideas that I can’t come up with one, good, solid point. I’ll start writing a creative story that turns into a poem. Sometimes I’ll jot down ideas for a new play, and instead end up here.. writing about how it feels to have a creativity block.

I say creativity block and not writers block because, well, writers don’t own it. I’m sure there are dancers out there who have blocks on creating choreography, or engineers struggling for new concepts all the time. It happens to everyone, in every sense of the word creative.

It’s something that, as a writer of two blogs, I find very annoying and irritating. Take for example my blog Salt and Vinegr with my friend Rae. I’ve been trying to come up with one good concept for an article because we have been majorly lacking on content. So I try to brain storm some ideas and it comes out as a jumble of random words and outdated events. It’s super frustrating trying to put something together that just does not want to fall into place. So, because of this infuriating issue I’ve come up with a couple techniques and reminders when I get to the point of frustration.

1. So first things first, before everything I put on my playlist. It’s not a huge playlist, but it’s long enough for my process and it helps me get in the zone. I’ll leave a link to the spotify version of it here so everyone can check it out. And I promise, it’s not “screamo” music so no need to worry about that, it’s got some Arctic Monkeys, Frank Ocean and Letlive. Once I’ve gotten the playlist on I meditate.
2. Get comfortable and get in the zone. If you’re thinking about what you did all day, or what you’re going to make for dinner then you aren’t focusing on your creativity. I wouldn’t say meditate, but take a couple deep breathes and think bout what you want to create.
3. Write down everything that comes to you. This is the silliest part of the process, and sometimes I feel a little strange for doing it. But if I’m really focused, words and phrases will just start pouring out. I wrote one of my favourite poems from just sitting down and writing down anything that came to mind. Here’s another example, because sometimes it’s just a couple sentences that pour out that I will later use in something else ;  “The staccato of my anxiety sharpens to a tight tapping of my foot. An inner thought with an outer consequence”
4.  Know that you [probably] aren’t going to come up with an amazing idea right away. And don’t do a brainstorm session for more than an hour unless you’re really into it. After that, when you haven’t found an amazing idea it starts to become daunting to sit there and try to come up with new ideas

Living a Creative Lifestyle 

If there is one thing to take from this article it’s this; sitting at home on your computer isn’t going to help you live a creative lifestyle. It’s also not going to help you’re mentality either. Go out and explore, go to a pet store and play with some animals, go out for dinner by yourself. It’s not enough to want to be creative, you need to be able to draw inspiration from somewhere.