January Reflections

Wow, how is it already a new month??

January was an exciting month here in the U.S. (a little too exciting at times in the political sphere but that’s a whole other blog post). To me, January felt like a month of hope, growth, and positive change. I didn’t do everything I set out to perfectly, but I still moved in the right direction. Here are some stats:

Number of days I meditated: 27/31

Yoga workouts completed: 23/30

Number of days I journaled/practiced gratitude: 19/31

Hours spent writing my novel: 20/20

Books read: 4

Times I ordered delivery/ate a meal that could be microwaved: 0

The most important lesson I learned this month is that perfection really is the enemy of progress. In the past, if I was on a streak and missed a day, I’d just write off the whole rest of the month. For the first 15 days of my yoga challenge, I didn’t miss a single day. When I did end up missing a few days, I wasn’t too hard on myself, and that made it much easier to come back to it. Instead of trying to be perfect, a better goal is to just do the best you can. Sure 100% is amazing, but 70, 80, 90% is still amazing! In fact, pretty much anything other than 0 is great.

Out of all my goals, I’m most proud of how much healthier I’ve been eating. Ordering food is so easy and tempting when you live in a big city, but I started learning how to cook (better late than never!) and I’ve really enjoyed taking the time to prepare my own meals, looking up new recipes to make, and eating foods that are both good for me and actually taste good. Since I started cooking, I honestly haven’t felt as much of a temptation to order out. (To illustrate how big of an accomplishment this is for me, when I told my friends I was going to try not eating fast food for a whole year, they actually laughed out loud).

If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll know that I started doing stoic adventures this year. I’d originally planned on doing one each week, but honestly I’ve kind of struggled to come up with ideas, especially with the pandemic going on, limiting how much I can do outside of my apartment. I’m still going to aim to do a few each month though. Here are some updates on my stoic adventures so far:

Stoic Adventure #1 Update: 30-Day Yoga Challenge:

I definitely hit the ground running with this one. For the first 15 days, I didn’t skip a single workout, even on days I really wanted to. A big part of my motivation had to do with using the WOOP technique. Tracking my progress after each workout in my WOOP app was so satisfying.

I’ve never been the most active person. I’m about as flexible as C-3PO, and I’ve only gone to a handful of yoga classes in my life. It goes without saying the first few weeks weren’t the easiest. Downward dog, which is apparently supposed to be a relaxing pose (ha!), was the bane of my existence. Every part of me ached after each workout. But about halfway through I felt myself get a little stronger. I wasn’t as sore as I was in the first few days, and I was sure I’d hit a turning point. It was all going to be uphill from here! Wrong. My arms and shoulders ached, I’m pretty sure I strained a muscle in my chest, and I was scared I was going to do some permanent damage to my wrists.

Since I hadn’t had any rest days yet, I decided to take time off to let my body recover. During this time, I researched the proper technique for yoga poses and found ways to take the strain off my wrists and shoulders. After my break, I felt much better. I was a little concerned that I’d be back at square one, but surprisingly I made even more progress than I had up until that point. I found myself actually enjoying downward dog and, for the first time, I could bend down and reach all the way to my toes!

I want to continue doing yoga and improving my flexibility, though I’d like to mix it up with some cardio and strength training going forward. Yoga with Adrienne is such a great resource for those looking to get into yoga, and Adrienne has such a calming presence. The one thing I would do differently going forward is take more regular rest days. Even once or twice a week would have allowed me enough recovery time to avoid taking as long of a break as I did, and rest days are important for avoiding injury. Overall, I completed 23/30 days. Not perfect, but still pretty good!

Stoic Adventure #2 Update: Applying for a Writing Mentorship:

Unfortunately, I don’t have an update on this one yet, because the results haven’t been announced yet. I’ll know this Wednesday!

I was still determined to make progress on my writing, regardless of the outcome, so I set myself a goal of writing 20 hours in January. I took a break the first half of the month after completing my last revision, but I ended up writing about two hours a day when I got back into the swing of things. Getting into the program would be amazing, but even if I don’t, I’m in a great place with my writing.

I’ll have more updates for you on this one later this week!

So that’s January all wrapped up. I’ll be carrying a lot of the same goals into the next month. Some I’ll be adjusting, and some I’ll use the lessons from this month to improve my progress in February. It’s importantly to continually take stock of and adjust your goals as things change. For example, one of my resolutions was to read 100 books this year. If I were to set my mind to it, I’m sure I could do it, but I also realized that trying to read that much was taking away too much time from my writing, which is a bigger priority to me in 2021. I’ve set my new goal to 50 books. That’s still a lot of books, but it’s a much more reasonable goal given what I want to accomplish this year.

Now, on to February!

Be a Target, Not a Victim

I had an unexpected moment of weakness today. I was going about my day, watching YouTube videos about getting rust stains off stainless steel pans (adulthood is so exciting), when I was struck with this sudden urge to FB stalk my ex. In the two months since things ended between us, I haven’t once been tempted to poke around his social media, but I just felt this random longing to see what was going on in his life. Luckily, he’s never been the most active person online, so there wasn’t anything new for me to obsess over or pick apart, but just seeing him again stirred a distant sadness inside me.

I had been doing so well with not thinking about him. There had been weeks where I was so occupied with other stuff in my life that he barely registered in my mind. But somehow, I got so over my hurt and sadness, that I actually circled back to only remembering the good times with him and then missing him again. Thanks for nothing, brain!

When I saw his pictures today, I admit I got little misty-eyed. I started to feel sorry for myself, and then I had a realization that I’ve kind of known all along. I like feeling sorry for myself.

It’s not something I’m proud of, but it’s something I have to acknowledge and accept. Letting myself wallow in all the bad things that happen to me is a guilty pleasure, almost an addiction. On my first date with my ex, I remember telling him about the person I dated before him even though that’s a big no-no. I told him about how the way he ended things hurt me and how I didn’t want to go through that again. I justified my first date faux pas by looking at it as a way of protecting myself.

Then I kept bringing him up even after the first date. I would tell him how the other guy was never very affectionate or how he would be cold when I tried to have important talks with him, deliberately leaving out any mistakes I made in these situations. I will admit, I wanted him to feel bad for me, I wanted him to acknowledge the hurt even though he wasn’t the one who caused it. I wanted to believe I wasn’t responsible for any of the things that happened to me, that I was just a victim of circumstances.

But I wasn’t a victim at all. I’d had plenty of autonomy the whole time. I could have chosen to walk away from the situation sooner rather than continue to invest my time and emotions and hope things would change. I could have dated other people. I could have told him exactly what I wanted from the get-go and asked him what he wanted to make sure we were on the same page.

In his book about modern stoicism, William B. Irvine talks about the concept of being a target vs a victim. Everyone will experience bad circumstances outside of their control at some point in their lives. At that point, they can choose to be a victim and wallow, asking themself “why me?” They can continue to feel powerless and move through life believing their happiness is out of control. OR they can be a target, and accept that this thing happened to them and realize that while they don’t have power over the circumstance, they have power over their thoughts and actions. Targets tend to bounce back from hardships faster, because they know they can play an active role in shaping their happiness.

In my life, the area where I tend to wallow the most is dating. It’s easier to feel sorry for myself when I can’t find someone to connect with rather than take responsibility. Obviously I can’t control anyone’s feelings towards me, but I can control my thoughts and actions. I can put myself out there more, I can work up the courage to strike up a conversation with a cute guy or join activities where I’m more likely to meet people. I can choose to love myself and accept that not everyone is going to be into me and their opinions shouldn’t dictate my self-worth. Putting the burden of responsibility back on myself means I only have myself to blame, which is a scary thing, but it also means I have all the power.

When you’ve spent as much time throwing pity parties for yourself as I have, it can be a challenge to make this shift in your mind. I still struggle with it, like I did today, but I also catch myself a lot faster. Instead of breaking out into a full on ugly cry into my Ben & Jerry’s, I just made myself lunch, put on some good TV, and moved on. Because here’s the thing about feeling sorry for yourself: It’s completely pointless.

It accomplishes nothing and only makes you feel worse about your situation. So the next time you feel inclined to feel sorry for yourself, do literally anything else instead. Dance around to your favorite music, treat yourself to something sweet, or throw on that outfit that makes you feel like an absolute goddess. And remind yourself: you’re the only person who gets to control your happiness. Don’t give that power to anyone else.

20 Lessons I Learned in 2020

How does one possibly sum up the year that was 2020? I can honestly say this was the most difficult, emotional, chaotic year ever, and it was also the year I learned some of the most important lessons of my life. So without further ado…

On Life:

Your life isn’t going to begin when you accomplish x or obtain y. Life started the day you were born, and it’s happening right now! It’s also never going to look exactly how you imagined. Don’t let the arbitrary deadlines we as a society set for ourselves freak you out. Being a single woman in your 30s doesn’t mean you’re an old maid. You still have so much life ahead of you, so go out and dance and kiss strangers in the rain and spend all your money on avocado toast and all that other stuff that’s supposedly reserved for younger folks.

Fail early and often. Don’t let a fear of failure stop you from trying at all, because it’s through failing that we get to a better place. As an aspiring writer, I know better than anyone how easy it is to procrastinate. I put off writing a first draft because I worry it will be terrible, but so what? It’s going to be terrible whether I write it today or one year from now. If I write it today, I’ll have an extra year to polish it and work on my craft and turn that terrible first draft into something amazing.

Don’t let other people dictate your life. Friends and family can offer helpful advice, but at the end of the day it’s about doing what’s right for you, not them. You’re the one who’s going to have to live with the decisions you make, so make sure they’re the right ones for you.

Letting go of where you are now is scary, but it’s the only way to get to a better place. Leaving a job I didn’t enjoy was the only way I could get hired at a company I love. Leaving behind a bad dating situation is the only way to make space in my life for a much healthier, loving relationship.

Life is so much more fun when you let go of expectations. That doesn’t mean not having standards for yourself or other people. That simply means going into situations without having preconceived notions of what it’s supposed to look like. Let life surprise you. Being pleasantly surprised is a lot more enjoyable than being constantly disappointed.

On Dating:

Judge someone by what they do and not what they say. I spent plenty of time with sweet-talkers, who’d call me baby and hon, tell me I was beautiful, tell me how much they missed me, and then one day, dump me like a bag of hot potatoes. If someone isn’t putting in real effort—that means asking you out on dates, making time for you in their schedule, going out of their way to show you they care—they’re not worth your time.

It’s not going to work out with most of the people you date, and that’s okay. The odds are that the majority of first dates you go on aren’t going to lead to relationships, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy yourself. Pick an activity you’ve always wanted to do, eat out at a restaurant you’ve been dying to try, have fun getting dolled up, practice your flirting skills, enjoy learning about someone else’s life, and if all else fails, think of the great story it’ll make one day.

If someone really likes you, you won’t ever wonder if they do. And here’s a bonus lesson: listen to your gut. Deep down, we often know the truth, but we’ll go through a bunch of mental gymnastics to convince ourselves otherwise. You can ignore it for as long as you like, but sooner or later reality’s going to catch up to you, and the longer you wait, the harder it’s going to hit you.

Have your own life. You shouldn’t be sitting around hoping your crush will ask to see you. For starters, this just sets you up for disappointment if they don’t. It also just makes you not a very interesting person. Think about it this way: would you want to date the person who spent the last week watching Netflix and waiting for you to call or the person who went to the museum, learned how to cook duck à l’orange, dominated their friends at board game night, and took a trapeze class?

Have standards, and communicate them often. A relationship only works if both people are getting what they need out of it. When you really like someone, all you want to do is make them happy, and that makes you willing to sacrifice your standards. Don’t. Ever. Do. This. I can’t emphasize enough how important this is. Sure, it might scare off some guys, but you don’t want those kind of guys in your life in the first place. The ones who stick around will be the ones who respect you and will connect with you on a much deeper level. Believe it or not, having standards actually makes you more desirable, so if you don’t have some, get some!

On Happiness:

Have a life philosophy. That means knowing how you’re going to deal with setbacks, what’s going to make you happy, and how you’re going to live your life. Since I learned about Stoicism this year, it’s become my go-to philosophy, and I no longer feel like I’m just wandering aimlessly through my life.

Some of the most powerful tools for happiness are 100% free. Since I started regularly meditating and journaling this year, my stress levels have dropped considerably. I’ve gotten much better at not ruminating on negative thoughts, and I’m learning to be more present in each moment which leads me to my next point…

Forget the past and future, the present is where it’s at. You have no control over the past because it isn’t actually real, all you have are memories of it (mind-blowing, I know!). The future obviously hasn’t happened yet but the present…oh, the present is a beautiful place. You have the power to shape it exactly how you want, to make it as enjoyable or as horrible as you’d like. Right now I’m at home visiting my parents. I could spend my time moping in bed thinking about all the things that went wrong this year or I could spend it watching a good movie with my dad, cooking with my mom, laughing and having fun. The present is amazing, so enjoy it, appreciate it, and stop trying to live somewhere else.

The quality of our social connections is the #1 thing that determines our happiness. Money, status, flashy cars…all that stuff means nothing if you don’t have good people in your life. Go out there and meet people who are interested in the same stuff as you, strengthen your relationships with the friends and family you already have, and prioritize experiences with the people you love over material goods.

Don’t let anyone make you feel bad about putting yourself first. Self-care isn’t selfish, it’s a priority. Ever hear the phrase, “You can’t pour from an empty cup?” Being our best possible selves also means we can show up for the people in our lives in the best possible way. So go ahead and draw yourself a bubble bath, pour yourself some wine, and get your hygge on.

Be grateful. It’s human nature to focus on the negative over the positive (those pesky evolutionary traits), but I’m willing to bet there’s a lot in your life worth appreciating. Nobody loves you? Your friends and family beg to differ. You’ve accomplished nothing in your life? Younger you disagrees! Practice gratitude as often as you can, even for the things you take for granted, like the home you live in, the food you eat, the fresh air you get to breathe. It’ll change your whole perspective.

Happiness is not something you need to chase. I can’t speak for those with depression or other extenuating circumstances, but for a lot of us, we already have everything we need at our disposal. Psychology shows that most of the tools for happiness are pretty simple: meditation, gratitude, exercise, sleep, and social connections to name a few.

On Self-Worth:

Rejection is rarely personal and is by no means a reflection of who you are as a person. Getting passed over for a job doesn’t mean you’re not good at what you do, getting dumped doesn’t mean you’re not desirable. You never know what experiences and ideas have shaped another person’s perspective of you and the sooner you realize that, the sooner you can brush it off and find people who will appreciate what you have to offer.

Be kind to yourself. I can guarantee you will make mistakes and bad decisions. You’ll do things you’ll still regret years down the road. You’re not the only one. You can’t judge yourself on the mistakes you made in the past with the knowledge and experience you have in the present. Besides, those mistakes are the very things that helped you grow and become a better person.

And finally:

It’s never too late to build the life you want. It doesn’t matter if you’re 16 or 60, don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re out of time. Maybe you’re older than you would have liked to be when making a change, but you’re younger than you will be five years from now and that version of you is going to think you’re a dummy if you don’t take action. And guess what! You don’t have to wait for a new year to start over. You can start over as many times as you like—every month, every day, every hour, even right now.

The Power of Negative Thinking

As a new year rapidly approaches (thank god), most of us are sitting at home thinking about everything we want to accomplish in 2021. That’s the magic of a new year—something about the moment that second hand ticks to midnight convinces us that this is it, our chance to finally make all our dreams come true. We fantasize about the promotions we’ll get, the whirlwind romances in our future, our svelte new physiques. Never mind that we had similar hopes in the past only for our motivation to fizzle out by March. This year will be different.

Well, it can be, and that’s where WOOP comes in. WOOP stands for Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan. It’s also known as Mental Contrasting with Implementation Intentions (MCII), and psychologist Gabriele Oettingen spent over 20 years researching it (fun fact: she’s also a real-life princess…how badass is that?). You can read all about her work in her book, Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside The New Science Of Motivation.

The idea behind WOOP is that positive thinking alone isn’t enough to help you achieve a goal to completion. Sure, pinning a bunch of inspiring Pinterest quotes to your mood board can help, but it’s only one step of the journey, and too much of that daydreaming can actually hinder you from reaching your goal. Studies have shown, “Those who have stronger, more positive fantasies about reaching their goals are actually less likely to achieve them.”

There are a lot of great reasons to try WOOP. According to the official website, WOOP can help you improve your health, social behavior, and academic performance. It can even help you overcome past disappointments, resentments, and other negative feelings. The best part? It’s absolutely free, and anyone can do it anywhere, anytime.

So how do you actually do WOOP? It’s very easy and only takes 5-10 minutes. Start by finding a quiet place where you won’t be interrupted. Make sure you are calm and relaxed. Then, follow these steps:

Set a timeframe for your goal. You don’t have to set one if you don’t wish, but it can be anywhere from a day to much longer.
Think about the next month (or whatever timeframe you chose). Pick a wish that will be challenging, but you can fulfill. In 3-6 words, write down this wish.
Think about the best possible outcome and how fulfilling that wish would make you feel. In 3-6 words, write down your best outcome.
Now take a few moments to imagine the outcome. Lose yourself in your daydream and the positive feelings that’ll accompany accomplishing that goal.
Identify your main inner obstacle to achieving that wish. What within you might hold you back? Fear? Laziness? In 3-6 words, write down your main obstacle.
Take a few moments to imagine your obstacle. Lose yourself, just as you did in your daydream. Allow yourself to fully feel the frustrations and negative feelings.
Make an if-then plan. Come up with an action you can take or a thought you can think to overcome your main obstacle. Your plan should follow this format: If (obstacle happens), then (I will do this). For example, your if-then plan could be: If (I feel too lazy to workout), then (I will change into my gym clothes).
Write down your if-then plan and slowly repeat it to yourself a few times.

And that’s it, you just completed your first WOOP! What’s great about WOOP is that you can use it in every part of your life, from your career to your health to your relationships. You can do it as often as you need or whenever your goals change. I recommend checking out the official website linked above, which includes lots of interesting research and useful resources, including a free app that lets you track your progress towards your goals.

Too often we get lost in our fantasies, making great progress towards our goals until we encounter our first obstacle and find ourselves faltering. The great thing about WOOP is that it accounts for those obstacles, which are often inevitable, and arms us with a plan for overcoming them.

I plan on using WOOP often in 2021 to help me reach my goals. If you decide to give it a try, be sure to let me know how it worked for you. Here’s hoping all that negative thinking leads to a whole lot of positive outcomes in the new year!

Rewiring Your Brain

In Christine Hassler’s book Expectation Hangover, the author explains:

Repetitive thoughts form what are called neural nets in our brain, which are clusters of chemically connected or functionally associated neurons. What that means is that if you think the same thought or type of thought over and over, it forms an actual physical cluster of neurons in your brain. Over time these neural nets create “grooves” in your brain that your thoughts gravitate toward. For instance, if you repeatedly think, “I’m not good enough,” you create a neural net around that limiting pattern of thought. Once the neural net is formed, it becomes habitual to think in the direction of “I’m not good enough.” Thus you will tend to see things that occur in your life through the lens of “I’m not good enough.

This idea of neural nets fascinated me, and it also offered me great comfort. If the brain can be trained to think negative thoughts, that means it can also be trained to do the opposite.

In fact, the author went on to make this very point, revealing a technique called self-directed neuroplasticity. There are a few ways you can rewire the brain, and it starts by imagining your runaway thoughts as a wild horse. It’s much easier to control this horse when you’re riding it and maneuvering the reins. One way of getting the horse/your thoughts under control is by saying “whoa” to yourself whenever you feel your mind drifting into territory you don’t want it go. This helps you bring yourself back to the present moment. Another similar technique is carrying a childhood picture of yourself in your wallet or on your phone. Anytime you feel negative thoughts starting to rise up, pull up that picture and imagine saying those negative things to the little boy or girl staring back at you. It’s much harder to be mean to sweet baby you with those big eyes and chubby cheeks, isn’t it?

It’s important to rein in these harmful ideas, because what you think about yourself sets the course for your life. I spent many years thinking I wasn’t good enough and dealing with a total lack of self-confidence. I thought I was lucky to receive any attention from men, so I chose people who were unavailable—men who had just gotten out of serious relationships or who lived all the way across the country. When they rejected me, it only served to validate my beliefs. Now that I’ve learned to love myself more and reject these ideas, I added a note to my dating profile making it clear that I’m not looking up for hookups or casual dating but to connect with someone in a meaningful way in the hopes of it leading to a long-term relationship. I plan on asking dates about their intentions early on, communicating my wants and needs often, and not investing in people before they invest in me. I imagine my dating experience will be much different this time around.

After learning about this bit of neuroscience, I’m not as surprised to find myself constantly trapped in negative thought cycles. I always thought there wasn’t much harm in lingering in these thoughts, but now I know better. Now I’m determined to rewire my brain so positive thinking becomes more natural to me.

I know my life isn’t a movie or anything, but this morning I woke up to gloomy, downcast weather. Rather than letting it get me down, I tried thinking about how thankful I was to be alive, to exist in this world, to have this rainy weather so I could appreciate the coziness of my apartment. And I kid you not, just like that the sky cleared up.

Okay, it wasn’t an instant thing or anything but it was supposed to rain all day, and instead the sun came out and shone brighter than it had in weeks. I don’t usually believe in signs, but in the interest of being a more positive thinker, I’m interpreting this one as a sign that I’m headed in the right direction.

Round and Round My Thoughts Go

You know what sucks the most after you stop seeing someone? You’ll be perfectly fine, and then you’ll see the most random thing that triggers a memory. Oh, there’s that restaurant we went to once. Look, it’s that movie we watched together on Netflix. There’s my couch that we used to sit on together.

Okay, that last one’s a stretch, but you get where I’m going with this. When I go through a hard time in my life, I tend to pick it apart like I’m picking at a newly-healed wound. It’s painful and messy, and logically I know I should stop if I know what’s good for me, but no. I’m going to keep digging my nail in there until I’m bleeding again and I have to start the healing process all over again.

That’s what it feels like when I’m plagued by negative thoughts. If they were new thoughts or served me in some way, I would accept them. You can’t ignore painful feelings, accepting and working through them is healthy. What isn’t healthy is having the same few thoughts circle around your brain over and over and over again, like vultures.

I’ve since learned there’s a word for this: rumination. I always just assumed everyone experienced this, but I’ve talked to people in my life after having hard conversations and they might spend a day or two thinking about something and then they’ll move on. When my previous relationship ended last year, the guy I’d been dating broke up with me over a phone call that lasted less than a minute. I replayed that phone call in my head for the next week. I heard it in my head while watching TV, while working, while spending time with other people. The only thing that broke the cycle was meeting up with him in person, so I could say all the things I felt like I didn’t get to say.

That’s what’s really at the root of all my negative thoughts. All these words and actions that have no outlet so they just sit stagnating in my mind and making me feel like I’m going a bit mad.

It’s still something I struggle with, but I’ve since learned some techniques that help me cope with them. Journaling is a huge help. If you can’t say what you need to say to someone, you can at least get the words out of your brain and onto paper. When I’m working through something, I’ll sometimes write pages and pages in a single day. It’s a lot easier to untangle a problem, when you can actually see what you’re working with.

The other practice that has made a huge change in my life is meditation. I’m still very much a novice in this area. I started by listening to guided meditations on YouTube, before deciding to try out a paid subscription of the Calm app. I’m not the greatest at sticking to things, but I’ve been pretty good about doing my daily guided meditations for the last few months. I’m also convinced that Tamara Levitt has the most soothing voice on the planet.

Today, I tried doing my longest meditation yet. I sat for a full 30 minutes, listening to my app’s nature noises and a bell that rang every minute to keep me focused. Of course, I live in New York, so I also had the wonderful noises of construction, honking horns, loudly-conversing passerby, and slamming doors to contend with, but I just thought of it as ambient background music.

I definitely didn’t do a perfect job, but after, my mind felt like it had slowed down a bit. When intrusive thoughts tried to push their way into my brain, I gently shoved them right back out. It didn’t matter how many times it happened, the important thing was I didn’t give myself time to dwell on these thoughts.

My hope is that with continued meditation practice, there will be fewer intrusive thoughts each day and I can finally stop focusing on everything but the present. I can’t change the past or predict what will happen in the future, but I have the power to shape my present. I’ve realized lately that the present is the only place where true happiness is found.

It’s a lot of work—and sometimes it feels impossible—but it’s also worth it, because those moments where my brain finally quiets down? It feels like a long-needed rest, and it’s pure bliss.

The Wisdom of the Stoics

Lately, I’ve been thinking about setbacks. In yesterday’s post, I shared a list of setbacks I encountered throughout the year. I’d like to share that list again, but this time with updates or actions I’m taking to overcome them.

-My mom fell and broke her wrist and elbow. Update: she texted me today to tell me she got the all-clear from the doctor and she’s fully healed.

-My uncle went into a coma. Update: he continues to show signs of progress every day.

-At 29 years old, I was diagnosed with a diminished ovarian reserve. Update: I decided to freeze my eggs and have been reading up on all the latest research and making lifestyle changes to increase my odds of success.

-The person I’ve been dating for the last 14 months ended things with me. Update: I’ve already started putting myself out there again and have a few dates lined up.

Not everything is where I want it to be, but having a plan and taking action instead of sitting on my couch and wallowing in my own sadness brings me a lot more happiness than doing nothing. Even if I haven’t reached all my goals, I’m at least moving forward and that’s what’s important.

I listened to an episode of The Happiness Lab yesterday, where the guest was Professor William B. Irvine, the author of The Stoic Challenge. After listening to the podcast, I immediately checked out the book and devoured the whole thing in one sitting.

The Stoics were a group of ancient philosophers, who came up with a way of dealing with setbacks in a way that minimizes negatives emotions. At the core of this strategy are two important techniques: anchoring and framing.

Anchoring involves practicing negative visualization to better appreciate your life. For example, this morning I took a few seconds to visualize going to take a shower and having no running water. I visualized being thirsty and going to take a drink of water, only to find the faucet running dry. Even though I only spent a few seconds doing this exercise, you better believe I was more grateful to step into my warm shower that morning and take my first sip of water of the day.

Framing involves casting your situation in a different context. There are a few different frames you can use. One might be humor, so instead of getting angry about a setback, you can find a way to laugh about it. Another is storytelling, which means you go through the situation thinking about how you will tell the story later, but to have a good story you have to come up with a better resolution than just stomping your feet and getting angry, because that’s not a very good story at all.

My favorite framing technique, however, is pretending you’re being tested by the imaginary Stoic Gods. Whenever an obstacle presents itself in your life, pretend it’s these mischievous beings meddling in your life. They’re testing you with this obstacle because they think you’re capable of handling it (so really, you should be flattered) and also to help make you even stronger and more resilient. Afterwards, you can grade yourself on how well you reacted emotionally and the efficiency of your solution to the problem.

I tried practicing this technique when I had a very minor setback today. Someone I’d had a good conversation with on a dating app and planned to meet up with suddenly unmatched with me (welcome to the world of online dating!) I got a little upset, before I remembered the wisdom of the ancient philosophers. I laughed and thought to myself, good one, Stoic Gods!

Admittedly, I did wallow for a few minutes before I enacted the technique, but I imagine with more practice it’ll become more of a habit.

The thing about setbacks in life is that they’re unavoidable. They’re also costly. They can cost us our time, our money, our health, our relationships, among other things. But when I think back to some of my biggest setbacks, I realized that what followed was always better. When I got laid off from my last job, I got hired at a company I liked more where I got a significant pay raise and was happier overall. After my last relationship ended, I met someone I connected with more and who dating helped me grow considerably as a person. I mean, isn’t that what happens when you go through hard times? Good times almost always follow.

The most important change I’ve had to my mindset recently is that you won’t be magically happier after accomplishing x, y, and z. You might be happier for a time, but then there will be more obstacles and setbacks. Good times and bad times go hand in hand, and it’s the bad times that make you really appreciate how great the good times are. But that doesn’t mean you can’t use the wisdom of the Stoics to make the bad times feel a lot less bad.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Stoic philosophy, I highly recommend checking out The Stoic Challenge.

And if you’re going through a hard time right now: good luck, and don’t let those Stoic Gods get the best of you!

Finding Happy

So I think we can all agree that 2020 has been A YEAR. Besides all the general yuckiness of the last twelve months, here are some other things that happened in my life:

-My mom fell and broke her wrist and elbow

-My uncle went into a coma

-At 29 years old, I was diagnosed with a diminished ovarian reserve

-The person I’ve been dating for the last 14 months ended things with me

That last one happened about three days ago, and you know what? I feel fine.

Don’t get me wrong, I was definitely disappointed. I cried when he came over to talk, I cried on the phone to my friend for an hour after, but by the time I hung up I felt mostly okay.

That’s not because I didn’t care about him or I didn’t want to be with him. I did, and wanting to be with him had been one of my greatest desires for the last year. To give you a little context, we met three weeks after I just had stopped seeing someone else. I lived in New York and he lived in San Francisco. We met up and I was smitten from the start. We ended up spending the whole day together and then he flew back home. We stayed in touch, texting and occasionally talking on the phone. I saw him two more times over the next ten months when he came to visit the city, and then he finally moved here. I was so certain everything was going to fall in place when we were in the same city, but it just never worked. He was always busy with work or other obligations, we discovered we weren’t on the same page with our intentions, we didn’t communicate our needs often enough.

When he came over for The Talk, I wasn’t exactly surprised. I’d hoped I would be wrong, but things more or less ended the way I’d expected. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the things I should have done differently, the things I could have done if only we had more time together.

When my last relationship ended, I fell into an unexpected depression. I didn’t get any sleep, negative thoughts cycled through my head all day and night, I didn’t have an appetite or motivation to do the things I loved. My family got so concerned they encouraged me to sign up for virtual therapy.

For a long time, the fear of falling into that depression again was the main reason I didn’t end things, even when I started to think that maybe I should. I cared about him and I wanted to be with him, but I spent a lot of time unhappy.

I recently started reading Expectation Hangover by Christine Hassler, and it made me realize that it wasn’t the circumstances or the other person who’d caused my unhappiness. It had been my own expectations.

During our talk, he said to me, “we’ve only hung out a few times over several months and there’d be weeks we didn’t even talk to each other or know what was going on in each other’s lives.” That just sounded all wrong to me, until I took off the rose-colored glasses and realized, it was true, we hadn’t spent much time together at all. I had dedicated so much of my mental space towards my expectations—imagining what a relationship together would be like, introducing him to friends and family—that he’d been this constant presence in my head every day for 14 months. Meanwhile, he’d been focusing on his work, his friends and family, hobbies, dating other people. He had a whole and fulfilling life outside the two of us, something I had neglected because I’d unfairly pinned all my hopes for happiness on him.

Luckily, a few months earlier, I started taking active steps towards focusing on my own happiness. I started meditating, practicing gratitude, took Dr. Laurie Santos’ online course on happiness, started listening to podcasts like The Happiness Lab and Hidden Brain, that focus on the psychology of happiness, and because of those things, I didn’t fall into a deep depression this week.

In the past, a disappointment like this would have devastated me, but here I am. Still full of hope, going through my regular routine, and able to find the joy in the everyday.

The experience opened my eyes to how much our happiness comes from within. In my previous entries, I documented my progress towards goals that I thought would bring me happiness, but if this year has taught me anything, it’s that happiness isn’t something to chase, but a thing that’s there all along if we can open our eyes to it.

As I learn more about happiness and the psychology behind it, I find myself wanting to share my experiences and lessons with others, so that’s what the main focus of this blog will be going forward. I hope you’ll join me on this journey and that together we can all learn how to be a little bit happier.