Tag: mental health

When in Doubt, Wear Black

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In the last two weeks I had the pleasure of getting to reconnect with two best friends after spending so much time apart and with limited communication due to our crazy schedules. One week apart and in two different cities, I had the best time catching up with them, reminiscing over past adventures and of course, making new memories.

Yet even still, both of them at one point asked me the exact same question that caught me off-guard and left me nervously chuckling as I changed the subject :

“Are you still blogging?”

You need only scroll down a bit to see that the last post I wrote and shared here was back in April.  Truth is at the time I was knee-deep in work for multiple projects and only just getting my footing at my new full-time role that I had started barely 3-weeks before I wrote that post on sustainability and plus size fashion.

I told myself that once those projects were done and I felt better situated in my new role, I would get back to work on my stuff, however, once that time came (which was in early June) I found myself uninspired to doing much of anything.  I was burnt out.
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Rejected but Winning?

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Late last year I was presented with an opportunity that I was beyond just excited about. There was a long screening process that just ended  this spring. I managed to succeed at every round and I was so sure that this project was mine that I even shared my excitement with my mentor as well as my best friend. Rejection was the last thing on my mind so when I received the news that I wasn’t selected, I was devastated.

With my confidence shattered, I tried to distract myself with my next side hustle project only to find myself constantly wondering why I should still bother. I found myself unmotivated to work on anything outside of my day-job and let everything else kind of fall to the wayside. It became increasingly obvious that a change was necessary and that’s when I started to re-read a text I’ve been meaning to bring up on the blog for a while – “Win or Learn” by Harlan Cohen. To be honest when I first got it I didn’t expect to actually need it so soon, nevertheless, it has been a game changer.

Here are 4 major takeaways I got from this book that may help inspire if you too are dealing with rejection (of any kind) at the moment.

Disclaimer: Book was gifted for review, but opinions are my own.

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Mental Health in the Time of COVID-19

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As someone who has dealt with homeless twice before already, the very thought of unemployment has always been a major anxiety trigger for me. So I’ve become the kind of person that needs to have some sense of financial stability and control in order to hold my fears and anxiety in check. Financially, I am in a better place than how things were with my family back when I was a kid, however, like most people I know living in NYC, I still live paycheck to paycheck, which isn’t the most stress-reducing situation. Just missing one paycheck results in a financial setback that will take months to recover from.

So when I got the news in April that I was furloughed, I broke down and had one of the worst panic attacks ever. My mother, who is getting through lockdown along with me, didn’t know how to help but she tried her best to calm me down, embracing me until I stopped crying, shaking and hyperventilating. (My mother has never experienced me having a panic or anxiety attack firsthand and I know this scared her but I appreciate that this is how she chose to handle the situation in that moment because I managed to recover much faster than I would have otherwise.) I was unconsolable for days. I was angry at all those “we’re in this together” messages circulating everywhere. Yes, we’re facing the same storm that is COVID-19, BUT we’re all experiencing different journeys because we’re on different ships. Some of us aren’t even on ships at all, just doing the best with our inflatable life raft, if that.

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‘Tis the Season to… Manage Holiday Anxiety

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Its no secret that once October rolls around I get on a holiday high. Yes, Halloween marks the start of the holiday season for me. Call me weird if you must, haha. Typically the holiday season for me is spent cleaning, reorganizing, shopping and decorating with some commitments with friends and family sprinkled into my already busy work schedule. It’s a lot! So you can see why I honestly I roll my eyes when I see articles about “How to Have a Stress and Anxiety-free Holiday” that are published once the season begins because realistically there really is no such thing. The best thing you can do is manage it so it doesn’t affect you as much. Which is why I decided to take some time to share 5 tips for managing holiday anxiety. I hope that it is helpful to those who may be struggling like I am right now.

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Quellie and Lena Try…Aqua Zumba

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So here’s a bit of a little known fact about me for you all: I tend to stay away from doing much exercise in the fall and winter. Why? Well I know the reason may seem superficial to many people but it is because of my hair.  When the temperature starts to dip below 60 degrees I make a point to straighten my hair, be it with a roller-set or using my Instyler. As much as I love my natural curls, I started this cycle back in college as I found that having my hair straight in the fall and winter just made it easier to manage. While the overall time it takes to get my hair from curly to straight is not as bad as my curly routine, it is a lot of work that can easily be for naught if I so much as perspire a bit or let some water, like rain or snow, touch it.

Thus any strenuous physical activities, like exercising, are regulated to the warmer months in spring and summer when I go back to my natural curly hair routine. But even then gymtimidation keeps me away from  and using arm and leg weights while playing DDR at home can get pretty boring after a while. Which leads me to this post.At the start of the summer I did some research to find some out-of-the-box exercise classes preferably in water because let’s face it, summers in NYC are the worst. Thanks to Google I found out about Aqua Zumba. As someone who used to go to Zumba classes (on land) twice a week, I found the concept interesting so I mentioned the idea of giving this a try to Jonquel of Jonqel Art as well as to two co-worker friends of ours that have built in gym days to their weekly schedules. They all immediately jumped at the idea and we bought our first time passes for the following week. Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post. All opinions are my own.

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