love yo' self

hey lovelies,

You know what absolutely sucks? Feeling like you suck. 

*Disclaimer, you don't*

This week has been such a roller-coaster for me. One day I feel like I'm on top of the world, that the endless supply of love that there is in the universe is held right in my heart. The next day, or even sometimes an hour after I feel all that love, I'll feel so empty, like I'll never feel love again. It makes zero sense. And that's because feeling bad about yourself doesn't. It's bullshit. We just shouldn't do it. But we all know if it was that easy, anxiety wouldn't be a thing.

If you struggle with this, my advice to you (and myself) is this: Do the things you love. 

I know that sounds kind of basic and cliche, but it works wonders. Today, I was texting one of my good friends about my not so good day. I told them I would get out of my anxiety even though today it was killer (speak it into existence, amiright). They liked my optimism, and asked me how I usually get out of these moods, and what helps me feel better. Instead of saying my usual yoga, meditation, positive self talk script that I give to myself and others all the time, I actually thought about it. Not that yoga and meditation and being nice to yourself aren't good for you, they're great, but they usually work for me when I'm not already in a funk. What does get me out of my funk is dancing, singing, blasting my jams, and painting. Like all at once. I've never been upset when I was creating something, it's a surefire way for me to get out of my head and live in the moment. So far, anyways. 

If there's something you love doing, that brings your vibe up whenever you do it, go out there and do it! Unless it's hard drugs or something, don't do that. That's not the kind of high we're striving for here. If you love bike riding, god damn it grab that bike! Or cooking, writing, doing nice things for the people you love. Whatever it is that makes your soul happy, go after it. Especially if you have a bunch of responsibilities to take care of. I find that I can't focus on anything if my mind won't stop hurling insults at me. Taking a break can, and probably will, make you more productive.

Anyways, I hope you all have a beautiful day! Feel good about yourself, you are literally made out of stardust. And, as a reminder, taking care of yourself is not selfish, but self-less. We are our best selves to others when we are to ourselves. 

peace and happiness,

ashley 

Social Anxiety, Get Outta Here

Hey lovelies,

This week I wanted to write about something I have struggled with for most of my life, something I feel most of us have felt at one point of our lives. Social anxiety.

In college, we are constantly surrounded by people. Waking up, there's your roommate, sleeping across from you. Going to brush your teeth, there's your friend from across the hall. Going to get dinner, people from all five of your classes. There. Are. People. Everywhere.

Not that seeing friends or acquaintances often is a bad thing, sometimes you just need a break. In college, there never seems to be time for breaks. The cycle of conversations seems to be never-ending.

With this post, I'll share techniques that have proved helpful for me with my social anxiety. Hopefully some, if not all, of these are helpful for you!

DISCLAIMER: This post will probably make me seem like I am this huge ball of anxiety, which is absolutely NOT true (most of the time, anyways lol)

For what seems like my whole life, I’ve struggled with anxiety, both in social settings and in a more general sense. There’s been times where it got worse or better, but in some capacity it has always been there. When I’m having one of my bad days, I get in my head over everything I say or do. I tell myself I’m not good enough, that my friends don’t love me, that I’m weird and just shouldn’t talk. None of those things are true, but telling myself that doesn’t help my anxiety lessen. Trying to rationalize anxiety is a very irrational thing to do, because anxiety is not rational in nature. To fight my anxiety, doing things that nourish my body and spirit really helps me.

While I'm in a social situation that is taxing to me, I do deep breathing (nonchalantly, in a way people can't tell). Slowing down my breathing helps calm my body and mind and is a simple easy way to calm down any jitters you may have.

Essential Oils have been SUPER helpful for me. I keep a small travel bottle with me at all times, and when I am feeling overwhelmed in a social setting, I will excuse myself to somewhere secluded and pull out the oils. You can either keep an actual small bottle with you and drop some onto your wrists and below your nose, or keep a plastic tube (what I have) that stores the oils in them. You pull out the tube that is holding the oils, and either smell inside of the bottle or the tube itself. This has been amazing for calming me down when I feel overwhelmed.

So far, when I am in social settings themselves, these have been the only things that have proven helpful to me. I'll share some things I do either before or after social events that have calmed the pre or post social anxiety jitters.

What calms me when I’m struggling with never ending thoughts is meditation. People usually think that meditation involves not thinking at all by forcing yourself into a calm state. Forcing yourself not to think is a thought itself. True meditation involves sitting in peace with your thoughts, not controlling what you do or don’t think, not judging yourself, and by letting everything be. Just because a thought enters your mind does not mean you need to associate with it. You are so much more than your thoughts. Personally, I like to listen to guided meditations because they give me, sometimes it is hard for my mind not to race. Here is one of my favorite meditations to do when I feel overwhelmed, I hope this help anyone who is struggling!

On the other end of the spectrum, being active also really helps me fight my anxiety. Personally, I love doing yoga (as some of you probably already know from previous blogs). Being active allows me to release any anxious jitters I may have, and usually gets me into a relaxed mind state when I allow myself to exercise long enough.

I hope you all have an amazing rest of your week, and never feel bad for taking the time you need to take care of yourself! Peace!

Food for thought? Remember to eat!

Hello lovelies! 

This week I wanted to write about something I've been struggling with over the past few weeks, an issue I feel many college students experience. It can be really hard to remember to take care of ourselves throughout our busy days, with classes, homework and studying, there seems like there is hardly any free time we can have for ourselves. While juggling everything, I often times forget to eat. I'll go throughout an entire day only have eaten an apple and a granola bar. And at the end of the day when I get to my dorm, I won't have any food waiting for me! The Dining commons closes early, and the freshman meal plan I am on doesn't really give me money to eat anywhere else on campus.

Summary: It can be extremely hard to eat when you're busy all day and when places to eat on campus close early. So, many times, we just don't. Which is extremely unhealthy.

This is especially bad for students who are already struggling with eating disorders. It gives these students a reason to not eat, makes their fight against their disorder more difficult, and is an uphill battle. 

I have come up with a few solutions to this issue, and if this is something you struggle with, I hope this list is helpful for you!

1. Get a refrigerator and a microwave : This seems pretty obvious, but I thought I'd put it out there anyways. Having a fridge allows you to take home any leftovers you have, and the microwave allows you to have them nice and warm! (I know it's extremely obvious buuuut I feel like someone out there may need to hear this lol)
2. After eating at the Dining Commons, if your school has to-go meals, grab one to take to your dorm! : This is advice that my uncle recently gave me, and it's brilliant. Just take the to-go meal and put it in your fridge! It reduces the amount of time you have to take to walk to get a meal, the effort of walking more than you have to, and you have food waiting for you when you get back to your dorm.
3. Sign up for amazon's grocery subscription : Have food delivered to your college on a monthly basis, and save money! This saves the time and energy of going to a grocery store (plus, if you don't have a car, it can be hard to get to one) Plus, when you sign up for a monthly subscription of your fav snacks, you save 15%
4. Sign up for any kind of food rewards program you can : I know many pizza places have rewards accounts where you can get free pizzas, grocery stores have point rewards system, and target does 5% cash back when you use your red card (You can even connect it to your bank account and use it as debit, it doesn't have to be credit)

I hope this post was helpful for you! Always remember to be good to yourself, self-care is not selfish, and of course, to eat! Have a beautiful rest of your week, peace! (:

Sacred Spaces

Hello lovelies!

I hope you all are having an amazing week! This post I wanted to focus on how important it is to have your very own sacred space. What I mean by sacred space is an area that you feel safe enough in to completely be yourself, where you can unwind and feel totally free to be you.

Transitioning into college life is so stressful because most of us are accustomed to having our own "sacred spaces" growing up. Most often, it's usually our bedroom, but can be any area of our home where we feel comfortable enough to just be. If you live on campus, unless you are living in a single, the privacy and comfort of having your own space is suddenly ripped away from you. You are alone, yet surrounded by people, trying to feel comfortable in a new place without the support of any kind of familiarity.

There are so many different little things you can do to make your area of your dorm feel more comfortable to you, to make you feel as much at home that you can in a foreign environment. Putting things up in your dorm that make you happy is so important, especially since most of us have to share our room, your room might not feel like you belong there, like it's not your space. Making the most out of the small space that IS yours in your dorm is so insanely important to feeling comfortable in your own skin, expressing yourself in your dorm helps give you the confidence to be comfortable being yourself to the rest of the world. Putting up pictures also helps if you feel disconnected from the world around you, giving you reminders of the people you love, helping to ground you when you feel lost and alone. Any little thing you can do to your room is important to making the space in your room your own, filling a bookshelf with your favorite books, putting up artwork from your favorite photographer, if you are part of a fandom bringing that into the decor of your room, literally anything that you can think of that brings you a sense of comfort, put up.

I hope some of my ideas sparked up some inspiration to make your dorms feel more like your own space! Have a wonderful rest of your week, peace (:

domiNOs

Hello lovelies!

Sooooo earlier last week my roommate and I wanted pizza one night, and we started a phone order, but the man over the phone was confused, so we ordered online instead.  

Fast forward, we picked up our order and then started walking over to hang out with some of her friends across campus.. Then my roommate and I both start getting phone calls from Dominos, a very angry worker starts barking at us to come pay for our pizza, even though we already did?

We soon figured out that the man over the phone put our order through even though we never completed the order. I explained the situation to the man calmly, but he was extremely rude and ended up hanging up on me in the middle of me speaking. He called me again a few minutes later and told me aggressively that I had to come meet him and pay for the extra order, (and don’t judge me for this I swear I usually don’t act like one of those angry soccer moms) I raised my voice and went on a long rant about how people should treat others and how he wasn’t being a very nice or kind person. And, what a surprise, he hung up on me again.

I was pretty wound up after that happened, we walked a good ways across campus when we first got the phone calls, and started walking back to our dorm when we thought we hadn’t paid for our order (even though we had.) I was a mess and was extremely stressed out.

So, how did I deal with all of this pent up stress?

The first thing I did was sit down. I took a small breather (deep breathing is extremely helpful with reducing the amount of stress and anxiety you feel, I’ll do an entire blog post about that later.)

Then, I called my boyfriend and explained everything that happened to me that night. Talking to people you love, trust, and know will be supporting and understanding of you is very helpful in reducing stress. Having someone there to listen to your problems makes them easier to take on.

After I was done talking on the phone, I decided to relax in my room instead of going out with my roommate. I was still so wound up from everything that happened. Going out would not have wound me up even more when I really just needed time to myself to decompress and relax. I started to feel bad because I didn’t go through with my plans (which is really not a healthy way to think.) I had to remind myself that going out while I was stressed out wouldn’t be fun for the people I was going to hang out with or for myself, so staying in was actually not selfish at all.

When I got to my room I snuggled up under some blankets and journaled about how I felt about the disaster that was my Wednesday night. Journaling in general, but especially after a traumatic or stressful event lets you get your feelings out in an organized way so they’re not stuck in your head making circles around themselves. Or if the thoughts do stick around after are usually not as jumbled and not as constant, so you are still left with some peace of mind.

After journaling, I put on a video from my favorite youtuber, reminding me to stay positive. It's always good to watch any kind of feel good shizz nit AFTER acknowledging the negative emotions stress can bring on, so that you don't repress those feelings just for them to come back later. I left the video near the bottom of the page if anyone needs some encouragement to be positive! Ralph Smart has some great videos about positivity and self help, I definitely recommend checking his channel out (:

Oh, and I almost forgot...I ate the shit outta that pizza!!!!  (although I wouldn’t always recommend eating your feelings, the freshman fifteen is real man)

Before I leave you, always remember self care is selfless and to do it whenever you feel it’s necessary.

Have an amazing week!