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Mistakes.
The beauty of being human is that we have the ability to learn from our mistakes. In fact, I think learning from our mistakes helps build our character. We have a right to our opinions, and we have a right to change our minds. Humans. are. imperfect. We all make mistakes. Why is that we are so judgmental and misunderstanding when someone makes a mistake? We become critical and accusatory of others, completely ignoring the fact that we, ourselves, also make mistakes. In today’s media, (social and mainstream), we only see/hear/read snippets of stories. I can’t tell you all about food safety in a 30-minute video, let alone a 30 second video that may hold your attention. For you…
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Grief.
Suffering is part of human existence. This is fact. Every person in the world has lost something of significance and gone into a process of grieving. Grief takes on different forms for different people. Some numb pain; some deny through avoidance, and some lean into the pain. Loss is unavoidable. Grief comes after loss, and psychiatrist Elizabeth Kübler-Ross believed that there are 5 stages of grief. They are: Denial Anger Bargaining Depression Acceptance There has been criticisms of this grief theory among social scientists. I don’t love it or hate it. I do think grief is a process, but I don’t necessarily think there is a structure (that we grieve in this consecutive order). Grief affects…
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Loneliness – Part 2
It’s been 4 months since I wrote this post on loneliness, and 6 months since this pandemic dramatically altered our lives. I think most of us would agree, we did not expect it to be so impactful and last. this. long. If you’ve been following along here for a while, you may have noticed that I love learning about how our emotions develop through chemical reactions in our brains. Here are a few things I’ve learned in my reading of Together by Dr. Vivek Murthy: Our brain has two networks: one for social processing and one for non-social processing. When we are done performing a task (non-social processing), our brain immediately switches back to social thinking. So even when we’re…
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Compassion.
Remember when I said 2020 would be epic? I wasn’t really wrong, was I? 🤦🏻♀️ But this definitely wasn’t what I had in mind either. It’s been such an interesting year so far, and we’re only half way through. Whether I like it or not, I’m finally starting to settle into this “new normal”. (A term I am also actually coming to hate.) It’s been an adjustment, that is for. sure. And really, I don’t have it nearly as bad as a lot of people. But that’s not to discount the challenges I have faced during this transition; I’ve definitely been fighting some battles. Still, I can’t help but feel a bit selfish for indulging in my own sorrows. Brené Brown calls…
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Insecurity.
I had a conversation with a friend who said he has no insecurities. Now, given this specific person, I get why he would think that. He is not short on self-confidence, that is for sure. 💁🏻♂️ But insecurity can rear it’s ugly head in a lot of different forms. He is confident in his abilities. But insecurity can be driven by a lot of outside factors too. When he was unsure of the stock market, he pulled out. If he was not confident that the market was going to perform well and reacted to the instability out of fear of losing money, is that not insecure? Insecure is defined as: deficient…
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Melancholy.
Melancholy is defined as a “depression of spirits” or a “pensive mood.” I want to focus on the former definition, because I feel like that’s exactly what we’re experiencing as humans right now. At least, I am. In Brené Brown’s new podcast, she talks with David Kessler on grief and finding meaning. Kessler says that grief comes after loss. That loss can be anything of significance to the individual. He points out that during this pandemic, we could list a 100 different things that we have lost: our social lives, our ability to converge in public, physical touch (as simple as a handshake), and the big one: the world as…