Being true to ourselves

I've had the past ten days to truly be by myself. While my husband is traveling, I have been busy managing the home and going through the grief. There's a lot to keep me busy and I've also been taking care of financial and logistical organization during this time.

When we talk about being true to ourselves, of course all of us want to live by this principle. But with today's world of endless streams of information, internet access, less in-person interaction and more social media, the definition of "ourselves" becomes a bit murky. I've always been wary of social media, having notably stayed off all of it between 2012 and 2019. Because of this, I've had the feeling that I was "left behind" in a few ways, mostly in my career. 

But 2020 rolls around, and with documentaries like The Social Dilemma, many are beginning to realize just how much their lives are driven by social media. There was a shift around 2012-2013 when more social media interactions moved to smartphones and that time period marked a change in the world as we know it. It's created a different version of people, the kind that while they're doing things, are thinking about that next social media post that they're going to post about that very same thing. It's created customized news feeds that tell you exactly what you want to hear and show you the rabbit holes that you cannot stay away from. It's created pandemic deniers, conspiracy theories, human rights violations, narcissistic personality disorder, increased rates of depression and more. After this come the notifications. It's a life of endless clicking and scrolling over what is, frankly, mostly spam. While the mind is spinning from this mundane exercise, the person feels momentarily satisfied at the good number of likes or whatever, only to check in a few minutes later and see no new notifications and feel oddly dissatisfied again. And so the cycle repeats.

I've seen the behavior of my toddler after a little while with the phone. I sometimes give it to him locked in the Spotify app and he scrolls and clicks on random tracks to play (well, not so random, he seems to know what he's doing). After about ten minutes of this, when I yank the phone away from him, he's irritable for a quite a while after. I know it's not been good for him. And I give it back to him to get that momentary peace the next day, traded for an hour or more of bad behavior. This shows me that firstly, I probably am as irritable after being on my phone for a certain amount of time. And secondly, that even though logically we know that it's bad for us, we continue to do it (addictive).

Well, now it's becoming evident that being "left behind" isn't all that bad - it means that I've preserved some sense of myself during that time period when I was completely off social media (7 years) and then partially off it (1 year) - and that I have the self awareness to have realized it early on and put a stop to it. Yes, I know, many on social media have perfected the art of finding a good balance of real life and virtual life, but most of us have fallen trap to our smartphones to varying extents.

For the skeptics, if you think it doesn't apply to you allll that much - that you're just on it for friends and family or work, blah blah - why don't you try deleting it off your phone for a bit, even if you cannot make the commitment to deactivating social media like I did? Maybe start with just Facebook if you must keep the others on? This is what I did yesterday. At the very least, remove notifications on everything including email (I've always had notifications off).

So here are a few things I have to do as part of my digital and job detox (read on for ideas if this might apply to you):

- Delete 1 social media app from phone for a month (more if possible). I did this to save space initially, but kept it off just to see how it feels without it.

- Remove all notifications

- Quit job - haha, this only applies to me. I have a "choice" but it's more like a strongly recommended exit and I decided to take it and not prolong the inevitable.

- Delete chat programs for work from smartphone. Only see them when at PC. Done.

- Push all of that data on to a location that you don't have to deal with it anymore. Start with a fresh slate on a home PC.

- Get out of the house everyday. In my case, I go sit at the creek nearby and listen to the sound of the stream flowing and just stare into space while the thoughts (and sometimes tears) flow.

- Work out - this goes with the above, I walk or run. And I'll do yoga.

- Choose two tracks. One should be a professional one and the other should be any other interest than your main profession. If you're an artist by profession for example, choose a non professional interest as your second one, that could be singing or yoga or anything that will not find it's way to your professional life. Then, try to advance both of these separately. 

In my case, I'll choose to learn and prepare for interviews in computer networking. I really enjoy it, it gets me excited, so as I learn more, I'll feel more confident and empowered and fulfilled (regardless of interview outcomes).

And the non professional track will be singing and writing. I'll continue writing, and also figure out how to even get started on the music aspect. 

Then check in every week, month, and quarter about each of these tracks.

- Sleep - I'll finally give a decent shot at getting my zzz at night and you should too.

- Don't read the news until noon. And filter for important stuff rather than going down rabbit holes.

- Organize paperwork and home. So once you detox and declutter, that would invite a lot of headspace for positive thoughts.

- Learn how to let things go. I tend to give too much headspace to negative people and things. And also to take things personally which I should just brush off and move on from. Develop a thick skin and stick to my single minded goals - get a job. Don't let yourself spiral into unnecessary thoughts.

- I've always been one of those people that is "struggling" while others appear to be having fun and living the good life. Well, I realized that I have all the ingredients to live that good life and I'm going to actually do it without guilt. I have to stop watching my life from the sidelines and actually play the lead role that I'm given in my life. 

- Read more. I really wish I can get to doing this and read more books. But it'll have to wait until I can figure out the sleep thing first. Then maybe I can get around to doing more reading.

Let's see how this whole thing goes.

Integrity

Often when we are in times of crisis, our lives become a clean slate. We are down to the core of things that matter. We do not care about appearances and extraneous stuff anymore. With this, in some ways we are able to see clearer than before.

There is no doubt that the grief overshadows a lot of our thoughts and feelings. However, during this time, I've come to realize that it's important to focus on the things that matter.

The world around us keeps turning even though our lives came to a standstill. With this I can sort of step outside myself and watch in slow motion things unraveling around me.

I realized that I really need to stop doubting myself and my choices. Many of us need this reminder. Some of us of course need to be told to step back from "me me me". As for me, I fall into the former category.

There are lots of toxic elements around me that I've allowed to hold me back. I have to untangle myself from the control they have over me.

My work choice is becoming clearer. It's going to hurt as hell not to have a job and not to "belong" to an organization. But it had become so toxic and negative that I found myself at odds with it all the time. It's time for me to have a fresh start, and even if corporate culture inevitably degrades into "this", I deserve to give myself a better chance at it this time around.

There have been family members who've not been very empathetic. I guess they don't really care, or maybe they don't have the emotional intelligence to understand. But there've been other family members I could lean on. They've been the same ones who've had my back before, and the same ones who didn't - I didn't learn my lesson I guess.

There's this incredible sense of loss - loss of a loved one, loss of a person of inspiration, loss of what might have been, loss of a grandparent to my children, loss of my husband's carefree nature, loss of my job, loss of my livelihood, loss of our health insurance in a pandemic, loss of the feeling of inclusion in this country, loss of family support, loss of being a happy mom for my kids, loss of financial stability, and loss of a reliable future.

If I dig really deep, I can see the potential for some gains. I hope this loss will teach us to treasure the moments we have with our loved ones, and to make them count and be enjoyable. To not waste those moments on people that are toxic to us. To stand for what's right and make smart choices. To strive for better situations for ourselves.

When I wrote that post about the sun setting on my career that that there might be dark days ahead as I navigate this - I never imagined this level of grief and pain. It's a weight I didn't expect to bear, at least not now. But there it is - and we have to pick ourselves up and keep working. While the world tries to drag us down, we keep working on the goal and towards that next step. After all, my family and kids' futures depend on it. There's no time to lose, I must get to work.

Grief

 This past week has been a very difficult one for my family. The first part of the hardships was something I was anticipating and was already trying to put a positive outlook on with the help of my gratitude practice. So anyway, that came to fruition, the layoff part. And in the midst of a pandemic, I will be embarking on a job search.

The grief though hit us out of the blue. My father-in-law who had had a health issue over the past few months suddenly took a turn for the worse and within less than a day he was no more. This had my husband in utter grief and me as well. He was a special and unique person, and a great father in law to have - kind, welcoming, intelligent, and for me the best part was he made me feel welcome and important. I'm really going to miss him.

I'm also now manning the ship at home with just me and the kids and it's been crazy. I've spent the weekend crying with my toddler being the one to comfort me and say "please don't cry". I am feeling terrible for my husband who was always trying so much to be everything for everyone to a fault. He really didn't deserve this sorrow, he deserved tons of happiness and an easy life.

So in the midst of our grief, I decided to write because of a few reasons.

1. The 28-day gratitude practice that I followed ended mid-week last week, and shortly after our lives came crumbling down. Did I not do it correctly? Was I "tempting fate" to be thankful for these things that hadn't happened and "will them to happen" and then not have them happen? Or do I draw the conclusion that this was beyond any of our control and the only way out of it is to continue gratitude and being thankful?

2. I am glad that I reached a point that I was actually grateful for everything we had and have and was thankful for them when I had them.

3. The job search is daunting. My biggest fear is what if I start spiraling (already am) and not be able to come out this. I'm trying to regroup and keep working hard. But at the same time I would like to allow myself to feel my feelings and "sit it out". I really don't know where I'm going with all this.

4. I don't care anymore about politics, racism, social justice, pandemic, all of it. I mean, I know these are valid issues and deserve to be solved - but I feel helpless and cannot devote headspace to them. It's only caused us worry and sadness and none of it is getting better, just worse.

5. I started running and was really fit after all that swimming over the summer. Now - I can't bring myself to even down a cup of coffee and cant sleep, cant eat, nothing. It's awful going through grief and constant tears.

6. I will just hope for some peace for the family. 

7. My job was a source of stress for me, for my husband and for my kids. They've only known a stressed mom and I think they deserve better. They are still young and have had lots of love so I think they're okay, but I need to do better. While life stresses are going to come and go, this was one constant and extreme that was toxic and I'll have to see what it does to me to be free from it.

With that I'll sign off. Solo parenting and running the house is going to be hard. I'll also have to figure out all my legal paperwork and health insurance and do all of that. I hope husband is safe from exposure and has strength. My heart just hurts thinking about him and the pain he is going through. I suppose if we were to feel grateful for something, it is to have people we love like that in our lives. I really am thankful for him.

October - the last quarter of the year begins

This month has started off very strange, which is hard to achieve during an already tumultuous year.

Anyway this is the month of "voluntary" layoffs, ongoing health crises, wildfires in CA and political shake-ups.

In the spirit of positive thinking and gratitude I do want to note a few things:

1. When you get your fresh air taken away, you have a renewed appreciation for it when AQI returns to normal. We rejoiced yesterday when for the second or third time in the last month we were able to get back to "green" air quality after being forced to stay indoors for days due to the smoke from the CA wildfires. It was pure joy to see blue skies, the greenery around us and to enjoy breathing fresh air and be outdoors again.

2. I have now been dairy free for a whole year! I think I started on September 30th or around that week, and it's now been a year of it. I enjoy my dairy-free-ness immensely - the energy, the lack of bloatedness, being less prone to seasonal allergies, feeling happy for doing my share for the environment and animal welfare, and overall feeling good. I really don't know why our diets were so dairy-heavy to begin with. I do want to be mindful of the almond milk I consume as well - it takes a lot of water to grow almonds. But I've made huge strides in my environmental consciousness and I'm grateful to have the awareness and means to do so (our local Whole Foods carries a variety of dairy-free alternatives and delivers as well).

3. The job situation. After years and years of breaking my head about it, it has been so freeing to realize that I must move on from where I am. There's been a bit of comfort-zone complacency, fear of the unknown, feeling under-qualified and Stockholm syndrome keeping me where I am. It's not been all bad though - I've had some pretty great opportunities, support from surprising corners, a growing network, and gained a lot of knowledge. Also, even though I really wanted to change jobs earlier, the timing wasn't quite right to do so (both logistically and practically, not making excuses), so here I am, now embarking on this next step.

4. I started Rhonda Bryne's gratitude practice from "The Magic" based on a blog where I read about it a few years back. I've been doing some form of gratitude and imagining positive outcomes (very guardedly however), but this book makes you consciously do it for 28 days. I'm now at Day 26. It's a good practice to follow in general and I'm surprised at how appreciation for things around me now comes naturally. Today, my heart was full when I saw blue skies, beautiful flowers and greenery while on my run.

5. Fitness - This year is the first year I've sort of managed to do some sort of exercise all year long. This is significant for me because for most of 2018 I was on bedrest. I exericsed on and off in 2019. This year, I've done yoga, walks, swimming and some hikes. Now that the pool is closed for the season, I'd like to start running. I still consider myself a beginner so I'm starting with Couch to 5K again - today was week 1 day 1!

6. Kids are learning a lot. Toddler's now talking quite a bit and proving to be quite advanced in his learning. My daughter is learning her letters and writing and he can now recognize all the alphabets and count as well as her. Daughter is also doing great and learning so much. Makes us really proud, and grateful for it all.

7. We're really grateful we are able to work from home and that we've been able to do so all along. It's actually been hugely productive for me professionally and I've achieved a lot in terms of projects, milestones and learning. I hope to be able to continue this.

With that I'll end with a huge feeling of gratitude for all we have, support systems and the workings of many things in the background to enable us to have what we do.