I will come up with better titles eventually. WordPress isn’t working on my laptop so I’m typing this on my phone because I can’t give up on this after only one week.

I’m feeling wise these days. It could be that I’m 30 or it could be that I’ve finally in healing mode. Someone wise recently told me that you can’t be in survival mode and healing mode at the same time. For the last two years or so I’ve been in survival mode. My choices were based on how to stay alive, not how to thrive. Now I feel like I’m in a place where I can thrive. I can make decisions that go beyond day-to-day.

At work we talked about infinite goals rather than finite goals. Instead of focusing on being the best or getting to Broadway you focus on the love of ever-improving or the joy you get from learning and developing skills.

Sounds kind of boring. But that’s what keeps you going so that you don’t get stuck after you meet your goal.

Healing after heartbreak.

Met a new friend this week who has created a blog about healing after heartbreak. I think this is super important. I also had a chance to talk about my own heartbreak after not talking about it for a while.

Realizing how much I’ve learned but how it still hurts. It’s a dull hurt. Like an almost faded bruise. A tenderness. But not the sharp, stabbing pain that I used to think was going to kill me.

I’m okay. I’m safe. I repeat those words to myself pretty frequently and nowadays I’m more likely to believe them.

I still have this lingering fear that everyone (and everything) I love or start to get comfortable with will leave me. But when those thoughts come up I mentally walk myself through them. “Are these feelings because you’re in actual danger or because it is reminding you of a time you were in (emotional) danger?” And then we assess from there.

I used to think that bit in Hunger Games where Katniss would ask, “Real or fake?” Was dumb. But now I get it. I have to ask myself that all the time. Does this person actually love me or are they saying that while secretly resenting me?

I try to fill my life with light and love because that’s the only way to get rid of the darkness. Lucky for me there is so much light and love around me.

Ultimately only you can make yourself feel safe. One way to do this is to have a plan. So I can look at someone and say, “They’re going to leave me, because that’s what people do, they leave.” So instead of spiraling into self-doubt I say, “And if that happens I will…” Above all, I will be okay.

Your brain is smart, it wants to protect you from pain. Just like you learn not to touch hot things it’ll tell you to avoid things that have caused emotional pain in the past. So you have to remind it that there is a greater reward and also that you can still be safe despite the pain.

But it’s a freaking process.

Getting older

So we’ve got wrinkles and grey hair. What’re we going to do with them? I am growing more empathy for the women who dread getting old. I used to not get it because they were so beautiful in my eyes. But now I see what it’s like to look at your own body and not recognize it anymore. I wish I knew what the secret was to loving your body. I have some ideas but it’s a constant struggle.

“Biohacking”

I’ve been thinking a lot about how genetics play a role into health and how we should approach our individual health plans. More on this later but I’m posting now because I’m hoping Nutritiongenome.com has a Black Friday sale.