Tag: mental health
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Gritting Your Teeth Over a Blessing
Both Blessing & Burden Can Coexist In Highlight Real by Emily Lynn Paulson, the author describes her fear over her fourth pregnancy. She was angry over the positive pregnancy test because she was already overwhelmed with three young children. She then reflexively had that feeling of “don’t you know how lucky you are” and “children… Read more
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Book #10- Reflections on “Highlight Real”
Book #10 Highlight Real By Emily Lynn Paulson Casual & Serious Lies of the Modern World This author talks openly about only sharing the highlights of her life and the casual (and serious) lies that accompany doing this. Part of the issue with the modern world is that, little by little, people drift farther away… Read more
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Conveniently Timed “Sorry’s”
This blog post will contain spoilers for the book There is No Ethan by Anna Akbari. Kindly stop reading now if you don’t want to know these details yet. The Manipulation of Power & Powerlessness Several women were catfished by a woman posing as a man on an online dating profile in the early 2010’s… Read more
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Why is it Always a Health Crisis?
The Use of “Health Crises” in Scams In the book There is No Ethan by Anna Akbari, the author was communicating with “Ethan Schuman” via a dating site. Ethan had a health crisis around the time when the author began to question the authenticity of his life story. He was offended that she could be… Read more
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Why Do Smart People Get Scammed?
I read the book There is No Ethan by Anna Akbari and one thing that I noticed is how smart the author’s conversations were with the person who was catfishing her. Their conversations were elevated and funny. They both came off as highly educated, well-travelled, and sociable people. She did not seem like the type… Read more
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Book #8- Reflections on “There Is No Ethan”
Book #8 There Is No Ethan By Anna Akbari In this book, three women team up to find the person who has mutually catfished them. It is a wild ride. It speaks to the chaos, disingenuousness, and danger that the internet can bring. The women met their internet sweetheart on an online dating site. However,… Read more
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Early Thoughts on My 2025 Reading Challenge
Impact Over Numbers My goal in 2025 is to read 52 books to see how my life improves. I will be documenting this year-long journey in blog posts. I am now only a few books in but I have some initial thoughts on this experience. For starters, my overall goal is self-improvement. I want to… Read more
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Book #7- Reflections on “The Measure”
Book #7 The Measure By Nikki Erlick How Will You Be Remembered? I was sick recently and spent a few days in bed. I think small illnesses are great for my Reading Challenge because while there, I finished this book in 2 days. I will surely get to 52 books by the end of the… Read more
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Confidence vs. Self-Assuredness
I Don’t Want False Confidence, I Want Genuine Confidence I have been writing a lot recently about my low confidence and how I am struggling to get it back. While pondering this, I realized that I might be getting stuck in a negative perception of confidence and should instead seek a healthy self-assuredness. For me,… Read more
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Relief in the Realization: I’m Not Alone in Faking Bad
Stuck Thinking Things Are Worse Than They Are I was first introduced to the term “faking bad” in the book I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Sehee. It refers to a tendency to view yourself as worse off than you actually are. It describes my overall mindset perfectly. I… Read more
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Book #6- Reflections on “I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki”
Book #6 I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki By Baek Sehee The Fog of Depression At the beginning of this book, Sehee describes her depression as a “vague state of being not fine and not devastated at the same time”. It reminded me of my own words in my blog post… Read more
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I’m Not Ready To Forgive
Forcing Forgiveness Just Causes More Problems While reading Judgment Detox by Gabrielle Bernstein, I noticed a pit in my stomach anytime she talked about forgiveness. Overall, I have an upbeat disposition but forgiveness feels like a thorn in my side. I am not ready to do that yet. Also, I think so often people feel… Read more
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Book #4- Reflections on “Judgement Detox”
Book #4 Judgment Detox By Gabrielle Bernstein Ugh, Forgiveness This book snuck up on me in surprising ways. It is an unassuming book on spirituality. It is not one of Gabrielle Bernstein’s most well-known books so I guess I went into it without any sort of expectation. I found reading this book to be a… Read more
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Why Wait?
The Cost of Waiting It has been a few days since I finished reading The Top Five Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware and my overall feeling is: melancholy. My mind keeps wandering back to the stories of dying people who waited too long for something in order to live the life they wanted.… Read more
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Book #3- Reflections on “The Top Five Regrets of the Dying”
Book #3 The Top Five Regrets of the Dying By Bronnie Ware Unfortunately Relatable Content When I was reading this book, I was immersed in the stories within it feeling sympathy for the people within its pages, but not empathy. Sympathy comes when you care about another person’s situation. Empathy is when you understand and… Read more
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What’s in a Name?
The Complication of Sharing a Name With Your Abuser My latest post was a review about The House of My Mother by Shari Franke and something about it got me thinking. As I was writing it, at one point I was typing the author’s name: Shari… then I went back and deleted that to write… Read more
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Book #2- Reflections on “The House of My Mother”
Book #2 The House of My Mother By Shari Franke Normally I Am Late to the Book Party Normally I am late to read popular releases. It has become a habit of mine to read a book about 5-10 years after it has become popular. I think I could make a career as a very… Read more
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Hesitation and Perfectionism
My last two posts have been musings on the book The Creative Act by Rick Rubin. As soon as I clicked “publish” for my latest post about four reasons for my own low creative self-esteem, I realized an incredible irony. I was unsure whether to post it and this hesitancy ironically revealed a fifth reason:… Read more
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Measuring Success
Similar to my previous post about the rules for my 2025 Reading Challenge, I wanted to give myself a general direction for how to measure my success. This may be subject to change, but this is how I hope to see myself at the end of the year. Measuring Overall Success This may seem like… Read more