Tag: relationships
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Book #28- Reflections on “Rest is Resistance”
Book #28 Rest is Resistance By Tricia Hersey When Life Forces You to Slow Down A recent stress-induced trip to the emergency room made me question my relationship with productivity, as did the previous book in my reading challenge. That is how I found Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey. My body was making it clear that… Read more
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I Know You Better Than You Know Yourself
Do Others Know Me Best? During my year of self-improvement, I am reassessing the relationships in my life. In doing so, I have noticed a certain kind of person who says statements along the lines of: “I know you better than you know yourself”. I never really thought about how violating this phrase is. I… Read more
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Who Has the Right to Tell a Story?
The Ethics of Telling Your Story Online I recently told my sister about my blog. She had been mildly curious over what I was doing each day when I went to the library to read or write blog posts; so I told her about it. It was a bit awkward since some of the things… Read more
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Book #23- Reflections on “The Highly Sensitive Person’s Guide to Dealing with Toxic People”
Book #23 The Highly Sensitive Person’s Guide to Dealing with Toxic People By Shahida Arabi, MA I can feel my blood pressure go down when I read books like this. It feels like a sane voice in my life. Toxic people thrive in toxic systems so there are often very few people to turn to… Read more
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Finding Balance: Reading, Reflection, and Self-Care
Learning to Celebrate My Wins and Appreciate Success I am just about halfway through my year-long challenge of reading 52 books. When reading so many books (and writing several blog posts about each), the pace needs to be quick. But I need to allow myself space for reflection as well. I know reading these books… Read more
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Learning to Accept Myself: A Journey From Self-Rejection to Self-Compassion
I Rejected Myself First I think the reason this blog is so healthy for me is that it is allowing me to catch up to my own thoughts. I often grumble internally about being unappreciated at work or in my relationships, but the first person to reject my value was me. I was constantly holding… Read more
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Book #22- Reflections on “Rejection Proof”
Book #22 Rejection Proof By Jia Jiang Second Guessing Yourself My social anxiety could never handle doing a rejection experiment like this. I thought briefly about doing some sort of rejection therapy as part of this Reading Challenge, but I know myself well enough. For now, I just have to live vicariously through Jiang who,… Read more
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Book #21- Reflections on “UnBroken: The Trauma Response Is Never Wrong”
Book #21 Unbroken: The Trauma Response Is Never Wrong By MaryCatherine McDonald, PhD The Importance of Positive Mentors I lost a lot of my mentors over the past decade. Some of this came simply from life’s progression. I moved on from sports so I no longer have coaches. I finished my master’s and left my… Read more
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Two Kinds of “Love”: Exploring Toxic vs. True Love
I think I just figured it out: the two kinds of “love” that I have experienced. Before, if a person told me they love me I sometimes wouldn’t feel it. I know they meant it but it was like their love would get lost in some maze on its way to my heart. I had… Read more
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9 Differences Between Toxic and Healthy Relationships
As many of you know by now, I have struggled with toxic relationships in the past. I had poor boundaries, which had been encouraged for my whole life. I was taught not to question things and just work hard. Now, I am moving toward healthier communities and the difference is striking. Healthy relationships have a… Read more
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From Isolation to Connection: Understanding Your True Self
“… needing solitude too often usually means there is a discrepancy between who you pretend to be and who you actually are.” – Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You From Bubbly to Isolated Welp. I feel called out. I used to be very bubbly and outgoing, but now I spend a lot of time alone.… Read more
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How To Kill Someone Without Ever Killing Them
The Importance of Personal Narrative The English language needs to invent a new word for the act of killing someone without ever killing them. While I was reading the graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman, there is a panel where his father admits to having thrown out Art’s late mother’s journals from the time she… Read more
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Competing With a Ghost
The Picture of Others in Our Mind In the graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman, he talks about how he often felt compared to the idea of his older brother Richieu, who died as a child during World War 2. Richieu was later idealized in his parent’s mind. What would he have become? Surely not… Read more
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Book #15- Reflections on “Maus”
Book #15 Maus By Art Spiegelman The Importance of Individual’s Stories I chose a different type of book this time because the last few have been pretty information-heavy. Give me a graphic novel. This book involves some pretty serious content though, and may not be for everyone. It is an illustrated novel that bounces back… Read more
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Being Entertained by Other People’s Lives vs. Our Own
My Own Life Became Filled With Other People’s Storylines In my latest blog post, I talked about the ethical consumption of other people’s lives for our own entertainment. But there is another part of the story that I am grappling with. That is, being entertained by other people’s lives vs. being entertained by my own.… Read more
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Living Ethically in the Age of Entertainment
Our Lives as Entertainment We consume each other’s lives more than we ever have. If I go on social media, I can find out what a coworker ate for lunch, details of my friend’s messy divorce, and that another friend’s child had to be rushed to the hospital. We aren’t just living our lives, we… Read more
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How Reading Books Helps Me Cope With Anxiety and Uncertainty
Feeling Insecure & Uncertain Can Lead You Down a Bad Road In Misbelief by Dan Ariely, he attributes much of a person’s fall down a rabbit hole to a sense of feeling uncomfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty. This person then seeks easy, quick answers online and feels a temporary, short-term sense of power and control… Read more
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How to Be More Present: 6 Ways I’m Fighting Mental Burnout
Are You Enjoying Your Relationships? I don’t enjoy my relationships as much as I used to. That takes a lot for me to admit. Coordinating our schedules used to happen effortlessly, and we were present when we were together. Now, scheduling a meeting with friends typically takes weeks if not months to organize. When it… Read more
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How to Rebuild Trust and Secure Attachment
The Need to Feel Secure & Connected While reading Misbelief by Dan Ariely, I realized that I can explain one of the overarching issues in my life with more scientific language. That is, the difference between insecure and secure attachment. I have slipped into a mindset of insecure attachment. I no longer expect the ground… Read more
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7 Ways to Foster Healthy Relationships in Society
I am beginning to sense a theme in my 2025 Reading Challenge (which is to read 52 books this year). I have intentionally chosen books of a variety of genres- some artistic, some self-help, some biographical, some fiction, etc. But one theme has slowly been bubbling to the surface in many of these books: the… Read more
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Book #14- Reflections on “Misbelief”
Book #14 Misbelief By Dan Ariely Fake Controversy Dan Ariely begins this book by talking about being confronted with a series of disturbing rumors that he is apparently an evil mastermind with a nefarious plot related to the COVID-19 pandemic. He found this incredibly unnerving and disorienting due to how little the story had to… Read more
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The Suction of Abuse
The Progression of an Abusive Relationship Very rarely do abusive relationships start out that way. Often each person involved is on their best behavior in the beginning. Wonderful memories are made. You hope this will last forever. Over time, disquieting experiences start to show. You start to feel unheard or subtly disrespected. No matter. The… Read more
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Book #13- Reflections on “If Only I’d Known!”
Book #13 If Only I’d Known! By Chelsey Brooke Cole LPC-MHSP, CPTT, RPT The Compounding Relationship Between Trauma & Blame Therapist Chelsey Brooke Cole begins this book by talking about how upset she was at herself for being in yet another abusive relationship. The negative feelings she had toward herself had intensified with each mistake,… Read more
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Motherhood Highlight Reel
Motherhood & Social Media In Highlight Real by Emily Lynn Paulson, she talks about the way mothers compare themselves to others. It seems like an unlikely place to find competition. Who can bake the best bread? Change the most diapers? Have the best relationship with their kids (or at least look like they do)? But… 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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The Politics of Gift Giving
Unhappy Christmases I was reading the part of the book Hate Follow by Erin Quinn-Kong, where the fractured family is celebrating Christmas. I have had a lot of those types of Christmases in my life; where instead of eggnog there are eggshells, instead of cheer there is fear, and instead of angels there are devils.… Read more
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Book #9- Reflections on “Hate Follow”
Book #9 Hate Follow By Erin Quinn-Kong Exploring Family Vlogs Through Fiction This is a light-hearted fiction book with serious undertones. It uses fictional characters and scenarios to discuss themes such as parenting, online family influencers, children’s right to privacy, family relationships, and what we owe the people that we love. I enjoy books like… Read more
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How Many Blog Posts Can I Write About a Single Book?
There is No Ethan: A Book With a Lasting Impact For my 2025 goal of reading 52 books and documenting it in blog posts, I typically write one or two posts about each book and move on. For my latest book, There is No Ethan by Anna Akbari, I have so far written seven blog… 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