It had long been my plan to re-focus some of my blogging time and energy onto positive wellness and beauty in 2017. However, after this most recent trip abroad, it became absolutely imperative to me, both personally and in terms of cultivating the community I desire to on Musings on Momentum, that I stick to that strategy.
January is traditionally a month of fresh starts and new beginnings. After all, it is the one time of year when we are most likely to lay out our hopes and dreams for the upcoming 365 days on paper. That’s a wonderful practice, but how many of us really stick to those resolutions 100, or even just 30, days down the road? I know that despite my best efforts I find myself dropping even my sincerest of goals just a few weeks into a new year once my post-holiday life gets hectic. It’s a common pattern that I’m guessing the majority of you can relate to.
Here’s my thought – what if towards the start of each month I discuss and focus on just one element of health or self-care that I find important and useful to address in my own life? It would certainly help me refocus my energy in a productive direction and it’s my sincere hope that it might do the same for all of you.
I enjoy my end of the month gratitude posts so much because they’re a way for us to collectively reflect on the good that each month brought into our lives. My goal with these beginning of the month posts is that they can work in much of the same manner and help this community support one another as we work towards living happier and healthier lives. We don’t all need to have the same end goal in mind, we just need to be there to encourage and cheer one another on.
I referenced above the importance of this new series in terms of my most recent international trip. I want to delve a bit deeper into exactly what happened because it was quite an eye-opening and if I’m being honest, terrifying time.
I have dealt with depression and anxiety for much of my life. I have taken medication for both off and on, seen counselors, and tried everything from intense self-evaluation to obsessive research to nearly every alternative treatment method out there. Some things help…until they don’t and time and time again I find myself feeling like I’m right back where I started.
Musings on Momentum is one of the things that has both helped and hindered my emotional and mental health. It has offered me a much-needed creative outlet and an absolutely incredible support system of intelligent and caring women all across the world. The additional work, the deadlines, and the self-imposed need for perfection has also brought a great deal of additional stress and anxiety into my life. Unfortunately, I am really bad at dealing with an increase in either of those things and on this last trip I had not one, not two, but three alarmingly severe panic attacks that nearly resulted in us cutting our time in Europe short.
Those experiences, combined with the disappointment I feel in myself for not being able to overcome old demons and refocus my energy in a positive and healthy manner, led me to seriously consider saying farewell to Musings on Momentum upon my return home. But who am I kidding? I adore this platform and all of you. Therefore, this is not the goodbye post that I had begun drafting in my head. Rather, it is a combination of the direction I originally planned on taking these new health and wellness posts in and a big dose of honesty.
The truth of the matter is that each of us has our demons and none are any easier to deal with than other. We are all fighting our own battles and doing the best we can each and every day. Perhaps with a little more openness and focused effort we can help one another manage them.
I don’t have set subjects for these new beginning of the month posts mapped out in the same manner I generally like to with other features. Instead, they’re going to be focused on the things that I personally need to work on and the topics YOU all indicate you’d like addressed. Are you looking for simple ways to make your days a bit healthier? Let me know! If you’d like to discuss mental health, shoot me a line. I want this new series to represent and serve each of us equally.
We are all in different phases of our lives, some of us further along in our journeys than others. I think that our collective wisdom and experiences could ultimately work wonders in terms of helping us all learn, grow and be a bit kinder to ourselves. If nothing else, it is my hope that these posts will help remind us that we are not alone in our struggles. I hope that you will choose to join me on this journey and engage in these upcoming monthly conversations. Happy New Year friends!