Even though I’m always preaching about the importance of change, with change comes stress and anxiety. New jobs, new places, new friends, new life… all those can add up on your figurative well-being plate. (Remember when I did my big Seattle life change announcement? You can read that post here.) When I moved to the Bay Area, I didn’t particularly have time to wade into that change, I full on jumped.
Packed up my Seattle life, made the 15-hour drive to the Bay, unpacked, and started working all within 4 days. From there I juggled trying to keep up blogging with making new friends, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. Oh and of course traveling to Chicago, New York City, attending Fashion Week and other mini weekend trips. By February, I was also starting a San Jose Blogger group to fill the gap in the local blogging community. By March crippling exhaustion set in. I didn’t want to blog, I didn’t want to travel… I didn’t want to do anything. Can someone say burnout? Now I will disclaimer that these are definitely first world problems and I’m completely blessed to live the life I lead. But still.
I’ve been realizing that no matter how blessed a life we lead, we can’t compare ourselves to everyone else. Because in comparing, we diminish our feelings. Our feelings may be irrational and nonsensical. But our feelings are just as real as everyone else’s.
That is why I finally stepped back and thought, “how can I fix this? how can I feel better? what do I need to do?” Enough wallowing, enough asking time to freeze for 5 seconds to recuperate.
Treating ourselves to Easter
This was my first Easter ever away from my family. I was disappointed when I realized I wouldn’t be going home, but the idea of getting on another plane just made me anxious. In celebration of Easter, my fellow Catholic friend Stephen and I planned a day of relaxing celebration. We started with mass in Carmel at a very old church, then went to have bougie Easter brunch at 7th & Dolores, followed by a spa day at the “Refuge“, ending with ice cream and a walk on the beach in Carmel.
Enough about me, let’s talk about how to figure out what’s going on if you’re in a funk, why treating yourself is important, and how to treat yourself.
Figuring out what’s going on
Even though I like to hop right into the “fixing” part, it’s really important to understand what’s up. I finally sat down and asked myself:
- What is making me stressed/ anxious?
- How can I remove those stress/anxiety adding activities (even for a couple hours)?
I think what’s really important to mention is that it might take time to answer these questions. It might take talking to your loved ones and dissecting the situation before realizing what’s wrong.
The importance of treating yourself & How
What is beautiful about treating yourself is that each and every one of us has a different idea of what the “perfect day” looks like. You don’t have to drop hundreds of dollars to be happy. Maybe your idea of “happy” is going on a morning hike, or dropping 4k on a designer bag. As I like to say, “you do you boo boo.”
I think treating yourself starts with an introspective assessment of asking yourself:
- What is my happy place?
- What do I need to do to get there?
Another thing that worked for me was disconnecting from my phone for most of the day. While I took a few outfit pics at the start of the day, I stayed off of social media 90% of the day. It felt like a complete cleanse.
Disclaimer: I am just sharing my experience with what has worked for me in my own situation.
How do you handle stress? What’s your favorite way to treat yourself?
I’m all about the brunch and massage for relaxation too! I like the idea of disconnecting from social media too – it’s a big stressor.