Tag: advice

can’t sleep? my two favorite tricks

Posted on by jplatt27

Not being able to sleep is so frustrating. I know because I’ve been there and because Mike is frequently waking me up with his tossing and turning, huffing and puffing. He can’t sleep when I’m snoring. 😉

Here are my two favorite fall-asleep-fast tricks:

  1. Try to keep your eyes open for as long as possible. Literally, just stare at the wall, trying to keep your eyes open as long as you can.
  2. Switch yourself around so your pillow and head are at the end of the bed where your feet normally are.

I’m telling you, these work.

I will also tell you that if you go in thinking these won’t work, you highly decrease the chances that they will. So trust me.

oh hey student loans

Posted on by jplatt27

As November approaches, the six month grace period on many student loans is coming to an end and panic mode is starting to set in for some 2012 grads I know.  The weight of the debt and monthly payments is starting to set in.  Fear and overwhelm follow.

I’ve been there. With the principal on my student loans, I could buy a sizable house in the mid-west so I get it.

I get the stress and overwhelming feeling that come along with dealing with student loans for the first time. Not only is there a massive amount owed and sizable monthly payments, but trying to figure it all out on the bank’s website can be a little like reading a different language.

What’s due, when?  How long will this take?  How much will I owe when all is said and done? Consolidating?  How do I do that?  How do I know if it makes sense for me?

I have to call the bank? What?  Do I have to? I know it seems so daunting, you’d probably rather re-take the SATs.

But truthfully, once you get acquainted with the loans and the monthly payments, it’s really not that bad. They’re not as scary as they seem.

I suggest you get friendly with your student loans right off the bat. Just go up and say hello. Find out what you can about them, do a little digging, be patient because they may not reveal all of their baggage in the first date.  Take a deep breath.

Try not to get frustrated if they don’t communicate as clearly as you’d like.  You’ll be able to figure out what they mean soon enough.  Be persistent.

Also, don’t run away screaming when they start talking about your future together.  So maybe you don’t know where you want to be in 2022. That’s ok. If you want to take things slow or speed things up, you can explore that later.  For now, you’re just getting to know each other.

Get to know them.  Be open.  Don’t get defensive. The first step in figuring out your relationship, in deciding how you want things to go from here, is going on the first date.

P.S. Spring for a full evening instead of just a quick coffee.

if you have to cry, go outside. [a review]

Posted on by jplatt27

I got Kelly Cutrone’s If You Have to Cry, Go Outside: And Other Things Your Mother Never Told You from a friend who’d read it and thought I would like it.

Honestly I was a bit skeptical going into it.  I didn’t know who Kelly Cutrone is and the cover didn’t really pull me in. I mean “if you have to cry go outside” isn’t really a mantra that resonates with me. (Clearly.  1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

But this book was far from the coldness I felt in the title.  Frankly, it was warm and comforting.

Kelly (think I can call her that?) discusses finding yourself in your twenties and early thirties after the school path you were on ends and you’re left to design your own. She talks about many things that I’ve struggled with during my quarter-life crisis: career, babies, spirituality, relationships.

I was touched by her honesty, by her wisdom, and by how much her words resonated with me.  How much her message aligns so much with my own.

Some passages that resonated with me:

“I happen to believe the world will change only when we change ourselves.  And that starts with finding ourselves.  And that starts with listening to ourselves: learning to quiest the clamor in our minds and the voices of everyone around us and move toward what feels right–toward the things we know, for reasons we can’t explain, that we’re meant to do, the things that make us feel alive.” p. 9

“Study as many religions and teachings as possible; take what you like from each and leave the rest…Women should spend as much time looking for a religion of their own as they do trying to find a hot guy to have sex with. Because let’s be honest: there are too many examples of magic and miracles in this world to say with any certainty that there isn’t something fantastically wonderful going on here…if you don’t have faith in yourself and in something larger than yourself, and if you want to take this world at face value, you’re going to have a fucking nasty ride.” pp. 75-76

“We’re constantly moving from level to level, trying to collect the promised prizes, without stopping to think about the order we want these things to come in, or whether we even really want them at all.” p. 99

“It doesn’t matter how glamorous or lucrative a career may seem fro the outside; if it’s not the path you’re meant to be on, you will never be happy or fulfilled doing it.” p. 136

“I firmly believe that each woman is a goddess and that deep down inside herself she knows it.” p. 151

Aren’t these gems?  I’m sure there are many others that I loved but for whatever reason didn’t jot down as I was reading.

I really enjoyed this book and have already recommended it to a few friends. And now I recommend it to you.

Thank you, Kelly, for sharing this wisdom with us.

Question for you:

Do any of the passages above resonate with you?  If you’ve read the book, do you have others to add?

 

falling is not failing

Posted on by jplatt27

Last night I went to my favorite yoga class and during the balance track, I was reminded of something I’ve been wanting to share for a while.

It must’ve been a year and half ago that I heard this phrase during a balance pose. It brought tears to my eyes that first time because of the pure truth of it.  And it’s stuck with me ever since.

Falling is not failing.

Falling is not failing.

Though the balance poses are seemingly simple and don’t require much physical strength or stamina, they can be very challenging.  Sometimes you’ll lose balance or focus and start to wobble a little bit but catch yourself.  Other times, you’ll topple over and touch the ground.  But if you keep at it, you’ll find your way.

But touching down on the ground is not failure.  It means you pushed yourself, it means you tried.  If you didn’t try, you couldn’t fall. If you didn’t try at all, you wouldn’t find the pose.

In life, we all fall sometimes. But when we do, it’s important to remember that falling is not failing.

When it comes to my career I toppled over quite a bit on the way to finding my balance.

For as long as I can remember I wanted to be a teacher.  I taught right out of undergrad and lasted three months. My life long dream of changing the world one child at a time lasted all of three months.  I couldn’t do it. I quit before Thanksgiving of my first year.

I started at my current job in the development office of a university here in DC shortly after.  Within six months, cubicle life started to weigh on me. While I enjoyed my job and the people around me, I knew I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to be doing and I was constantly on a search to figure out what I was going to “be.” Part of me still couldn’t believe that I wasn’t a teacher.

Though I never wanted to go back to teaching, teaching/educating/inspiring people was an integral part of me. I explored options within my current field while at the same time taking classes with my tuition benefit. I started down the path to become a career counselor and finished a group of courses on the subject.  I applied for a Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. I didn’t get in.  While of course it stung to get rejected, part of me was relieved.

But I was stumped.  Now what? Over the next year or so I grappled with what to do. I decided I’d try a course in the business school. I always thought an MBA would be practical and that I’d be interested in it.  It’s versatile.  Why not? I was able to take a class without being admitted into the program so I dipped my toe in the water with a course on organizations and leadership. While I thought the course was interesting when class was in session, it was literally like pulling teeth to get me to start on assignments. I felt an overwhelming amount of stress from one class that was really not that difficult.  Something about it just didn’t sit right with me.  When I decided to drop the class I’d enrolled in for the second half of the semester, I was immensely relieved.  Huge weight off my shoulders.

And now, after falling a handful of times over the last four years, I’ve finally found the right fit: I am a life coach.  Now that I’ve found it, it makes complete sense.  All of the things I tried up to this point had aspects of coaching in it but none were exactly what I wanted. And so, after a while, I’d topple.

But not now.  Not this time. With life coaching, it’s like I’m beaming in star pose.  This feels completely right.  I start my formal training next weekend and I couldn’t be more excited.  I’ve already done a bunch of lengthy assignments for the program and while they were challenging, they never felt like work.

It wasn’t easy to get here.  In front of family, friends, and co-workers, it seemed like I toppled over arms flailing again and again. I fell so many times.

But you know how it feels when you finally nail a pose–like crow pose or something–and though you’re scared to death that you might fall flat on your head if you lose balance, when you find yourself holding the pose, even for five seconds, there’s that elation, that feeling of pure bliss, like wow. You know it?

 source

Yeah, that’s what this feels like.

So no matter what you’re trying to figure out, whether it’s a career or a significant other or a new recipe or a new way with money or whatever, remember falling is not failing.

It takes work

Posted on by jplatt27

I was telling my co-workers about how Mike came to help me finish the dishes the other night because he didn’t want my great day to end in grumpiness.

“Wow,” they said in response.  That’s good.  Almost too good.

And while Mike is pretty amazing in almost every way and we’ve been going strong for 9 years, this relationship, like all relationships, takes work.  Every day, it takes work.

We’re still learning what we need to be for each other and as we each continue to grow and change our needs evolve as well.

We are very different people in a lot ways–raised to express emotions differently and react to situations in ways that sometimes seem to be exact opposites of each other, and our overall demeanors, the way we process information, and the way we see the future are sometimes worlds apart.

And that poses a challenge.

The other night Mike was reacting to a situation that wasn’t going the way he wanted it to go. My initial reaction was to encourage him to get his frustration out.  To fuel the fire, to get him to yell and release the stress.  Which he did a little bit.  He verbalized his frustrations and I continued to try to draw more feelings out of him.

But he wanted to just move on and turned our TV show back on.

And then it hit me: instead of trying to flame his anger, he needed me to say “you know, it’s fine the way it is. You don’t need to feel bad about this.”

And as I said something along those lines, I could tell that was in fact exactly what he needed from me.

We don’t always get it right the first time.  We’re still learning how to respond to each other and to read each other in different situations.

I don’t imagine that this will ever change.  That our relationship will be completely effortless. As we go through life together, we’ll always be working to be attentive to each others needs, which may change over time.

We’re ok with that.

what i've learned about journaling

Posted on by jplatt27

I used to think journaling was like keeping a diary in elementary school.  Every night before bed you’d write about what you did that day:

“Dear Diary, today I went to the my friend’s house.  It was fun. We played…”

I knew there were benefits to journaling but writing in that way always seemed forced and rarely brought the therapeutic relief it is supposed to bring.

When I was planning my wedding I carried a small notebook around with me to take notes and jot down ideas, lists, etc. When I started blogging, I continued to carry the notebook around with me to jot down notes and post ideas, random thoughts, emotions, etc. And what began as drafting potential blog posts turned into an appreciation for exploring and expressing emotions through writing.

Now I write when I feel like writing: waiting for the bus on a Saturday afternoon (when this post was drafted), at 5am when I wake up with lots of thoughts, on the bus, when I waiting for my computer to re-boot at work.

I’m still finding my way, learning more about what I like to write, what prevents me from writing certain things, and how to get around those hang ups.

You may have noticed that I rarely write posts that recap a weekend or a day or a trip (Chicago part 1, part 2, part 3). It’s because for me writing posts like that is kind of excruciating.

Writing a timeline narrative is not my thing.  I like to explore feelings and events and I always feel like I go too off course. If the main idea is “what I did today,” I can’t do that because I feel like I have to get to the end of the day and list every single thing I did and until I get there it will not be over.  I also feel like I have to include every. single. detail or the post is somehow dishonest or inaccurate or I’m not telling the whole story. [I had to edit myself in the most recent what’s for dinner? wednesday post and assure myself that not sharing that I went to the grocery store to pick up a few things did not take away from the point of the story: I made lunch, then decided we should go on a picnic and made it happen.] And that makes me stressed. Journaling should not be stressful.

Here’s what I’ve learned, what I would share to beginners (and I advise that you all try journaling if you don’t already), and what I continually remind myself:

  • you don’t have to start at the “beginning”
  • you don’t have to get to the “end”
  • you don’t have to include every. single. detail.
  • remember how good it feels once you write (kind like how good it feels once you get your butt to the gym)
  • write when you feel inspired
  • it’s therapeutic to write about things that happened in the past
  • it’s energizing to write about hopes and dreams you have for the future…in detail

 

I’d love to know…

Do you keep a journal?

If so…

How often to do you write?  | When do you write? | What does journaling mean to you?

Have you had any issues journaling? | What have you learned through your journaling practice?

If not…

Why not? | Do you have concerns or blocks about journaling like I did? | What’s your favorite way to explore your emotions?

what if it’s sunny?

Posted on by jplatt27

When Mike and I chose to have our wedding reception in a tent, we knew it felt right.   Fonthill Castle in Doylestown, PA is a picturesque property with lots of green.  Living in a city, the serenity of the sights and sounds of the property were something that instantly attracted us. It felt so peaceful, so free. This would be the best place for us to get married.

But our parents asked “what if it rains?”

My first thought in response to this was “what if it’s 75 and sunny?” Yes, there is the possibility of rain on our wedding day.  But there is also an equal possibility that it’s a gorgeous spring day. And that’s what I decided to focus on.

This is my natural reaction to things.  I think of best case.  I’m a true optimist.

Yesterday I was chatting with a friend about which grad school she should attend.  She’s deciding between two schools.  At one point she said something equivalent to “if it rains, will I wish I went to the other school?”

And my thought was the equivalent of “what if it’s sunny?” What if the exact opposite of that bad situation happens? You’ll be happy you chose the school you did.

I think it’s natural to ask “what if?” and consider the potential snags in a situation. It’s smart even.  Of course you want to consider less-than-ideal scenarios. But I think it’s best when we ask ourselves this question in a pragmatic way, in a way that opens your mind to a contingency plan in case x, y, or z happens. But don’t let the possibility of it not working out keep you from going after the best case, what you really want.

It’s kind of like that saying “don’t let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.” (ok, maybe that’s from A Cinderella Story 🙂 ).

Our wedding day was exactly as I pictured it.  A gorgeous spring day. Sun shining. Not too hot.  And as we sat on a picnic blanket on the grounds of Fonthill before the reception with the breeze blowing past us taking in the whole day, I was glad we followed our hearts and made decisions with the best possible scenario in mind.

What if we had taken our parents concerns to heart, let their fear of rain eclipse our hope of sun, and changed our plans to a more rain-friendly site? What if we booked a hotel ballroom instead and wished we were spending our sunny wedding day at Fonthill?

The next time you find yourself worrying “what if it rains?” ask yourself this:

what if it’s sunny?

House-training

Posted on by jplatt27

Can you train your spouse?

I have a co-worker that hates this phrase.  Like, you train a dog, not your loved one. I get what he’s saying. Perhaps this isn’t the most PC way of saying that you encourage your partner to change some habits. But for the sake of this post, when I say training that’s what I mean.

But I do think there is a little bit of training that comes with living with someone. Mike’s learned to put the toilet seat down and to wash dishes thoroughly. This behavior modification goes both ways–it’s not just the woman training the man.

For example: Mike’s trained me to put the butter away when I’m done using it. He’s trained me to wash my lunch container at work instead of waiting until I get home. He’s taught me to lock the door behind me when I get home.

I think this kind of training is good for a relationship.  It shows that you listen and you respect your partner and their seemingly small, inconsequential preferences. You hear them when they share their gripes and work to make sure you avoid things that may drive them crazy. Is it killing Mike to put the toilet seat down? Have I lost a bit of myself because I wash my lunch container at work? No. Not at all. But the payoff is great because in doing these things we’ve removed some irritation from each other’s lives.

Granted, I think you have to pick your battles. You can’t find everything about your partner seriously irritating. And if you find that to be the case, maybe there’s something bigger going on?

Tell me:

What do you think about “training” your spouse?

What habits are you trying to train your S/O on?

What have you been trained to do?

Go to bed angry? Or don't?

Posted on by jplatt27

At my bridal shower, guests were able to fill out cards with wedding advice for me.  One of the most listed pieces of advice was “don’t go to bed angry.”

I understand the thought behind this–you want to go to bed every night at peace with your spouse. And why continue the argument the next day if you could resolve it and move on from it so as not to have two unpleasant experiences back to back. It makes sense.

And I think when we were dating I would’ve agreed with this. I wouldn’t have wanted to get off the phone or go to bed mad at him or with him mad at me.  I would’ve wanted to talk it out or fight it out and passionately resolve everything before going to sleep.

While I get this advice in theory, in practice I’m not so sure.

Sometimes going to bed angry can be a good thing.  It can give you time to cool off and collect your thoughts so that you can articulate better your feelings. I’ve found that when I go to bed angry I’ll wake up the next day and it will take me a little while before I remember “oh, I was mad at him last night” and usually the feeling is just gone.

Maybe we don’t have serious enough arguments or do things that make each other angry.

Maybe there’s a difference between angry and annoyed and this advice is for when you’re truly angry.

I asked Mike what he thought last night and he agreed that it’s OK to go to bed angry.  I reminded him that when we were dating he was a big proponent of this advice and he said that I was too but that time has shown us that sometimes it’s better to sleep on it.

We will disregard this piece of marriage advice and see where we end up.

What do you think??

Let’s discuss:

Don’t go to bed angry. Agree or disagree?