I wanted to get back on track and was lucky enough to come across the podcast “Tiny Leaps, Big Changes” and listened to episode 557 which was exactly about this. The tips from it alongside support from therapy helped me successfully implement healthy habits again.

Already, I’ve noticed a positive change in my mental and physical health. These are the steps I took to get there.

1.  Identify why some healthy habits had stopped

2. Analyze your daily routine and if you don’t have one, start one

3. Keep your habits simple to start with

4. Once you’ve accomplished the small goals, start expanding on them

5. Be aware of both positive and negative triggers

6. Don’t beat yourself up for not being where you were a year ago.

7. Finally, if none of the above helps you successfully start new habits, try to identify why

I decided to get two tattoos for my first tattoo experience – both small and meaningful. One was of the heart chakra, to remind myself of the importance of self-love, and the other was a quote, “I carry the fire,” to remind myself that I’m in charge of lighting and guiding my own path in life.

After getting these tattoos, anytime I would start to date someone new, I would be reminded daily of the importance of self-love and self-worth when I looked at my tattoos. If someone wasn’t giving me honesty, love, kindness or respect, I would love myself enough to walk away.

This new outlook and symbolism did a lot for me within the first two years of getting them. I was able to return home, not get back with my ex, begin a new job at a start-up company that allowed me to travel to various cities in North America, and meet all sorts of great people. My life was thriving with self-love and personal development.

Then, years went by and I continued to feel good until I started a new relationship with someone. This relationship was far more stressful and unhealthy than any I had in the past. It started with so much passion and excitement that I didn’t really pay attention to the red flags. It then flipped so quickly into toxicity and dangerous territory that by the time it actually ended, I barely felt anything except numbness, emptiness, confusion, and little motivation to pull me out of this depressive state.

I remember barely being able to function and then scoffing at my tattoos thinking “you were a real help,” while looking down at my heart chakra. However, that realization was what I needed to motivate me to get back to the basics of loving myself. That’s when I decided to create my own daily mantras to help me get back on track in life. I put my mantras on bright colored sticky notes all over my bedroom door.

Here were some of my bedroom door mantras:

– Keep going.
– Drink a glass of water at the start of every morning.
– Make time for sleep and rest.
– Fall down seven times, stand up eight.
– Be grateful.
– Progress, not perfection.
– Trust your instincts.
– Remember your goals and why you started.
– You are worthy of love.
– Eat healthy and treat your body right.
– You’re beautiful inside and out.
– Don’t deprive yourself of the joy you deserve.

All these daily reminders helped push me into doing something healthy amidst my dark times. Seeing the power of mantras in dark times led me to see how they’d be beneficial during good times. Once I healed myself, I carried on writing mantras and applied them to different areas of my life, from morning routines to coping with anxiety.

For my mornings, my mantras include:

• This is a new day, full of many opportunities to learn and be grateful.
• Remember to smile, it’s contagious and can brighten another person’s day which in turn, can brighten yours.
• Always find the silver lining of anything unexpected.
• Stay positive. Very little comes from negativity.

For night, I’m all about trying to get in a relaxed, anxiety-free mindset as I’m a bit of an over-thinker, so my mantras are:

• I welcome sleep with every breath I take, I become calmer and at peace.
• My bed is comfortable; I am warm and content. I am grateful for this.
• A good night’s rest gives you a clear head tomorrow to solve any worries.

For anxiety, especially amidst a pandemic, my mantras are:

• My thoughts do not control me; I control my thoughts.
• You can only control yourself and what you choose to let impact your thoughts.
• My body is my temple and I choose to keep it calm, still and at peace.
• Everything that happens is helping me grow and evolve.

One of the daily mantras that I repeat and remind myself of often is a variation of a Mark Twain quote which is “If you don’t like the weather, wait 10 minutes.” What this means for me, in a non-literal sense, is feelings and emotions often change and to be mindful of this when we’re feeling hopeless or upset. Whether they are positive or negative, feelings can pass or evolve often within 10 minutes or so, and sometimes just being aware of this can help calm us. If I’m feeling bad, I think of it just like when it’s raining, it’s not permanent and the sun will show again.

I encourage anyone who hasn’t taken the time to come up with their own mantras to set aside some time to do so. Start simple and small, then build on it. Start with a daily mantra to say to yourself for a week, see how it impacts your thoughts and motivation, and then slowly expand and build upon it.

With that said, despite the many challenges the pandemic has brought on for both singles and attached, I experienced some positive changes from it when it came to my dating life.

Social distancing has made me find a whole new way of communicating and connecting that I probably wouldn’t have explored had this pandemic not occurred. Through finding creative ways to have first dates, like using video chats, to social distance walks and hikes, I found myself navigating a territory that I haven’t put as much emphasis on as I should have – building emotional connections.

During this rare era of dating, I’ve been able to learn new ways of connecting and exploring relationships that I hadn’t tried before and hope to continue post-pandemic. These strategies have put me more in tune with myself and what I appreciate in getting to know someone. The most effective practices I hope to continue are below.

1. Stepping out of my comfort zone and into video chatting.

Going on your first virtual date is no easy task, even if you get to stay home and low-key wear your pajama pants, it’s still incredibly scary knowing you’ll be face to face via camera with a complete stranger. I would be lying if I said I didn’t drink a couple of glasses of wine before the first time I tried it.

But once I ripped the band-aid off, it wasn’t so scary anymore and was actually even fun. I ended up feeling proud of myself for being brave enough to do it.

When you go on a first date with someone you’ve never met in real life, you have to put a lot of effort into it. You are typically designating at least two hours of your time to spend with a stranger you may or may not hit it off with. You have to come up with a good outfit, do your hair, drive somewhere, and try your best to not appear tired if you’re going for drinks after a long day of work.

With video chatting, it’s so much more simple. While I think it’s still important you put in some effort to showcase your best self, you also get to do it from the comfort of your own home. If they lack charm or just aren’t your type, you can end the date a lot easier on the phone than in person.

Plus, you can still tell a lot about a person from a video chat that you’d never pick up from texting. Their mannerisms, attitude, and humor become more evident.

You can get glimpses of the background of where they are, does their house look well kept or is it completely disorganized and messy in the background? Did they show up to your video chat date right after the gym, sweating, and in their gym clothes or take the time to do their hair a bit and look good for you? All of that can help you get an idea of who they are.

So even though I missed the exciting feeling of a good date in person, where there’s clear chemistry, possible hand-holding or more, I enjoyed being able to talk to different types of people, all without leaving the comfort of my home and being able to decide if I’d even be interested in meeting up with them in person.

2. Taking the time to get to know someone before letting the physical connection blur things.

Some of my relationships in the past have developed physically before they did emotionally and those ones were always the rockiest. I love that pandemic dating forces us to focus much more on the emotional connection over the physical side of things.

From my experience, I found if he isn’t keeping me engaged, making me laugh, or bonding over shared interests, he’s not my guy. If it was in person, I might not notice the conversation is a bit dull if I’m distracted by his good looks but on the phone, I want to talk about meaningful things like our childhood, what movies make us tick, and what our passions are.

Through these ways of connecting, I have found myself feeling emotionally connected to men I never thought I’d be into. I gave chances to men I would normally pass on (or swipe left on), and found myself pleasantly surprised that the men I would have likely skipped out on were often the ones surprising me with our shared interests, chemistry over the phone, and engaging conversations.

I learned going outside of your usual type can be a good thing.

3. Identifying when my heart wasn’t into it and when I needed alone time or a break from dating

During social distancing, I found myself not always in the mood to talk or engage in conversation with new people I hadn’t met yet. Despite the unknown in the world, I didn’t put any pressure on myself to rush relationships or date when my heart wasn’t into it.

Instead, I enjoyed the peacefulness of living alone and being able to do all the things I wanted to without distractions from another person. I was able to complete personal projects that I had wanted to do but hadn’t set aside the time.

While being comfortable alone is great, there were still times I craved human touch or connection. In those moments, I discovered and practiced what gave me similar feelings like taking luxurious bubble baths with candles, meditating next to my sage diffuser, snuggling up to my dogs, and watching a comedy that made me laugh so hard it hurt in the most wonderful way.

When the world goes back to normal, I hope I can recognize when I’m burned out from dating or need a break and can put the focus on my self-care instead.

4. Discovering that doing activities together is a way less pressured way of getting to know someone

Once the social distance rules lightened up a bit but still not enough to go for dinner and drinks, I found myself going on creative outdoor dates which included hikes, walks in the park, bike rides, or hanging on a beach.

I discovered doing activities side by side and not face-to-face dinners takes the pressure off significantly and allowed me to have a much more relaxed time instead.

When you’re at dinner, you feel like you’re sitting in front of someone on a job interview, trying to explain why you would be a great match for them all while hyper-focusing on whether or not you’ve said or done something stupid. Doing something fun together is a much better way to get to know someone on a first date and this is something I hope to continue post-pandemic for any first dates I might have.

There’s no doubt dating during a pandemic has its difficulties. However, I was pleased to discover I actually was forced to date in a way that I wasn’t exactly used to and probably wouldn’t have tried without social-distancing becoming my new normal for a while.

Our stories can make us victims or survivors, it just depends on the narrative in our head and what aspects of our stories that we chose to focus on.

Even for this article, I wasn’t confident I was going to write it. I said to multiple friends who asked what I was working on next that “I am just not inspired to write about this, it seems too technical compared to my last two articles.” I found myself saying this a few more times in my head despite knowing I was the one who chose this subject as I felt it was important. It finally dawned on me that I needed to write this article to prove to myself that I could overcome exactly what this article is about, challenging our negative self-talk.

“Rewrite your narrative,” I sometimes whisper this to myself in weak moments. I often chant it at friends who are saying they “can’t” or “won’t” do something because of some reason that sounds silly to me but makes sense to them. Sometimes these “I’ve never been able to do this” or the “I’m afraid to” comments are justified in their origin but it doesn’t mean they still shouldn’t be challenged.

When we repeat statements over and over again, they start to feel true even if they are lies. This phenomenon has been studied many times over and was given the term “the illusory truth effect” which basically means that people tend to believe things if it’s repeated enough times. For more information on this phenomenon, I recommend checking out this article on why the illusory truth effect works.

The first time I learned about challenging my beliefs, I was in my therapist’s chair. She told me to write down a few reoccurring thoughts I had about myself. What popped into my head immediately was that “I’m unlovable” as I’ve been telling myself this since a teen and confirming this bit of information with every man I’ve dated who would end up hurting me. My therapist took me through a process to see if we could eradicate this toxic belief from my head.

Here are the steps we took that I consistently use to rewrite both my small and big narratives.

1. Challenge your thoughts

Don’t take your thoughts at face value. Our thoughts can be extremely limiting and biased at times. Instead, ask yourself why you think something and how long you’ve thought it. Are there any examples in life that would show you this narrative isn’t always true?

In my case of being “unlovable,” my therapist asked me if there have ever been men outside of the few who didn’t love me back that wanted to date or pursue me who I turned down? In my answer back to her, I realized I could list multiple men I experienced this with, who were total catches but I just felt the chemistry was “off” despite them at times being better catches than my exes.

My therapist honed in on that and said it’s interesting that I even observed they were great catches and pushed them all away or wouldn’t commit to them. She pointed out that it was likely because they were readily available to disprove my life-long theory I’d been carrying with me that I’m unlovable and therefore my subconscious was sort of refusing to acknowledge them and only pay attention to the ones who could confirm my negative bias.

This brought awareness to thoughts that would pop up where I doubted my ability to do something or enjoy something. I would often want to explore them, challenge them, and disprove them.

2. Shift your focus off the negatives and onto the positives.

So even though there were many open, loving men throughout my life ready to love me and disprove this theory, I could only pay attention to the ones who weren’t able to love me. That is what I chose to focus on and it’s why I held onto that belief for so long. What we choose to focus on can affect us in so many different situations.

At work, when I’m helping an employee develop their skills, I’ve heard them say, “I’m not good at customer service.” I often find I’m able to disprove this easily to them but it takes work. If all they can focus on are the times they weren’t patient or understanding with a customer and keep repeating to themselves they aren’t good with customers, they will likely only focus on that aspect rather than the three calls they took beforehand that demonstrated a great deal of patience, kindness, and helpfulness that showed they are capable of great customer service. In these times, I find it’s best to make them listen to the calls they did well on so that we can disprove this narrative.

Shifting focus is key. I’ve even seen this work when observing a Ping Pong tournament. I could see the players who did well were the ones who really kept their eye on the ball, rather than observing their opponents too much. If they focused too much on what their opponents were saying or what they were doing with their bodies, then they would often miss hitting the ball when it comes their way as they weren’t focused on the one thing they needed to be focused on to succeed, which was the ball and not all the other things around them.

3. Take steps to disprove the theory by overcoming what you think you can’t. 

Even though my therapist challenged my past experiences with contrary evidence, it wasn’t enough to completely take away my fear that I was unlovable, so she encouraged me to go on lots of dates just to see what happens. By doing this, I was finding multiple men who were wanting to pursue a relationship with me, sometimes way too quickly, but essentially weren’t rejecting me at all.

This also made it easier to deal with the men who weren’t interested in me, as it didn’t need to define me, like it did before. Dating through conscious awareness of my previous belief has really helped me see that all this time, it was just a very skewed belief that was causing me harm.

Trying things out to disprove our personal narratives is fundamental in overcoming them. We must take steps, even baby steps, to disprove our theories by getting out there and trying.

Another self-defeating belief I had about myself was that “I can’t cook.” I didn’t enjoy it, wasn’t good at it, and that was just “who I am.” I asked myself why I believed that, if there was enough evidence to prove or disprove the theory and I was able to realize that I just needed more practice. The more I cooked, the better I became and I no longer think this about myself.

4. Be completely okay with failing and messing up. 

There are going to be times when you try to disprove your theory and what actually happens is exactly what you predicted –– that you aren’t good at something. It is a failed attempt but that doesn’t mean you’ll never be able to get better or won’t have success if you try it again. It just simply means that for this specific time, it didn’t work out, and maybe some tweaks to the process will help it work better next time. We have to be accepting of both good and bad experiences but neither of them should define us or force us into a metaphorical box in our head that we can’t step out of.

When it came to disproving my “I can’t cook” narrative, I started with what was comfortable and then evolved into much more complicated dishes. During this cooking evolution, I would be lying if I said all my meals were great, in fact, some were major fails but I certainly didn’t let these failures end my cooking journey. If I had, well, that would’ve been really sad as I was able to learn that I love cooking and am quite good at it. It even helps me destress, which is why I’m so happy I disproved this narrative.

Disproving our narratives is the best way to realize we have the power to evoke change in ourselves.

What narratives keep coming up for you that you can disprove this week?

1. “It is what it is.”

2. “Awareness is the greatest agent for change.” – Eckhart Tolle.

3. “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” – Charles Darwin.

4. Truly identify the aspects of what you can control. 

5. Use your intuition and be prepared to think outside of the box in a high-pressure situation.

6. Take time to balance, relax, and breathe. 

Did I really want to delay finding the right person when most of my friends were close to engaged or married?

But what I considered even scarier was imagining myself jumping into yet another toxic relationship, wasting more of my time and further damaging my mental health. 

There’s a famous phrase often quoted, that says…

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

I had realized I was doing the same thing over and over with different men yet always hoping for a different result. I kept repeatedly dating men who were emotionally unavailable hoping that I would somehow be able to change them, and of course, I never could.

Each time these relationships ended, I would be devastated.

I romanticized these on and off relationships I had by comparing them to the toxic romances on TV. I would watch Blair and Chuck on “Gossip Girl”, Carrie and Big on “Sex and the City”, and be convinced that these passionate on and off relationships that we rooted for were just like my scenario and in the end, everything would work out between us, but it never did. 

After a particularly bad breakup, I finally had enough this time. I felt like my entire identity had been erased and I was no longer that fiercely independent, quick-tongued girl I had always been but now a broken girl with no self-esteem.

I didn’t want to be a victim anymore. I didn’t want to be the girl whose self-worth depended on the opinion of the person she dated. It was time to take control of my life and figure out why I kept falling for emotionally unavailable men.

I knew I would never be able to do that if I jumped right into another relationship as that would be similar to putting a bandage over a hole of a sinking ship just so that I could float longer in my damaged vessel.

I didn’t want a temporary fix, I wanted permanent solutions and I knew that a dating sabbatical was the answer. I needed to take a long, hard look at myself and my past in order to help me with my present and my future.  

What I learned about myself while taking a sabbatical from dating:

I knew I couldn’t do this alone so I made it my mission to find a therapist and to stick with it.

I realized that finding the right therapist is a lot like dating as you’re not always going to connect with the first therapist you meet and it sometimes requires meeting more than one. It’s also important to build enough trust to open up and make progress by attending multiple sessions. With the right therapist though, magic can happen. She helped me take the focus off the men in my life and onto myself, which is what I realized I should have been doing all along. 

It was no longer about men, it was about me. 

Shifting the focus to myself meant rebuilding my sense of self. I was so used to walking on eggshells to avoid breakups or fights that I realized I hadn’t been my authentic self for years and basically forgot who I was. I made a concerted effort to discover my former self and strangely enough, it started with music.

In my last relationship, our music taste was very different and we would often listen to what he liked. So I made a point to spend my nights playing music that I love, discovering new songs and creating playlists that made me feel good without caring what anyone else would think. 

Rediscovering my music taste created an entire shift in my life and lead me into being curious about what else I was passionate about. I realized I wanted to go back to university and study to become a counselor. I found my love of writing again, something I had given up years ago, and I even discovered new passions that I never thought to pursue before.  

I finally had the space to think about what I really wanted out of life and what I had to offer.

I realized that not only had I been dating all this time without really knowing myself but I had been dating without really thinking about what I truly wanted out of a partner. I wrote down all of the things I wanted in a partner and what would be considered deal-breakers. It felt empowering to put it down on paper as it made me feel that once I was ready to date again, I’d be able to sift more easily through who would be a good match for me and who wouldn’t.  

I also thought about what made me a good partner. Would I date me?

It was uncomfortable to look at my shortcomings but I needed to navigate the areas where I felt I was thriving and the areas that needed work. From doing this, I realized I needed to take better care of my health, be more organized, and be more responsible in other aspects of my life.

Once these areas started to improve, I noticed I started to feel more confident overall.

Once I was able to get my self together, I was able to foster other relationships in my life.

I then realized while it was great to do all this self-work, life is better with a solid team and that doesn’t need to come from a romantic relationship.

I had spent so much time with my former partner and dealing with the breakup that I didn’t see the overwhelming amount of love and support that was surrounding me all along from friends and family.

Realizing this allowed me to forge stronger connections with the people I had been neglecting and made me realize how important it is to foster these relationships whether I’m single or not.  

Now that I have completed my year of being single, I’ve learned I really love myself. I went from being codependent to independent again with a solid routine that includes consistently carving out time for my hobbies, my friends and family and most importantly, for myself.

I look at dating as a fun bonus to my life where anyone that I do date is just a nice addition and with or without them, I’m still whole. 

–

Have you ever taken a dating sabbatical? Would you try it? Why or why not?

Imagine my surprise as a thirty-something-year-old woman who found herself relating to the Tin Man simply because it felt like my body was also giving way on me. The Tin Man’s problems were easily fixable though, as all he needed was oil to prevent his body from rusting. Unfortunately, my problems weren’t so straight forward.

In the last year, I was experiencing sudden autoimmune disorders that I never had before, chronic skin conditions, brittle and weak hair that wouldn’t grow, nausea and headaches, cervical dysplasia and most surprisingly, two incidents of shingles, which at my age isn’t entirely common. Finally, after diagnosing me with my second round of shingles, my doctor asks, “are you dealing with lots of stress?” and I just let it all out.

I quickly confessed to my doctor that the last three years had been full of stress. I had so much trauma that stemmed from a relationship that ended personally but not professionally and on top of that, I worked in an environment that was indisputably stressful due to the nature of the job. Together, we decided that I should take a leave of absence from work as I couldn’t heal in the same place that was causing me all this pain.

Coming to terms with the fact that I needed to take a stress leave was a hard pill to swallow.

I’ve always prided myself on being resilient and strong and those two traits are specifically important in my line of work and left me feeling ashamed. From my perspective, there are so many people at my work who do the same job and have their own issues, yet they appear to be managing their stress better. They were showing up and not requiring their own leave of absence. Why did I feel entitled to time off?

I brought up these feelings of shame and guilt to my therapist who quickly helped me see that we should never compare our struggles, as we can’t possibly know what another person is going through or know how they manage stress.

On top of the stigma of stress leave, the inability to work overtime like I was doing consistently before would further add to my stress. Do I really want to worry about money while I’m on stress leave? It seemed counter intuitive.

Despite that, I decided to take the stress leave and here is what I’ve learned so far.

Money comes and goes; it can be grown and it can be spent.

Yes, going on this leave will mean that things would be tighter in terms of my budget, but is that necessarily a bad thing? My first lesson on stress leave was a lesson I had been desperately needing all my life: How to budget and save better.

I can’t say that I’m an expert on it yet or that I don’t have money issues still but I can confidently say that all this free time has allowed me to read articles, listen to podcasts, and speak to others about budgeting tips and advice. I’ve slowly started ingraining habits in my life to save better, spend less, and most importantly, be more mindful of what I really need in my life.

Use time wisely and sometimes that means doing absolutely nothing.

Without sounding like an oxymoron, you don’t want to take stress leave and accomplish nothing, but you also want to give your mind and body a break, and sometimes that comes from stillness, relaxation, meditation, mindfulness or even just binge watching the show of your choice on Netflix.

But when you’re not relaxing and recouping, do something that increases happiness hormones by accomplishing things, whether that’s a personal fitness goal or reorganizing your place using the Marie Kondo method. Setting and reaching goals gives you a solid hit of dopamine.

Try to eat well but also, eat what you want.

To feel better overall and kick the physical symptoms of stress, you need to build your immune system, so eating right and getting in your essential nutrients is key. But also stressing out over food and not enjoying what you’re eating won’t do you any good either.

So treat yourself by treating your body well, while enjoying a slice of cake here and there too.

Be aware of your emotions and seek to gain control of them.

Don’t numb your emotions with alcohol or other stimulants like too much screen time, but especially don’t avoid your emotions as you’re just delaying the inevitable.

If you can, go to therapy, it will help significantly if you find the right therapist for you.

In addition to that, listen to uplifting podcasts from people you admire or respect or podcasts with subject matters about personal growth and development. Improve your emotional intelligence by realizing what you can and can’t control and shift your focus solely to what you can control.

So what can we control?

Certainly not everything.

Stressful events will pop up, but how we respond is always in our control.

Learn what you need to do in order to keep yourself from falling apart when stressed.

If I’m feeling tired, then I need to rest. If I’m having physical symptoms, I need to look at them as a warning sign that I likely need to slow down and reassess.

Consistently ask yourself, what do I need to keep myself going and from falling apart? Maybe you don’t need a stress leave, maybe you just need a vacation.

Be aware of the signals your body is giving you and assess them early enough to avoid stress leaves altogether but more importantly, don’t feel bad if you do need one, embrace it instead.