reflections – Page 2 – untitled atm

096b – the creative process of intimacy

I haven’t been writing (publicly) as much because all I can write about lately is love and romance. Anyone who knows me knows I’m deeply wary of the idea of being enmeshed with anyone else, especially romantic partners. And yet, these days I find myself wanting to spend all of my time with a specific person. She’s great and we both seem to be on the same page about most important things (including our own individual needs wrt alone time etc), and yet I do find my alone time not being as precious lately. It’s almost like I’m able to “recharge” with her and hence am able to do my “alone time” with her as well. Which.. I know it isn’t necessarily a bad thing— I’ve been in monogamous relationships before and they can be really pleasant— and just because they come with very strong, deep attachments doesn’t mean I have to be so fearful of them. But still, I know for sure that to retain my sense of myself, my individuality (which really, philosophically, I’m fully sure of wanting to do), I do need to remember what I like about my alone alone time.

Writing and music have been the two most important things over the last year, and to be fair to myself, I’ve been doing enough of the two, even if I’m not doing them publicly.

Still, I would like to continue to make my writing / journaling / blogging public, to the extent possible.

This actually feels really good too. Just the idea of writing things down and sharing them with the world does give me a sense of comfort and security. And this is important for me to note and regularly stay in touch with so I can do everything that I talked about earlier in the beginning of this post (ie retain and maintain my sense of self).

Something I’m more in touch with lately is a bit of the “crazy” and “weird” parts of me. Of course, calling them crazy and weird is a bit of a judgement, but perhaps I just mean the parts that maybe we’re not fully secure about, whether it’s because we carry internal judgement or whether society makes us that way, doesn’t really matter. Channeling all this becomes very important though. Of course most of us know creativity and art thrives on all of the parts of us that we’re not able to express through other ways. But to channel them successfully we need to make sure our routines around creative work are not falling apart. If I’m not writing everyday, for example, then even being in touch with part a or b will be useless. To create good stuff, or stuff we can be happy with, then, needs the following things—

a. being in touch with all sorts of feelings and parts of us,

b. routines wrt outlets and our creative practices,

c. the courage to express and the courage to share it or put it “out there”.

I suppose the process of intimacy (with another) and with the self looks the same in many ways then.

Anyway. Was this too rambly? I don’t think so. What am I saying? I’m saying that even though I haven’t been creating as much art as I may want to, I think I’m okay with it because I’m deepening my connection with someone, and that is, in many ways, the same thing as creating art (to me). The output, yes, is quite different, but for a while I think I’m okay to invest my time and bandwidth in the “creative process of love and romance”, and not just my existing preferred creative outlets.

Happy april, folks! xx

096a – cyclical longings

Want to write but I don’t know if I have anything to write about today. Not like I haven’t experienced this before and I know that once you start you do generally tend to find things to write about. I did some organisation today and I feel good, albeit a little tired. Made a todo list for the week as well so I’m feeling good about it.

I think I’m going to go ahead and participate in the music school open mic that’s coming up, it would make sense to do it— even though I wasn’t feeling completely upto it until now, but I think that’s just me running away from the discomfort of the thing. I’ve canceled an upcoming Bangalore trip to work on the things I need to work on, and I think that’s the right decision for me. I do have things to wrap up here which I should pay attention to.

Need to plan travels upcoming in the summer, have been procrastinating on that quite a bit. Once I wrap up a teaching project that I have on my hands right now I can start thinking about work, I think it’s starting to give me some anxiety now.* Also thinking of reducing therapy to twice a month or thrice instead of my current cadence which is weekly. Would be nice to save some funds and I don’t think I need it as strongly anymore. The caveat is that I don’t want to fall (back) into any addictions because of this.

Something I realised recently that I’m really happy about is how little I think of my self image anymore. Someone asked me (from a card game) whether I think the image I have of me is similar to how others see me— and I realised that I don’t really have an image of me. I mean, sure, I have certain things— ie I like to think of myself as creative, joyful, interesting in connections, interested in love, maybe a little non-conformist, INFP, sensitive, empathetic, communicative— okay, well, maybe I do have an image of myself. What’s changed then? Maybe the image I have of me is more “true” to me, then. And hence it doesn’t create much conflict in me anymore. Or the image I have of me is related to my inner self and not things related to my outer (physical) self. Yeah, I suppose that could be it.

I was missing Amsterdam quite a bit today, and really I’ve been missing it throughout this week, actually. It’s nice that I’m going to visit in July, it’ll be a good refresher on whether I actually miss it or whether I just miss the good parts.

*In slightly over a month I complete a year to my “break” and while I’m not financially constrained yet, I do think it would make more sense to now join something, something I can be a part of as opposed to just doing things by myself. It’s undoubtable that we can get more “done” or we can create more value when collaborating with others. It’s almost stupid to think we can do something of value purely by ourselves. And at this point, it makes sense to join something even if I don’t know what path I want to take. I think the path will show itself to me the more I “do” things.

Alright, that’s about it for now. Wish you all a great end to March! xx

093a – age, explore vs exploit, attachment

Feeling very reflective today. I think I’m not that afraid of turning 30 anymore. I feel like things have only gotten better (so far) with the power that experience and age brings. I’m still ambitious, motivated, excited, prone to chasing pleasure, prone to human longings, but I feel more grounded. Of course, these feelings of stability and security are not PURELY related to age. There’s a lot of other things that play into it— geography, community, loving people ie family and friends, romantic partnerships, anti-anxiety medication, my therapist, goals I’m working towards, and lastly art and artistic outlets; and some of these (maybe most) can be present at most ages. But whatever it is, I’m feeling good about still have over an year to 30, and then sort of having a nice “second half” of my life from 30-55 or 30-60.

I don’t want to say that the life I envision post 60 is not valuable, but I imagine that will be very different considering the challenges that “old age” might bring, so I just feel like it’s futile to think about that right now. Obviously, one might argue it’s obviously futile to even think about anything beyond a week or two, really, but let’s keep that aside for a minute.

The point is— I’m excited about the second half of my life.

The numbers are just rough markers, of course.

I’m satisfied with the amount and kind of “explorations” I’ve done over the course of my 20s, and I feel good about sort of entering a bit of the “exploit” part of life, at least in the bigger picture. Not to say that I will curb my exploratory needs as and when they come up— and I think I am sufficiently exploratory by nature, and this has also been sufficiently stable over the last couple decades, despite the anxieties that come with exploration in general and despite my personal fears and anxieties. So I wouldn’t want to curb my exploratory needs too much, and my brain does devote maybe 10-20% of its bandwidth on curiosities. However, I’m learning to focus on the stability and safety that comes out of really leaning into the remaining 80-90% of the thing itself. Or (and) celebrate the good parts of what is.

—

In therapy we also talked about differentiating attachment (of the spiritual sense) and the real attachment (the one that exists within relationships etc). I think I’ve been mixing the two a lot over the last few years. I’ve convinced myself that I get attached too quickly and in unhealthy ways (even though that attachment was coming from my ego) and I forgot that I’m capable of maintaining and nourishing healthy attachments too. With friendships, for example— I’m actually capable of showing up in many many healthy ways. I’d like to not do myself disservice by confusing these two terms. Maybe it makes sense to think about what the healthy attachment means and looks like— do I want it? Is it a subset of love? What are the pitfalls? Why am I so afraid of it? I am not afraid of intimacy but I do find myself being quite afraid of “attachment”. So, yeah, that’s something I’ll be thinking about this week as well.

Cheers, happy Feb! xx

091a – content, grateful and ambitious

Back to Delhi. Back to thinking about work and projects. Kind of happy with all of it. Had a terrible flight back but all worth it. I think traveling is such a great way to get new input, data and feelings and gives me a lot of stimulus about things I naturally care about. Feeling pretty good about the frequencies that I know I like with traveling now.

I’d like to sleep by 2-2:30am which means that I’m time boxing this word vomit once again. What are the major things on my mind lately that I’d like to think about? Polyamory, physical intimacy, art, music, production, reading, giving up addictions, grooming, haircut, health related tasks, how much emotional bandwidth can I give to friends and family, how much work can I get done in Feb considering my sister’s visiting and I don’t get enough time with her throughout the year, yeah that’s about it I think.

I’m doing a freelance photography gig (event based thing) for some family this weekend and I’d like to do it well (more so) since I’m getting paid for it, would like to take some tips from people I know who’ve done this before. Editing etc is something I may need to do some research on. Actually kind of excited for this!

Lately I start writing a ton of word vomits but I never get past 200-300 words. I’m not very sure why. Is it really possible that I don’t have enough to process? Or do I have more people around me which allows me to process some things with them instead? I’m not sure, it’s likely the latter though.

Another thing I’ve realised is that I’m definitely more of a space taker than I used to think. Of course, I strive to be considerate and I’m also mindful of how much space I take, but I do take enough of it. Maybe therapy has helped with this too. I like it. I guess writing is also a good way to take a lot of space in the ways you need to. The page is the room you probably actually really need. But it’s a great room. It’s better than most rooms.

Art, safe spaces, mental health, suffering (reducing it if possible for myself and other people), being good— these are the things I really care about.

I’m also glad that I’ve made “niceness” and earnestness almost a pretty big part of my identity (or I’m slowly doing it) and it feels nice that when you stand up for it really strongly, most people don’t try to oppose it. In fact you also learn whether people do actually want to oppose it or not, and if so why etc. When you make claims that most people in theory agree with, but you do it gently, you are making space for questions they may not be brave enough to face themselves actually.

I also used to think I’m not hardworking or ambitious but it’s just that my energies were not being directed into the right things. I feel like lately they have been. So I suppose that’s what makes me happy and content.

090b – intimacy and travel

There is something about leaning on people that feels incredibly rewarding. Intimacy is magical and every time you do something tough in the journey (asking for what you need or want, or something you’d like, or canceling plans with consideration)— you know it can go either way. It can strengthen a connection and add more “events” (data) to it or it can weaken it. Both outcomes are okay but it’s always fun to see where it goes.

I have been spending most of my time in other people’s spaces and lives, and slowly but steadily I allow my life to merge in their spaces, that’s quite fun too.

Today I spent my afternoon in a good friend’s room, he’s moved out of it but some of “him” was still around. I send him a picture of his desk and tell him I’m having fun and he tells me where the trees are if I’d like to improve the view. It was all quite nice. His desk was dusty and yet the afternoon light made it all quite romantic for me. Dusty surfaces in otherwise mostly clean spaces are an interesting little detail to me.

I visited a very old friend in her house in a far-off neighbourhood in the city and I was reluctant to go there, but the trip was quite worth it. I like seeing residential spaces and how different people have different lives. We talked about everything under the sun and I wondered when we’d meet again. In the past we’ve gone many years without meeting and I’m pretty comfortable with that too.

I haven’t been doing as much writing as I’d like to be doing but maybe I’m changing that right now.

We talk about how “if you wanted to, you could write about anything, really” but something stops us, still.

All (okay, most of) my friends are analytical as well as creative and I love that about them.

I was more careful of my energy this time though and I’m quite glad about that. I felt like I was able to balance self-preservation and getting “enough” out of travels pretty well.

Headed to Bombay tomorrow and spending three days there and although I was feeling like I’m done with traveling, I’m finding that I am looking forward to meeting some people. Pretty excited about that.

Also did some good amount of “exposure therapy” over the last few days which I’m happy and content about.

Indulgences though, ah. Back to tapering down from it now, hopeful I can keep at it.

I think getting any new ideas and or art (or cultural expansion) from any sort of traveling makes the travel (or other activities) very worth it. We clicked a lot of pictures, had some good food, recounted old stories, wrote new ones, and that’s more than I could ask for, I suppose.

That’s 90K words! Glad to be here. Don’t think I’d like to get away from this habit, really. I like documenting things, I like noting down how I feel about events and things happening in my life. I do find myself going back to reading these from time to time, which I think serves a nice little purpose for myself too.

089a – safety and choice

I tell my father that people sometimes cry pretty easily in front of me. He is surprised. There’s space and silence as he processes this so I add that that’s not necessarily a bad thing though, and I almost feel nice that they feel safe around me. (Of course, truthfully, I know this isn’t about me and I’m just an aid or an instrument to what they might have needed, but admittedly, I’m happy when I’m able to offer a non-judgemental space to someone). He laughs and asks how i can feel good about making people cry. I think he is partially joking but I know it’s only partially so. He has never experienced safety in the ways I strive to experience (and hence, also bring to people) on a regular basis. This devastates me and yet I know I can’t spend too much time thinking about this.

When I was much younger I would sometimes fantasise about people telling me their deepest, darkest secrets. I don’t know if this meant anything and part of me knows that I perhaps had a bit of a saviour complex. But I look up what a saviour complex means and a saviour complex is tied to fixing. I don’t think I ever wanted to solve people’s problems, even in my fantasies (unless they wanted me to, of course). I don’t know where this came from, then. Maybe this part of me just wanted to tell my deepest, darkest secrets to someone and I envisioned being this person for that part. It’s all good now, though. I experienced almost 10/10 safety through therapy and I don’t feel the need to offer safety to people for my own happiness.

It feels nice to be here. Starting to think about choice a lot more. At 23, I started the journey of disidentification and detachment from my thoughts. At 28, I started the same with feelings. I’m recognising that thoughts and feelings are just that— thoughts and feelings. While it’s true that some of them can mean something and some of them can be worth listening to and following, I keep in mind now that there is always a choice. Choice of belief, choice of how much meaning you want to assign to them, choice of response. I’ve spent enough time with my feelings over the last few months to now for know that I don’t need to spending all my time with my feelings.

Art is nice, of course. It allows to me pour my thoughts and feelings into something. Something tangible, almost. I suppose in a way, it gives meaning and an end and a home to my thoughts and feelings. It’s safe. Maybe that’s the primary reason I do this, maybe that’s the primary reason I’ve always done this. Of course, if someone miraculously finds value in it, that makes me incredibly happy, but I suppose there is enough value in it for me too.

I don’t believe in a forever anymore. It sounds pessimistic and unromantic but i feel really great about believing this. To me, it means that I have fully grieved the people I’ve lost. Because if no feeling is final, how can a forever be final? Choice (and hope) is what makes a forever, and choice is hopefully something you can always carry with you. (I pray to god I never have to be out of choice.) xx

083 – reflections

Alright, January is here. I did some reflection earlier in November, but I’d also known I’d want to do it January, again. (It’s so much fun!) Luckily, my sister sent me a guide that she found which looks pretty interesting. So I’m just going to use that format to do this.

(Always) make your questions bigger than your answers

Q: What was the biggest question I answered this year and why was it important?

Hands down has to be the question around how much do I enjoy art and creative pursuits, and how much time can I spend on these activities. The enjoyment is unparalleled, these activities give me a sense of deep joy and fulfilment, something that I only get from nature and people otherwise. I don’t know yet whether I can spend 40 hours on these activities but if I keep cycling between them in some way or the other, I can. This was important because really it feels like a way of life and I probably want to design my life in a way that I can keep enough time and energy for it.

Q: What are the three questions I want to gain answers to in the next year, why are they important?

What do I like more between music and writing? If at all there is an answer to this— or what would I like to prioritise, or focus more on? I do think I get more unadulterated joy out of music, but I’m not a 100% sure yet. I do think I need both in my life. It’s important because prioritisation is very important to output, and I’d want to have clarity on this.
Am I able to look at Delhi or any other Indian city as a place I can settle in, long-term?
What is my relationship with gender, masculinity and femininity?

(Always) make your purpose greater than your money

Q: What achievements over the past year most aligned with your purpose? What are you most proud of?

Moving to India (because it helped me spend more time with art and music)
Starting drums and learning keys more
Doing more songwriting
Music open-mics, poetry open-mics
20-30K words on my blog, started substack, wrote a lot more poetry

Q: What impact do you want to have over the next year? What actions will give you the greatest momentum toward this goal?

(Attempt to) release an EP (or a single at the least)
Write more songs
Try out more production
Collaborate with more people (find people with complementary strengths)

(Always) make your confidence greater than your comfort.

Q: Looking back over the past year, where did you expand out of your comfort zone? In what ways are you more confident now as a result of this expansion?

All the achievements I’ve listed above involved a lot of stepping out of my comfort zone. I’ve done a lot more exposure therapy wrt my anxieties as well. Even before to India, I’d done a lot of new things in Amsterdam itself. (Meeting new, diverse people, poetry open mics, more biking, etc). I’m definitely a lot more secure as a person lately, or at least a lot more accepting of me, my flaws and my limitations. I post a lot more without thinking about it, I invite people in my inner circle more easily. I trust “vibes” and frequency a lot more than “thoughts”— which is only a result of positive experiences which have come out of an inherent trust in life and the universe.

Q: What new commitment will require a jump in capabilities over the next year? What will be possible in making this leap?

Since releasing an EP is my biggest, most-important goal in the coming year, I would need a lot more trials, experimentation, technical skills, etc to make it all happen. Primarily I feel very blocked by the idea of sound mixing and editing and whether I want to do it myself or find other people to do it will become important to answer. But I can only know by trying it out, so I will need to get over that blocker and just do it. Making an action plan can help, I imagine. Which I will- this week.

(Always) make your cooperation greater than your status.

Q: What is an example of extraordinary teamwork or collaboration from this past year that created a big breakthrough?

Q: What teamwork will be essential to your multiplier goals this year?

Kind of the same here. Do a lot more collaborative music projects as opposed to solo projects. Learn to rely on other people for things that I’m not very good at, especially if they’re willing to do it. (For example, mom for help with house decoration etc, domestic help for taking care of house maintenance, food, etc), so on so forth.

(Always) make your enjoyment greater than your effort.

Q: Looking back over the past year, what activities, team- work, or projects provided the most enjoyment?

Q: Going into next year, what strategies or delegations will free you up to focus more on the activities that fascinate and motivate you most?

Again, this is the same here. I’ve already been focused on joy and fulfilment more than other things. So, pretty sorted with this.

(Always) make your gratitude greater than your success.

Q: Who are you grateful for in your life right now? are they important to you?

Q: What can you do to demonstrate or express your gratitude to these people?

Note that success to me is waking up happy, having a decent day, and going to sleep on time or getting enough sleep in the day, doing my healthy things, not resisting negative feelings that come my way, not resisting external situations too much. That being said, I feel like I do express a good amount of gratitude for the good people in my life. So, again, kind of sorted on this. Will obviously also make a Bangalore trip to visit close friends and kind of thank them, in a way. I suppose since quality time is my love language, I tend to prioritise that for people I love. But maybe I can also look at how people like to receive gratitude, and not just rely on quality time.

(Always) make your performance greater than your applause.

(Always) make your learning greater than your experience.

(Always) make your future bigger than your past.

Looking at these questions, I’m realising that the answers for me are pretty much centered towards creative pursuits (esp music), so I’m just going to leave the last few questions unarticulated, since they’re pretty repetitive even in my mind.

I’m linking the doc here in case anyone’s interested in referencing it for their own reflections!

Happy new year, cheers xx

081b – joyful

Heart is full. Had three consecutive days around people I love and I couldn’t be happier, I think. As I’ve mentioned multiple times before, I was pretty worried about December, productivity, social obligations etc etc, but I think this time I was finally able to show up where I really wanted to, and say no to the things I really didn’t want to do. Feels pretty great to be able to do this.

Life has become much easier now that I’ve started expressing myself more and more, without thinking too much about it. I think I learnt how to do this most from a couple people I met over the previous year. I don’t know whether I just have a “backlog” of unexpressed feelings and thoughts or whether I genuinely will stay the same over the next few years, but I’m excited to find out.

I’m also finding a lot of pleasure and joy in bonds that are not necessarily solidified or spoken about in words. That is, where words aren’t the primary form of communication and affection. Of course, quality time and physical affection have always been important to me but I always used to think that bonds are stronger and more real when you can talk about your thoughts and feelings explicitly. But I’m making more space for relations where words are not our strong suit, and yet I know they are valuable relationships and maybe I don’t want to give them up.

The good thing about expressing in large “quantities” is also that you start to then get a more wholistic opinion of your art and skills. Giving up perfectionism has been one of the best things for me and my art and expression journeys. You start to feel seen over the small things and slowly it all accumulates to give you big positive feelings as well. My belief in the value of “body of work” is getting stronger, basically. And it’s not that you don’t give your whole heart to these little things, it’s just that you’re okay with perhaps 7/10 or 8/10 satisfaction and you complete+share those things anyway. We’re just human, doing human things after all.

I’ve also opened my heart to dogs and kids again (as silly and obvious as that sounds) and it’s been wonderful. It’s so silly that we have these very easily available sources of joy and sometimes we forget to tap into them as much as we should be. Tldr; it’s never too late to unlock “new” sources of joy.

I guess the trick after all is to find positive feelings in the easiest and most satisfactory way possible and release negative feelings in the easiest and most satisfactory way possible. I like this framing, I’ll sit with this a while.

Stay safe and sound xx

080b – missions

I’ve been finding things that feel really great and authentic to myself. Missions, I think I could call them. At least, at the moment. Things I’m passionate about, in other words.

Art— this has been consistent for a while now. More of writing, more of music. Write more, sing more, learn to play more instruments. Learn to play instruments better. Learn to sing better. Do more of original writing and original songwriting until it starts to feel like I don’t like or enjoy it.
Healing, meeting my inner self— this has developed over the last couple months. I’m finding that there’s a lot more “experiencing of my soul” that I want to be doing, and that is aligned with one of my biggest values ie authenticity. Only by knowing yourself can you learn to “be” yourself.
Creating and accessing more safe spaces— for myself and others. I find that I really like it when someone tells me they feel safe around me. It feels special. And I feel called to do more of this.
Courage over convenience— what does this mean? I don’t know yet, maybe I mean “whenever possible, courage over convenience”. Of course we don’t want to be reckless and idealistic in a self-destructive way, but in steps, we want to be making the courageous choice as opposed to the convenience choice.
Play, fun, beauty— @britchida says that play is the opposite of survival mode. So of course when things are tough, I will not be engaging in play as much. However, whenever I can, I want to be leaning towards play and fun and beauty. And of course this ties with #1 because art is the one space where I can be playful and have fun even when I’m in survival mode (emotionally, at least).
Sustainability— this is of course the realist and rational part of me that wants to ensure that I approach life from a grounded place. I am at heart a romantic and a dreamer but I need to be an adult, I cannot operate like a child. Sustainability is going to be about that. About not being reckless. About remembering to think things through. Whatever that would mean to me.
Learning— this is another top 5 value of mine. I enjoy learning, I enjoy being good at things. It’s not about validation from other people (though of course I can’t deny that that’s enjoyable too) but it’s more about the kind of doors that can open for you. But that’s secondary, I also just like being good at the things that I enjoy doing, it’s just an inherent thing. I like the processes, I just like learning and deep-diving into certain subjects and gathering more knowledge about them. This also ties to why I like people— because you can learn a lot from people. In ways that you wouldn’t from books and the internet, I think. (I want to write more about this, actually, because it might be important to think more about “what” I want to focus my learning abilities on).

And that’s 80k words! December was a little slow with writing but that’s okay I think. There’s still 10 more days to do more of what I like. Sometimes I feel like I just want the words to keep flowing and never stop. Maybe this will be another thread.

Cheers xx

080a – better to speak, she said

“Is it better to speak or to die?” I’m starting to think it’s always better to speak.

I’m realising I’m perhaps not meant for the mainstream world. I know mainstream is a pretty evolving concept and it’s already been evolving from the previous decade or even the previous five years but what it is right now (especially in my environment) is definitely not where I belong. I really need to change my circles and/or my environment and find my people, my tribe. I definitely don’t belong in the heteronormative world.

Or is that just the anxiety talking? I don’t know. Sometimes we solve for x when we really need to be solving for y, I don’t know.

It’s the middle of the night and I have a long day ahead but I’m unable to sleep. Someone told me sleep problems are caused by a lot of suppressed thoughts and feelings in the subconscious, which would.. make sense, except that it’s hard to access suppressed things, they’re obviously suppressed for a reason.

Thinking about rationality and the heart and the gut a lot today. It can be really nice when they’re all in sync but often they’re not.

I’ve allowed my heart to run my life a lot lately but I might need to listen to rationality a little bit too.

What is rationality, really? Not ignoring evidence, I suppose. I suppose the heart can be a bit of a kid sometimes— stubborn, blind, spoilt, pampered, etc. And rationality, then, would be a bit of parent, or an elder sibling, really showing the heart that you don’t always get what you want and that’s okay. Most people in life don’t get what they want. There is no end to want, anyway.

How do we then make peace with what is? I suppose just facing realities can be a good first step. Acknowledging that what is is what is, even when it’s unpleasant, could be enough.

I always go back to poetry and music when things are tough but I haven’t been able to do that too much this week, not sure why.

How will I ever solve sleep? I don’t know. I need to make more action plans. I can’t just keep sitting with my problems, I need to be working towards movement.

Looking forward to this week though, have a couple of exciting music things lined up, and a couple nice social plans too. Maybe I’ll incorporate some workout too.

Alright alright, we got this. Gratitude, kindness, authenticity, learning, joy, nature— I can keep coming back to all this when things are tough.