Hey, y'all! I found out about 29 Gifts through Jen Sincero's book You Are A Badass. I just launched a blog and Youtube channel documenting my journey of radical personal development as I work toward becoming a life coach to help people manifest their dream lives while struggling with mental health issues such as anxiety and depression, and am currently discussing gratitude. I just started reading 29 Gifts last night and it seems this book came to me in perfect timing, with 29 days this month, so here I am!
Day four: I did what I could around the house for my partner who was on a streak of working seven days straight this week. Day five: I reached out to my parents. Both of these acts were emotionally fraught, as my relationships with both my partner and my parents are strained right now. I am happy I gave, and I actually was able to release a lot of emotions regarding my partner that I had been carrying as I helped him out, but my reaching out to my parents was a dead-end. Some giving will be easier than others, these weren't the easy days.
Day three: I gave to myself today. My work/school/side hustle load is getting intense and changing drastically this month. Living a fairly isolated life to begin with, the blessing of working from home can feel like a curse some days and my depression has let me make a lot of excuses for barely scraping by financially and not working at the caliber I know I can. Today I started my new 5 am routine - I did time blocking and tweaked this schedule until everything fit comfortably into a M-F work week. I almost never stick to a schedule and wind up scrambling on the weekends. But today I got up when the alarm went off and stuck to all the time chunks. I meditated for the first time in years, worked out, showered, walked my dog twice, and am currently waiting on the oven because I even cooked a healthy meal for dinner. Tonight I intend to meditate again before bed, but for now I still have a few hours left to study and maybe relax with a little TV. It wasn't perfect, but I know I will get more and more done as I get used to this. I am so proud of myself for stepping up for myself, and I hope to take that gift of those feelings I gave to myself and carry it into the next few days and weeks until this lifestyle change becomes my new normal.
Day two: Today is the last day before payday, I have $1.27 left after bills. As someone who gets paid per page as a transcriptionist, this feeds my money scarcity mindset when dollars equal pages. I know I get paid tomorrow, so I donated $1 to TeamTrees.org, a charity I support and one that I know I can donate just $1 to. As i pulled out my wallet to get my debit card, imagine my surprise when I found $2 in cash (I rare carry cash, and though I paid with cash last week, I swore I spent it all). Funny, releasing that only dollar I thought I had and I found two. I gave the $2 to my partner who pays in cash for his meals at work. It's not much, but with his discount, that's almost half his lunch today.
Day one: I work independently from home and have devised a spreadsheet to help me document my work. I decided today to share that with my fellow remote workers through our community forum. At first I didn't know if the gift felt adequate, but I know it's what I had to offer today. An hour later I connected with a fellow co-worker who I had not interacted with before and she checked out my profile bio, realized I'm starting a blog and said that if I needed any help she was willing to mentor me. In turn I went to her website and found out we had quite a lot in common. if I hadn't shared that spreadsheet, I probably never would have interacted with her and now I have somebody excited for me to succeed and as my first follower to my new blog!
