Hello my beautiful people and welcome back to the moments podcast.
I'm coming at you live today from my bed.
I'm not like filming in the normal podcast room.
I'm sitting in my room and it's, oh my gosh, it's midnight.
I thought it was 11.
It's midnight and I was gonna record this episode tomorrow,
but I kinda had a really crappy day today.
Like my mental health was really bad.
I just had one of those moments where I got super overwhelmed
over everything at once and
I feel like I've gotten to a point in my life where
I can now handle those bad days so much better than I used to be able to.
And don't get me wrong, I still felt everything.
I shed tears, I cried.
I had everything hit me like a truck.
There's a lot going on in my life right now.
In so many different aspects of it, I'm fostering a dog
but I really want to adopt and with this dog I have to make sure this dog can get along with my cat
and my parents' dogs because I talked about this last week, I won't get super into it.
But we're now in that trial period, the introduction period,
and it's really stressful for me because I have grown in attachment to this dog.
This dog already means the world to me and I love her so much
and just the thought of things not working out really breaks my heart
and it got me super stressed out for no reason.
It's day two of all this and it's gonna take time for all the animals to get used to one another.
But once that happened today, it was one thing after the other
and then I just started getting overwhelmed about my future
and just all sorts of things going on in my life that I don't need to get super personal
and talk about.
You guys all know the kind of day that I'm talking about and what it feels like.
And what I did was came home, I really tried to shift my thoughts around
and redirect my thoughts because that's the first thing I try to do
and my mental health is all out of whack.
And I posted a TikTok about it today but I try to redirect the negative things going on in my life
and think about the positives.
That's always the first step and if you can succeed in shifting all of those negative thoughts,
you'll usually be just fine.
But that wasn't working for me today.
I tried and I tried and everything was just still so heavy
and my thoughts were still so negative.
So my next go to was I'm gonna make a comfort meal.
It was about six o'clock when this happened and it was such a busy day.
All I had eaten was breakfast and like a really light lunch, more of a snack.
And obviously, you know, if my body's not fueled
and I'm having all this negative stuff go on mentally,
I'm not gonna feel good.
You're not gonna feel good.
You need to properly feel your body.
So I did that.
I mean, so many scrambled eggs with cheese.
I had nothing else in my house and I ate a full bag of talkies
and I regret to talkies a little bit now because my stomach hurts really badly.
But in the moment, like it's exactly what I needed to feel a little bit better.
And then, you know, that temporarily worked.
And then I came in my room, I sat on my bed, I started going on my phone
and I got into a deep scroll, which is never good for anyone's mental health.
Like not like the positive kind, the kind where I'm just aimlessly scrolling on TikTok.
My attention span isn't even lasting 10 second videos and I'm going and I'm going.
And I said, forget this, I have to get up.
I have to go for a walk.
I have to do something.
And I took the dog.
She's still kind of unnamed.
I think I might name her Nalu, but not everyone loves that.
Anyways, we went for like an hour long walk.
And I don't know.
I spent a lot of time with those thoughts again.
I let myself feel them.
I let myself cry.
I said a prayer.
I talked to God.
And even if it's not God that you're talking to, you know how I am with religion.
I love my relationship with God.
I'm Christian.
But whoever it is that you talk to or whatever higher power or if it's the universe, whoever
it is that makes you feel secure, spend time talking to them or even if it's no one.
I don't know.
Just talk sometimes.
Like pretend it's a therapist and I'm sitting there and I'm with my thoughts and I'm thinking
and all of a sudden things just started to come together.
I started to realize that I'm at a point where I can work through these thoughts.
I can allow myself to feel them, move past them and carry on with my day.
And I got home from that walk and I just felt so rejuvenated and so blessed and appreciative
and focusing on what is going right versus what's going wrong.
And I don't know.
Just got me inspired to record tonight instead of tomorrow morning.
And I'm thinking for this episode I'm going to do an advice session sort of because my
thoughts are all over the place and I want to talk about a lot of different things.
And I put on my Instagram story the other day.
Like what do you need advice on?
And I'm just going to scroll.
I don't have an outline.
I'm just going to scroll through this while we're doing this together.
And I'm just going to talk.
I have another quick intermission to tell you guys about Headspace and this is such
a fitting ad to do for this episode because I've talked a lot about being and taking time
with yourself and getting out of your head and into some more peace and getting past
like stress and anxiety and all these things.
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so much.
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What Headspace does is it combines scientifically proven benefits of meditation and mindfulness
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Meditation is a game changer in my life and I know that it will be in your life too because
there's nothing better than getting out of your own head and allowing yourself to just
be still and calm and focused on other things other than your thoughts.
It's super cool too.
They have so many different teachers with different backgrounds in areas of expertise
and there's always a teacher and a meditation or mindfulness practice that is for you.
Headspace has the world's largest library of content and they have over 1000 hours of
clinically proven mental health exercises.
It's something we could all benefit from like seriously so excited to tell you about this
because when I heard about it, I was so excited.
I try to squeeze in a meditation whenever I can.
It's sometimes not every day because life is life but at least every other day or a
couple times a week just start small and if you want to start with once a week, that's
what works for you.
I encourage you to do so.
Headspace has helped me and over 100 million people worldwide.
They can help you too.
So listen up, you don't want to miss this.
I've arranged something pretty special.
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So once again, in case you missed it, Headspace dot com slash moments back to the podcast.
So the first one I see is having a good high school experience.
I guess this means like my tips if you're in high school and I think this can apply if
you're in college too, like wherever you are in your life.
Tips for just having a good experience is to simply focus on the good and surround yourself
with people that mean a lot to you.
When I was in high school, I spent a lot of those years without even realizing it.
Like this was super subconscious trying to hang around people that I actually, not that
I didn't love them, but people who made me feel like I would be cooler if I was friends
with them, if that makes any sense.
And I don't want this has nothing to do with the people it was.
We were just very different people and I was only hanging out with them because they were
more popular or they went to more parties and I was very focused on the superficial things.
And I think a lot of us go through that in high school without even realizing it.
Like when I think back to who I was in high school, I am 110% a completely different person.
Yes, there's aspects of me that are the exact same.
Like I would post on my Snapchat private story, 10 minute blogs just talking, which is crazy
because now that's almost exactly what I do, but in a very different way.
And things like that will stay the same.
But the way that I think and the way that I view the world has completely shifted.
You know, in high school, it was all about who I was friends with, what parties I was
going to, who I was hooking up with, like what boys did I kiss.
And I've learned that life is a lot more important than that.
And I think if you can start early enough as in high school to surround yourself with
the right people who actually are doing things that you enjoy doing, I think that that's
a really good first step in having a good high school experience.
I would also say get involved in any way that you can.
In high school, I was in leadership, I was in ROTC, I was on the cheer team, I was in
clubs.
I tried to do everything that I could.
And that's something that I'm so grateful for because I think each of those outside,
what are those called extracurricular activities are what made me appreciate high school and
brought me closer to the people that I actually needed to be around versus the people I don't
know, you get what I'm saying.
We're going to move on.
How to deal with friends who only use you as a second option?
Honestly, this one's hard.
I've been here and I've dealt with this.
And I will say that I'm really, really lucky and grateful that Lassette has been my best
friend since 2005.
And I have never, ever, ever, except one time, felt like a second option to her.
And this was back in, it's high school again.
And she was hanging out with this one girl, she's a super great girl.
We don't really talk to her too much anymore, but I was a school year younger than Lassette.
So when Lassette went to high school, it was her freshman year, she became super close
with this one girl who went to all these parties.
And for a little while, I just felt Lassette's little sister that she didn't want to hang
out with but had to hang out with.
And obviously, this was so long ago, none of this even, I don't even know how I just
had this flashback of this memory.
And it was one of the hardest things that I remember going through or feeling.
And I've experienced this again in other times in my life more recently.
And I've kind of learned that if someone doesn't want to treat you as an option or a
first option or a first priority, one, like evaluate their situation and really think
through like, is it personal or do they just have a lot going on in their life?
Are they just confused?
Is this something temporary?
Like I always try to give the other person the benefit of the doubt but if it's not causing
me pain.
If it's hurting me a lot, I kind of just take a step back and take it as a sign that I need
to focus on myself.
And the right people will come and the right people will stick and friendships, you're
going to lose them in this life.
And it's sad to think about like their friends that I've drifted so far apart from that
I thought I was going to be close with for my whole entire life.
But that's the beauty of life because just as you're going to lose friendships, you're
also going to create so many beautiful ones, the older that you get.
And yeah, just know your work and don't put up with anything that's causing you a lot
of pain but at the same time be aware of what the other person might be going through or
what phase of their life that they might be in.
And also 99% of the time, it's not personal and you shouldn't take it as something personal
and you should never let it make you feel less worthy.
Next.
How to love your body, I just did a whole episode on this with my therapist so I would recommend
listening to last week's episode if you want in detail.
Talk about that but I would really say just fake it till you make it.
Okay, fuel your body with good things.
You know, I say eat your veggies, I say eat your proteins, I say focus on all the things
you're putting into your body, your fruits are really good antioxidants.
They're going to help your brain health which helps your mental health and actually find
your food very fascinating and I'll get into a whole episode on this.
It has actually made my relationship with food a lot healthier because as I say that
on the other side of the spectrum, like on the other scale on the other hand, you also
have to feed the soul.
I believe everything is great in moderation.
I'm not going to encourage you to go eat McDonald's five times a day but I'm also not
going to encourage you to drink smoothie five times a day.
Like just find yourself somewhere in the middle and stay active and move your body and like
yes, these things are important but also know that your body is probably the least interesting
thing about not probably.
It is the least interesting thing about you.
You are a soul and this body is a vessel and I've said this countless times before.
Your body is the reason that you can breathe, that you can walk, that you can hang out with
your friends, that you can go bowling, that you can go to the movie theater, that you can
swim.
Your body is a gift and you should know that the way that you were created is exactly the
way that you were supposed to be created and you deserve to love that because it's beautiful
just the way it is.
It's also helped me thinking about it only in that sense versus comparing myself to beauty
standards and I know that's like really easier said than done but when I fill my mind with
so many thoughts of like, oh, okay, like what good am I putting into my body?
What good am I doing with my body?
What is my body giving to me?
It makes it easier to forget about other people's bodies.
I hope that makes sense.
The next one I have is boys.
That's just, that's it.
Listen, I spent a very, very, very big chunk of my life just, I don't know, I just really
have never been one to crave a relationship, to want a relationship, to search for a relationship
and I'm really grateful for that about myself.
I don't know why I've never been one to really chase boys that had one bad instance in high
school and I would never do it again.
I was chasing a boy who had absolutely no desire to be with me.
He just wanted to sleep with me and it makes me sick to think about that there's so many
men like that and those are the ones you should always avoid but I've learned that when I've
spent the most time working on myself and finding the fullest version of me and loving
myself completely that is when the best men walk into my life and there's been situations
where, I don't know, guys have been really good to me and I've just realized it's like
not the right person or it's the wrong time or whatever the case may be but this is kind
of an open-ended question so I don't even know where my advice with this is going.
I guess I just want to tell you that in order to have, and this goes beyond boys, this just
goes to relationships in general and coexisting with someone or sharing your heart with someone
and opening your heart to someone.
Another person can only temporarily fill a void if you haven't found fulfillment within
yourself.
You have to love yourself completely and I'm in a stage of my life right now that we'll
get into and we'll talk about this at a later date.
I can't tell you too much but I do think I'm at a point in my life where I'm really learning
to open my heart and I'm learning to just say yes and step outside of my own fear because
I have found that different kind of love for myself where it's not external love.
It's not okay, I look good so now I love myself.
That's not where loving yourself comes from.
Loving yourself simply comes from the inside of you.
Loving yourself comes when you understand that what you look like externally isn't what
other people love about you.
If that, I don't know, my thoughts are getting a little bit jumbled but I swear in my head
they're crystal clear.
Just know that you need to love yourself and the inside out and you should never chase
a boy.
If it's meant to be, it's going to be and you should never spend your time.
We have a short time on this earth chasing someone who doesn't make you feel worthy.
You doesn't make you feel wanted.
He's still chasing other people and I think that when I was younger and I say younger
I'm only 22.
I'm really young but I can assure you that the person I was at 16 just like I was saying
when we were talking about the high school one.
The person that I was at 16 is astronomically different than the person that I am at 22
and the way that I view boys and relationships has changed extremely.
I have got myself to a point where I am never going to settle for someone who doesn't add
something to my life.
Someone, someone who doesn't bring value.
So anyone who drains my energy or makes me feel like I'm not good enough or like I need
to be doing more or like I'm lacking in something, I'm not going to waste my time.
I know what I deserve and I know that there's a soul made out there for me and I know that
the time will come when it comes and who knows.
Maybe I'm at that point in my life right now.
We'll get into that another time.
Next one I have is, oh my gosh I just talked about this and I do want to do a whole episode
on it.
Let me give you a short version.
How to get over the fear of growing up.
I'm going to answer this as someone who is still afraid of growing up but I've made a couple
of TikToks about it in the past two days actually.
When I first started making TikToks I was 19 and I had this overwhelming irrational fear
about turning 20 and about turning 21, 22, I was terrified.
I thought that by this point in my life I should have everything figured out right.
I should almost be married.
I should have a stable job and instead I'm single, actually, well, I can't, well, guys
I am going to tell you a secret.
If you're listening to this podcast do not comment anything on TikTok, I have a boyfriend.
So I can't say I'm single but it's very fresh.
So I'm basically, I was single two days ago, I don't have a stable job.
The job that I do is very risky.
It's very unreliable.
It could be gone in the blink of an eye but I absolutely love what I'm doing and life
has worked out for me.
I just dropped a bomb on you and now I'm going right back into my advice.
You would have thought, okay, I realized that if everything has worked out to this point,
I am certain that someone up there, whether it's God, it's the universe, whatever it is
that you want to believe has my plan figured out for me and I don't want to waste all
of right now in these beautiful years of my life trying to figure out what I'm going
to do.
That just sounds silly when you say it out loud.
Yes, have your passions and chase your goals and you have to have a stable income.
It's a privilege mindset to be able to just trust the process but I'm not saying sit there
do nothing and hope it all works out.
Keep pursuing and keep chasing and it's not always going to be easy work but don't allow
yourself to let the thoughts be so heavy.
Just allow them to be.
Right?
Like it will all work out and you really can make the affirmation as simple as that.
It's all going to work out.
And since I was so scared of growing up, I was always like, I don't want to be 30.
I don't want to be 40.
I don't want to have wrinkles or be an old person.
And I kind of recently began to understand that each phase of life I'm going into has
new things and new experiences and new people.
And that truly is something to look forward to.
The more people that we're going to meet in this lifetime, the more things we're going
to do, it's a beautiful thought.
One day we might have a kid who's little version of you that you get to raise and cherish
and love and take care of.
And that's really cool.
At 16, I couldn't have imagined living in my own house with a cat and maybe even a dog.
And now I'm 22 and that's the stage I'm in and that's all I focused on.
So I've learned that when I was so scared at 19, 22's been absolutely freaking incredible.
So I'm sure that 26 or 27 or 58 are going to have the same incredible feelings.
And an older lady, I think she said, she commented, she was 65.
She said, I'm 65 and I know myself better now than I ever did.
And I'm so grateful to be in this phase of my life.
And I was like, wow, that's a really beautiful take.
And it's kind of just stuck with me.
I mean, it's been a few days and I'm still thinking about it.
It just helped me understand that life is all going to be okay.
And there's nothing that you need to be afraid of.
You just need to just enjoy exactly where you are and every little step of the way because
it all comes together.
It really, really does.
And when you can just shift that mindset, it's a game changer.
Next one I have scrolling.
I'm scrolling.
A lot of them are similar.
Okay, this one's about yoga and I really do love this.
Do you love yoga?
Does it help your mind?
Body, soul?
I absolutely love yoga.
I've talked many times on this podcast.
It's so tough with the podcast because I know that some people only listen to certain
episodes.
I forget that it's not like, you know, everyone has caught up to date on every single episode.
I know some of you guys are.
My real ones, I love you.
But if you don't know, I'll make it short.
I've been teaching yoga since I was 13 years old.
I kind of fell out of teaching it for a while and I don't teach it super often now.
But I still try to practice it daily.
Even if it's not going to a yoga class, I stretch, I move my body, I set an intention
for my day.
I really do things mindfully and I think that that's one of the things I love most about
yoga is it's not just something physical.
Even though the physical benefits are just beyond belief, they'll help you with your joints
and your lower back pain and just everything.
It works muscles that you don't even know exist.
But ultimately yoga is such a beautiful mindfulness practice and it is such a cool way to get
in tune with your thoughts in a healthy way because you're kind of forced to be alone
with your thoughts in a yoga class.
But at the same time, you're distracted in a sense.
So they don't feel so heavy, but you're allowed to process them or you're able to process
them better.
Yoga has so many benefits and a huge goal for me talked about this before too.
The first thing I want to do is I want to start teaching more and I plan to start teaching
more and I'm going to eventually.
Quick little intermission.
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So give it a shot, check it out and back to the podcast.
Next, next, next, next I have, I'm scrolling, I'm scrolling, how to stay true to your personality.
This is a hard one.
In the day and age that we live in, we are shown, I've talked about this before too.
I watched a TED talk called the Paradox of Choice and it talks about how the more options
we have, the more stuck we feel, the more paths we see the different things that we want to
do.
The more we're going to feel like we don't know what we're actually meant to be doing
and I think that that ties very well with how to stay true to you, how do you know who
you really are and the biggest way that I've been able to tell this, this is another thing
I was thinking about recently, even today, just on my walk.
When I started doing social media, it was so new, I was following trends, I picked up
on other people's habits just because, I don't know, that's what social media does
sometimes and it's a really cool thing about it.
That's what influencers are meant to do, I guess, is influence people to do certain things
besides the point.
When you really need to evaluate who you are to your core, this is where, I'll say it again,
mindfulness comes into play and journaling and being able to be alone.
I learn who I truly am when I'm by myself for longer periods of time.
Even if I'm just at my house all day, if I'm cleaning, I find myself listening to music
that I wouldn't normally listen to with a group of people or I notice that my journal
entries get a little bit deeper and when I journal deeper, I gain a clearer understanding
of who I am, what I actually want to do and when you're alone, again, you just have more
time with your thoughts and when you have more time with your thoughts, your thoughts
are going to teach you who you are.
You have to be willing to listen to yourself and when you listen to yourself and spend more
time with yourself, other people's, what's the word I'm looking for?
Like other people wear off on you less?
Like you, I don't know, I think you get the point.
But just know, you're going to continue to find yourself the older that you get and
the same sense that I just talked about this older lady who is 65 and said she knows more
about herself now than she ever did.
It's because we're constantly learning more about ourselves.
I'm 22, I can promise you, the same time next year, I'm going to be like, holy shit,
I have changed so much.
Like I look back on who I was a year ago today.
I thought I had it all figured out at that point.
Like I thought I was at the most evolved version of myself, not at all.
And I never will be, none of us ever will be.
And that's why it's so important to just keep an open mind and know that you're just
going to keep changing and you're going to keep learning more about you and that's beautiful
and it's not something to be scared of.
And also just know that if you do slowly start to find yourself, the right people are going
to come into your life.
And I know that that doesn't really have anything to do with what this says, but it's
a scary thing.
Like finding yourself and realizing that maybe you don't align so much with the people that
you've been keeping around, like it's scary and it's change and change is really scary.
But you know, it's even scarier than change is like nothing changing ever and everything
stays the same.
I saw that on a Pinterest quote or something and I don't think exactly, I don't think
it was exactly like that.
But moving on.
Next I have, oh, how to be the single friend.
So I've been the single friend pretty much my whole life.
I've been in one other relationship that lasted a few months during quarantine.
I honestly don't count it.
I think I was just in that relationship because I wanted to be in a relationship so that I
could say I was, which we've grown.
We've evolved since then.
It was great, great guy.
Nothing against him.
It just was more a personal thing.
Like I don't know.
I don't know what I was doing, but other than that, I've always been the single friend.
And I think being the single friend is cool.
You have so much opportunity and so much freedom and so much just care, freeness, like
enjoy being single.
I always have said that and it's weird for me to be having this come out of my mouth
right now that like, because I'm not single, but I think I can say it because I was for
so long and I, I enjoyed every second of it.
Not in the sense like, oh, I'm talking to all these people.
Literally never.
When I was single, I was single.
I got to talk to a few guys, but nothing ever got even remotely serious.
Even when I thought it would, but being single just means you get to spend more time discovering
yourself.
And the more time you spend discovering yourself, the more likely it is that when you do find
the right person, it's going to be so much easier because you're already going to know
who you are and what you want and what you deserve and how you want to love someone and
how you like to show love and just appreciate it while you have it because eventually you
might get to a point in your life where you're married for 50 years and you'll look back
and be like, I'm so glad I spent that time being able to enjoy my own presence and myself
because relationships are a lot.
It's like, you're emotionally, not that you're responsible for someone else, but if you genuinely
love someone and care about someone else, you're going to feel the things they feel you're
going to want to take care of them and that can be a lot sometimes.
So just appreciate only having to take care of yourself, you know?
Next, next, next.
Isolating versus spending time alone.
This one hits me hard because, well, first of all, I've never even thought about it in
that sense, but this is a very, very, very real thing.
When I found myself at my lowest point in the first time I moved to Hawaii in 2021, I got
super depressed in March, April, May around there and I simply could not communicate with
a single soul.
I was arguing with my mom nonstop because she was just trying to help me and I think that
you know, this was a two-way street.
Like, she really wants to see me succeed and she wants to see all of my dreams come true,
but like, we were so far apart from each other with a six-hour time change that I would kind
of wake up and I'd have all these messages from her like, hey, let's work on this.
You should do this.
It was all from the most pure best intentions to see me do all the things I wanted to do,
but at that point, everything was so heavy in my life that waking up to a message of like,
just text this person back would ruin my whole entire day because I could barely handle getting
up in the morning and brushing my teeth and I know that that might sound dramatic if it's
not like the stage of life you're in right now, but being at that low is really not something
easy to go through.
So, the point of this is my mom and I were fighting all the time.
Me and Lisette were fighting all the time, which Lisette and I do not fight.
We actually are sisters and we'll fight for five minutes and yell at each other, but not
fight.
I don't know how to explain it.
These were different fights.
These were like, wow, I'm actually really upset with her and she's upset with me and
I don't like this.
Versus now our fights are like stupid.
And I didn't want to hang out with my friends.
I didn't want to do anything.
All I thought about was like, what do I need to do for work today?
And when that's how my mind was, my work wasn't passionate.
It's not that it was fake, but it wasn't passionate.
It wasn't doing it with a purpose.
I was doing it because it was working and because it was my job.
Two very different things that we can get into on another time.
But that right there was isolation.
I could sit here and be like, yeah, well, I was doing brand deal on brand deal and I
was posting all the time.
Okay, cool.
But you are isolating yourself from all of the people you care about and all of the
people who actually are the ones who inspire you to do the things that you do.
Versus spending time alone is something I've discovered.
I've always kind of loved being alone.
Like I don't mind being alone.
I've never had a problem with it, but spending time alone is when you are still creating
time for your friends and your family and it doesn't feel heavy to be around them.
But you are just as much prioritizing, creating time to be with yourself and to do your journal
entries and to go for walks and to cook alone in your kitchen, to play your favorite playlist,
to create a nice long shower routine, to go to a workout class by yourself, to, I don't
know, whatever it is, but by yourself, even just if you don't have the time to have alone
time, like enjoy every time you are driving to school by yourself or driving to work by
yourself, take it all in and discover yourself versus isolation where you are taking nothing
in and you are simply alone because you don't have the energy to be around other people.
And if that's a stage of your life, I'm in one I'm sorry and I know how you feel and
I know it's not easy.
And I'm right here for you and I know I'm like through a screen and I'm just talking
to you and it might not feel like we're best friends, but I can pinky promise you from
the bottom of my heart, you mean the world to me and you will get through this and it's
going to take time and life is going to happen and it's going to be heavy, I know, but trust
me when I tell you it's going to be okay, I've been there.
Takes a while, doesn't happen overnight, but call your mom, call your grandparents,
call your friends, make time for them and make time for yourself.
Not sure if I explain the difference, but I hope I explain something.
Someone said talk about stuff in your life more.
I feel like you guys get so much about my life and then I feel kind of weird doing the
podcast, like talking about my life because that's never been the goal of it.
The goal of it is to just talk about our lives, but I don't know, I think I've told you guys
plenty about my life.
If you follow me on TikTok, you know pretty much every detail all the time.
There's a bunch of random little things and I wish I could tell you every single detail,
but I guess some things I probably should keep to myself, you know, keep that work life balance.
I don't know, you guys know everything.
Next, next, next.
Reading, I'm reading.
College in stress.
Okay.
This is another one that hates.
I'm like kind of just scrolling and picking the ones that really stabbed me in the heart
because for some reason I feel like talking about all those things today.
The next one is college in stress and I feel this on such a deep level.
This was pre-Hawaii depression.
I would say three times of my life, maybe even four, three big ones, one like maybe,
that I found myself in a really, really, really dark place.
And I'm grateful that it's only been those few times, but don't get me wrong.
Those times were not short little, oh I'm depressed for a week.
Those were really heavy times in my life that lasted months of just feeling like absolute
shit and feeling as though I had no control over it.
And one of those times was college for me, but I was really good at faking it in college.
I was working five jobs.
Again, if you know the story, I'm sorry.
I know I've talked about it on different episodes.
Let me know if you want me to do a whole college episode still because I will.
But I was working five jobs in college because I had this obsession with making my own money,
which I think is a cool thing and it's a really beautiful thing until it's too much
everything in moderation.
On top of that, I was taking classes.
It was my first time having freedom with my school schedule, which was really hard for
me I learned quick because colleges when it really hit me that my ADHD was heavier than
I thought it was and I had a lot less control of my mind than I thought I did.
And you know, in college you delegate your time.
You time manage yourself.
So I would procrastinate and procrastinate and then I'd have to stay up all night writing
a paper that I knew nothing about it and study it and pay attention even when I tried my
hardest.
So that was not fun.
So I had that, the five jobs.
And I also was a little party girl.
Like in high school, I had my fun.
My senior year I was drunk all the time.
Don't tell the cops.
I did my underage drinking.
Like we've all been there and we've all done that.
Besides the point, I was party girl.
I loved going out and I was really big on my friends also, like really convinced me easily
to do anything.
Like I was very commensible, gave an appear pressure 24 seven.
All they had to do is say, can you please please please please come out and I would go
out.
So then all those three things.
Not good for the mental health.
Like I was stressed all the time.
I was waking up at five AM to go do one job, staying up till two AM to finish papers, going
out after that because in Tallahassee where I went to school, it's a huge party school,
you could go out at two AM and you'd be fine.
You know, like everyone's still out having a good time.
But my point around all of that is one, I made it through it.
Two, just evaluate the things.
Like if I could go back to college, I kind of hate on it a lot now just because I didn't
do any of these things in college.
I didn't do anything for my mental health.
I just was like letting it struggle really bad.
And I think even if you're just listening to this podcast or this episode, you're more
aware than I was like you're, you're already a step ahead.
But evaluate like what in your schedule can you change?
What is actually making you feel good?
What is making you feel like shit?
And how can you evaluate that?
You know, and just start there.
Of course everyone's situation is different.
So I'm not going to go super in depth on the pieces of advice, but whatever.
Next up I have, what do I have?
I think I'm also going to do next week's episode advice as well because I'm leaving for Arizona
on Monday and I get back Thursday.
So I want to record a week in advance.
That way I'm not super stressed out about getting it done when I get back.
This one is how did you figure out what did you want, what you wanted to do with your
career and with your life?
And well, I could tell you right now I didn't plan on it being this, but when I was younger
I wanted to be a teacher or a therapist or a photographer.
And those were the things I always said.
And at one point I wanted to be like a nutritionist or I don't know, I had a couple other random
ones, but for the most part, those were the things that I wanted to do.
And somehow God has came down and put on my path all three of those in one.
And it might sound silly.
Of course I'm not a teacher, I'm not a therapist.
I don't have any of those certifications or diplomas, whatever.
But in my heart, what I'm doing is taking everything that people teach me and teaching
it to those who want to listen.
And I believe that when I talk about mental health, it helps a lot of people with whatever
they're struggling with, which is where I see the therapist part and the photographer
part I've always loved taking pictures.
And now I kind of get to express that through Instagram, through stories, like whatever it
is, it's all fallen into place really well.
So I want you to just take the things that you wanted to do when you were little.
And I want you to just keep working towards them in some way and make meaning of whatever
it is that life hands you.
And if it's a job opportunity that doesn't feel so fitting right now, like I said, when
I was 19 in college, I was working as a nanny for two different families.
I was doing a catering job and I had an internship for this hospitality company and something
else that I'm blanking.
Oh, my internship was like technically two jobs.
Obviously I'm not, and no need to get into that.
But all of those things, I didn't really align with my life at the time, right?
But now somehow they've brought me to doing what I'm doing now.
So just, I don't know, make meaning of everything.
Just keep making sure what you're doing is something that you love.
Never allow yourself to get trapped in something that you absolutely hate.
Career wise, school is something completely different.
If you're listening to this in high school or in college, you're going to hate your
classes a lot of the time.
There's really no way around that.
If getting your diploma is important to you, you got to get through those.
There's no change in them.
But when you get to the point where you're on the next step of your life and you're moving
into a full time career, make sure you love it.
Because there's a chance you'll be doing it forever.
And you never want to get stuck doing something you hate.
Because if you want to live a life that you love, you can't be doing things you don't
love.
Next, my draw.
I know it's hard and I know it's scary.
And I still get scared sometimes too.
I'm just in that wave right now where like just trust God, just trust the damn process.
It'll figure itself out.
Next up I have, what do we have?
What do we have here?
How do you have enough courage to start something people around you don't see working?
I want to tell you.
Actually, I'm going to end this week's episode right here and we're going to jump right into
next week's episode starting right where we left off.
So I'll talk to you guys next Monday.