Inside Out
I don’t know if you feel the same, but…
I miss the feeling of taking my time; of not having to rush in public places. I miss when strangers were seen as opportunities rather than challenges to avoid. When sitting in a cafe with a hot latte and a notebook could be a day-long affair. Those moments of joy aimlessly walking through a museum to discover your new favorite painting; or the feeling when a plane takes off and just for a second you feel your heart floating. I miss when seeing people and being soaked in human togetherness was the highlight of my days. Life feels shrunken down to only the necessary bits and pieces, and in this ‘inside out’ season, the moments that bring joy have been inverted. We as a people are tasked with reinventing what it means to feel alive.
However, I must continuously remind myself that yes, this is hard: but this is real. I am real. Online class and Zoom friendship reunions are very much real and valid things to write on a to-do list. Life mainly exists in the digital nowadays and it hasn’t been an easy adjustment for any of us, but adjust we must.
I used to measure my life with outside validation and gratification and allow myself to rely on others to keep me smiling, which was easily done as people were all around me. But after quite some time on my own, I have found small but mighty ways to keep myself in a good headspace throughout the day. Below are a few of my newfound habits of happiness that will hopefully inspire you to find your own.
I. switch it up
A lot of the time when I am feeling trapped, or stuck in a routine, it’s because I feel like I have no control over what I’m doing in the day. What seems to have helped me overcome this feeling is trying something new, switching a part of my daily habits so it doesn’t feel like I just did the same thing yesterday.
During one of my first weeks moving back to Boston this year, I took an extra mattress and placed it on the floor of my dorm room to simulate a sofa-style seating area. Though this may sound simple (and even a little silly) I cannot explain how much happier it made me to switch up my space. I sat and did my work and blogged for hours in a much better mental state than if I would have done the same old thing and sat at my desk.
It’s the small moments that I decide to make special and daily new to do’s that seem to be keeping me going these days.
II. don’t settle for bad coffee
Ah, one of my life mottos. You should never settle for a coffee that doesn’t taste good…period. The actual process of brewing and pouring the coffee is like a ceremonial act daily. For me, it’s coffee— but for you, it may be lighting a candle, taking a bath, or choosing your aromatherapy scent for the day. The point is, we all have that one part of our day that has become second nature to us. Don’t settle for anything less than the best for that small moment of your day, you deserve it. My new favorite discovery over the Winter holiday was this brand, Jot. With just one tablespoon of this ultra-concentrated brew, you have the base for any coffee drink you want. So, in between my french press latte days and my triple shot of espresso over ice days, I have begun to experiment with this.
It keeps me looking forward to what I can create and use to make my daily cuppa new and exciting…and of course, tasting just the way I like it.
III. document your day
As an avid photo-taker and daily camera roll expander, I have come to catalog the details of my days. I take note of special, tiny moments so I have them to look back on. I love being able to reflect on a week and see everything I did, what food I ate, and what I found beautiful in that time.
Capturing these moments in time helps me prove to myself that I truly am alive, real, and living—even if it means I am living much differently than I am used to.
IV. celebrate the mundane
Since so much of my life has become simple pleasures, I find it important to be appreciative of what is actually in front of me. Like the way the light is hitting just perfectly in my room, or making sure to capture my definition of a perfect banana. I notice the quiet changes in my environment, outlines and silhouettes, much more now. For me, these notations of beauty in my everyday life have become almost necessary as I like to see value in every 24-hour cycle.
Every day has something special and worth remembering inside it.
V. eat with your eyes
I’ve lived in a college dorm for the past four years, so I’ve had my fair share of dining hall food, takeout, and dorm meals. Enough to know what I like, what to get, and what to avoid. Now, as dining out for me has mostly ceased and even take-out is a rarity, I found it necessary to create meals that not only taste good but look good. Half of the fun in dining out is about the atmosphere and appearance of the food you are served—that’s what makes it so special and worthwhile.
So, as I make my little grain bowls and oatmeal brunches, I keep in mind that yes, you eat with your stomach…but you also eat with your eyes. It makes me positively joyful to prepare my meals. I love cutting my apple slices just right, adding my dash of cinnamon, and making everything look picture perfect.
It brings a little more excitement to a daily necessity and allows me to create instinctively what I want to eat that day.
VI. create your own smile reminders
This one is quite possible my favorite. When returning to campus one day after leaving home, I was struck by the need to remind myself of what makes me actually smile during the day here at school.
Sometime in my college life, two of my close friends and I began making little smiley faces on our hands to remind us to be happy while we worked away in the studio for hours on end. “Smile Reminders'“ are what we called them, and that’s truly what they are.
Inspired by this little act of togetherness, I created a list of the things I can do on the daily to make me smile from the inside out. Starting with the most basic and working towards more mentally-centered bullets, I feel like each day should be filled with gratitude and healing, especially in today’s state.
Thank you for reading! And if you’re like me, I hope you’ll find it inside you to create your own little daily doses of joy as we move through this inside out time.