Therapy: 6 Month Check In

Therapy is honestly one of the most amazing things I’ve been doing this year. I’ve been learning so much about myself and so much about life in general. If you’re even on the fence about trying it, just know that therapy has helped me in every aspect of my life and continues to do so on a weekly basis. I’ve been going since January and since then so many of my relationships and my outlook on my life has improved vastly. I want to share one of the tools I’ve received in therapy with all of you as a glimpse into one aspect of how eye-opening therapy has been for me and can be for you, if you give it a try.

My therapist gave me a sheet of “Unhelpful Thinking Styles” which I’m certain all of us can say we have done or are currently doing.

1. All or nothing thinking: Sometimes called ‘black and white thinking.’
For example–“If I’m not perfect I have failed,” or “Either I do it right or not at all”
I have a tendency of thinking this way in a few aspects of my life. If a guaranteed “win” or success story was not attached to something in the past, I avoided it. Nothing in life is ever absolute, so working on accepting this was definitely challenging for me, but I’m getting to a point now, where I’m not focusing on failure but instead focusing on the possible success, even if it isn’t guaranteed.

2. Mental Filter: Only paying attention to certain types of evidence. F
or example–Noticing our failures but not seeing our successes.
It’s so easy to key in on something negative in our lives because it has such a great impact. Something positive can linger but something negative can ruin our whole god damn day and make a day that was pretty good suddenly sum up to a shit day. This is an issue that I feel I need to hone in on and resolve situationally. Did it suck not to get into grad school when I applied? Yes. However, that was not my path right now. I was meant to do what I am now working on and it’s as simple as that.

3. Jumping to Conclusions: There are two key types of jumping to conclusions—
-Mind reading: imagining we know what others are thinking -Fortune telling: predicting the future
None of us really know what is going to happen nor do we always know what other people are thinking. It’s safe to say, we shouldn’t assume we know things that we simply do not. I am working on this as I tend to assume a lot because it makes me feel in control of things even when I am not.

4. Emotional reasoning: Assuming that because we feel a certain way what we think must be true.
For example– “I feel embarrassed so I must be an idiot.”
I have a lot of feelings and at times I have had issues interpreting them. Am I crying because I can’t handle stress or is this feeling happening as an emotional reaction to a situation that is triggering these tears? I used to identify crying as a weakness. Showing emotion and not being able to control myself was weakness. This, of course, isn’t true at all, but before I believed it true. In therapy, I can honestly say I cry at least once every other week. Afterward I don’t feel embarrassed or weak, my therapist helped me understand that emotions are valid.

5. Labelling: Assigning label to ourselves or other people. F
or example– “I’m a loser,” “I’m completely useless,” or “They’re such an idiot.”
Now, a while back I wrote this entire blog post about labels and how they belong on jars, but since then I have been more vocal about my judgments. Not always in a joking way as I always had before. I find myself more and more, labeling people, calling them careless or irresponsible if I feel it suits them. I’ve argued that I am merely analyzing situations and people, not labeling them, however, there have been times when they were not constructive labels, just mere judgments. It’s a struggle daily, since I am hard on myself and label myself many things daily. As I work on being easier on myself I am also learning to refrain from passing judgments among those who it is not my business to judge. (Exception: Donald Trump is a horrible president and is running this country into the ground. Fuck that guy.)

6. Overgeneralizing: Seeing a pattern based upon a single event, or being overly broad in the conclusions we draw.
For example–“Everything is always rubbish (their word, not mine, I would’ve just said shit), or “Nothing good ever happens.”
I, identify as a dramatic person. You’re labeling! Yes, but I have a point, so, it’s okay in this situation…I’ll talk to my therapist and work on it next week, get off my back! Anyway, so considering being dramatic, I use hyperbole in almost every sentence I speak/write to add the emphasis. I need not only to make a point but to make others laugh. Should I work on this? When I overgeneralize a neighborhood due to the things in my immediate view? Yes! The other times when I say my job (whose name I will not say because god knows corporate will find this blog somehow and sue me for talking shit about them, even if it’s just a dramatic/funny version of the truth) is a place WHERE LITERALLY ALL DREAMS GO AND DIE, I will continue, because it makes people laugh and I like laughter, so there.

7. Disqualifying the Positive: Discounting the good things that have happened or that you have done for some reason or another.
For example–“That doesn’t count.”
“I haven’t traveled or done shit with my life.” I probably say this at the very least once a week. Then someone will reassure me and say, “So, that 40,000 debt you have in student loans was for fun or did you get a degree out of it?” Oh, that’s right. I guess I did do that. Then another more annoyed voice would say, “Didn’t you just get back from Tahoe and are going to Mexico later this year for the second time?” Well, yes but I want to travel more! I have done the things I claim and complain that I haven’t, but I’m just indulging in the negative for the sake of doing so. It’s so sad how easy it is to take for granted all the things I have been able to do that many others can or have not.

8. Magnification (catastrophizing) & Minimization: Blowing things out of proportion (catastrophizing), or inappropriately shrinking something to make it seem less important.
This one is tough because doing both these things comes incredibly easy for me and quite possibly most people. There are many things at work and even at home that I tend to blow up. Things that are just the way they are and they aren’t even worth getting upset or worked up about. However, with things that compromise my integrity or put me in tough situations that upset me, I tend to play it down to diffuse the situation. I’ll give my own example, a work friend drunkenly hit on me and I said it wasn’t a big deal, but it was. It was a big deal to me and bothered me for several days after. It’s unacceptable, but I made it a small thing because I didn’t want to create friction. Finding a balance with both is tough, but doable I’m sure if you want to work on it.

9. “Should” and “Must”: Using critical words like ‘should’ or ‘must’ or ‘ought’ can make us feel guilty, or like we have already failed.  F
or example–If we apply ‘shoulds’ to other people the result is often frustration.
I have a hard time with this as, ‘should’ and ‘must’ are two words imbedded in my vocabulary. I always talk about all the motherly things my mom ‘should’ be doing and all the productivity I must do to be worthy of something. These words set us up to fail and believe that others have failed us using this type of language.

10. Personalization: Blaming yourself or taking responsibility for something that wasn’t completely your fault. Conversely, blaming other people for something that was your fault.
    This is huge for me. I take blame for almost everything that I am involved in. Remember that story I told about a drunken friend hitting on me? Yeah, I blamed ME. “I shouldn’t have stayed in the car after dropping him off while he vented to me about his issues,” or “Maybe I had been too nice.” After this reflex of taking blame for the situation at hand, I then snapped out of it. Forget that, I didn’t do anything wrong. I always talk about my boyfriend, me and this kid see each other like once a month and I was encouraging him to call his girlfriend the whole time he was venting to me. So, this taking blame BS is getting old. I’m working on taking responsibility for MY actions, not the actions of others. Don’t even get me started on the blame I take in my relationship with my mom. That one is definitely tough, but again, our lives are a work in progress, we just have to show up.***Therapy has this stigma attached to it and I hope to be a part of ending that in our society. It starts with the individual. Before my friends would whisper therapy when talking to me about it, like it was a bad word. They’d vaguely address asking about therapy all sheepish, “How was your, uh, doctor’s appointment…” I, of course, raising my voice a little, “You mean therapy? It’s been going fantastic! I love it and I love my therapist.”

    It’s important we share that we are in therapy with those close to us, hell even those not close to us, because it could change the way we see therapy. It could help someone who is worried what people might think of them if they were in therapy or shared that they were currently seeing a therapist. I used to be this person. Constantly worried what people would think if they found out I spoke to a professional. The truth is, more people are understanding about it than you might think. We all have issues, some big and some small. If anything, I feel like people reach out to me more, and have a respect for me because I’m not embarrassed about it. There is no reason to be embarrassed. We all need help occasionally, and in my case, I needed help working through family issues and ended up getting to know myself so much more.

    I used to think, I’m moderately competent and good at research, I can fix my problems all by myself. The truth is therapy has helped me in a way that I couldn’t have really helped myself. In therapy, I would be talking about something that occurred recently that had a negative impact on me, something I wouldn’t have gone into depth with but did because my therapist asked me to and I discovered something about myself I had not realized. That happens a lot in therapy for me. I’d be talking about something and come to the realization of something I hadn’t thought of before or connected the dots to.

    Remember that puzzle-line game as a kid where there would be a series of dots on the page with numbers next to them to help you form an image? Sometimes it would be a giraffe or some complex statue. Think of your life as the dots and right now you don’t have the numbers, or maybe you have some numbers but not all of them. Therapy, are the numbers on the dots, there to help you connect and make sense of the image in front of you (your life). This is what therapy has been for me, helping me connect those dots.

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    WRITTEN BY: Estela

Ripple Effects

For the first time, I got to witness a ripple effect of human kindness and it was beautiful. I was on my way to return an Amazon package at one of those Amazon lockers you sometimes see in a Safeway. I originally made the arrangements the night before and was going to be in Menlo Park anyway, so when I arrived I was going to go in and then right out to go to my therapy appointment. Now, I’m going to give you a bunch of details that seem unnecessary but it’s because every little thing that may seem insignificant is all happening for a reason. I was supposed to take the first entrance into the Safeway, the one I usually take, but a BMW that would slow down and speed up and the exact same time as I tried to switch lanes, kept that from happening. I ended up having to go around and entering through the back entrance of the plaza, because of this I ended up parking a lot father. I saw a little boy walking with a box as I got out of my car. He was talking to a hipster looking couple who were nodding and almost shooing him away. He was making his way toward the end of the parking lot, when I noticed he was carrying a box. I could tell he was selling something, so I walked over and asked what he was selling. Sheepish and polite, he answered, “Chocolate bars for at risk youth.” It was about 85 degrees and he had a t-shirt and jeans on. He was squinting at me from the blazing sun, trying to cover his eyes. I asked him if he could give me 5 minutes, that I needed to drop off my package and get cash. He said, “Okay,” and watched me walk away. I looked back, “I’ll be back. Wait for me.” He gave a half smile and turned to other incoming shoppers. I wondered in the moment how many times he was told that and didn’t see those people again. Not me. I was going to keep my word.

I went inside, walked over to the amazon locker and entered the code they gave me. I kept getting a “this code does not exist” message. I looked back at the paperwork, I had gone to the wrong place. I was supposed to have gone to the Safeway in Palo Alto, not in Menlo Park. I laughed in a realization that I was meant to be here, I was meant to buy that little boy’s chocolate. I should probably mention how BIG I am on the universe and, things happening for a reason. I truly believe things are put in place to keep you on a path meant for you and sometimes deter you somewhere else because you are needed elsewhere. With all that said, I grabbed a water from the mini refrigerator by the check out stand, and asked for $10 in cash back. I found him immediately, he was talking to a woman who was shaking her head no to him and back up toward her car. I walked over there and asked him how much the candy bar was. He responded, “Seven dollars.” I gave him the ten dollar bill and told him to keep the change. I handed him the water bottle and told him it was hot out here and the seal was still on the bottle. I grabbed the box while he opened the water and took a huge gulp from it. I asked him his name, almost breathless from the water he chugged, he responded, “Aries.” I smiled, “Aries. That’s a great name, that’s a fire element in the zodiac. It’s fierce.” Still timid, he wiped the water from his mouth, nodded and smiled.

The woman who had told Aries she didn’t want to buy anything had been watching us. In my peripherals I saw her run around the car to her back seat. Aries handed me the large chocolate bar with wrapping that was made to appear like money. The woman said, “Excuse me,” then apologized for interrupting and handed him a hat and some change she found in her back seat. She put the hat on Aries and told him he could keep it. Another man had been watching us too from across the parking lot. I noticed him staring at Aries as I came out of Safeway. I wasn’t sure why he was staring at first, curiosity as to what Aries was selling, or maybe the fact that there was an African American child in his upscale neighborhood grocery store roaming the parking lot. When he started walking over, I wasn’t sure what his intentions were, so I waited to make sure this man wasn’t going to make any trouble for Aries. He peeked in the box, “Alright, young man, what are you going to sell me today.” My heart fluttered at the big smile Aries now had. Sometimes we all need a push, someone to lead by example. That could have been anyone willing to show kindness to a stranger that could have started that ripple effect.

Selling anything to strangers, especially at that age, is difficult. What is seven dollars, really? A venti drink at Starbucks with a breakfast sandwich? Next time you think about saying “No” or not giving someone the time of day asking for help, don’t. Just give it to them, just help them. Some people might argue, “What if it’s a scam, and the money doesn’t go where they say.” That doesn’t matter. What matters is you did your part. You helped someone. What they do with that money or help is not your business anymore. You can only hope the people you help really do need it and that you made a small impact in their life. I was supposed to buy that $7 chocolate bar from Aries, to give him water, and to potentially inspire others to help him out. I ended up at the wrong place, at the right time. So, next time you end up in the wrong place, don’t get upset, because it might be the right time and to positively impact someone else’s life, one chocolate bar at a time.

 

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WRITTEN BY: Estela

Protect & Serve OR Threaten & Terrify

“Keep your hands up or we will shoot you.”

Words screamed to the couple inside their car. The canines barked uncontrollably. The flashing lights on their cars made everything in their perimeter appear hazy, dream-like. My stomach was in knots. The police kept screaming at people, swearing at them. I was told they came to contain a disturbance, but while I sat on the sidewalk and watched, they were the only ones causing a disturbance. They were threatening people. Elderly women in Sari’s who didn’t understand English were being told to, “Get the fuck back,” as they walked to their vehicles that were no where near the police blockades.

The minute I saw the police, fear entered me. I remember a time when seeing police made me feel secure, safe even. My friend and I took the long way around to avoid even being in any police officer’s eye sight, because we knew, they were on a rampage. They were stopping people walking to their vehicles, yelling contradictory things, “Stay inside!” and “Get the fuck out!” It was chaos. Absolute chaos. My car was one of the cars blocked in by the police, so, I waited. I didn’t walk over to ask them how long it would take, I didn’t even want to approach them, in fear they would take me approaching them as a threat, as they had with the other people who walked to their vehicles.

I watch the news, I’ve seen videos of people being shot in the back while running away. I’ve also seen police officers get acquitted and put on paid leave. I know how this works.
So when my friends and I were separated by the police who broke up my friend’s birthday party, which was in an Art Gallery by the way, I tried to sober up and cooperate diligently. It was a family party that was shut down because of the “noise.” A space my friend had rented out until midnight that the police shut down at 11PM. Everyone was having a good time. However, an argument outside was the ultimate reason for the shut down. An argument. No one had weapons, however, this did not stop the entire Fremont and Newark police station from blocking cars in, blocking exits and asking people, “What are you doing?” People who didn’t even know how to respond except with, “Leaving. You told us all to leave?” and the even simpler response, “Walking?”

No officer asked us if we saw anything. They just terrorized, for what I believe was two simple reasons: We were there and they felt like it. In this case, wearing nice clothes–most of the guys in dress shirts, the girls in beautiful dresses–was a THREAT to them. They screamed at us as if we were pointing weapons at them. THEY were the only ones with weapons out, making threats, creating one of the most hostile situations I’ve ever been in. The confusion was so incredible, not once did I hear, “Pigs,” or “Fucking cops.” We had no hate. Their hate overpowered that entire parking lot in that moment.

Did I mention that in the hour I was outside, watching the police scream, threaten and search, that no one was even arrested? Not one body was put in a cop car. Not one. BECAUSE NO ONE WAS COMMITING A CRIME. The couple they had told to keep their hands up or they would shoot them left after the police left. Are you getting this? A police officer threatened to shoot someone who they couldn’t find anything incriminating with and let them go. This is where we are at now. PROTECT AND SERVE? THREATEN AND TERRIFY is more accurate for this case, and all the cases the media has shed light on.

It’s crazy, I finished watching this show, “Dear White People,” (which is fantastic and a must watch) and the police broke up an argument between a black man and a white man. Once again, an argument, and a police officer drew his weapon and pointed it at the black man, then requested he show school ID. I watched the gun pointed at this young, highly educated black man and I felt anger. A gun was pointed at an unarmed man at a college party. I had never witnessed anything like this in person. I’d seen it in films and on the news, but never in person. It was terrifying. What I’m getting at with this example is, I’ve seen it so many times in the media, yet seeing police in person threatening innocent people woke me up in a way I hadn’t been before. Of course, I knew and believed the reality of what is happening with police brutality and murder, but when it happens right before your eyes it changes everything. It instilled a fear in me, that it is very real that there are hostile people out there with guns and they are wearing uniforms and have all the power to shoot someone or even threaten to shoot someone because they CAN. And there’s not much we can do about it. That night, I felt helpless.

In these type of situations, it infuriates me when people try to say, police are in fear of their lives every minute of the day. That is what they signed up for. To protect the innocent from the evil. Being a police officer is a choice. That night, none of us went looking for trouble and we were all in fear of what the men with guns would do. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but they showed us that they were not there to protect us that night, they were there hoping one of us would tempt them. I cannot emphasize enough, we were terrorized by the police. People were afraid to move, afraid to appear as a threat, afraid to walk to their vehicles. There were no criminals to fear. The only people there with guns drawn and pointed were the police. They victimized us. They made us feel unsafe. So, who do we count on to de-escalate situations? Who can we trust?

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WRITTEN BY: Estela

Feelings, Realizations & Resolutions

Raise your hands if you cry tears of joy at commercials that show soldiers coming home from war. Or when you see people perform good deeds, and when the underdog wins? Raise them if you have tears of sadness when people die in movies, when you see images of people or animals suffering, and when you get a glimpse of just how evil people can be. I’m an emotional person with a lot of feelings. I tend to absorb whatever emotions are around me. This all causes me to feel intense and extreme emotions.

When I was a kid, having too many emotions was considered a bad thing. Crying was definitely unacceptable, even when justified. If we were hit, we were told to stop crying or they would hit us harder. Once when I was crying because my dad wasn’t going to see me on my birthday, my friend told me that crying was bad for me and to stop. She told me that her parents had told her that crying wasn’t good for you health wise. It’s funny I was watching my family’s reunion video two years before I was born and in the video you hear one of my aunts telling my cousin, “Go away, cry baby. Get out of here,” because he was crying. In her defense in the video it sounded more like him whining, but still, I haven’t heard an adult call a child a cry baby since my childhood. Nowadays, kids in tears are scooped up by their parents who tell them it’s going to be okay.

Presently, I still have moments of shame when I cry or feel too much. I try to hide it, or shrug it off to someone who might see, saying repeatedly, “I’m not crying.” My boyfriend has unfortunately had to see me cry through commercials, movies, horrible events, etc, and he seems to enjoy when I show this type of emotion. Probably because a majority of the time, I show him my strong and funny side. So, these minor breakdowns make me appear more human. He is very open with showing me a lot of his emotions, so sharing emotions with him, is important to him.

People at work and friends tell me they can’t picture me crying. It’s rare that I cry in front of people, so it’s understandable they can’t picture me crying. However, when I insist that I cry quite frequently, their usual response is along the lines of, “I don’t know, you just seem really strong and I can’t picture you crying,” or “You just seem to make jokes all the time, even in tough situations. I can’t see you showing an emotional side like that.”

I just laugh. It’s nice to feel like people think you’re some super human who doesn’t feel sadness enough to cry or show what would usually be defined as weakness. I think I’ve put forth this image on purpose because that is exactly what I want people to think of me. To describe me as some strong individual who has it all together and can get through anything. However, I am not always all these things, and putting forth this image has had many negative outcomes. One being that, people never know the real me. Another being that people think you are in some way better than them or they think you believe you are better than them.

A long time ago, one of my best friends and I got into an argument. It was one of my first adult arguments with a friend and something she said stuck with me and changed my perspective on how I wanted others to view me. She said to me and I’m paraphrasing here, “You think you’re so stoic and better than everyone else. You’re not. You judge everyone else who doesn’t have their life together and you act holier than though…” We’re friends now of course, and I tell her how right she was when she said that. She was right, I did try to act like I had my life together. As if I always diligently tried to make the right and best decisions. I did judge everyone who I felt could’ve been doing more with their lives and I still have a lot of judgments now. As much as I come off as having it “together,” I don’t. I need a lot of help in almost every aspect of my life. I’ve got issues like everyone else and I realized a lot of people didn’t know or think this because I withheld truths about myself from them. When I had hard times, I kept them to myself or acted like they didn’t phase me, when they did. I avoided sharing things and this kept everyone in the dark as to what was going on with me. It was maybe over a year ago I started opening up about real things I went through and was going through, in this blog. When people started reading it that knew me, they would send me texts/emails, telling me they had no idea about a lot the stuff I was blogging about. I started to let people in. It felt nice to have people out there who knew the parts of me I had been so reluctant to share. Moving forward, my therapist is challenging me to express my feelings more with friends and family. She thinks it could be good for my emotional health. We’ve decided that my outbursts of emotions could be lessened by merely expressing myself more with others. Bottling it all up can lead to more intense breakdowns, so we’ve worked on getting to the root of the issue.

In therapy, I discovered that I tend to avoid people who challenge me. Now, don’t get me wrong, my friends and family challenge me in many ways, but I mean in a more critical way. I’m so fortunate to have so many people in my life who are supportive and loving.  However, I have noticed I get defensive and incredibly upset when I am criticized. I believe this is because I’m not used to it anymore. In college, that’s all there was, constant critique with a little bit of praise. Nowadays, I’m covered in praise and support and lacking in the criticism. Now you might think I’m some masochist who loves being called a failure, but that’s not necessarily what I’m talking about. It’s that whole “tough skin” routine that you always hear about in older movies or remember from your childhood. A father/mother will yell out to their child, “You’re too soft. You gotta toughen up.” Well, that’s what I need a little bit of, because lord knows when my mother criticizes me, whether it’s accurate or not, I fall apart like overcooked potatoes. With that said, I need to rebuild communication and put myself in situations with people who are hard on me in a positive manner. I’m not going to obviously hang out with people who tell me I should lose 40 pounds because I’m fat, but instead email that one writer friend I have that is always questioning all that I do (love you, man, you know who you are). He has a tendency of making me feel like I should be doing more with my life, mostly because he is. I’m already pretty tough on myself, but I also am quick to defend myself. Here’s an example, “Geez, Estela, you didn’t do yoga today, it’s only an hour, why did you have to watch the season finale of “Master of None” (Please watch the second season of this show, it is fantastic, still no regrets but it could have waited)? Then my defense will respond, “You had a busy day, you were running errands, studying, and setting up your mom’s printer. You can skip one day of yoga, you did exercise when you walked your dogs around the block! Atta girl.”

See my dilemma?

Anyway, that’s my homework assignment from therapy: to put myself in more challenging and vulnerable situations more often.

Criticism is healthy when it’s constructive and challenging. I’ve realized I need a lot of this in my life. Now, I just have to be brave enough to reach out for it and learn from it.

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WRITTEN BY: Estela

To Mexico We Go

I have lived in the United States all my life. My first time leaving the country was on a cruise to Ensenada, where a tour bus took us directly to the flea market where they were playing American hip hop. During the entire tour, a man who grew up in San Jose, CA, was saying how he retired in Mexico and how we Americans should be very cautious. He told us, the people here will overcharge us, will try to scam us and that we should keep our belongings in close proximity. It made me nervous. I mean, I was used to keeping my belongings in close proximity, but the fear of being in another country and potentially being robbed affected me. For starters, it put a limit on my drinking and I was so busy keeping on eye on my belongings I feel I missed out on sight seeing. I wanted to be completely aware and sober in case anything went down. Everything was fine on that trip, I imagine because it was a really touristy area. I had a great time, but I do wish I hadn’t been so worried the whole time.

In October, my mom, Henry, his family and myself are going to Guadalajara, Jalisco in Mexico. Henry’s family is very familiar with that area since they visit family around there all the time. I’m so excited we’re doing this trip, but I can’t help but be a little nervous. I think the media has corrupted my mind in believing that all of Mexico is like the wild west. People with guns and cartels throwing random heads on porches like a daily newspaper delivery. Most of the people I’ve spoken to who have been there say it’s beautiful and touristy. They also make sure to tell me not to wear anything that looks too nice or expensive. My clothes are pretty basic and I don’t have much to compare what is considered “nice.” I’ve never had trouble dressing down, so that’s a bit of a relief. Fortunately, Henry’s family are fluent in the language and can speak for us if we need help or anything. My Spanish is moderate. I can have a conversation but I might stumble or not know how to say certain things. I’ve been told I translate too exact from English to Spanish, making my sentences sound like a Spanish Yoda. Fluent, I am not.
But I try. Hopefully, my accent will improve before then and they won’t think I’m a foreigner. Also, the money difference is nerve racking. Do they take dollars, or should I exchange some of my money for pesos?

To ease my mind I think I’ll read up on more about the city of Guadalajara and look up money exchange and whatnot. I should probably also learn how to say Guadalajara without sounding like it’s a tongue twister for me. That word just doesn’t sound natural when I say it.

Planning this trip has already shown me how naïve I am when it comes to traveling. I didn’t know American airlines (not the actual American airlines, but like Southwest, United, etc) were not an option. I had to look up out of the country airlines, which makes sense, but I just didn’t think of it at the time. It’s easy to get stuck in this little bubble of home. Hopefully this trip will help me gain some experience in traveling out of the country even if it’s just a few hours south of here, plus I’ll finally get the stamp on my passport I so desperately wanted all my life.

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WRITTEN BY: Estela

Ultra Violent Light

History repeats itself.

There are things that aren’t right. Things that don’t make sense.

My mom was pregnant with me when Rodney King was beaten by Police. No one knew what was next. No one knew the type of violence that was going to continue to erupt and how widespread it would be. I was almost a year old when the LA riots happened. Everyone thought it was the end, but it wasn’t. It was just the beginning of a shift in our society. However, it seems that we are right back where we started.

How do we overcome racism, prejudice, and inequality? We start with ourselves and the people around us. The system is broken, and we live under that system. What can we do? We fight. We fight with our success. We fight with our refusal to allow the racism and the abuse. If you see something wrong, you raise your voice, you say something. We must band together against the injustice. We want what’s right and when we don’t get it, it’s natural to be angry. Harness that anger, because it is what drives us. Use that anger as the steps you need to make change. Put that anger and passion into your school work. Get that diploma, get that degree, work for the government and work on changing it. We CAN change it, we just have to get in there. We have to educate.

We can kill, we can burn our cities, we can continue the violence, but that’s easy. That’s the easy, quick way to get the attention and change you desire. It’s been done before, yet here we are. Reasons keep appearing to cause protest. And until this is no longer the case, we should keep protesting, peacefully, in the masses. But most importantly, we should be making our way into positions of power to make a difference. You don’t need money to make something of yourself, you need drive. That fire in your stomach you feel when you see an injustice. When you see people struggling because of the color of their skin, and you want to be the change in the world, let that drive you to success. We have to stay focused on the bigger picture now. We can’t make real change politically, widespread until we flood positions of power.

Be someone who was known for fighting against prejudice, without violence, even when this feels like the hardest thing to do. Remember, it was even more difficult for those before us to do so, but they did. Martin Luther King Jr., was one of the most powerful men in history and you can be too.

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WRITTEN BY: Estela

Organizing Time

There aren’t enough hours in the day.

I’m sure you can all relate to this in some way. A normal day for me has to include the following:
Walking my dogs in the AM
Making breakfast
Prepping lunch and snacks for the work day
Commute to work
While at work
-Eating
-Research for our wellness program
-Creating emails to send for my wellness research
-Walking on my first break
-Reading on my last break
Yoga/Workout
Commute home
Working on my blog
Walking my dogs in the PM
Making dinner
Do dishes
Clean
Catch up with friends and family
Talk to Henry
Prepare for the next day

Repeat.

This doesn’t include those nights laundry has to be done, grocery shopping has to happen, visiting friends and family or going to an event.

With all that said, we can agree that there is just no possible way to do this and still maintain positive energy and happy. Shout out to the parents who do all this with kids and have 10 kid related duties added. The things I named above are things that need to happen everyday, and making this list was just as stressful as doing the tasks. It’s hard to find a balance while trying to squeeze in things you do for yourself when the list of what you have to do is overwhelming. However, when I put it all out on paper in numbers, I discovered something interesting.

Have you ever tried mapping out in hours what your week looks like?

I did and what I discovered was incredibly helpful for me when it came to organizing my time. There are 168 hours a week. Try mapping out your time the way I did below.

Time Commitments That Cannot Be Changed:
40 hours of work
8 hours of commuting
56 hours of sleep (with 8 hours of sleep everyday)
10 hours of eating time
7 hours of exercise
______________________________
118 hours of obligated time

Now, do the math to see how many hours you have left after subtracting your commitments from the amount of hours in a week.

Free Time/Unused Time
50 hours give or take a week

What am I usually doing in those 50 hours that I feel I don’t have any free time to do anything I love?

Probably on social networking apps, watching Netflix, reading emails, or scrolling through Pinterest for longer than I should.

These things aren’t bad when done in moderation, however, I tend to binge most things I do.

So, my plans are to put my 50 hours toward things that are productive but also make me happy. Things like: writing, coloring, reading, organizing, and doing face masks (because we all need a good face mask day every now and then).

So before you tell anyone, I don’t have any free time, crunch the numbers and see how much free time you actually have. You might be surprised.

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WRITTEN BY: Estela

The Grass is Greener

Moving took a huge toll on me. It took an entire month for the process to finally end. Between working and trying to keep other aspects of my life in order, I was struggling to balance everything. So much that I took a leave of absence from one of my jobs. Now that everything has settled down and I finally feel like I’m getting into a routine.

I’ve been wandering around my new city and it is definitely something I’m not used to. I didn’t realize how many differences there could be in just a 12 mile radius. Every city gets it reputation. Everyone noticed the wide eyed stares you’d get if you tell people you’re from Oakland, though, much like Hayward, both are slowly getting new reputations (like being gentrified and becoming a nice place to live). Newark’s reputation was where “the rich people lived” for us in Hayward. Newark is a pretty pricey city to live in now, and was pretty expensive to us low income kids who grew up in Hayward. I remember being a kid going to play mini-golf in Newark and there being so much open land around there. Hardly anything but a few new residential areas being built, selling at $350,000, while brand new houses in Hayward with a golf course were selling at $250,000. That’s a big difference, and it all had to do with who was buying where, and people with money, were buying predominantly in Newark, keeping the prices up. Now, they host offices for Stanford, start ups and the median price of home values in Newark is around $700,000.

Though, only a few cities away, there are major differences between Hayward and Newark beyond cost of living. I’ll begin with the stores. They are seriously so much better. They’re larger, they have more variety and the people who work there are incredibly helpful. I’ll provide an example, Grocery Outlet. The Grocery Outlet in Newark has a large variety, is organized, and their staff is eager to assist you. They have a lot of things the Hayward Grocery Outlet didn’t have, like outdoor plants, cheap name brand skin care, dog supplies, household items, and plenty of food options. Newark’s dollar store is probably one of the nicest dollar stores I’ve ever walked into (along with the one in Turlock, which is huge). Okay, last one because this isn’t an advertisement for corporations. Big Lots. This place has a huge variety of furniture (outdoor and indoor), household items/decor, food, and skin care. The one back in Hayward closed down a while ago, but I remember the shelves half broken, barely hanging on and tiny children’s tricycles flipped over in the middle of the aisles. Now, not all of Hayward is that chaotic, but so far, it has been nice not to be around even the slightest bit of chaos.

Another thing I love so far about this city. The parks. They’re safe and there’s lots of them. Within a 5 mile radius, there are 6+ parks. It’s insane. They are all beautiful, spacious and my dogs love it. It’s so peaceful here, especially in the mornings at my apartment complex. There are so many tress and pets.

There are so many things I feel comfortable doing here that I just didn’t when I was in Hayward. I walk around the neighborhood with my dogs and no one bothers me, or follows me home. I don’t get stopped and asked where I’m going. There hasn’t been any disrespectful cat calling. People in Newark just say hello and go about their day. I open the blinds and windows without worrying about it. No one stops outside our patio or windows to stare in. I go to bed and don’t worry about my car being vandalized or broken into.

It’s little things that have made me more calm, relaxed and less neurotic, since living here. My plan was originally to only live in Newark for a year, but I really enjoy it here. So, time will tell what the future holds and where I’ll be. The high cost of living here does carry a lot of weight on my decision but we’ll see how it goes. For now, I know I’ll enjoy this year here in my little sanctuary.

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WRITTEN BY: Estela

New Roles

A lot has changed in the last few months. I moved out of the hood and I’m working on a new career path. But one pretty exciting thing I want to talk about it my new role at my job as a wellness ambassador. It sounds a lot fancier than it actually is, I don’t get compensated extra for it, but I’m pretty excited regardless. As a wellness ambassador, my role for my department is to ensure that people are aware of the resources our clinic has in place to deal with wellness issues. By wellness, I mean stress management, mental-physical health, nutrition, time management, burn-out, etc. It is also my job to help my team achieve their wellness goals.

So far, I’ve already made some huge changes in my own life for my own wellness. It wouldn’t feel right telling a coworker they can’t stress eat while crumbs and dust from my morning donut glittered on my uniform. I decided I would take this role very seriously and get as many people excited about it as I could. Our four focus points for wellness are: Fitness, Nutrition, Sleep, and Stress management.

I sent out emails, provided advice based on my own experience, started a Pinterest board, started a wellness board at the office with advice and inspirational quotes, and I’m organizing events for it. We have a 5 mile hike next week at Mount Tamalpais and a Healthy Rainbow potluck at the end of the month.

Word spread fast. Enough to get the attention of other departments and management. Meetings were scheduled, discussions were had and now my ideas are going to be the foundation for other wellness ambassadors in the clinic to use. Supervisors who didn’t know my name before, were thanking me for my work. It was definitely a humbling and exciting experience.

I really love organizing things and though it has been a lot of work, I’ve been really enjoying it. This week I brought gluten free, additive free, protein and probiotic enriched brownies with less than 6 grams of fat. Next week, baked churros, because let’s be honest, in a stressful work environment we all need a little sugar to get through the day, so why not some heathier options for us, right?

This link is for the pinterest board for wellness, feel free to check it out, it’s a compilation of advice taken and put in one place for fitness, nutrition, sleep, and stress management.

https://www.pinterest.com/beautifullifee/uha-wellness

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WRITTEN BY: Estela

Millennial Observations

I can honestly say I’ve done A LOT of analyzing of my generation. A few common themes I’ve gathered overtime are: our inability to find satisfaction in things, our lack of patience, our motivation to do something grandiose and obtain an abundance of admiration from strangers. It’s all very fascinating to me. We are all so needy for attention and admiration, whether that be on social media, at work, with friends or with family. We count heavily on followers, likes, comments, etc. A majority of us have proficient internet skills, but don’t know that untangling the flush valve chain in the tank of a toilet will stop the water from running. I guess that’s what Alexa and the internet are for, to give us the answers to things we didn’t learn while watching funny videos on YouTube and double tapping Instagram photos.

We are an interesting generation. We spend our free time constantly working on being well rounded and learning to do a little bit of everything. We’re an incredibly indecisive and talented generation causing a lot of us to be serial career and hobby jumpers. Of course, there are pros and cons to all of these things, and I’m sure you’ve googled them at some point in your adulthood. I’m here to talk about what I’ve observed.

In this post, I don’t want to talk about our generation in its entirety. I want to focus on the the evolution of the male and female gender roles with a few related tangents. Now, people are too complex to be put in a box and be generalized, however, trends are easy to see, and I want to share personal experiences and first hand witness accounts of how a very noticeable amount of millennial men and women are separately demonstrating a common way of thinking within their group.

I write this as I, myself, am working on understanding this thought process and evolutionary change in men and women overtime. I believe it has a lot to do with the way millennial women have evolved and the many options we have been legally given with progress (though, there are still many things that need to improve). So, bare with me friends. Maybe you have the answers, or maybe there is no definitive answer. Regardless, let’s see the facts and come to some type of understanding, even if it’s vague.

Let’s begin with the handfuls of men I know at this moment in time. I’d say 90% of this small controlled group (of 17 men, who have specifically told me their future desires) all have a similar goal: to have a family with a partner.

Now, hold on, isn’t that what everyone wants?

No, I’ve come to find it isn’t for many. I’ve spoke to over a dozen women in my friend groups and read countless articles by women saying that they aren’t so sure they want a family. For many men and women especially, it’s not even on their radar. Different colors and classes of women all raised differently, have the same idea that if given the chance to have a child, they would still choose a career and a life long partnership with a spouse over having a child. A successful career and a healthy relationship are their priority. Of course, there plenty of women who want to have a family. However, statistically more and more women are having less children, if any and that is not something to be brushed off or taken lightly.

With all that said, I know of a handful of women who do want children, are either in the process of having a child or definitely see themselves having a child in the near future. I also, know several women in their mid-thirties who are certain they don’t want or have children. One of my friends in my close friend group consisting of twenty-something year old women is married with two children. One out of 15 of these women in their twenties has a child. The age ranges from 20-30. The huffington post wrote an article about the low percentage of women having children, check it out by clicking on the quote below:

“Millennial women understand the challenges they will face if they choose to have children, including navigating the division of childcare with their partners.” 

Is it possible that due to how expensive things are now, women can’t help but worry about things like how much a child will cost? Do finances play a role in why women are more practical about having a child, and can it be that because now, more than ever, women are much more educated than before? Since, women are primarily bread winners, is having a child going to more directly affect their finances then a century before when women were relying on the sole income of another to help them support their child?

When I ask millennial men what their reason is for wanting children it seems very archaic and even vain. They say things like: “Well, I want someone to take care of me when I’m old,” “I want a mini me walking around,” or “I come from a big family so I want a big family.”
When I ask them about the responsibilities of bringing another life into the world, they mostly act as if they hadn’t thought of it.
A question like:
“What about the cost of childcare if you both have to work?”
Their responses are usually, “Well, we’ll just cross that bridge when we get there.”
No preparation, just winging it and taking life as it comes.

I find that most times when I ask women their reason for wanting children they either get flustered as if the question is completely ridiculous to ask, or they are excited and respond something like, “I’d love to have a child, I really liked kids,” or “I think it would be beautiful to love and be loved unconditionally like the love between a mother and child.” It’s not bad to want to be loved unconditionally for the rest of your life. However, I’ve been told that my reasoning for not really wanting children is selfish, but this statement in itself comes off that way as well, so we can agree to each their own. It’s interesting that there aren’t dire reasons attached to having a child today. In the past, the necessity of an abundance of children was to to run the farm, or the lack of contraception, or even centuries ago, to keep humanity alive after a plague or pass on inheritances, thrones, and beneficiaries.

There are already so many babies worldwide without parents now. We’re definitely not running low on human beings nor are there many farms where small children can work, so what it comes down to, is, could it be possible that our reasoning for having children is simply what we believe is our purpose? The bible tells us to procreate, that children are god’s blessing, but if you’re not religious, what is pressing for you to have a child? Is it that “maternal clock ticking” inside your body that everyone talks about? Does EVERYONE feel that? I’m twenty-five and never heard the ticking of this clock. My friends who don’t have kids and are thirty missed the alarm, too, it seems. I believe the idea of having kids is more like a career path. Not everyone is meant to be a lawyer, a doctor, a therapist, or a parent. Some people just have that calling and sometimes they’re good at it and other times, they aren’t. So, if the call isn’t there, there isn’t really anything to answer, right?

Kids are great, some people love kids, to the point of wanting their own. I get that. If your body can do it, then I say, do what you think is best.

Having children is far from my mind because I am not in a place in life where something like that would be possible. Nor am I in a place where I feel I am ready to settle down and start a family. I’ve been an adult for 8 years and I have a long way to go before I’m there. I’ve gotten the texts from friends and acquaintances saying the regretful, “I can’t come out because I couldn’t get a babysitter.” I’ve also seen people with children who are raised by others while they got out and enjoy what remains of their 20’s. It’s two extremes that I don’t want to experience just yet, so here I am, in a relationship that I enjoy immensely, with the freedom to change careers, travel, drink, and to stay out. I know people who believe having a child is the beginning of their life and everything before it is just, waiting to do that.

Going back to millennial men. The love of my life, the man who completes me, is a millennial man. And much like his peers, he wants to get married and have a family with me, like YESTERDAY. It’s adorable, right? What some women would jump on without a second thought. It’s funny, I’ve been told by some women, especially older women, “He is eager to get married and have children? It took me years to get my husband to even propose.”

I know baby boomer men were eager to get married and have children before and after war, but the difference seems to be that so were a majority of women. There were always outliers of course, women who didn’t want the life of domesticity and the responsibility of a child. As history has shown us, the pressure to have children has always been there, before the reasons were just more dire. It was a different time then, however, even with all the progress the pressure remains. Women are still ridiculed if they don’t want children but it’s more common than it was before. There is ridicule now from career (ONLY) driven women against women who decide to start a family young, also.

I understand we are all different and want different things for ourselves. I can only speak what I would and would not do. We all have different reasons for wanting or not wanting a family, sometimes it the same reason. A lot of us had screwed up childhoods and some people who want families want to make that right with their own family and others don’t want to bring children into a potentially screwed up situation like the one they grew up in. Same cause, different outcome. I think it’s also how we’re raised. I mean my dad (when he was around) never rushed me to be a parent or someone’s wife, if anything quite the opposite. He wanted me to travel, see the world before I settled down and started a family IF that was what I wanted. I was my dad’s only child and my mom was his first wife, when he was 44! I mean he traveled all over, and never thought he’d settle down until he met my mom. Maybe I get it from him? Then again, my oldest brother didn’t have my nephew until he was in his late 30’s. He and his wife were established in their careers and made the decision to have children. To me, this is all normal, something I’d like to follow, having children after experiencing a lot of life first. It’s what we’re exposed to that makes it normal for us. I know people who are married, divorced and have kids who are my age. That’s normal for them because they maybe saw it with their parents, their friends, neighbors, etc. So, maybe that’s all there is to understand. We all have different perspectives and ways of seeing things.

I can’t help but be observant and form opinions as I’m sure many of you feel the same way. As long as we try to understand, that is the most important way to keep conversations going.

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WRITTEN BY: Estela