Tag: Acceptance

How to get Back into Reading

How to get Back into Reading

by semitasspace ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

    If I could go back and tell my high school self that I would stop reading for fun, she would be disappointed. While growing up, I would read all the time. I constantly had a book for fun. I had friends who were avid readers, it was so much fun. Then when undergrad came, I did not have the free time like I used to. It was not until recently that I would find the joy and time for reading. I feel reconnected to my younger self’s love of books.

Undergrad was busy, I won’t lie to myself. I will also admit I stretched myself thin for the first 2 years. I felt like I had to be involved with many clubs and in many classes. I was going for music therapy my first year. That involved taking 8+ classes each semester. They would make certain classes only 1 credit hour so one would not have to pay for going over. Also, ensembles were ‘free credits’. I could not continue on with that, but that is a post for another day. It was not until my junior year that I would drop many extra curriculars. But that is when I was placing my health at the forefront. So the time I spent in extra curriculars, I shifted to working out and taking time to self care. I did not add books into the equation. I was still balancing 6-7 classes until I graduated, so the workload was intense.

When the pandemic hit, I focused on surviving a pandemic and working non stop. I was also attending grad school in the middle of this. I made it through my first semester and had a month break. I decided to read a little about spiritual topics. I was intrigued with working on my spirituality, so I read on it. This was the first time in years that I would read for myself because I was interested in a topic. Then school started back up and the cycle went back to working and school. I did not make the time for reading. 

As my previous posts have brought up, I have worked on my health, skincare, self love, and spirituality. With things slowly opening back up and vaccination numbers increasing, I felt more calm than I had since 2019. It was during this time, an old friend from high school posted on her instagram about her bookstagram page. I decided to give it a follow and support her. This was a tipping off point for my reading journey. This was one of my avid reader friends, we would trade books back and forth and talk about series. It sparked my interest in starting to read again. 

After following her, I began scrolling and found on Pinterest books to read. I started saving them to a new board. After I saw a few books pop up, I decided to get them on the kindle app. I started 2 series at once, “A Court of Thorns and Roses” by Sarah J. Maas and “A Touch of Darkness” by Scarlett St. Clair. These books pulled me into new worlds and brought me joy. From there I started reading comic series and continuing those book series. I felt the same joy that I used to back in high school.

So if you were a reader when you were younger, or you were never a reader but want to start, I have a few suggestions. I suggest following bookstagram pages, booktubers, or booktok. Some really good instagram suggestions are BookishLifeofSam_, Alexandra_Roselyn, and LadyofBookShire. For booktubers, I recommend Alexandra Roselyn and How to Train your Gavin. I do not have tiktok at the moment, so I don’t know booktokers. 

Also I suggest finding the genre you love. I was always a fan of fantasy, fey, and poems. That’s why I was sucked into those book series. Back in highschool I wanted to read the classics and I never got to read them all. So I went out to a local bookstore and picked up a few. If you were never really a reader before, go to a library and pick up different genres and see what pulls you in. 

I suggest making a space for reading. I have a couple of spots for myself. While I had not read in years, when I moved into my boyfriend’s house I struggled with making it feel like our home. I found comfort in making a reading corner. It had a comfy chair, blanket, and cozy lighting. I did not use it while we lived there but I do now. Along with that, I have a spot on my couch, with my weighted blanket, and I just curl up and feel at ease. The final spot I have is my bed. This keeps me from mindlessly scrolling all evening. It helps me relax after a long day and prepare for bed. You don’t need 3 spots like I do, I just don’t like having one spot. I like to change things up and keep it fun. Start with one spot, have the things that make it comfortable. I like curling up with a blanket. Maybe you like relaxing candles while you read. Maybe you like dim lighting or candle light. Maybe you like tea, hot chocolate, coffee or no drink while you read. Make it your own place.

Make time to read. This is an important suggestion, if you do not make the time for things you like you won’t do it. I found for myself that I like reading in the evenings before bed. I take care of cleaning and taking care of my plants in the evening before I read. After I’m done doing what I need to, I put on my PJ’s and curl up with my comfiest blanket. And I just read, some nights for 15 minutes and other nights for an hour. It just varies with what else I need to get done in the evening before work the next day. 

These are a few ways of how I got back into reading. It brings so much joy in my life to read again. To get lost in a world for some time before returning to the everyday hustle and bustle. I hope you find your spot and make the time to read. I hope you find the genre that speaks to you. I hope you find the self care aspect of reading.

Take Yourself on a Date

Take Yourself on a Date

by semitasspace ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

    While on this self love journey, I have discovered the fun of taking oneself on a date. I have seen this idea throughout the years but I would get anxious for going to order or talk to a stranger. I thought I could never go out by myself. I have always lived with others and it was easiest to run errands with others. I never had to move out of my comfort zone. I would make strides in other ways but I never took that step out of my comfort zone. 

    With places opening up more and with me feeling more comfortable with going places, I started doing this. I did not necessarily make the conscious decision of hey I’m going to run errands and go treat myself during it. It arose from having to run an errand on my day off. With my odd schedule I get every other Wednesday or Friday off depending on when I work weekends. It does not line up with my boyfriend’s schedule. Yet, the stuff needed to be done.

    The first time I had to run out and pick up miscellaneous groceries for dinner and my boyfriend had meetings all day. So I ran out by myself, to quell some of the anxiety I picked up a treat for myself. This would come up a few times, where I had to run out to pick up stuff and I would treat myself. It was not until more recently that I would actually decide, I’m taking myself out on a date.

    My first date was a couple of weeks ago. I went out to a comic book store, coffee shop, and picked up tacos for lunch. Originally this day was supposed to be when my boyfriend and I went to run fun errands. Yet, his dad had the day off and was able to help us out with our patio. So my boyfriend stayed back and they worked on the patio. Mind you, there was only so much work. If I had stayed, I would have been more of a hindrance than helpful. I decided to still go out. I made an adventure out of it. 

    I stopped at a local coffee shop first. I talked with the barista for a bit and found out our birthdays are one day apart which is really cool. From there I went to the comic shop and ordered a series for myself. I also found a cool new series for me to start reading. I went to a taco truck and had a great conversation with the cook. He and I had a conversation in Spanish, which does not seem like much. But when you rarely get to talk in Spanish and you finally find another Latino, it is exciting. I came home and was excited to talk to my boyfriend about it. 

    My most recent date, I took myself to a local book shop. I had seen the book shop in passing but never stopped. Between my nerves with COVID and not making time, I had never gone in. I had my day off on Wednesday and my boyfriend was in meetings all day. I actually took the time to plan out my date, I would go to the bookshop and check out a local barbecue place. I went out to the bookstore and had so much fun. I would text my boyfriend with updates because I was really excited and wanted to share that with him. I spent an hour just browsing before I picked up many books. I got a few classics, a nice edition of Lord of the Rings and Hobbit, and a Disney series. The shop worker was such a sweet lady and we talked about the classics. Following I went to pick up lunch and the lady who helped me at the restaurant was so sweet and helpful. The food was amazing, and local. 

    Taking myself out on these last few dates have helped me feel more confident and happy. I feel confident in my ability to speak up for myself and do the things I want to do. I am not running on someone else’s schedule, or concerned about what they want to do next. This is not anything against anyone, it is just different. It was nice. I got to discover more of my town and meet lovely people. I had fun and I will be continuing taking myself on dates when my schedule calls for it. I love taking a couple of hours out of my day off and doing fun things. 

It was not easy to start off with. But I do highly recommend taking yourself out on a date. Start off small, take yourself out for coffee. Or go to a bookstore for a bit. As you get more comfortable with that, add to it. Typically when I would go out with my boyfriend, we would have a day out of it. We would have dinner and a movie or go out to a shopping center. Or we would go hiking all day long. So why can’t I do that for myself? Take the time and learn to be with yourself. You have been with yourself for your whole life. Why not celebrate yourself?

Body Neutrality for 2021

Body Neutrality for 2021

by semitasspace ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Body Neutrality is a term that has crossed my radar this year. I have been in the camp of body negativity and I have dabbled with body positivity. Unbeknownst to me, I was never really content with my body. Even with all the positivity in the world, it would not take away the years of negativity and the negativity did not remove when I did feel good about myself. I was never meant to pick a side on this scale, I was meant to find a middle point. 

Body negativity was easy to pick up. It is easy to be negative when you have a society and social media showing you all the things you do not have. It is easy when you grow up with other girls who are also pointing out what they hate about their bodies. You see them as beautiful and can’t believe they would talk so poorly about themselves. Yet, here you are talking down to yourself. It takes years to even fully recognize that you are in this cycle.

Once I was in my senior year of high school, I decided I was done with the cycle. I had started the road toward body positivity. I was choosing only the clothing that made me feel good. I was doing my makeup before school. Throughout college I kept working on my mindset that I was beautiful. I learned how to love the gap in my teeth. I began smiling with my teeth showing. I loved my face without makeup and with makeup. I absolutely loved my body.

I hit a roadblock after my sophomore year of college. I was going through a hard time and going to therapy. I gained at least 10-15lbs in a short span of time. I was back into my cycle of negativity. It was like all those years of work were for nothing. It took me months before I decided to do something about it. My therapist kept telling me about the benefits of exercise within the realm of mental health. That it would be good for me. So with my boyfriend’s help, I started running. Mind you I had never worked out a day in my life before. My high school gym teachers were lucky if I half-assed something. 

It took me a few months before I liked running and working out. Once I did, I kept doing it a few times a month. I felt strong in my body. This helped me back toward the body positivity train. I was strong and I was confident in myself. I continued my work in therapy and worked on my mindset. I was back to loving myself and my body. I was positive about who I was as a person and what I would do. I was going so well.

Until I was not, when COVID hit I was one of many who gained weight. Those 10-15lbs I had lost and felt strong, were back and I was not in a good headspace. I was not concerned about the weight anymore but the headspace was not where I wanted to be. Me being me, I wanted to work toward that positive headspace again. I never realized that I had fallen into a cycle. I was going back and forth between body negativity and positivity. It was at this moment that I heard the term of body neutrality. I was watching a video by Carrie Dayton who introduced me to this term. It is the idea that you do not have to always be positive about your body nor do you need to be negative about it. Your body is just that, your body. Not a positive stimulus or a negative stimulus. That its function is to keep you alive and help you go about your day. 

This new perspective is taking some time to adjust to. I want to revert to either end of the spectrum, almost each day. But I constantly remind myself that that is not what my body is for. I’m tired of ping ponging back and forth between being so hard on my body and so positive about it. I don’t need to think of myself as a snack to provide my body with what it needs. Nor do I need to deprive my body because it is not this idealized body in society’s eyes. I do not need to worry about what a scale says about my weight. I just need to fuel it with what is good and exercise because it boosts my mood. That’s it.

Rejected from a Ph.D. program, now what?

Rejected from a Ph.D. program, now what?

by semitasspace ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

When I applied to undergraduate programs, I was accepted to all 3 universities with no issues. No wait list and no rejection came from that process. Graduate school applications are not the same as undergraduate. As the title says, I was rejected from the programs. So this blog is about how I dealt with my rejection. And how I didn’t cope with it for a bit. 

The Ph.D trackline for Clinical Psychology is a whole different ball park. Not only do you need certain classes, but you also need research, possible publication, clinical experience, higher than a 3.5 GPA, and about 160 on Verbal and 155 on Qualitative for the GRE. Many of these steps are not easy on their own, let alone with a full schedule and not very good balance. I had bits and pieces, along with help from my advisor for my personal statements. I finished the school year with a 3.57 GPA, so not too shabby if I do say so myself. I had about a year of research going into my senior semester. So I started an independent project with a professor of mine and presented it at my college’s social science symposium. The summer before my senior semester, I gained my clinical experience. I studied for months and took practice tests for the GRE. I took the GRE twice, the first time I got 142 V and 154 Q. So I needed to study more verbal. So the second time round, the testing site was next door to a bar that was having a Halloween party at 12 pm on a Saturday. So even with the soundproof headphones, I could still hear “This is Halloween” from The Nightmare Before Christmas. My scores from that test were 152 V and 149 Q. The scores were not perfect but I was hoping that it wouldn’t be the only factor keeping me out of the program. For some programs I had to take the Psych GRE and I scored very well. I got a 680 which puts me in the 66th percentile. I thought I was a good candidate for a Ph.D. program. My advisor thought that getting into the program shouldn’t be an issue, he was working with me since I changed my major. 

I hit submit before Thanksgiving break, and I was broke after applying to 7 programs. There are so many fees included with applying which sucks. But this started the waiting game. During this waiting game, I graduated and started my full time job. One day, after a rough shift at work, I got an email from Michigan State. It was early January at this point. It was my first rejection letter. It crushed me. I knew going into it that Michigan would be a stretch but I wasn’t expecting it to be my first rejection. Then February came around and I didn’t really hear anything. Which was not a good sign. Then the rejections started rolling in as the shut down came in. The first one hurt the most. By the 5th one, I was numb to the rejection. I didn’t know what my next step was. I didn’t know what I would do.

I took the month of March and half of April to focus on work. It was easy considering things changed dramatically in response to COVID-19. Finally I emailed my advisor to ask what I should do now. He was surprised to hear that I was rejected from all of my programs. He offered for me to join his newest research project. We would be working on a meta analysis with 2-3 other people. This would give me a publication if I continue in on it and help write the paper when we reach that step. Having gone 4 months without doing research, this was exciting. So I joined the project and met up with someone who was working on the project too.

Part of me gave up the idea of graduate school entirely for a year. That I would reapply Fall 2020. But that made me nervous to be away from school for over a year and a half. This was around the time when my boyfriend talked to me about the possibility of a master’s program. Which started me down a rabbit hole of searching, and if you want to read more my last two blog posts go more into it. It has taken me awhile to be okay with I’m not going to have Ph.D. by the time I’m 28. I might go back for it or I might not. I am more open to seeing where my next step takes me. This is something new for me, to be okay with the unknown. 

Originally I wanted to look into the relation between anxiety and depression. As I continue with my current population and just talking with my supervisor. I think my research interests might shift to transgenerational trauma. I had never heard of that term prior to working in the field. While working, I think I’m going to try to look into current research relating to transgenerational trauma. So if I do reapply I’ll have a good understanding of the topic and can come up with a research project relating to it. Which is something that Ph.D. programs want to see that you’re capable of it. 

Did I think I would be here a year ago? No, absolutely not. But I am not mad or upset at that. I was rejected and in the moment it sucked. I have accepted the rejections at this point and am moving forward. I am excited to go for a masters. This will allow me more understanding in the clinical field. This will help me to excel at my job. This is not a form of settling or having regrets. What happened, happened and no amount of regret is going to change that. This degree will still move me in a forward direction in the clinical field even if it’s not a Ph.D. I am still young have so many experiences and chances in front of me. So I am not worried, I am going with where life takes me. I don’t think I would have this same mindset, had I been accepted this first round of applications. But I’m grateful for the opportunity to learn and if I decide to go for a second round of applications, I will be ready for it. Until then, we are living in the here and now. Not 10 years down the line.