HACKS in LIFE
I love practical things that I can use for more than one purpose. Furniture that can be used for storage is one of my favorite things. A while back, we had to get rid of our storage sectional and I dearly miss it, even if it was a little small. But saving space can be a real benefit for the overall satisfaction you feel in your home. It will also help to organize your space immediately and promises to help for future uses.
So, here are a few great options from Amazon at varying price points that might be a great fit for your home:
LINLUX storage sofa @ $100
JAMFLY sectional @ $250
FOMNEY storage couch @ $500
HONBAY modular sectional @ $1,700
And, finally, one of my favorite furniture options is storage cubes which can be adapted to a wide array of decoration tastes and preferences as well as serve multiple purposes for the storage of everything from books to children’s toys and equipment. Here’s a great option from Amazon:
NEWS in HAIBUN
(A Haibun is a Japanese poem made of a piece of descriptive prose with a haiku at the end that complements, expands, or changes the initial meaning)
August 9, 2024
This past week, in the Paris Olympics, Alaskan native, Kristen Faulkner, made Olympic history by winning two gold medals. Faulkner discovered cycling, as a hobby, in her twenties when she lived in New York City, became a professional cyclist in her late twenties, and—despite many professionals considering retiring—became an Olympic athlete in her thirties. Her first victory came in Sunday’s road race which she did not qualify for, a teammate having surrendered their spot for her. Her second came Wednesday in the team track pursuit.
A flooded field does
not see the verdant forest
It’ll be a year hence.
—
On Thursday, Japan issued a “Megaquake Warning,” after a 7.1 magnitude earthquake hit the country’s southern coast. A long-feared megaquake, magnitude 8-9 (potentially more damaging than 2011’s 9.1 disaster that ravaged the country's northeast coast, is believed to be on the horizon. Wendy Bohon, earthquake geologist, said “There was a magnitude 7.3 earthquake that happened two days before that earthquake; and about five percent of the time, we see that there is an earthquake, called ‘foreshock’, that precedes a larger event.” Japan is on a list of locations including the US’s western coast that reside along the Pacific Ring of Fire, where tectonic plates meet, leading to many earthquakes and volcanic activity. Southern California was recently hit with a 5.1 magnitude quake Wednesday.
Leaves fall before snow.
Sun sets before the night comes.
Clouds before the storm.
HEALTH in MIND
When I was a cook, life was fast-paced, and exciting, but also demanding and exhausting. Working in a kitchen meant I was always moving, doing, and interacting; and with so much action, there came problems. Arguments with coworkers were a-given since our work was often interconnected. Scheduling conflicts were certain. Being LDS meant I treasured my Sundays, but not every else understood. And in a tight area of constantly moving bodies and equipment, accidents came daily.
Being busy meant I didn’t have much time to slow things down and analyze my behavior and the situations around me. I got to a point where I was miserable every day but I wasn’t certain why. I knew things bothered me but I couldn’t say for certain what was causing me to feel such unsatisfaction. I was also in pain a lot. Joints, muscles, nerves. They were all stiff and slowing me down.
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Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) is a skills-based therapy practice that is meant to decrease negative behaviors and increase skills to handle stressful circumstances. To decrease being judgmental, being out of touch with self and others, conflict, loneliness, inflexibility, difficulty regulating emotions, impulsivity, and addictions.
DBT suggests that the skills we need to increase are: mindfulness, which leads to self-analysis; interpersonal skills to create balanced relationships; emotion regulation; and distress tolerance.
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There’s no doubt that I needed to learn a few things to make my work environment more wholesome. Even though not every there was going to be on the same page, if I could manage my expectations, relationships, and reactions to difficult circumstances, I could feel better about going to work.
However, I didn’t know then, and I didn’t have a lot of help to figure it out. So, one day, after leaving work because of a panic attack that left me paralyzed on the kitchen floor, I decided to quit. My wife of only three months came home from work to find me resting on our bed and I told her I didn’t know what I would do, but I needed to leave work. She was nervous about the decision but she could see it was something I needed to do.
Soon after, I returned to college to pursue a new career and I began working at my wife’s vet clinic to get a change of scenery.
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When life gives you a problem, DBT suggests, you:
Solve it (change, avoid, or leave)
You enjoy it (change your response to it)
You tolerate it (accepting the problem and your response to it)
or You keep it (stay miserable).
So, when we have a problem, there are four ways to look at it: we can either stay miserable by doing nothing; we can tolerate it by learning to be mindful and resilient; we can enjoy it by learning to control our emotions towards it, or we solve it by learning the skills to help us eradicate it.
INSIDE my LIFE
Hello friends,
Let me start by saying that to keep up with writing newsletters and making YouTube videos, I have to get a head start and have some posts ready for publishing. This means that I get to reread them and revisit the ideas and things I’ve written and read about that I share with you. It’s funny how you can “learn” something so many times and still need a refresher.
These posts are as much for me as I hope they are for you, as I hope they are for your friends and family. It’s been a rough but quiet week. I’ll keep you posted once things settle into something I can write about, but for now, I hope you can enjoy my latest video, Five Poems for Stress, from my channel for a new collection of inspiration videos I’ll be doing.
I hope you have a great weekend.
Ygor