Category: mindfulness

On my 28th birthday, to my 18-year-old self

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Today is my 28th birthday, which means I have been an adult for exactly a decade. Legally, anyway—while I might’ve been sure I was 100% an adult the second the clock ticked over to midnight on January 19, 2009, looking back I’m pretty sure you don’t actually feel grown-up until at least… 23? 27? 35? Somewhere around there.

Fittingly, there’s a “challenge” going around social media right now to post a photo of yourself 10 years ago and today, either to see your “glow up” or, more negatively, “how hard aging hit you.” Here’s mine:

Ah yes, the “myspace-angle selfies in the park” days
The humidity is doing a lot to my hair, none of it good

Definite glow up.

If I could talk to my 18-year-old self now, there’s a lot I would say (after I made her take off that terrible eyeliner).

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Building balance to beat burnout

Lauren (thebestpossibletime.com)1 Comment

Last year I had a job I couldn’t quit. When I left the States, my plan was to leave the job as well, but I couldn’t resist leaving the door open (the job was online so I could work from anywhere). When I got a job in Wellington, I intended to leave the other job, but I told myself that making extra money was always good and it wasn’t like I was doing much in my evenings anyway. Essentially, I had two full-time jobs for most of my year in New Zealand. When I moved to Australia, I finally sent that “Sorry, I won’t be able to do the job any longer” email… but I still left the door open for a return.

It’s not because I love the job or even the pay; it’s because I feel like if I’m not constantly working, I’m doing something wrong. Right now, I’m “funemployed” as I look for work here in Australia, but I’m keeping busy in addition to job-hunting. I ran 50km last week, I’m doing yoga every day, I’m updating my blog more regularly than I ever have, I’m reading, I’m doing most of the grocery shopping and laundry and almost all of the cooking. I’m hardly just sitting on my bum watching Say Yes to the Dress reruns (I mean, that’s what I’m doing right at this moment, but in general).

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Soundtrack for a Strong Start

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New year, new me, same old podcast addiction. The medium is producing stronger work than ever, with countless topics, and I love them all. I have at least 60 podcasts on my subscription list—although, in fairness, they don’t all run continuously and I don’t listen to every episode of every show. Anyway, I’ve given plenty of recommendations for podcasts in the past, but the start of the new year seems like the perfect time for a few more. Here are some great listens full of learning and growth to spark your curiosity and inspire your fresh starts.

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A year of reconnection

Lauren (thebestpossibletime.com)2 Comments

Like most people on this first day of the year, I am thinking about 2019 and the goals I’d like to accomplish. I’ve got a couple fairly typical items on my list (read 50 books, run a marathon) that I don’t feel warrant their own post, but one of my resolutions for the year is not something specific, but rather a theme. I don’t want to simply set goals at the beginning of the year and check them off the list; instead I’d like to set intentions and adjust my goals as I see where the year takes me. I want 2019 to be a year of reconnection. I’ve been thinking about what that means to me, and I’ve split it up into four categories.

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Creating with joy: my work is mine to love

Lauren (thebestpossibletime.com)2 Comments

September is flying by. Two months from now, Steve and I will be leaving New Zealand and heading to Australia (visas pending… should probably get on applying for those). In the meantime, we have two trips planned (well, one planned and one planning-in-progress… can you tell I’m a bit behind on my to-do list?), heaps of people to spend time with, and a couple more items to cross off the kiwi bucket list.

The weather’s also starting to warm up (yay!) which has meant that my Septemberwrimo goal has gotten slightly off-track. Only slightly, I’m at ~24,000 words and I expect I’ll hit 27,000 at least by the time the month finishes, but I have no desire to sit inside on my laptop when it’s sunny and there are mountains to climb. But that’s not important. Even if I only write one word in a day I try to celebrate it, because it’s one more word than I had on the page before.

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The morning I thought would never come (the one where I enjoyed waking up early)

Lauren (thebestpossibletime.com)2 Comments

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If you had walked into my bedroom at dawn a decade ago, you probably would’ve found me wide awake, book in hand. Not because I had gotten up early to read, but because I hadn’t ever gone to bed the night before. My “ideal” sleep schedule, in between bouts of insomnia and the forced early mornings of school, was around 6am to 2pm up through college.

Obviously, this is not sustainable in adulthood for people who don’t work the graveyard shift. It wasn’t really sustainable in school either, to be honest, but I got by. At the time, I was more than happy to be as nocturnal as possible, and I would never have thought I’d ever be anything but a night owl.

I look back at that sleeping schedule in horror now, much as I imagine my teenage self would look at the idea of waking before 8am on a Saturday. Where once I relied desperately on my blackout curtains to keep out the sun as it rose high in the sky, now I regularly beat it to arise–on purpose! Without even having to!

Becoming a morning person wasn’t an overnight process, though. Here are the steps I took to give my mornings an energising boost:

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