How To Find The Light In Dark Times

We keep hearing it and feeling it, that truly we are living in some “unprecedented times.” I feel the shift of culture, commerce, education, and community, everything is different. As someone who’s been through a lot of rapid and consistent change in my life, pre-2020 I would’ve considered myself to be highly adaptive meaning that I could easily adjust when life got hard. But, this year’s change was different. I didn’t choose this change. None of us did. Which made it much harder to cope with.

If you feel dark or tense right now that’s more than valid. You don’t have to feel like you immerged out of this year better. I personally feel like I’ve been fighting harder than ever to keep that light of optimism in my head and heart. So, if you’re feeling the same this one is for you.

In order to share how I’ve fought to keep that optimistic light in my head, heart, and life here’s How To Find The Light In Dark Times:

1. Beauty Hunting

I read a wonderful book last Summer (and Fall because I’m bad at finishing books at a normal pace) and it truly changed the way I thought about myself in pretty drastic ways. On Being Human by Jennifer Pastiloff, read like I was sitting with a close friend and talking unfiltered about life and the messiness that it is. If you’re looking for a new book that will make you burst into laughter, cry into the pages, and face some raw truths about what it means to be authentic & human, this one is for you.

One of the points in her book is this concept of Beauty Hunting. It basically means that throughout our days we should look for something beautiful, something light, something positive. That regardless of what darkness is surrounding us we can choose to find the pockets and GLEAMS of light. This is powerful in practice.

The past few months I’ve had to check-in with myself and hunt for beauty like three or four times a day. Whenever I felt uneasy, anxious, sad, or grieving the loss of this year I took a deep breath and looked around at the beautiful elements of my life. Not only does this immediately release those feel-good chemicals in your brain, but it also trains you to be a more mindful and grateful person. Which we’re all trying to be right?

1. Self-Care

When I first started this blog I was passionate about self-care like it was my main thing for a minute there. I was healing from some self-image/esteem problems and I needed to spend extra time with myself. As for now, I probably spend more time alone than not, thanks to 2020 and social distancing, but I find this silent pressure to get shit done instead of rest when I’m alone. But the reality is we need to care for ourselves even more in times of stress and pressure. Those are crucial moments for our growth and development.

I’ve made my self-care during 2020 more nutritional based, I treat myself to a High-Intensity Interval training workout 3-5 times a week, and I cook a bigger meal from a new recipe at least twice a week. Yes, that’s self-care too. It’s doing things that challenge and excite you and doing those things because you love you. It’s a moment to treat yourself, to relieve that stress you might be feeling.

Self-care is simple, you know what you love, you know what fills you up and puts that pep back into your steps. Build time in daily, weekly, or even monthly to do that thing. We need to be loving now more than ever.

1. Limit Your Exposure

At the beginning of March, I incessantly watched the news and scrolled through every site, there’s been a lot of physical, economical, social, and spiritual unrest happening right now in the world. I remember feeling consistently overwhelmed, so much so, that I thought I could burst at any moment, and I did, I had my fair share of breakdowns, trust me. But then I realized. I don’t have to be giving so much of myself to all that is going on in the world. I have a choice here.

It’s tempting to want to know everything that’s changing right now, but the reality is you can’t grasp it all and you’ll most definitely go crazy trying to. So limit yourself, to an hour a day, a biweekly check-in, a Sunday scroll, etc. Whatever it is decide on what a healthy balance of information exposure, and time to process it all you are going to give yourself.

We cannot go all-in right now, there’s a healthy pace for all of us to start adjusting to the insane changes that 2020 has brought our way. Pace yourself. Build-in moments of light and optimism. Please let me know how you do just that I would love to hear what works for you!