Mental health is just as important as physical fitness. There are two sides to mental health, and both are equally important: what weighs heavily on your mind and what puts wind in your sails.

Many of us share common mental stressors – time, money, work, emotions, and relationships. Ironically it can be too little or too much of each of these that causes stress. While we are never going to eliminate stress, we can address what do we do to manage it and its affect on our health.

As many humans as exist in the world, there exists as many combinations of answers to mental health concerns. For most diagnosis, medication and talk therapy has been proven to be the best practice. I am not trained as a mental health professional in any way. The information provided here is simply to be a resource for conversations about what has worked to help manage the stressors above to bring joy and lightness to my life and to hear what works for other. To make the daily grind something not just palatable, but something we can look forward too. Some of these ideas might be meditation, learning, or hobbies.

Following our dreams: The dream, the lies, and the truth

The Dream

I have wanted to write a book for as long as I can remember. In elementary school there was a Young Author’s contest. Let me tell you about the blood, sweat, and tears that went into my submission. Pete the Pencil was a MASTERPIECE. It had humor, alliteration, and illustrations. It had a story line of Pete’s ongoing shenanigans. It had a Gillian Flynn-esque twist (spoiler alert – PETE WAS KILLED) and the ensuing chaos. 

Child's handwriting sample

I have no idea who won, if I won, if anyone even mentioned liking it. What I do remember is creating it. Cutting the paper and choosing the artistic “sideways” (i.e. landscape) layout. Laboring over the illustrations with my box of 32 crayons cursing the fact I did not have the pimped out 64-count box with the sharpener. Rough drafts on paper so I would not mess up the illustrations with misspelled words, updated storylines (that crafty Pete was always throwing me a curve ball), or janky 8 year old handwriting. I still feel the heart swell and stomach drop of placing the finished masterpiece on my teacher’s desk. It is how I anticipate leaving The Girl at college will be next year.

I kept writing in high school. For the school paper, for the yearbook. In pages-long heart wrenching missives to my closest friend and boys who broke my heart. It was before the time of email, social media and apps that make all that heartache disappear 15 seconds after opening the message. Thank God, because those were also masterpieces. Artistic works of teenage heartbreak. How do I know? I also wrote drafts of those, many of which I found in notebooks years later when my parents moved and started turning over boxes of “treasures.” I am sure you have some of these boxes too – baby teeth, a Cabbage Patch kid, teenage heartbreak letters and dried Homecoming flowers. Oh the angst packed into a sturdy Jim Beam box!

As part of my career I have written newsletter articles, technical instructions, and corporate C-level communications. I like words. I love words! And I always wanted to share my words with others. The list of people I had shared this goal with was very short: my sister and my husband. At one point I let a co-worker friend in on this secret goal I had to write a book.  But that was about it. No plans. No actions.

The Lies

It was easy to put off inquires from Bixby. I would be lamenting the lack of creative pursuits in my life and he would supportively ask, “What about writing? You want to write a book – how is that coming along? How can we make that happen for you?”

And oh, reader I would tell him how that was happening, yes I would. I would explain that after I did EVERYTHING for him and the kids ALL DAY LONG and repeated the process EVERY SINGLE DAY, the last thing I had energy for was to think about writing a book. Perhaps if I had HELP around here, I would have realized my lifelong dream a LONG TIME AGO. They were crushing my dreams. 

Ahem. The memory of this is so uncomfortable I want to scoot my chair away from myself.

It is so easy to blame other people for where we fall short. To hide behind our martyrdom. To use excuses that are not even true as the reasons we have not braved being vulnerable and pursuing dreams and goals. I mean real talk – let’s debunk these lies I was telling about My People blocking my book writing. 

Lie #1 – I did EVERYTHING

False. Paul cooks dinner, I don’t. He walks the dog every morning, sometimes I tag along. 

Lie #2 – ALL DAY LONG

False. I go to bed before everyone else so Paul often fields homework, signature, and crazy last minute requests. The kids are teenagers so the truth is they rarely come out of their rooms so there is no risk of them needing anything all day long. 

Lie #3 – EVERY SINGLE DAY

False. We share custody of the kids so they are not even in our house EVERY day. 

Hyperbole so easily aids in the drama and fear. And that drama and fear keeps us in our ruts and patterns. Then a decade goes by and nothing has happened. If nothing changes, nothing changes. 

The Truth

I left the job where I worked with the person that held my authorship secret goal, and we recently connected over lunch to catch up. I was carrying on about wanting more, desiring creativity – I wanted to write a book even!

“Yes!” she said, “I remember you saying that 10 years ago.” 

Ooof. She did not mean it unkindly, she is Candadian – they are never unkind. But she is a truth teller. And boy I needed to hear that truth. It was definitely kinder than my high school basketball coach’s “encouragement” when I was indecisive: “Shit or get off the pot, Susan!” But it still packed a punch. 

Julie’s words have haunted me since. Haunted me into action. Since that fateful chat, I have:

  • Started this blog
  • Written about things more personal than someone else’s mediocre book.
  • Put up money to join an online writing community
  • Scheduled writing days into the calendar and honored that writing time

Time is going to pass whether I am writing or not. Am I willing to let another 10 years go by having a desire out there and not fill it? No, I am not.

What about you? What goals are you sitting with? Do you have a truth teller in your camp that can help you get moving? Why do you think you have not taken the first step?

By |2019-11-13T06:18:08-05:00November 13th, 2019|Mental Well-being|1 Comment

The Posture of Creating

I am a failed Artist’s Way student. I had been faithfully doing my Morning Pages and Artist’s Dates for the 90 days as part of a book study earlier in 2019. I continued my stream-of-consciousness writing for a few months more while the Artist’s Dates fell by the wayside. Then the Universe threw a giant wrench into my Day Job wheel. Work days got long and complicated. I quit Morning Pages because I “did not have time.” And I did feel like a failure. I felt like I was letting down the creative me that had been on a huge winning streak this spring.

But alas, the theme this summer was Survival Mode. Intense schedule in my Day Job and family travel shoved my creativity aside like the dead grandmother in the Vacation movie. I still puttered around with quilting but even that was about finishing projects I started rather than immersing myself in creativity. Nothing was getting traction.

Around Labor Day my Day Job shifted into a different season. I moved out of Survival Mode and noodled with the idea of recommitting to Creative Me. The Creative Me that the universe intends me to be.

Recommitting to Creative Me

While I did recommit, I took careful consideration to learn from my earlier mistakes. I did not jump headfirst back in for a couple reasons.

1 – Learn from Young Susan

I spent my teens (and 20’s if I am honest) hoping my love interest would notice me and want to spend time with me. Pining away and waiting. Making myself available “just in case.” My heart hurts for Young Susan, and I am working my ass off with a therapist to heal her.

So the last thing I want is treat my Creative Me like careless crushees treated Young Susan by only visiting when it was convenient. I want to carve out time for my creativity, not make it live in the cracks. I want to feed my creativity, not fuel it with cast off crumbs. Which leads us to the second hesitation I had about recommitting without being mindful.

2 – Learn from Overcommitting

Time management is my jam, Bending time to fit the will of my to do list is my super power. Until a round house wallop of reality kryptonite knocks me on my arse. Around here we call it, “Ten Pounds of Shit in a Five Pound Bag.” I don’t want to rise at 4:30 am to write / meditate / journal / create only to be a uselessly exhausted zombie by lunch and tearing my people’s heads off by dinner. I want a morning routine like it seems everyone does these days, but none of my days look the same.

  • Some days the kids are at our house, some days they are at their mom’s.
  • I have meetings and deliverables jam packing some days; I have days filled with giant, wide open swaths of time.
  • Some days I work from my home office, some days I work onsite at various office locations. Some days I do both in one day.

3 – Learn from Past Success

Turns out there is a part of my own brain that is manufacturing the kryptonite that is kicking my ass. Its like the call is coming from inside the house. My kryptonite is rigidity. I strongly believe that anything can be broken down into small, repeatable tasks. It is the consistent repetition of these tasks that makes for success. For example, years ago I had a Day Job where I managed vendor relationships. These vendors were (naturally) super upset about outstanding invoices over a year old. I spent a week or so getting my arms around the problem. Then I set up systems where on a regular basis I would check on each stage of the process:

  • 1 hour Mondays to see if projects completed last week and invoices were released in the system.
  • 1 hour Tuesdays to add new issues to research or close out resolved issues. This also gave the vendor a cue to send me the list by end of day Monday.
  • 1 hour Thursdays to confirm checks went out as expected.
  • 1 hour Friday to submit report to my manager about the progress.

I generally scheduled these sorts of tasks for unpopular meeting times – like 8:00 am or 4:00 pm. Unpopular time means it is unlikely to be scheduled over. The key is to actually DO the task when it pops up on the calendar. PS – yes, I know I skipped Wednesdays. Once the list of 200+ issues was wrangled into repeatable tasks, it was easy to maintain in 4 hours/week. Often it did not even require the whole hour on that dedicated day. And I want a morning routine that is similarly time boxed to the Nth degree.

4 – Learn from Failure

My rigidity was killing that plan. Let’s use an example where I had to be in the office at 7:00 am and the location for the day was an hour away. There was no margin for the time box of “Morning Page – 6:00 to 6:30 am.” Or another day where I set my writing window between 7:00 am – 8:30 am but it was a day the kids were at our house. It’s a non-starter to try to write while there is chaos of them getting out the door to school. Yes, they’re old enough to take care of themselves, but there is the bickering, loud music, and last minute panic when homework won’t print that can interrupt the writing flow.

My rigidity was telling me a morning routine was impossible for me. Creativity just wasn’t in the cards for me right now. So I threw the baby out with the bathwater. {really, where did that phrase come from?!}

5 – Learn to Adapt and Adjust

I was contemplating my rigidity over about 6 weeks this fall. During that time, I was carrying on with the rest of life, which includes a weekly hot yoga class. The instructor mentions the “intention of the posture.” I always appreciate this because seriously, I cannot imagine a world where my body actually lifts off the ground or bends like that in some of these postures. But in my mind’s eye it does. And to my mind it matters! Then in my writers group, someone mentioned the posture of a “real writer” because we are a group filled with writers who have imposter syndrome. It is not really “fake it til you make it”, but more like: If you want to be something, act like it.

And the number one thing you have to act on if you want to be a writer… WRITING. The number one thing you have to act on if you want to be creative… CREATE. At the risk of filling this post with pithy sayings to stitch on a pillow:

Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Or if you prefer its casual country cousin: Don’t trip over a dollar trying to get to a nickel.

What Commitment Looks Like

So I began again. I got up when the alarm went off instead of falling back to sleep for 30 minutes. I left my phone alone instead of scrolling social media for 30 minutes. I got up and went to my office and did Morning Pages, meditated, and my PT stretches. And Bixby and I still made it out the door for the dog walk at our usual time. I was feeling proud of myself for sure. Then I did my daily reading. I felt the Universe was proud of me too when I read this at the end of the passage:

The direction of the mind is more important than its progress.

Joseph Joubert

It was like the Universe shed light on the path to confirm that I was going in the right direction. And I find the more often I tap into creativity, the more often these rays of light show through the dark.

Are you wrestling with a question or decision? Could you be resisting the faint light that you see on the path just because it’s not a flood light illuminating the dark, scary corners? Use the comments below to acknowledge it and shed some light on it.

By |2019-10-30T07:04:05-04:00November 7th, 2019|Mental Well-being|0 Comments

Getting My Chi Straight

Sunshine through fall trees

Holy God I was emotional Sunday. At one point I was working on the online grocery order and about burst into tears. Not sure what was happening. Grocery prices weren’t that high.

I tried my usual cures – reading, crafting, getting shit done, cleaning, organizing. Zilch. I told Bixby to get his hiking shoes and the dog and we hit the trail. Five miles later I did not feel like ripping off my skin.

I think it was part endorphins from exercise. I think it was part Vitamin D from sunshine. I think it was part watching Lucille have the time of her life fetching sticks and swimming. All I know is it helped get my chi straight.

How do you pull yourself out of bad moods? What is your go to mood booster?

By |2019-11-03T19:43:09-05:00November 4th, 2019|Health & Fitness, Mental Well-being|0 Comments

What We Talk About When We Talk About My Ponytail

My ponytail is a permanent fixture that I will not be giving up anytime soon. I have had a love / hate relationship with it for decades. It has caused me literal pain, and I have had it cut off in desperate times. Sometimes I have worn a ponytail so much that when I finally take out the ponytail holder, my hair stays back. I have been grateful for my ponytail when I have hit the snooze button too many times and am running late. But it is more than a hairstyle and as I turned the corner into mid-40’s this year, I have really begun to absorb the full impact of what my ponytail really means to me.

There are several things we are talking about when we talk about my ponytail.

  • I am talking about where I choose to spend my time. Spoiler alert – I do not like to spend my time doing my hair. Honestly, I don’t even really want to brush it every day. So sometimes I don’t. Don’t get me started on washing it. Sometimes between how long it takes to dry and the fact that I am a sweat hog, it feels like my super thick hair does not fully dry between May and October. So to undertake a wash which requires blowdrying is sometimes more than I can stomach.
  • I am talking about doing what I am good at. And newsflash – it ain’t hair. And don’t tell me I just need to practice with it. I am not a girl who wants to practice with any beauty products. I do not want to “get good” at blowing out my hair. I just don’t give a shit about it. And I am done spending my free time doing things I don’t give a shit about. This is where Sustainable Sue asks the important question: Is this something you could do the rest of your life? And perhaps the more valuable question: is this something you WANT to do for the rest of your life? Part of what sustainability means to me is filling my time with activities that boost my soul. And never once have I felt calm and fulfilled when using a round brush. In fact, I threw out my round brush once I cut it out of my tangle of knotted hair.
  • I am talking about expectations. Specifically not spending time doing something just to meet the expectations of anyone else. I am a recovering people pleaser. I have a visceral response to thoughts of failing every hair dresser I have been to because I show up with my hair in a ponytail. No matter what the hair length or style, I come to my appointment in a pony tail. I feel like a failure because I have not maintained the look they gave me. A part of me feels like I need to get a blow out to go get my hair cut. But then I would be cheating on my hair dresser, and that would also hurt her feelings. It’s exhausting. Let me tell you what a mentor said to me about being a people pleaser, “OK, great Susan. Now where are all the pleased people?” Ouch.

Perhaps the more valuable question:

Is this something you WANT to do for the rest of your life?

  • I am talking about being comfortable. I have reached an age where I ditch the work heels for Danskos. I quit being so damn cold and just bundle up in a coat, hat, scarf, and mittens instead of looking cute when I’m outside. I just want to be comfortable, and my ponytail supports that. It understands me. It helps me look professional when I pull it into a low pony for the office. It just gets outta the way when it migrates to the top of my head to garden. Being comfortable is also a part of what makes me beautiful.
  • I am talking about feeling beautiful. My hair does not define my femininity, nor make me beautiful. I listened to the This is Us Too podcast episode from Oct 4, 2019, when Mary talked about the time she cut her hair off. Her husband compared her long-haired before to Idina Menzel and her pixie cut after to Hugh Grant. Honestly, this pissed me off. Having long perfectly styled long hair does not make me beautiful any more than having short hair makes me ugly. When I am comfortable, I am sure I come across more confident. When I am not fidgeting with my hair I can focus on things like the actual conversation we are having.
Notice the dents in my hair where I took out the ponytail holder moments before school pictures were snapped. Not to mention the flyaway wing dings and cowlicks.
  • I am talking about doing hard things. I remember being in early elementary school when my mom decided I would be doing my own hair going forward. Trying to pull a ponytail holder through my rats nest and loop it around to secure my mop made it feel like my hands were not coordinating with my brain. But I did it. And I got better at it. I hear some of you saying, “See, you DID practice.” No, this was necessity. No way was I going to school with my hair down – especially if it was a PE day! No way was my mom doing it for me – that baton had been handed off. Those first few weeks were rough, yo. Lumpy bubbles of hair snarls. Escaped sections falling down or never making it into the pony tail holder. But I did it. Like I tell my kids – just because something is hard doesn’t mean we don’t do it.
  • I am talking about my style. I went through a stage where I needed to have a “grown up” hairstyle. At the time I felt that because I had the same pony tail as I did when I was in elementary school, I was presenting myself as immature. So I had it cut off. Short. Like by a lady who worked in a barber shop. She only did men’s hair. And mine. This was “professional and grown up Susan” – or so I thought. When I interviewed for a job with that cut, someone later told me that I “looked very severe, like a Scandinavian prison matron.” I don’t want to present myself to the world as severe and unapproachable. Now I see lots of women my age and older who wear a pony tail on the regular. I don’t think any less of them. Some are incredibly accomplished professionals. Some have all gray or stark white ponytails. The common thread is that they are comfortable in their own skin. And if we go back to the Sustainable Sue litmus test: is this something you WANT to do for the rest of your life? The answer would be a resounding HELL YEAH!

But there is one thing we are not talking about when we talk about my ponytail.

More importantly, there are things my ponytail cannot do. I mean seriously – it is just HAIR!

  • My hair does not speak for me. I went through a period of life where I felt like I was invisible to the people around me. I was really struggling and would make jokes about my struggle, but no one really saw me, including my husband. So I decided to have my hair cut off to shock him into noticing. He did not comment. Not even to say he hated it. Needless to say that did not help me feel understood. And I reached a tipping point where I did not want that despair to be something I felt for the rest of my life. It was unsustainable for me. Turns out I had to actually tell him how I felt instead of having my hair communicate for me.

What are you doing (or not doing) because of the expectations of others? What answer does your heart and gut give you if you ask, “is this something I WANT to do for the rest of my life?

By |2020-06-17T17:19:00-04:00October 30th, 2019|Health & Fitness, Mental Well-being|0 Comments

So, About Those Missing Book Reviews…

Many of you have asked me about when the next book report is coming out. Or why I stopped posting about what I was reading. Or if I am ok because it is not like me to not read.

I am marking myself safe from non-reading. I have slowed my pace somewhat this fall, but it is nothing terrible. I have felt drawn to check out less into someone else’s creativity and check in more with my own creativity. Let me translate for those less woo woo in the audience. What this practically means is that at the literal end of the day (vs. the corporate “at the end of the day, Bob” that makes me want to barf when I hear it), I do my own creating. I have been working on sewing and sowing. I have been writing and riding. I have been reconnecting with things that put wind in my sails. That is the point of this blog – to look at what makes life sustainable.

Because let’s face it, the daily grind is not sustainable. Not to me. It is like having an itch right in the middle of your back. Or like a stain on the carpet that you pass a zillion times a day but never clean it even though it pulls a thread from your soul when you pass it. I think the phrase is, “Death by 1,000 cuts.”

Oh, I am still reading, but I have taken a step back from posting reviews while I considered what was filling my tank and what was not. I feel like I have done a fairly good job in the last couple years eliminating things that DRAIN my energy. I will save that for another post. But consider Lucille’s new dog pool (stay with me reader, this will match up). I bought a new pool to eliminate the drain of water from her pool. {Those of you more woo woo-inclined should insert here your analogy about water being life sustaining to complete the metaphor.} So we put water in her pool and she has a blast. No drain = plenty of water. Until evaporation takes some. Or until she is having SUCH a good time rolling around in her pool, she takes some of the water out in her fur.

Easy like Sunday morning, folks.

Energy is the same for me, and if I may be so bold reader – for you too. We use up energy throughout the day, not just calories and physical energy. Emotional, spiritual, and creative energy – that is the energy tank I speak of. We will talk about recharging physical energy through sleep another day. This post is about why you haven’t gotten any good book recs lately.

Writing about meh books does not fill my energy tank. I am sure you have noticed that I am more meh about some reviews than others. I have GUSHED about some – I am looking at you City of Girls! That is what I am going to do more of – writing about what makes me gush. Because that gush is sloshing over to fill my tank as well.

This is where it gets a little scary for me because I am going to write about more than books, Lucille, and gardening escapades. Some of you won’t like it. I am hopeful some of you will. And if I may be so bold, I think some of you are looking for something more as well. Something that fills your tank. Or maybe you need to plug the drain first. Maybe you will like what you read about what I am finding to be Sustainable Sue, and you will join in to create a Sustainable YOU.

You will soon see a newsletter and longer posts. I am going to write posts less about meh books and more about meh moments so we can learn from them. I am going to write about evidence-based practices and instinct driven ideas to create more space in my head, in my day, in my literal space.

Here is the audience participation portion of the program. I am going to ask you to play along.

  • Join my newsletter on the right side bar
  • Comment at the bottom of any blog post that resonates with you – good or bad
  • Follow me on social media
  • Share blog entries and social media posts to your friends and followers

Let’s learn together to stop getting through the day and start making a day. Let’s create a life that is sustainable and worth sustaining.

By |2020-06-17T17:36:37-04:00October 23rd, 2019|Mental Well-being|0 Comments

Bookish Humor

Use your library

Use your library, people. Seriously. At any given moment I have about 15 books on hold at the library – Kindle and audiobook. I use two different apps for this: Overdrive and Libby. They are made by the same company and there are pros and cons of each. I am less interested in that as I am having one app for Kindle books and one for audiobooks.

By |2019-12-12T19:02:27-05:00September 30th, 2019|Mental Well-being|0 Comments

Bookish Laughter

Buying new books

I laughed out when I saw this. It generally isn’t the situation in our house. I tend to limit my book buying more than Bixby does. I generally don’t re-read books so I feel guilt when purchasing books. Guilty because a bunch of trees died for me to just have the book around my house and guilty because I spent money on something that is not useful. READING is useful, but I don’t enjoy books as decoration.

By |2019-12-12T19:02:59-05:00September 23rd, 2019|Mental Well-being|0 Comments

The Girl He Used to Know – Tracey Garvis Graves

Rating: 3 stars (would go to 3.5 if Goodreads allowed)

Cliff Notes: This was a fun, quick little read.

Full Summary: Part of what was fun for me with this book is that I went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The main character goes to school at U of I around the time when I was there. I recognized several of the places mentioned.

I also related to how awkward Annika is. I tend to lean towards awkward myself! I have never been diagnosed with autism, and honestly I don’t even think we needed to go there in this book. I read somewhere that we are all on the spectrum. In my opinion, leaving out the diagnosis would have been more compelling because it would have been more relatable. It would have made her “weirdness” all of our “weirdness.”

The Girl He Used to Know - Tracey Garvis Graves
By |2019-12-12T19:15:31-05:00September 17th, 2019|Mental Well-being|0 Comments
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