Tag: mental health

Love Language Reflections: Learning About Love Maps

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a man and a woman walking on a farm on a date

The consequence of not having solid role models of what a loving, caring, mutually equitable marriage looks like, is that I had absolutely no clue where to start. While I am lucky enough to have some memories of my parents until they died when I was eight years old, that is not enough time to learn, remember and apply it in my own relationships. One thing did stand out, and that is they treated each other well, so at least I know that this is a valuable principle that I want to have, and want to make happen, in my own marriage.

Luckily for me, I was book smart as a child and have retained some of the positive aspects of being one. That is, being resourceful and not feeling ashamed to do research, whether it is print or online resources, on how to do things. It’s something I’ve done for many years, including the awkward topics that I felt are just as important, such as learning about sex positions!

A YouTube channel I’ve started watching recently and really loved is Cinema Therapy. It’s an amazing Youtube channel that analyzes movies from a mental health standpoint, from a filmmaking standpoint, and hosted by two men (a registered psychologist and a film director) who are very open about their emotions while reviewing the movies. One of their videos talks about the 1990’s version of the Addams Family movie and how the main characters, Morticia and Gomez, showcase several key principles of a good marriage. In this video, the new concept I learned which I really like is the one of Love Maps.

A Love Map is the “part of your brain where you store all the relevant information about your partner’s life” as referenced in the book mentioned in the YouTube video, the Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work.

This is gonna sound cheesy again, but my husband, bless the man, has already been doing this without knowing the technical term for it. Many times in the past, when he learns something new that caused a strong reaction in me, both positive or negative, he makes an actual effort to remember them.

I’ve talked about the concept of Love Language before. I realized that the concepts of Love Language and Love Map go hand in hand, and I think it’s remarkable! Love Language focuses on categories that are very practical and tangible, while Love Maps can help find and apply specific observations or preferences.

So, using my husband as an example, the love languages he likes to receive are acts of service, quality time, and touch. Integrating the principle of the Love Map here means the following examples:

  • He appreciates food being prepared for him whenever I am at home. It doesn’t matter at all whether it is 100% homemade, takeout, or simple processed food like a frozen meal or a can of soup. Having a plate or bowl of warm food and a drink placed in front of him is something he really loves.
  • He appreciates that I know how to repair clothes and re-purpose non-wearable clothes into other functional household items. The most recent one is the pair of pants I repaired so many times, and when it’s no longer salvageable, I turned it into a pillow. He describes them as “gift made with love”.
  • Spending time doing different things while in the same room is quality time.
  • He loves cuddles and hugs throughout the day, and bed cuddles during daytime hours can only last up to 30 minutes max, then he gets restless.

In my case, the love languages I really cherish are acts of service, touch, and words of affirmation. Integrating the principles of the Love Map here means the following examples:

  • While I like all various types of affirming words, my outward reactions to them vary. Hearing “you’ve my love” and “I love you” will have the most immediate and reciprocating response with me saying “I love you too!”. Compliments about my skills “you’re such a smart baby!” would make me feel nice inside, but my reaction is more muted, likely because I’m raised to be modest about my skills. Compliments about my appearance “you’re a sexy lady!” are also lovely for my self-esteem, and I need to work on responding to them still. It is nice to be reminded at least one person thinks my butt is cute!
  • Acts of service for me includes self-organization and self-care, not just actions done directly for me. So, paying the bills on time or emptying the dishwasher are amazing, as well as him taking a break from chores and playing video games so he can de-stress. There’s no need for him to iron my clothes or buy my preferred snacks from the Filipino convenience store.
  • I love all forms of touch! We hold hands in the car all the time. When we “bump” into each other in our home’s hallways there’s always a little kiss or butt grab! And cuddles for at least 15 minutes at bedtime before sleeping is an integral part of our bedtime routine.

Combining this with other things I’m trying to do for my own individual wellbeing, such as therapy and learning about mental health, I hope that we are able to continue to be there for each other. This upcoming year is a year of a lot of change, and I hope that we will be able to ride out all what is to come and have our relationship in one piece.

Book Review and Thank You Letter: Motherless Daughters, The Legacy Of Loss: by Hope Edelman

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By: Giselle General

In an attempt to fill the gaps in support and knowledge from my ongoing therapy, I was seeking out additional resources to help with dealing with the pain and loss of being an orphan. While my therapist wasn’t able to point me to an local support group, I found an adequate starting point.

I just finished reading the book Motherless Daughters, The Legacy Of Loss: by Hope Edelman. This is a Thank You Letter and a book review for the person who recommended this book, a remarkable woman in Edmonton named Mimi.

November 29 2021,

Dear Mimi,

Thank you for your lovely invitation to go out for lunch a few weeks after the outcome of the Edmonton Municipal Election last October 18. It was wonderful to chat with someone who experienced many of the things I have as a first-time elections candidate, as someone who is a person of color, and a woman. You shared many stories and insights that will help me as I go through my emotional recovery after not winning this election.

On top of the political commentary and stories, you kindly asked important questions about one challenging reality I have, as someone who doesn’t have a mother figure in my current life, and as someone who hasn’t had such a person for a very long time.

If my memory served me right, you actually haven’t read the book yourself, but you shared to me that Motherless Daughters was a book recommended to you a while back. I believe you said that you’re not the self-help-book-type. I was overjoyed though, since self-help is a book category I read on regular basis. Thank goodness an E-book version was available through the Edmonton Public Library, and I started reading in on nights and weekends when I have spare time.

The book was written and researched by a woman whose mother died when she was young, a teenager, and it involved numerous interviews and questionnaires from other “motherless daughters“. I liked how the book chapters outlined concepts bases on topic, such as navigating womanhood, romance, family, motivation and self-worth as a motherless daughter.

My favourite was how the book outlined key differences in terms of impact, depending on the child’s age when the mother passed away. I was eight when my mother died, together with my father and sister. Old enough to remember who they are and to know that life will never be the same after the deaths. Too young to do basic household management functions on my own. Too ill-equipped to grieve but not immune to the need of it.

It was a tough read, where every paragraph hitting me hard, shedding a light in very dark corners of my scarred soul, revealing wounds that never really completely healed. Especially in the first five chapters, it felt like every third paragraph made me cry, the vision of a child in her brokenness that was never acknowledged, and was just hidden away for so long. The stories of the other women and the commentary from doctors and the referenced resources, are both haunting and illuminating.

While distressing and unfortunate, I learned that it is actually normal for people to freak out when they reach the age of death of their same-gender parent. I thought that being fatalistic, catastrophising is a unique issue I am having due to election stress. Seriously, for the last six months before the election day my mind was telling me relentlessly “If I lose in this election, I have three years left to prove my worth. If I am not able to accomplish something profound and remarkable, my mother’s sacrifice was worthless. I don’t deserve to outlive her, and ending my life then is the right course of action.” I cannot rationalize it then, but yes, I was measuring my life and worth based on a very specific number, 33 years of age.

Now, there is huge comfort from realizing that this is a common occurrence. That subconsciously, people can be neglectful about their lives, or in the case of those whose mothers died of suicide or addictions, the adult “motherless daughter” ends up replicating those behaviours. It comes from wanting to grasp any way to find a connection with the mother that died too soon. So this is something I have to seriously watch for between now and 2024, that I don’t harm or kill myself, either by suicide or self-sabotaging my wellbeing.

Chapters of the book outlined how motherless daughters like me are stunted in our development, pushed to maturity and independence too early in some ways. But we are also stuck in childlike tendencies and yearnings in other ways. Instead of feeling inferior, I felt liberated by this. This paved another path of acceptance, and also pride, that my childlike mindset has not affected my adult life in debilitating ways.

For me, knowledge is power. I imagine it comes from my need for control from needing to look after myself (and my brother) at such a young age. I cannot describe how relived I am in realizing a few things:

  • That I will likely grieve again, in cycles and waves, for the rest of my life. When I reach womanly milestones, I would then yearn for a mother’s presence and guidance. Like during my first period, potential pregnancy and childbirth, menopause, even being a widow, financial and career changes, and many more.
  • A few time and age-related stages will be particularly difficult, such as reaching the age my mother died (which for me is in three years), giving birth, and when my child/ren reaches my age when my mother died, which is eight years old.

This is a huge blessing that came at a perfect time. Did you know that just a few weeks ago, during my therapy session right after the election, that I told the doctor that I need a very specific support group for people like me? He was sympathetic and understanding but the referrals provided were too broad for what I am seeking. This is the next closest thing to a support group and it worked really well as a starting point. I’m super grateful for the recommendation, as this has officially marked another journey of my healing from trauma, unpacking the fallout of being an orphan.

The Fight for Healthy Social Media Habits: A Filipina-Canadian Perspective on Covid19

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Woman sitting on couch browsing her smartphone

Doomscrolling sounds like a terrible terminology, and maybe it is. If the past fifteen years or so were any indication, the usage of technological devices from computers, the Internet, email, web subscriptions, and recently social media has occupied a significant portion of our time emotional energy and attention.

And it is understandable that there is such a great desire to stay as informed and as connected as possible given the realities of the current situation we’re facing which is a pandemic. And also, it is not like many other challenges and issues we have in our day-to-day lives have been put on hold because of the pandemic. The pandemic is just in addition to everything else, like natural disasters, scheduled government activities like budget deliberations, and the seasons. Products and services continue to be launched and promoted, various forms of entertaining content still get published in dizzying speeds, in addition to what I would describe as people increasingly having social and political discourse online.

I’ve heard so many times that social media apps are specifically designed to continuously capture one’s attention, to make it really hard to pull away deliberately and take a break from consuming all the content. Either it can suck people in into reacting and arguing or contradicting the thing they read. It also prompts people, even without realizing it, to make comparisons between with their own lives and however other people’s lives are portrayed in their carefully crafted posts and announcements.

A lot of times, what we read in social media also pushes us to do things really impulsively without realizing how what we publish can be interpreted by others. The term ‘keyboard warriors’ is there for a reason, after all. Oftentimes, the volume of commentary on a particular topic and a particular position on a topic is enough to make you drown mentally.

Three people wearing uniforms and aprons sitting beside each other browsing on their own smartphones

As someone who wants to be always informed and deeply involved in the community, this is a tricky fine line I have been trying to navigate. I am learning a little bit more about the concept of boundaries and I realized it is time to extend that with how I use technology.

So here is how I have been doing it in the past, which I realize it’s a decent foundation. On my desktop computer, I have an app called LeechBlock that sets timers so I only use certain websites for a specific period of time. This helps me prevent going through all content and scrolling mindlessly for minutes even hours without realizing it. When the timer for that web page says “oh you have been using this for 10 minutes straight!” it feels weird because you lose your grasp of time when you are just mindlessly doing something.

And now, I took it to the next level by doing the same thing for my own cell phone using an app called SocialFever. I’ve been doing it for just a few weeks, and I always get surprised when the timer says take a break from your phone because you have been looking at it for half an hour. I was like what? I have been on my phone for half an hour straight already? I just a bit shocking but also not completely. I still get surprised whenever the phone says time to take a break from this app for the day because I have already reached the limit you have set for myself. I have set a half-hour maximum for this particular app which is Twitter or YouTube and the internet browser app/

It is interesting seeing is the end of the day report I get from this app. For the past few days it seems like I have been using my phone for a an average of two to three and a half hours per day for doing different activities. Another eye-opening, if not a little bit humiliating, statistic that this app tracks now is how many times I unlock my phone. It’s weird to see that I unlock my phone in a several dozen times a day with the stats to prove it.

Screenshot of app alerting "app time has been exceeded".
This is the screen that pops up whenever I’m using an app for too long. It’s a jolting wake up call every time, but one that I appreciate.

I hope that by setting externalized limits, I don’t have to rely as much on my flawed self-control and instead, reserve my energy to when I pivot into doing productive things outside of browsing and interaction on social media apps. The pandemic is going to be here for a while so I know that cutting myself off completely from social media is not something I want to do. This, I hope, is the means to have a happy medium.

Love Language Reflections: Appreciating Each Other’s Yin and Yang

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Black and white photo of a couple holding hands, photo focus on the torso, arms and hands.

By: Giselle General

Being “Therapist approved” is an inside joke that my husband and I have, which is a reference to the first time I went for mental health help in 2017. I shared to my counselor at the time the different gestures my husband does to support me, as well as his perspectives that are different from mine in a good way. And always, after each story, this counselor would say “he’s great, I like this guy!” After every therapy session I’d share this to him, and would say cheerfully “wow, I’m therapist approved!”

Recently, I booked another online therapy appointment with the psychologist I’ve been seeing for the past year. This time around, there isn’t a major issue that I needed regular appointment for, but more like an check-in and occasional help once in a while. It’s like going for a massage – but for my psychological wellbeing – going once every few months feels really nice!

As I described how my husband and I support each other, and how our personalities and priorities are complementary but different, this psychologist commented about how my husband and I seem to be a yin and yang of each other. A contrast that is drastic and obvious, but works so well together and creates a harmonious union.

It reminded me of a painting I made many years ago, back when we were still living in the condo. It is an abstract interpretation of how he and I were a yin and yang complement to each other. It looks like my younger self had observed that about our relationship already. My husband liked the painting to much that it moved with us when we bought our house. Now, not all paintings that I made are kept. Some end up getting donated to fundraising auctions for charities, or I paint over it with a different design. For a painting to stay here for more than five years, it has to feel really special to him.

Abstract painting of a yin and yang symbol that is altered, with handwritten scribbles in either blak or white pencil.

What does this yin and yang harmony as far as our relationship is concerned? Here are some examples:

  • I’m very achievement-oriented and strive for excellence, while he is content with being minimal and steady in achieving life goals
  • He has an amazing ability to be a long-time ‘couch potato’ sitting and watching TV or playing video games all day. I lose attention, and my bottom hurts after watching 1.5 episodes on Netflix, unless it is really interesting.
  • He emphasizes a lot on rest and relaxation, while I’m energetic and immerse myself in lots of volunteering and creative work
  • One example related to chores: I strongly dislike doing laundry, having to wait and time my day to move clothes from the washer to the dryer. But he is more than happy to do so. And then, he dislikes folding and putting away clothing neatly, which is something I am more than happy to do.
  • Our backgrounds and upbringings are drastically different. He is a born-and-raised Canadian white man, with a middle-class family, parents who raised him and stayed in the same home the entire childhood. I grew up in the Philippines, orphaned at a young age and had to function as a parent, immigrated to a new country and moved across cities and provinces.

I think it is not just personality, but encouraging one’s partner to look at things from a different perspective, so that each person has a sense of balance in life. It’s really great whenever he talks to me a few times a month to help me take inventory of all my volunteer activities, and making sure I don’t take up too much and overstretch myself.

Another important aspect is the acknowledging and accepting the differences, particularly if it doesn’t cause harmful disruptions in day to day living. For many years, our budgeting system is quite different, and as long as we are overall organized, it was okay if he used a specific software for budgeting while I used my bank’s online system. It’s totally okay if our office desks, which are next two each other, looks so different. His is really tidy, while mine has mini piles of stuff, from pens, my wide-open bullet journal, business card organizer, and our couple’s diaries. It’s totally okay if he has his clothes sorted in a pile of stackable bins, one of each type of clothing, while I have a closet where majority of the clothes are in hangers.

Close up of a couple mixing baking ingredients. One person hugging the other from the back.

It’s been six years since I looked at that yin and yang painting up close. I wrote words in black or white color pencil in the flowy parts of the yin and yang symbols. As I read the words, the passages are filled with eagerness and curiosity, affection and optimism. There were many phrases that are contrasting and complementary describing both him and me and our experiences: happy and sad, modest and proud, dark and light, straightforward and confusing, assertive and passive, generous and practical, gentle and blunt, he and she.

Metal Music and Reality Check Playlist: A Filipina-Canadian’s Perspective on COVID-19

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Just like many people, I’m trying to find ways to spend time during the COVID19 lockdown in a way that is productive, or at least caring for my wellbeing. Turns out, that involves listening to some of the bands that I really loved during my late teen and young adult years.

One thing I didn’t quite realize fully is that metal and rock songs are quite insightful, that they can be quite deep in their meanings, after one stops to listen to the lyrics and pay attention to the music videos and the images portrayed.

I’d like to share some of the songs I listened to from some of the bands I love, and how they feel even more relatable during this time. Many of them criticize the social, economic, political, and environmental issues we have been facing for a while, that are highlighted even more during this time. Some of them, either the songs themselves or the music videos, highlight the feelings of despair, hopelessness and suffering, and that there just might be a source of hope, recovery and redemption.

Within Temptation: Mother Earth

Disturbed: Land of Confusion

Seether: Fake It

Within Temptation: (Paradise) What About Us

Disturbed: Another Way To Die

Seether: Rise Above This

For anyone who check these out, I hope that you enjoy it!

A Cog in the Community Service Machine: A Filipina-Canadian’s Perspective on COVID-19

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It is to be expected, that in a crisis like this, many people will be put in a difficult position (or a more difficult position) and are in need of help. One incredible thing about this pandemic is that there were lots of opportunities to help, and there are different roles to fill.

It’s pretty neat to take a break from being on the organizer role (I’m talking specifically about my job), since all our programs are cancelled. My job is the main way I do something that helps people in need in a direct way. My volunteer work as a member of a board of directors is also important, and I appreciate it, but a bit more removed, a bit more big-picture.

I was not surprised that social media pages and groups were set up to help people in an efficient way. Facebook groups specific to COVID-19 that enabled the average person to have a direct way to help with advice, positive commentary on social media, and buying items online to help those with emergent need. For a Facebook page that is just barely a month old, to have 20,000 members, is pretty darn impressive. I wanna buy a case of wine for each of the founders and moderators of the page. What an incredible labour of love.

Another way I have been helping is by being in “super seamstress mode”. Since last year I’ve been making fabric bags for Boomerang Bags Edmonton, and that has proven useful during this time. Hundreds of people throughout the province started making fabric laundry bags for healthcare workers, so they can separate their dirty (and most likely contaminated) work uniforms and toss them right away into the washing machine.

In my neighbourhood, with relief, I discovered ways to do a little something cheerful right by my front yard. Sidewalk chalk art. Staying connected with community leaders. Volunteering from home.

For my workplace, I realized that disseminating information, especially online, is really important. It’s part of my duties anyways. Handling marketing and communications for work and the clients we serve who need help is a part of my daily duties as I work from home.

These are the “doer” type of roles. The soldiers in the field. The cog in the machine. I know there are hundreds of volunteers doing seamstress work right now. I know (and it’s incredible) that there are thousands of people on the Facebook group, that almost every single time someone make a post asking for help, an offer is made within an hour or less. I am seeing dozens of photos drawing positive messages of pavement or fences, even if there’s a risk of snowfall or watery puddles the next day that would wash it away.

I’d like to take a moment to give a shoutout to all the administrators, organizers, facilitators of these on-the-ground initiatives to help others. Because it’s more stressful to do it at this time, but the relieve that these gestures of support is also of a greater impact.

Weathering the Pandemic’s Stormy Atmosphere: A Filipina-Canadian’s Perspective on COVID-19

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This will be one of the several posts I will likely write about my personal reflections regarding the pandemic. My thoughts are pulled in different directions and I’m hoping to write about different parts of them, one at a time.

At this rate, it would be almost a month since drastic measures have been implemented here in Edmonton to mitigate the effects of the pandemic. Given my line of work, my tendency to get involved in the community, and how I stay connected on social media, I get to witness how different people react, respond, and adapt to the current situation.

This is one emerging theme in my mind since the beginning, and as of this time, which is early April. It is my unavoidable tendency to compare this time to the typhoon season in the Philippines.

The Philippines gets at least a dozen typhoons every year. Since I was 16 years old when I moved to Canada, I have lasting memories of the disruption that this season causes every single year. The last few days of warm summer around the end of May, getting ready to go back to school in June, with the anticipation that in about six weeks, at least a few days of school will be cancelled because Mother Nature’s wrath is too much for safely walk or drive to school, work or do a lot of activities.

When school is cancelled, you stay at home and try to stay occupied. When school is cancelled because of a typhoon, it’s also very likely that access to utilities will be interrupted. In my very young memories (and I mean, really young, when my parents and sister were still alive), I recall memories of playing with my sister with a deck of cards, under candlelight on the dining table. Or we can convince our parents or nanny to very briefly knock on the apartment, right across the all, to see if my sister’s best friend, Ailea, wants to play. We’d then invite her to play house in the bedroom that we share.

Even dressing up to stay protected was a norm: from ensuring you have an umbrella that is less likely to flip and break into pieces, to letting it go altogether by making yourself waterproof with a raincoat and boots. Well, at least dressing up for the weather is also something that needs to be done in Canada, particularly during the fall and winter.

My mother, running a convenience store, is an essential business because people do need to buy food, and candles, diapers and medicine. After they passed away, my grandmother and I ended up being the storekeeper that has to keep their doors open, while making sure that the strong winds don’t knock over our display shelves of products, and our roof stays intact.

In short, having life disruptions, being home-bound, and experiencing numerous cancellations of regular activities is something to be expected, like the seasons.

In comparison, there is not a lot of reasons that massive disruptions happen particularly where I live. I’d say in Canada, there can be disruptions (that cause cancellations of events and evacuations) due to wildfires and floods, but most people don’t prepare for that every single year. I imagine that for many, this is part of the reason why the current changes can be quite stressful.

My feelings can be summed up as concern, uncertainty, but not crippling fear. I guess there is something to be said about getting used to something. Being home-bound because of a pandemic might not be 100% the same, but the tangible impact has enough parallels.

The experiences in the Philippines helped build an emotional foundation to help manage this. In fact, by comparison, this is significantly more comfortable! From making sure that one’s home is in order as much as possible, paying attention to the media and any directions from goverment officials, waiting out the worst part of the storm, and eagerly looking foward to when things go ‘back to normal’, being able to do this in a healthy way is key to riding out this particular storm.

My Contribution to Sexual Violence Awareness Month

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By: Giselle General

May is Sexual Violence Awareness Month. It seems like every week, month, or day is dedicated towards something that it can be hard to keep track, this is something I’m not complaining about at all. Sometimes it can be something fun and casual like National Puppy Day, or something deeply important like Black History Month. I feel fortunate that in Canada, Alberta, Edmonton and other places worldwide, there were opportunities to talk about this important (and terrible) issue, give support to those affected, and have conversation on how to be aware and put an end to this.

The issue is a bit personal to me, since I myself have been a victim/ survivor of sexual assault. I purposefully used both words because these horrific act definitely have harmed me, and that should not be discounted one bit. At the same time, similar to the other life hardships that life threw at me, it is something I have survived from and changed who I am, hopefully for the better. The month had provided me with tangible opportunities to meaningfully participate.

Attending a Fundraising Gala

It seems like fundraising galas are everywhere, and attending them is actually pretty cool. I attended the fundraising gala for the Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton at the Edmonton Convention Centre. While giving a hefty donation or a regular monthly donation is not within my budget at the moment, I figured that doing a one-time activity and donation is still something.

When it comes to food, I’m not picky anyways, and simply welcome the opportunity to have something different from my regular routine. This gala was a bit special as well, as I managed to join a table with other people who are actively involved in Edmonton. Some people at the table were familiar faces and names, which is thrilling! The keynote speaker, a gentleman who is a lawyer, was wonderful! What I appreciate most about the keynote speaker is that he addressed head on some of the misconceptions that surround sexual assault, from the act, to how survivors behave, and to how a perpetrator can look like. As someone who is part of the legal community, I also appreciate how he humanizes the flaws of the legal system. ‘These are human institutions with people who care‘ he said. I think that when we don’t get the results we are seeking, this is something that we forget in the midst of our anger, pain and discouragement.

Attending an event with a host who is also an auctioneer was a first for me, and seeing how the on-stage sign language interpreters keep up with the host was entertaining! I was blown away by the generosity and disposable income that some people have. Hearing the thousands of dollars being announced during the live auction bids made me gawk, and the tables of items available at the auction tables made me hope that lots of funds are indeed going to support the organization. After this, I definitely feel more inclined to make time and attend more fundraisers like this.

Educating Myself and Learning More Stories

There are lots of ways to make this convenient, specifically through social media. Simply following a few pages that talk about feminism, social issues, storytelling/artistic ones like Humans of New York, give a steady stream on my social media feed about stories and insights that people have. It can be heartbreaking, empowering, informative or hopeful depending on the story or the article. What I know for sure is that it is a reminder of how these experiences are common and universal. My goal is to spread awareness, reduce stigma and victim blaming, and seek out comfort for myself and others.

Evaluating What I Learned from Therapy

It has been almost two years since I went to therapy, and the effort to diligently apply what I have learned is going well. Other positive and healthy habits are being integrated in my life day by day, which also feels very promising. One thing I know is that it will take the rest of my life to remind myself to not be so outcomes-focused in my approach in life, and that is okay.

Also, as it turns out there are times when these calming or self-regulating techniques do not work and I’m not panicking about it. That really is the bigger victory. The calm that comes from accepting that I am a person that grows, changes and that have some weird quirks is liberating. I’m as messed up as anybody else, and this is not a crippling idea anymore.

The dictionary definition of internalize is “to incorporate (the cultural values, mores, motives, etc., of another or of a group), as through learning, socialization, or identification.” This is the biggest victory of my therapy experience, to internalize that it was okay to feel angry and sad and hurt about being treated poorly, to internalize that is is okay to set aside time to acknowledge these feelings, to internalize that there is a way and I deserve to process these feeling and release them, to internalize that I deserve all those good things I life that I didn’t have for a while.

I encourage anyone to find a cause you care about that has a date/ week/ month dedicated to spread awareness, and take it as an opportunity to spread awareness, provide support, and improve ourselves.

The Quest And New Options for “Belonging”

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By: Giselle General

With all the conversation about social isolation, mental health, and disconnectedness these days, I have been thinking more about the concept of belonging.

My explorations range from simply thinking things trough, mulling through my head various things I read or hear about and reading books on the matter. I read a few books by Brene Brown on vulnerability, shame, and the idea of ‘daring greatly’ and ‘braving the wilderness’ which on the surface sounds really isolating.

As someone who immigrated to a different country, the concept of belonging gets a bit more muddled. One challenge is the labels we use to identify ourselves can mean not belonging to other groups. Or that more effort or clarification is needed to make the broad connection.

Perhaps it is just a sign of getting older, that I am faced with more paradoxes in life, it’s making my head spin. Assertiveness and collaboration, boundaries and openness, vulnerability and courage, sharing and preserving.

It wasn’t until a few years in university that I discovered a term that resonated with me: introvert. It is a part of who I am that I have learned to embrace and even let shine. I laugh whenever my colleagues and volunteers claim that they don’t believe me since I seem to be so social and cheerful when I interact with them at work. But most of my work is done well within the confines of my closed office door. And that at the end of the day I crave isolation while writing a blog, reading a book, or browsing online. I have attended a ‘Paint Nite’ event with a friend, where we were in a bar following instructions from an instructor on how to make a certain painting. That is fine and neat, but I felt greater satisfaction and artistic expression by doing arts and crafts in isolation, making a mess in our dining table all by myself.

There are times when I feel unease – not as intensely as guilt though – over the fact that I have not really spent time socializing with my relatives. I feel conflicted on who, when and how should we really hang out. Should I ask first? Should I wait for them to reach out? I feel that those gatherings are not as fun as they used to, or was that because I haven’t seen them for a long time? Is the fact that we are related by blood, enough reason to find time to meet up, despite differences in schedule, preferences and values?

Then there is technology. There are now plenty of online communities to connect with like-minded people, even over just that one thing you may have in common. In my opinion, these types of connections are still under-valued. The great benefit of these online forums is how specific they can be, and that specificity of common interest is what makes it difficult to find in real life sometimes. Currently, I am a member of online groups for bullet journaling (essentially a DIY planner/ diary/ scrapbook/ notebook hybrid), sex education and positivity, and being childfree by choice.

One thing I am trying to remind myself is that there is no such thing as feeling like you belong 100% in every single location or setting. And that IS okay! It seems like the excessive pressure to hang out with people is the very reason why social interactions can be unpleasant or not satisfying. Being present, and mindful, and curious are a few things I’m trying to integrate in my life. On in other words, rolling with the punches.

The last thing I am trying to remind myself in the quest of belonging, is that its imperfections and impermanence is not something to be afraid of. It is okay to have a childhood friend for a decade, be disconnected during the adult years, and perhaps, rediscover the kinship upon retirement age. It is okay to take a break or unflollow online groups if it seems like the right thing to do. It is okay to formally break a friendship or let it fade away by not corresponding. It is okay to mumble and be awkward and focus on your group’s activity, taking extra time before disclosing personal details.

The two statements I heard not too long ago that resonated with me is “I feel complete in an empty room” and “You are amazing, just the way you are”. I think that convincing myself of the first statement, and viewing other using the second statement, will be valuable guides in navigating the colourful, unpredictable, messy, journey of connecting with fellow humans.