A little bit of reflecting on 2021
Last week, we had some unseasonably warm days here in Berlin. Temperatures were in the 50's and so E and I took our morning coffees out onto our balcony, where we stretched and shared what we were grateful for. As is common during this exercise, E rattled off three concrete things he was grateful for (a tasty meal he'd cooked, a fun video game he'd played, and a creative project he was excited to be working on), while I launched into an elaborate story about something I'd seen on instagram, and how it made me feel, and what that feeling helped me realize about myself, and how that realization led me to reflect on the hard work I put into becoming the person I am, and how that hard work is the thing I'm grateful for and so that's number one on today's gratitude list.
I do have days where I'm grateful for more concrete things (our cat, Nyshka, is a frequent entry on the gratitude list), but today I want to tell y'all the elaborate story I told E last week.
Someone I follow on instagram posted a 2021-themed this-or-that game in her instagram story. It was a mix of questions, mostly not too introspective - Did you travel at all this year? Did you get a new haircut? Did you start a new job? But she also asked: Did you learn a new skill this year? and Did you do something you're proud of? And those two questions got me thinking.
[Sidenote: this is the level of reflecting on the past year that felt good to me. I saw another post on instagram a couple of weeks ago that was like, "60 questions to reflect on before 2022 arrives" and I was like, "um, no thanks, I'm good, that degree of self-reflection sounds exhausting and counterproductive!"]
Anyway, the new skill I developed in 2021 was differentiating between helpful and unhelpful thoughts and letting the unhelpful thoughts go (as much as possible). I know I've written about this topic before in this newsletter, but in the past it has been really challenging for me to set aside thoughts that aren't serving me. In recent months, it's gotten a lot easier. Honestly, I feel like I learned how to chill out in 2021, which sounds kind of silly, but has been so, so good for me.
I feel like I am more at peace with my brain than I've ever been before (at least that I can recall). And there are two main reasons for this:
Being pregnant. This pregnancy has actually been great for my mental health. Pregnancy hormones, especially in the first trimester, tend to wreak havoc on people's moods, but I think they actually leveled me out. On a less biochemical level, being pregnant has given me a big, exciting life change and a new challenge to look forward to. I feel much less concerned about being underemployed than I did this time last year because my career isn't my focus right now. I feel confident that I'll find meaningful work again in the future, when I decide to prioritize it. I'll figure it out, but I don't need to figure it out right now. And that's a good thing because right now? I flat out don't have the energy to figure it out. Pregnancy has challenged me physically and forced me to slow down. I haven't had an especially hard pregnancy, but I've had consistent digestive issues and trouble sleeping. I can't look at screens as often as I used to be able to, which is tricky when that's where all of my work and most of my socializing takes place. I feel incredibly grateful that I never struggled with any of these (very normal) physical issues before becoming pregnant. I had no idea how lucky I was to be able to eat anything I wanted, whenever I wanted, and have it taste good! My body's new physical limitations are annoying, but manageable, and I've found it surprisingly easy to be gentle with myself when I can't get as much done as I'd like to. I can cut myself some slack if the only thing I get done in a day is grow a new human.
Working at it. If I gave all the credit for my improved mental health to this pregnancy, I would be doing myself a disservice. Figuring out how to identify unhelpful thoughts was hard work, and I did that. Letting go of those unhelpful thoughts was even harder work, and I did that, too. I remember complaining to my therapist, saying, "but how do I let go? what does that even mean?" I don't remember his answer because it wasn't very helpful, ha. But looking back, I think his answer probably wasn't very helpful because, for me, there is no trick to this besides practice. I ask myself, is this thought serving me? and if the answer is no, I choose to do something else. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I need to trust that it's okay to ignore a thought because if it really matters it will come back and make itself known again. Sometimes I need to write or talk about the thought and sort of diffuse its power. Sometimes I just need to go to bed and try again the next day.
I don't share all of this to be like, look at me! I self-actualized in 2021! I'm healed now! There are still hard days and there will continue to be hard days because that's life, baby. But I'm really proud of myself for learning these skills and strategies in 2021 and I'm really grateful for the days when they worked for me. I hope they keep working for me! But I also trust that if they don't, well, I'll figure out something new that does. Maybe it will be finding a new therapist or trying a new medication.
I'm really interested to see what my mental health does after I give birth. My ob-gyn and I have already talked about it and we're going to be on high alert for postpartum depression. It would be amazing if I just cruised from good mental health during pregnancy to good mental health as a new mom, but I know that's pretty unlikely.
I'm hoping for the best in 2022, and we'll see how it unfolds. Thanks for reading and Happy New Year!