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Blogmas Day 14
dymond phillips • Dec 14, 2017
*It's Christmas Time In The City*
Self reflection is so important. It helps you grow and prosper. You can't expect to fix parts of your life if you don't acknowledge the problem areas. Thankfully, day fourteen was a good self evaluation day for me. Sometimes, at least once every few months, you have to look at your life. Especially when so many things are "going wrong" or whenever you need a new direction. If you have an Apple Watch, you get the alerts to "Breathe" once a day. Before, I paid little to no attention to it, but it wasn't until I was very stressed during finals week when I actually took part in it. Basically the breathe "app" monitors your breathing, and helps alleviate stress. The act of paying attention to your breathing; taking deep breaths in a slow and measured fashion, can be extremely beneficial. And even if you don't see any physical health benefits, it's a good way to take a break from the stress of the day. For me, it always comes at random times of the day. The app instructs you to inhale and exhale for about 10seconds. The breathing lasts anywhere from one minute to even five. When I finally joined in and did the exercise it helped me not focus on my stress and to just go with the flow.
That got me thinking, do you ever need to just breathe in life situations? I know sometimes things can seem to just be coming at you all at once, but you have to learn how to just breathe. Sometimes I get overwhelmed and don't know what to do. But I'm trying to learn it's ok to stop, think, cry, breathe and then get back to it. You have to learn to just attack situations one at a time. That is okay!!! Yes I get it, you think everything has to get done at the same time but it's sometimes better to do things one at a time. Let go of things you can't change and that includes things that happened already. I get so caught up in problems that happened in the past rather than figuring out solutions that can prevent them from happening again.
Here's one tip I always use during my reflection periods: Go do something you like to do alone that makes you happy. That way you can take a step from outside yourself and really look at yourself. For me, I love going to the movies, even alone. I get to have me time before and after the movie to look at different parts of myself. Find what it is for you and get to it. You don't have to always wait until everything is wrong to self reflect, stay on top of it to prevent some mistakes and situations. It's good to self reflect even when things are going right. On day fourteen, I went for a walk because the movies I wanted to see weren't playing that late. I walked downtown to a restaurant, Atlanta Braves Grill. During that walk I could just breathe and not worry about anything. Seeing all the Christmas lights helped me just relax, don't ask why they were just very therapeutic to me. Learn how to breathe throughout the day and self reflect at least once a month!
Well that's all for Blogmas Day Fourteen. Stop and breathe, until tomorrow.....
Xoxo,
Dymond
