Tiny Revolutions №20: Riding the Rails

you go up, you come down

May 10, 2020

Hi, I’m Sara, and this is Tiny Revolutions, a newsletter with personal writing and links about the practice required to stay mentally healthy. I’d love to hear from you, so reply anytime and let me know what you think!

This was me this week.

I’m currently reading entrepreneur Jen Gotch’s The Upside of Being Down, in which she writes about her experience dealing with bipolar disorder, and how accepting and understanding herself is what has led her to success. I like how she created an emotional rating system that she uses to track her moods, with 1 being depths of despair to 10 being manic and 7.8 being just right. I’d say my moods ranged from a 3 to an 8 this week, WOOF. More on that in a future dispatch, but today I’m sitting pretty at about a 6.5.

Here are some things I found interesting this week:

“There are a lot of dipshits out there, but there always were. The dipshits are not going to win.”

I enjoyed this list of good things about quarantine from Brad Warner, my teacher at Angel City Zen Center.

hardcorezenbrad

I started making a list of good things about quarantine today & quickly filled up a whole page. You might want to try it. I’m not even finished yet. #goodthings @pskychic22

May 4, 2020

If you’re on Twitter, I highly recommend following Jessica Dore, who’s carved out an interesting niche as a writer and licensed social worker who uses tarot cards to tell us things about ourselves.

Jessica Dore @thejessicadore

Today's card. We're taught how to do what we're told (often disguised as stories about willpower & perseverance) but not about wayfinding. Don't expect to be given a map to your treasure. Keep your eyes peeled for a compass, but know that to an extent it's on u to learn 2 use it.

I’m pretty resistant to advice these days because I’m cranky, contrarian, and have read (and taken) too much bad advice. But I’ll almost always read advice from people who’ve lived long enough. Here’s Jane Brody, the NYT’s 79-year-old personal health columnist, on how she’s riding out the quarantine. Routine seems key here and I wonder if I’ll ever be this disciplined. One can only hope.

I remember a well-meaning person once telling me I had to love myself, and, expert self-critic that I am, I had no idea what that could even possibly mean. This is obviously quite easy for many of the people you run across on Instagram, but it never has been for me. Here is a helpful list of 22 ways to love yourself more.

And finally, Happy Mother’s Day to all you miracles who mother. You know who you are. What would we do without you?

😘

Sara

p.s. Can we follow each other on Instagram? I would like that. Twitter, too.

p.p.s. Send this to a friend!