#MentalHealthMonday
…It has been nearly a year since I took time out to update my blog, but today seemed as good of a day as any to start it back up again…
Since 1949, the month of May has been observed as Mental Health Month in the United States. Today seemed like the perfect day to start back blogging since I have deemed Monday’s “#MentalHealthMonday” ‘s on my social media platforms. To be completely honest, growing up in a very religious household definitely molded my view of mental health in a negative way, and I am just now getting to the point in my life where I have unlearned my bad childhood view on what the subject involves. As a kid, whenever I heard that somebody was “going to therapy or dealing with mental health issues” that meant that they were crazy, and could not deal with their own issues accordingly. Mental health is so important and definitely not talked about enough but, until you reach a certain age, I truly believe the significance of it is trivialized. Life can be so rough and full of unexpected turns and living through Covid-19 has definitely taught that! There are so many things I took for granted because I was so caught up in things that truly did not matter. I decided to take a three month leave from my job and focus on the root of my problems and my mental health. In the last five years, I haven’t had a summer off until now and I am extremely excited about finally having one! As a flight attendant, summer is always the busiest time of year for our career due to people traveling much more because they are on holiday or vacation and want to finally visit their favorite travel locations. These days, I am spending my time in Barbados, healing and unwinding an learning about what makes my mental health unstable and what brings me true peace. Having peace and stability has brought me so much mental clarity in 2020 and now that is my main focus.
These days I am fortunate to spend my time doing all of my favorite things that keep my mental health in check. With everything going on in the world, and everyone in this world just trying to stay sane despite all of the chaos, having a routine has been great for me. On March 13th, I gave up coffee (it was not completely by choice) and cut back on drinking caffeine all together. I had already stopped drinking soda as much, but cutting back on tea with caffeine went out the door as well. The results seemed to be counter productive in my head, but after 12 days I feel like a new person. I still can’t believe it, but by no choice of my own I have been starting my days at 6AM with no alarm system. Yes, you read that right 6 A.M. EST and I am up in the morning with no caffeine religiously. I remember watching some of Casey Neistat’s vlogs, where he talked about how many hours in the day you have to be productive, and how many are wasted on sleeping. Sleeping is one of my favorite activities, so I never payed it much attention ….until now. I spend so much time sleeping (which is time well spent still in my opinion) and now that I am back rested up and not exhausted from flying, I feel like a new person. I have time to do as much yoga as my body deems necessary, cook every day, exercise, spend time fully emerged in nature, drink wine, watch my favorite things on Netflix an Youtube, sleep, and find new creative outlets that interest me! Mental health is so important and I strongly encourage and challenge all of you reading this to take a step back and focus on yourself for once!! Only you know how YOU truly feel when you are in the mirror facing your toughest critic…. YOURSELF! Take a day out in May to reevaluate all of your habits good and bad and take time out to focus on things that makes YOU happy during 2020.
I hope and pray that all of you are doing well and the continued support is so very appreciated! During this chaotic time make sure that you hold your loved ones a little tighter and squeeze a little harder because we are all in the same boat trying to make sense of all of this madness! Stay resilient and treat others as you would like to be treated my loves.
xoxo -ASH ❤
🛫 The Pretty Passenger 🛬 