If I had to explain myself in two words, they would be: extreme feeler (this isn’t creepy, I promise.) In fact, it’s one of the things my friends always point out to me. On surface level, when you first meet me, you’d never ever think there is a giant pile of ALL THE FEELINGS inside. I think Laurel once said, “outside you present as so cool, but inside you’re just this little ball of mush” and it’s true. I am an extreme feeler.

I used to not think this about myself, because I am so good at masking my emotions. I used to think I was rather stoic. HA.

I have come to accept and even love my sensitivity. I embrace my emotions as they are every bit of part of me as my sense of humour.

The truth is: I feel deeply, all the time, about a number of things. Like right now, I am worried about the world, worried about the neighbourhood cat that’s missing, excited to curl up and read my book, wishing I lived right next door to a lake, hoping for a storm, yearning for a second season of The Great, ignoring the pain in my wrist..etc. And all these emotions carry the same weight on my mind. I turn them over and over again revisiting the same sentences, the same stories, until something else pops up.

If I am too happy or too sad (or really too anything), I immediately cry. The other night, I teared up at a Charmin commercial (then immediately laughed at my ridiculousness.) I have come to accept and even love my sensitivity. I embrace my emotions as they are every bit of part of me as my sense of humour.

But it takes work. One of the things I have had to learn is to stop taking everything to the extreme. For instance, let’s say I had a bad moment at work (not even a bad day), just a rough patch, my old self would immediately tense up. Does that mean I hate my job? If I hate my job, does that mean I am on the wrong path in life? If I am on the wrong path, does that mean I have failed?

I was so invested in my emotions, what I was feeling and why, that I would find myself drowning in analysis. I’ve learned that sometimes, I just feel sad because I feel sad. There isn’t a reason and there doesn’t need to be. And most importantly, feeling sadness is not failure.

Laurel and I were talking about positivity a few days ago and we both were sharing our thoughts on it. I love positivity and I feel like it can be a very powerful tool. I feel like sometimes, I just need to shift my perspective and think about a thing differently and immediately, I feel better. I do believe that an obstacle can be an opportunity. But I also think that there is a time and place for that kind of thinking. Sometimes, an obstacle is just an obstacle. Sometimes acknowledging the suck and the struggle is what is needed to move on from it.

The sweet spot is the days where you just live and for a second, you forget about your existence and what it means.

I no longer think about my life as being on a path (goodbye 5 year plan), but instead I think of this very moment, this one I am in right now. I ask myself:

Do I feel safe?

Do I love?

Do I feel loved?

Sure, I have goals and I work towards them, but I do so knowing I am enjoying them in that moment. I love to organize and plan and have a set routine, but I do so knowing it gives me stability and focus. If I fail, so what. I’ve given up on over analyzing my life path. I am just on this road to live it. And if I am in a particularly rough moment? I realize the feeling passes, like every feeling before it. I plan trips and look forward to things, obviously, but when it comes to my feelings, I have stopped asking myself why all the time. There are times when a “why” is necessary, but more often than not, it is not a helpful exercise. It’s not perfect, by any means, but it allows me to just accept that there are days that you just drag and sour and to do so is just as human as to smile is. My goal in life is to live neutrally, with more okay days than bad. When the bad days come, they pass, just like the amazing days do. The sweet spot is the days where you just live and for a second, you forget about your existence and what it means.

I’ve learned that life isn’t about always being happy or even striving for happiness, it’s okay to just be okay. It’s okay to not be okay. It’s wonderful to be happy. The most important thing is TO BE.

How do you feel about positivity? We’d love to hear your thoughts! There are no right or wrong answers here.

I struggle with stillness. I’ve been like that for as long as I can remember – wake with the sun and move until the sun bids the sky adieu. Dancing and singing and talking – really just a whole lot of following people around talking.

Maybe that’s why I always preferred workout classes over alone time in the gym. While so many people like to put their headsets on, muting the world for the steady beat of Taylor Swift telling you to Shake it Off or Beyonce reminding you who truly runs the world – I always opted for an instructor at the front of a room telling you how many more seconds you have to hold a plank. (The answer always being a million more seconds.) To me, I liked the feeling of being pushed and the motivation of doing that among other people. (And the chatting after class.)

For years, I was a gym member in whatever city I lived. The local woman-owned gym when in the Toronto area, a yoga studio while in Ottawa, and then a spin studio and Class Pass while in New York. I worked out four to five days a week, and would sometimes throw in an extra day for good luck. I loved it! Until I didn’t. Or maybe it was never that simple?

I had a weird and confusing break up that lasted for months and somewhere in the haze of saying goodbye to someone I loved and welcoming myself back into my own body, I stopped being a member of any gym. I stopped moving regularly. I still found my way to my yoga mat for some calm and peppered in workout classes – really just enough to say I hadn’t quit cold turkey.

Weeks became months and then I started this job that consumes more of my time than I’d like to admit (that’s for another post), and now it’s been over three years.

A note – I still follow people around just to talk. I move throughout every day, from dance parties in my kitchen, to walks with my sweet pup, Luna, to hikes with my sister and boyfriend, (known in every text not to him as M, and so shall be called M on this blog) – but nothing regular, nothing that would count as a routine.

And then all routine got thrown out the window and I decided it was time to start welcoming regular movement back into my days. M loves working out. Loves moving. Loves pushing his body simply to see what it can do. And since he lives in New York and I in Ottawa and we’re always finding ways to pretend we’re together when the miles apart are nothing to sneeze at – we decided May would be the perfect month to start a ‘Wellness Challenge’. And I use challenge loosely because I am the least competitive person that has ever taken a breath and the intent was only ever to kindly and slowly reintroduce myself to an old friend.

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And so the May Wellness Month was born.

Here it is: drink 2,000 mL of water a day (HOW DOES ANYONE DRINK THIS MUCH WATER?!), no ice cream (cruel), and complete the below circuit three times through, once a day.

• 5 push-ups
• 5 sit-ups
• 5 squats
• 20 second plank

Then do that circuit four times (4 push-ups, 4 sit-ups, 4 squats, 20 second plank), until you hit the 1s. Repeat three times. It takes 20-25 minutes total. The perfect bridge time from ‘work day’ to evening, or morning to productivity, or a lunch time break.

It was achievable- not a challenge that laughed at me, mocking me every day when I would think about the hill I just couldn’t climb. As if I was going to go from zero to a 5K run five times a week. That’s a no from me. I needed something that was like a handshake. Easy. Welcoming. Quick. No promises. And that’s what this Wellness Month has been.

Now, May isn’t done yet. We still have a week left. And I haven’t done every part of it every day. There is often a full water bottle on my desk in the afternoon forcing me to chug 500 mL most nights.

And I don’t do the circuit everyday. I didn’t workout today, for example (sorry, M, if you’re reading this. I know I said I was going to try, but something came up with work – as it always does – and I am choosing a moment on the balcony over the circuit today).

BUT the point is that I am thinking about it. That I am trying. That I am finding ways to move (like a bike ride to sit with friends in the park last night), and that I am being kind to my body, and for right now – that’s good enough for me. It’s more than good enough.

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I remember the first time I had coffee. I was 16 and in charge of making my father’s morning cup (in exchange for him driving me to school.) My Dad’s coffee is not what one would consider a typical blend. In fact, it took me years to rewire my brain when making coffee as an intern. See my Dad loves strong coffee, but not just average strong, but let’s just say if he could pour the grinds directly into water, I am sure he would. I came to understand later that that is unusual. Not everyone likes their morning cup to blow their head right off. Who knew?

So my first cup of coffee was not great, but man the after effects were amazing. Energy! Focus! It became my fuel well into adulthood. To this day, there is nothing I love more than a good oat milk cappuccino.

I was excited when I saw that Dave Eggers, one of my all time favourite writers, was writing a book that centered on coffee. The Monk of Mokha was an excellent read that transported me into the world of coffee imports.

This was a really great true story of a young Yemeni American and the power of passion. I find myself spouting random coffee facts each morning to an unwilling audience.

Did you know coffee is a fruit?

Do you know where the term Java comes from?

Do you know that there is two ways to process coffee beans? Wet and Dry.

Do you know what a Q Grader is?

and on and on and on.

I will read anything (I mean ANYTHING) that Dave Eggers writes. His ability to take real life stories and present them through powerful narratives that inspire hope is unmatched, in my opinion. His sentence structure, spontaneity, and experimentalism always amaze me.

This is a great character study and a story of unyielding passion. It’s a story about taking charge of the direction of your life and the complexity of sustainable and fair trade coffee. It’s one of those stories that I am glad I read and will impact my choice of coffee going forward even more.

Disclaimer up front: These suggestions are only if you are feeling inspired to move. If this post is triggering to you in anyway, please know you are beautiful, you are trying your best, and you are enough.

One of the most surprising things for me during this quarantine period has been how much I have missed the gym. Up until my early twenties, I was not a fit person. In fact, past me would NEVER believe that the words “I miss the gym” would come out of my mouth. Working out was never fun for me. It was punishment. It was guilt-ridden. I always felt like I was never enough, never doing enough. There were cycles of trying new things and failing. I would have never been caught dead in a gym as it was always a scary place. Then I did some hardcore work and reframed my thinking about it (after getting thoroughly addicted to running.) I stopped thinking about it as EXERCISE and started thinking about it as MOVEMENT.

See EXERCISE is good, great actually. It’s really important, but it also is a triggering term. It evokes images of plans, programs, diets, and bodies that are entirely unachievable for some people. MOVEMENT can mean anything. It can look like anything and evolves day to day. Some days movement is squatting your personal best, other days it’s a quick 20 minute walk around the block to clear your head. Some days it’s not even leaving the apartment, but cleaning out your closet (more on that later).

Movement is something I strive for daily. It’s how Laurel and I talk about our active lifestyles. We believe in moving to feel good, whatever that means for you in the moment you are in. No guilt.

So that being said, here are some tips I have been following during this time to incorporate movement into my life at home:

1. Act as if you are still commuting

For some of us, our commute served as a key part of our daily movement. I used to walk at least twice a day and from the subway stop. This was such a great and easy way to get in two 20+ minute walks without even thinking. I know I was going to feel this loss immediately when we started to work from home, so now I treat the beginning and end of the day like I am still going to commute to work. Before I sit down to start my day, I go for a quick 20 minute walk around the block (practicing safe distancing, of course). At the end of my work day, I do the same before I start cooking. It’s a really nice way to break up the work day.

2. Invest in a foam roller

I don’t know about you, but I have traded in my work office for a shotty glass table that is far from comfortable to work on. I had purchased a foam roller years ago when I was in physiotherapy and it’s the best end of day activity. For just 5 minutes, I treat myself to a little roll and feel all the tension in my muscles melt away. It’s really nice to just breathe and focus on my body for even a few minutes. I never ever regret taking this time for myself. Not sure what exercises to do? Here’s a really nice breakdown of some rolling techniques to try.

3. Daily Plank Challenge

Planking is one of those exercises that I hate to love. On one hand, they are hard and uncomfortable. On the other, I know it’s working wonders on muscles that I need to strengthen (hello back, abs, shoulders, stabilizers, everywhere.) I always try to incorporate them in my regular gym routine, but regular and routine are both words that don’t exist right now. So instead, I am trying to plank everyday for as long as I can until I fail. It requires nothing from me, but getting down on the ground and holding it for as long as I can. I don’t have to change, I don’t need to roll out mats or do the mental gymnastics normally needed to work out. Usually I try it out right after my workout for the day, but if not, it’s usually on a random work break.

4. Garden, organize, or clean!

Again, this is about movement and not feeling the guilt that can be associated with working out. The best way to move? By doing something productive! Now I don’t have a garden (oh how I wish), but I have a closet that is in constant need of organizing. And I have books, hundreds of them actually, that need a good thorough tidy. And I have laundry that needs to be done, and a pantry that could do with organizing… and the list could go on. I honestly feel like house work, chores, garden work, playing with kids, all count as daily movement. Next time you feel guilty, think about all the work you’ve likely done to move your body in a day. You’re doing your damn best!

5. Find a fitness challenge that inspires you

Whether it’s a 30 day yoga challenge, a daily walk for an hour, or something more intense, find something that inspires you to MOVE. For me, I have been doing a fitness program from a book that’s all bodyweight/circuit training. I love it because it leaves me huffing on the floor and has been a great substitute for the gym. But it’s not going to look like that for everyone. And it doesn’t look like that for me everyday. In fact, the goal of movement shouldn’t be calories burned or exhausting yourself. It should be to get out of your head and into your body. It’s about showing yourself some love and expending some energy.

What’s your favourite way to move daily? We’d love to hear from you in the comments!