Seventeenth Entry (November 9th, 2021)

    The day that I had was actually a pretty good day, I felt happy and was proud that stress and anxiety was not controlling my life for the time being, but around 6 PM in the night, I had received some devastating news. My mom had called me to let me know that my great aunt had passed away earlier in the day, and after that I was in a state of shock and sadness for the rest of the night. Right after that phone call, I found myself struggling again with the superwoman schema in relation to Black women and girls not prioritizing their well-being, as I had a community meeting with my residents at 7 and still was preparing to facilitate it, but I eventually had broke down and the people in our staff had comforted me and offered to facilitate the meeting instead. Although I was not wanting to miss the meeting, I had let two of my staff members facilitate the meeting, and focused on taking care of myself, supporting my family, and allowing myself to grieve for the rest of the night. I knew that engaging in the deep breathing practice would really help me just relax for a second, so I was actually very motivated to finish the exercise this night, which is different from previous days in this project where I would have a rough day and not engage in the exercise because I could barely move, forgot, or was too distressed to. This may be because I was starting to realize that deep breathing does not immediately take away your stress, it is more about changing your perception of control over how you react to stressors in your life, and this belief makes self-care so much easier because I no longer expect to experience less stress immediately after engaging in self-care practices, I now know that it is okay to feel whatever emotion I am feeling, and that deep breathing is there to help me acknowledge that I may not be feeling the best, but despite that, I am still in control over my life, and that my anxiety, pain, or stress is not. When I engaged in the deep breathing exercise, I was still sad and grieving, but I did not struggle with letting all of my thoughts pass through my mind in order to just focus on how I was feeling in the moment, and what I need to do to take care of myself afterwards. Once again, I focused on my chest rising and falling to help me focus, and also felt my heart rate slow down and tense muscles finally relaxed, and also was becoming a bit sleepy. After engaging in the deep breathing, I had went to sleep, which was much needed. This day had really shown me how much I had grown throughout completing this project, as so much change had been documented in this one day. I was able to engage in self-care while grieving and having a bad day, I prioritized my well-being over school, work, and others, I recognized what self-care is actually about, and recognized ways in which I am harming my ability to engage in self-care. 

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