Have you been feeling overwhelmed, depressed, anxious, or just exhausted? This past year has pushed many of us to our limits, and has kept us in a survival mode that can keep us from having the energy to solve problems or try to make even small lifestyle changes. A solution for so many of these issues, from missing sleep to low self esteem, can be found in the simple practice of mindfulness. Meditation can seem alienating and intimidating to newcomers even as it becomes more and more popular. Luckily, a variety of apps is always working to make meditation an approachable and helpful tool whether you’ve practiced for years or have never tried it. Whether you’d like to build a community with others trying to heal, need a simple reminder to check in with yourself or even just want to start making time to separate yourself from your daily stressors, meditation apps have something to offer everyone. If the coming of the new year has made you crave a change, using a meditation app can be the perfect way to find a new start and give yourself space to breathe among the distractions and stressors of daily life.
Insight Timer is one of my favorite apps; it has some of my favorite speakers and meditations that I return to time and time again. I love the meditations by Sarah Blondin, Jennifer Piercy, Kenneth Soares and Jonathan Lehmann. Lisa A. Romano’s meditations for healing from narcissistic abuse were hugely helpful to me while I was recovering from my own experience with narcissistic abuse. If you have experiences with chronic pain, I recommend Carrie Suwal’s meditations on extreme pain meditation. Even though Insight Timer does offer a premium subscription for $9.99 a month, they also have thousands of meditations that are all free to listen to.
One thing I love about Insight is that it’s not just an app but it’s also a community. You can connect with other users who are listening to the same meditations. You can leave encouraging messages for people going through similar struggles and truly feel less alone when you’re going through something. Whether you’re looking for guided meditation, an ambient soundtrack to usher in a moment of peace, or even a yoga practice, Insight Timer has an incredible range of experiences.
2. Calm
Courtesy of Calm
Whether you’re looking for a 10 minute dose of daily calm that updates every day, walking meditations, help focusing your attention or sleep stories to help you rest better, Calm has a variety of options. A limited free version or an unlimited $70 version are both available to fit your needs. If you’re feeling lost, Calm offers a good place to start: their introductory 7 days of Calm course invites you back to the app each day to explore the basics of meditation one day at a time.
3. Ten Percent Happier Meditation
Courtesy of Ten Percent Happier
Ten Percent Happier is on a mission to win over people who are skeptical of meditation. With simple, pragmatic and goal-oriented meditations like “Getting Out of Your Head” or “Ten Good Breaths,” this app wants to show you that meditation can have a visible positive impact on your day-to-day life. The app can also connect you with real life meditation experts for any coaching you need in your journey. A subscription with Ten Percent happier costs $11.99 a month or $99 a year.
4. Buddhify
Courtesy of Buddhify
Buddhify’s most distinctive feature is its “wheel” of meditation options which lets you intuitively gravitate towards options that suit your needs and state of mind. Whether you’re feeling intense stress or just need a work break, the wheel will lead you to different meditation choices to give you the best experience for your moment. As you get more familiar with the app, you can even customize your wheel for the options you use the most, adding meditations for specific emotions, sleep aids, pain management and anything else you need. Buddhify even lets you give meditations to your loved ones, so if you come across a meditation someone in your life would find helpful they can listen to it even if they don’t have the app. Best of all, the app costs $4.99 to download but doesn’t charge any subsequent fees for subscription or any features.
5. Shine
Courtesy of Shine
Shine’s goal is to help users with their mental and emotional health on a daily basis with motivational messages, meditations and journal prompts all infused with a sense of humor. The Shine app features a today tab with an easy-access toolkit of actions users can take; “The app essentially is meant to be your daily self-care check-in,” founder Marah Lidey told Popsugar last year. The simple checklist of options and choices can take a lot of indecisiveness out of the process and help you easily find the right experience for you whether it’s a morning boost, a quick life coaching session or a story to help you sleep at night. Because Shine was created to help increase representation and help for Black mental health, there’s an entire section of its library devoted to topics like burnout, racial equality, and healing from trauma. Shine’s subscription costs $7.99 a month or $59.99 annually.
6. Headspace
Courtesy of Headspace
Headspace calls itself “Your personal meditation guide to pretty much everything.” Explore a library of options from work and productivity to happiness and self esteem. There’s also an essential meditation section if you don’t know where to start and a bar on the home screen tracks your progress so you can work to build streaks of mindfulness stretching over days and weeks. Headspace even has guided imagery exercises that work to incorporate all five senses for a more mindful experience. A subscription to Headspace Plus costs $12.99 a month or $69.99 annually.
7. Happify
Courtesy of Happify
Happify is a great app if you’re intimidated by the process of starting meditation for the first time. Instead of using traditional meditation prompts or guided meditations, Happify uses games to help get you into a positive, meditated state. For instance, in one game balloons will drift by your screen with different words written on them and you are tasked with only choosing the positive words; this will help create more positive connections in your mind. If you love playing games then you’lll love this app. When I first started my journey with chronic illness, I experienced a lot of depression and worry that I wouldn’t be able to live a full life. I wasn’t ready to share about my depression and a tool like Happify that allowed me to help myself was so important. I did this app every single day and it was truly so helpful to me. If you’re not sure where to find help, this app might be a helpful place to start for you too. Meditation can be an intimidating practice to start and a more game-centered, lighthearted experience might be a great alternative to working towards happiness and mindfulness.
For newcomers, meditation can seem unapproachable, intimidating, and can even make you think you’re not the right kind of person for meditation. Luckily, there’s such a wide range of meditation apps that can offer a form of meditation to fit everyone, from the deeply spiritual to the chronically busy to the sleep-challenged. Whether you need a checklist to keep you accountable, a community to love and support you, or an endless library of thoughtful sessions, there’s something in meditation that can serve you and improve your life today.
When COVID-19 began spreading, daily life changed for all of us. But for some people, this adjustment didn’t just mean social distancing and working from home. For some, it meant coming to terms with the fact that one of the biggest days of their lives wouldn’t be going according to plan or schedule. We spoke to three people who had their wedding plans go out the window when the pandemic began about how they adjusted, whether it meant postponing or changing everything.
Jami
Courtesy of Jami Baker
Jami and her then-fiancé Bryson decided to plan their wedding and a whole weekend full of fun activities in San Francisco, one of their favorite cities. The late-May festivities would include the couple’s favorite breweries and restaurants and top off with a Sunday brunch. In March when COVID-19 began spreading in the US, the couple quickly saw that their original plans had become impossible to follow through on. “As we kept watching the COVID numbers get worse and worse, we knew what we needed to do,” Jami says. “There were so many more important things to worry about at that time, like our health and our loved ones, that being upset about having to cancel our party weekend felt trivial. We were both working from home, hustling to make sure we were delivering results for our companies and clients, checking in on family, and drinking a lot of wine! Cancelling our wedding was hard and we wish we could have celebrated with all of our friends, but ultimately there was no other choice.” They drafted and sent out an update to their 70-person guest list, letting them know about the cancellation and assuring them that they’d be kept in the loop on future plans. “We want you to know that this does not cancel the love we have for each other or the love we have for you,” the note read. “We hope and plan to still have a celebration with our friends and family when the time comes, and we look forward to seeing and hugging you all soon.”
With their initial plans cancelled, the couple had to decide on their alternative. Jami says that after tossing out one whole set of plans, she wasn’t in a rush to make new ones, especially in such a volatile set of circumstances. “I couldn’t fathom planning another wedding or picking a new date. Planning a wedding is a lot of work no matter how big or small, so at the time I was just disappointed and exhausted.” After some thought, they decided to keep their original wedding date. “We didn’t want to let COVID ruin all of our plans,” Jami says, “so it was important to us to stick with our date.” They drove an hour north to Jami’s parents’ house and Facetimed Bryson’s Massachusetts-based parents and decided that was all the company they needed. “We both had ‘Zoom fatigue’ from all the video chatting we did when quarantine started (and still do for work) so we just wanted it to feel intimate and close,” Jami says.
“As long as you’re with the right person, it all works out in the end— and make sure you have good pizza.”
They took photos in the back yard surrounded by her mom’s beautiful orchids and picked up a box of their favorite pizza. “We decided to write vows to one another and we read each other’s out loud,” Jami says. They ended up congregating in the kitchen to read their vows and later it occurred to them how perfect it was that her last name was Cook and his was Baker. “Only afterwards did we realize a Baker and a Cook got married in a kitchen!” she says. “I have to admit, I went into the day a little cranky, disappointed and defeated, feelings that are definitely prevalent during this time. But we laughed, ate good pizza, had a dance party just me and my husband and ended up having a great night.”
Courtesy of Jami Baker
Jami hopes to celebrate the occasion with their larger group of friends and family once it’s safe to travel and gather again. “We need to be realistic and put the safety of our loved ones first,” she says. “Hopefully we can have a party by the end of next year, or maybe we’ll just celebrate our 3-year anniversary with everyone instead! I haven’t worn my dress yet, so hopefully that will still fit. It definitely won’t be the full weekend of events that we had originally planned, but I’m sure it will be fabulous.” The biggest lesson Jami learned through this journey? “As long as you’re with the right person, it all works out in the end— and make sure you have good pizza.”
Jenn
At the beginning of 2020, Jenn was looking forward to her wedding in May. It would be a springtime garden wedding in New York, at the perfect time of year for their friends with children or careers in academia to come and celebrate their union. Jen and her fiancé had started planning their wedding in 2018 (“We gave ourselves a leisurely amount of time to plan,” Jenn says), giving them plenty of time to make sure every detail reflected their personalities and relationship. Jenn collects vintage pulp fiction novels, so it only made sense to commission an artist friend to design a wedding invitation that resembled a pulp fiction cover featuring herself and her fiancé as protagonists. “I wrote really funny copy on it” Jenn says. “The tagline is ‘a shocking tale of a quiet musician, a mouthy writer, and their life of scandalous equality.'” A blurb on the bottom reads, “She doesn’t cook! She doesn’t clean! She doesn’t even understand C++! What compels this handsome talented programmer to marry… The Feminist Bride!”
The rest of the theme fell into place from there with a thousand thoughtful details: tables decked out with vintage glass bowls and cake stands stacked with pulp novels, a purple wedding dress, a Heroes and Villains motif for members of the bridal party, a twist on the bouquet and garter tosses where the couple would throw plush carnival prizes to the crowd with gifts attached that were symbolic to each of them. Their registry included non profits they’re passionate about and their reception would have opportunities for matched donations as well. “We wanted to make everything we could have meaning for our community and our values,” Jenn says.
Just two months away from the big day, the world started to change forever. On March 6th, Jenn went to try on her wedding dress. On March 7th, she and her fiancé started quarantining to do their part to stop the spread in New York, one of the places hit first by the pandemic in the US. The next few weeks were difficult as the couple tried to predict what the coming months would bring. “That whole first week we were feeling so guilty about the potential of postponing— what about other people who had nonrefundable airfare or had taken time off from work?” Initially, many were still convinced the world would be back to normal in plenty of time for a May ceremony and it put Jenn in a quandary. “There were so many unknowns. Do we postpone and lose a lot of money and all this work and time and effort? If we don’t postpone are we endangering people?” By March 15th, they made the decision to postpone their wedding by a year. “It was a huge relief once we made that decision but it was still very emotional.”
Now after a year in quarantine, the circumstances are different. Jenn and her fiancé are now postponing their wedding, which they had rescheduled to May 2021, by a whole additional year. Because they’ve already paid for their garden venue, it only leaves them with so many options. “We live in New York and have a garden wedding so there’s only so many times that makes weather sense. We can say maybe it’ll be safe by January of next year, but who wants to go to a garden wedding in January?”Jenn says there’s no way they’d do a ceremony without their community, and they aren’t willing to gather their community while there’s still any chance of endangering a loved one. She and her fiancé are already domestic partners and enjoy the legal benefits of marriage; the entire point of the wedding, to them, is to involve their chosen family in an important milestone. “For us,” she says, “the wedding isn’t just about marrying our life partners, but it’s also about having this bonding experience with our community of chosen family. The wedding is an investment in our friends and community.” Because of this, they’re holding all their fun wedding plans until they’re able to safely involve their community. “We didn’t just want to have a legal ceremony and have a party later, because we’ve already done the legal thing. We went down to city hall a couple of years ago, signed some papers and all of a sudden, bing bang boom, we’re domestic partners, so it was kind of anticlimactic. It wasn’t a particularly romantic experience, it was for legal reasons. We were committed to each other but we wanted the wedding to be the emotional thing, and we wanted the emotional thing to be a part of our community.”
“After this much isolation for this long, it’s going to take a buffer period to bounce back and feel more like ourselves.”
Jenn says a big hurdle in thinking about a future wedding now is the emotional disconnect. She says that even if they were somehow able to safely make their second date, she’s not sure she or her partner would be emotionally prepared after such a hard year. “We were in the 4th hardest hit neighborhood in Brooklyn. We lived in the absolute heart of the pandemic. The reddest of the red spots. There was a two month period where you’d wake up in the morning, you’d hear an ambulance siren, you’d go to sleep, you’d hear an ambulance siren, and you’d never stop hearing them between. So I don’t really have the heart to be thinking about, ‘Let’s go for a dress fitting, it’ll be so fun.’ It’s hard to be a person who’s committed to community and making the world a better place while trying to plan a life-changing event event that’s supposed to be emotionally gratifying and fun and ‘yay.’ Who has the heart for ‘yay’ right now?” She and her partner haven’t left their apartment since that day they started quarantining on March 7th. “If somebody said that in mid-April someone would snap their fingers and everyone would be immune to COVID, would we even be ready emotionally to have this joyful moment of connection with ourselves and our community when we haven’t been out of the house? After this much isolation for this long, it’s going to take a buffer period to bounce back and feel more like ourselves.”
On top of the strain of isolating, Jenn was also exhausted from her experiences trying to educate online circles about COVID safety and precautions. When planning her wedding, Jenn had connected with several wedding planning groups online and grew concerned when she saw that many circles weren’t taking the virus seriously. She hoped to use her experiences, and the example of her city who hadn’t responded to the threat in time and was overwhelmed, to appeal to others who could still take steps to protect themselves and their communities. “Everyone in my circle was taking it seriously but I had access to all these strangers who were going on like nothing had changed. I spent so much time arguing for social responsibility and basic viral containment and basic care for others that could help keep people alive.” She said having these kinds of conversations online took a toll. “The pushback I got from those folks… I had a breakdown. I’m still working my way back from that.”
Ultimately, Jenn and her fiancé know that postponing their wedding, for however long, is the right thing to do because neither of them can imagine having a ceremony without their community there to celebrate with them. Neither Jenn nor her partner has much family, and because of that their bonds with friends are even more significant. “For us a wedding is much much more than decor and venue and all the details that people seem to care so much about on Instagram. Don’t get me wrong, I have a really fun set of things planned, but it wasn’t about that for us. We’re older. I’ve been fiercely independent and waited until I really wanted to marry the person whom I’m marrying. We’re not in our early 20s and we don’t care as much about the trends or trappings as much as we care about a community-centered bonding experience. We’re both people with very small families and this is the kind of rite of passage that people usually experience with their families and we can’t really do that in the way most people do so our chosen families are it for us, in addition to the few relatives that we have.”
Amory
Courtesy of Amory Davis
In early March 2020, Amory and her then-fiancé Woody were feeling victorious after finally finishing their seating charts for the wedding reception they had planned on March 28th. “I was actually really excited about having fit that puzzle together. It made it a little more tangible that we literally had our seating chart and we knew everybody who was going to be there and where they’d be sitting.” What they didn’t realize was that in just one week, everything would be different.
On Wednesday March 11th, the NBA cancelling their season was the first big sign that their wedding was in danger. Amory and Woody decided to fly to North Carolina from New York as quickly as possible— they used that Thursday to borrow a friend’s car and move Woody’s belongings into the Brooklyn apartment they’d be sharing after the wedding and on Saturday morning flew into Raleigh. Later that day they sent out an email to their guests recognizing that some might not be comfortable traveling for the wedding and included an updated RSVP form. On Sunday they got news that the Governor of North Carolina had banned any events over 100 people and by Sunday night the CDC had recommended banning any event over 50. “That was the final straw,” Amory says. “It felt like the rug was being pulled out from under us bit by bit and that was the final bit that left us with no other option besides cancelling our wedding as we had planned it.”
On Monday morning, they emailed their guests to notify them that the wedding was officially cancelled. “That day we had to call all of our vendors and cancel everything. So Monday was our ‘cancel our wedding’ day, Tuesday was our ‘plan our new wedding’ day, and Wednesday we got married.” Their new date was based solely around the small number of the couple’s family that would be able to attend: ultimately the party was made up of their parents, Woody’s brother and Amory’s sister. The idea of postponing was floated, but ultimately they decided they didn’t want to wait. “We were so close to our wedding anyway, we just wanted to get married. It was pretty clear it wasn’t going to clear up anytime soon so it seemed like no matter what, unless we waited potentially a very long time, it was going to be a small family wedding. So we just tried to schedule it around our family.”
Courtesy of Amory Davis
After running the gauntlet of cancellation emails to friends and vendors, Woody, Amory and their parents got to work planning a wedding in a day. They called a local florist and were told they could have some bouquets and flowers for the bridal party by noon the next day. Amory’s mom decided to pick up a fancy strawberry cream bundt cake in lieu of one she had planned to bake herself. “That was the most delicious cake I’d ever had, so that ended up being a really fun decision.”
Amory says that, for all the stress and disappointment, the new wedding plans did offer her one thing: freedom, and hugely reduced pressure. “Once we adapted to the situation, it really was an extremely low-pressure wedding. I had been really nervous about walking down the aisle and being the center of attention with so many people and I really didn’t have a single thing to be nervous about on the day of our wedding. It was a really comfortable time. I think my mother-in-law called it ‘the freedom wedding,’ just because it was free of all pressure and we could kind of do whatever we wanted.” Another nickname, “Our Guerilla Wedding,” arose when it came time to lock down a new location. When the couple called their favorite park about making a reservation to have their new ceremony, they were told reservations had been halted due to the lockdown. Thankfully, one helpful employee told them that if they showed up, nobody would kick them out. “We ended up getting a ‘wink wink’ from a park that couldn’t give us an official reservation.”
It felt like the rug was being pulled out from under us bit by bit.”
Hours before the wedding, one thing was still weighing on Amory: the potential absence of her older sister and maid of honor, who wasn’t sure she could get off work to make the six hour drive for the new ceremony. Amory had already accepted that her brother and sister-in-law, who live in Texas, wouldn’t be able to be there in person and were Skyping in. “I had already adjusted to a lot of disappointment and already adjusted to my brother not being able to come, but my sister who was my maid of honor and the only non-parental family or friends who would be able to come besides my parents… When it looked like she wasn’t going to be able to come either I think that was the hardest part of the entire ordeal.” The thought that Amory wouldn’t have anyone to stand beside her at her own wedding was almost too much to bear. “I woke up on my wedding day very sad, which was my biggest fear all along.” Luckily, a few hours later Amory’s sister called her from the road, telling her she was able to make it after all. “I got a call from her the next morning crying and saying that she couldn’t miss it and she would be there, and that kind of redeemed the day.”
Amory was thankful to have such a beautiful, if unexpected, venue for her new special day. One significant blessing of the new wedding was that Amory’s father was able to walk her down the aisle. “My dad has limited mobility, and at the bigger event and at the outdoor venue on the grass as we had originally planned he didn’t think he’d be able to walk me down the aisle. When our plans changed and there were so few of us and it was a really short, even pathway he was able to walk me down the aisle. That was a really precious thing to come out of all of this.” Amory says she and Woody discussed live streaming their ceremony to all their initial invitees, but Amory decided to embrace the opportunity to have a low-stress, intimate day. “I felt very strongly after such an emotional week that if we were going to have a small intimate ceremony, I just wanted to have that small intimate ceremony and not have to worry about anything else. I still feel really good about that decision for myself.”
Courtesy of Amory Davis
Amory and Woody always planned on having a celebration with friends and family whenever it was safe to do so, but the timeline for it has shifted as COVID continues to sweep through the country. “We’ve started holding that plan a little looser. I would still like to have some sort of wedding celebration with our extended family and friends but I no longer have a time limit on it. I definitely want to have a celebration but I really don’t want to be stressed out about planning it. So I’m in no particular rush at this point. We’re already past the immediacy.”
When she looks back at her wedding day and holds it against her plans, Amory feels a mix of gratitude and grief. “It’s definitely a mixture because there’s part of me that thinks that as the world gets more normal again, if I go to other people’s big weddings I have a feeling that I’ll be a little sad if we don’t ever get to have that sort of gathering. But at the same time the actual memories of that day are really sweet.”
I think, like many of us, I have a tendency to feel overwhelmed by the worries and troubles of the present. These challenges always loom large in my mind and seem easier to notice than the blessings and unexpected good moments of any given day. I’m not so much a “glass half full” person as I am a “waiting for the other shoe to drop” person, and I find that I’m often so preoccupied with anticipating setbacks that I forget to look around at the good things that I have. Lately, I’ve realized that when I look back at old phases in my life, even ones that were difficult, I always feel overwhelmed by nostalgia for the good parts of life that I now miss rather than remembering the challenges or pain.
As someone who’s freelanced most of my adult life, I’ve had more of these transitional phases than you might expect of someone my age. The company I worked full time for my first year out of college often left me feeling drained and stagnant; at the time I was in a deep depression and wasn’t finding anything fulfilling about my new adult life after making the monumental move from North Carolina to Los Angeles. Now when I look back on that era I remember the friends I had at that office, the free catered lunches, and the trendy neighborhood and adorable 200-year-old house I called home for that year.
Since then I often found myself either working long hours in television production roles or scrambling to find writing work. I would find that whichever position I was in, I would yearn for the one that had come before. When I was sending out dozens of copywriting applications a day I would miss the financial security and structure of my TV jobs and when I was working 12 hour days on set I would miss the freedom and autonomy of my gig work. Now that my production days are more distant, I don’t tend to linger on the difficulty of the work, the long hours or the fast-paced demands. I feel genuinely lucky to have worked in entertainment as I’d dreamed for years, even if it wasn’t in the TV writer role I had envisioned for myself. I’m thankful for the days I was able to traipse around real movie studios for my job and I’m grateful for all the friends I have now that I met while working various freelance jobs. Any time I find myself near an old apartment or old workplace all I feel is nostalgia for the good times and remembrance of the things I miss, not resentment over my struggles and difficulties. It’s been so helpful in learning that there are always good things in life you shouldn’t take for granted, no matter what your circumstances look like.
This lesson, that it’s important to appreciate the positive things in life while you have them, only became more urgent as our world changed forever in the wake of COVID-19. How many days did I spend feeling bored or dissatisfied where I would now be thankful just to go to a movie theater or museum or get coffee with a friend? If this time has taught me anything it’s the true breadth of experiences I was taking for granted, and how many tiny things there were, and still are, to be thankful for. If I can look back on even the harder parts of my history and find memories that I want to hold onto, I can be sure that there are still things to be thankful for even in this time that has been so painful and challenging.
What things will I miss from this era when it has passed? There will be so much to rejoice when the quarantine ends and when even our most vulnerable are protected from this virus, but are there things I will grow more appreciation for after we all move on? I might miss the dedication my friends and I have had to stay in touch with consistent video chats. I might become thankful for the reduced pressure to always be productive. My anxiety often tells me that if I ever slow down or stop moving that I won’t be as valuable to the world and having the world itself force me to come to a stop, sit inside and focus on small accomplishments might be a lesson I’m better off for having learned. I’ve been around more silence and loneliness than ever before and even though I’ll enjoy becoming more social again I don’t think I’ll ever shake the love for being alone that I’ve cultivated in the past year.
I know I will feel so much relief when I no longer have to go to bed worrying for the safety of each of my friends and family, when even the most trivial distractions like movie matinees and theme parks are safe and open once again, when I can travel to see loved ones without the fear that I’ll be putting them in danger. I hope in that next stage of life that this one stays with me and reminds me of the time when small parts of life I’d always overlooked were no longer guaranteed. I hope I’m able to take whatever stressors, setbacks or frustrations come and measure them with the thought: “at least I can hug my friends again.” I hope that this consistent feeling of nostalgia for the past can guide me into gratitude for the present and future as well.
For as long as I can remember I’ve lived with animals and been responsible for their wellbeing. When I was a child, my chores would always include making the coffee and feeding our cats and dogs. I can still remember sitting on my roof most nights, listening to palm trees sway and the tides change in the quiet company of our two cats Snowflake and Tiger. My love for animals, and my understanding that one of my purposes on this world is to make sure they are cared for as best as I’m able, has only deepened in adulthood. It’s such a blessing to me when I have the opportunity to give a rescue pet a chance at a better life, whether it’s through fostering or adopting them myself or just providing resources to place them in a loving home.
There’s a special place in my heart for cats with special needs, maybe because I’ve had so many chronic health issues and understand exactly what it means for someone to take care of you even when it’s hard. I currently have three dogs and two cats, all rescue pets.
Here are the current members of my rescue family, who have returned the love I’ve shown them in quantities I can’t even measure.
Peanut
Peanut is my 15 year old chug, or chihuahua pug mix. She’s the undeniable leader of the pack, keeping everyone in line and out of trouble. She fell right into my lap, literally. Access Hollywood asked me to help promote a few adoptable rescue pets, including Peanut. I agreed, and Peanut sat in my lap and shook like a leaf as we filmed. A week later Access Hollywood called to tell me the other two dogs from the segment had been adopted but Peanut was still available. When they asked me to make another post promoting her, I decided to bring her home instead.
When I found Peanut I already had my first rescue dog, a boxer named Cookie. Cookie had been treated poorly in her life and I had been struggling with finding the best way to help her feel loved and safe. As soon as she met Peanut, Cookie started to open up more and our new addition gave her the love and company that I so badly wanted for her life. These days Peanut has become the boss of everything she sees and after so many years I think she’s earned the right.
Lola + Buddy
I first saw a photo of Lola and Buddy in an email from Mary’s Little Lambs Animal Rescue. The message explained that these two had been found on the street together but were going to be split up and sent to separate foster homes. I looked at the way they were leaning on each other in the photo. They’d been through so much and only had each other; they were just two impossibly cute street rats looking for a chance. I felt certain that the two of them had to stay together no matter what, and a few days later Lola and Buddy became members of my family.
Lola has congenital neck problems, which is common for dachshunds. Because of this, she can have trouble with leashes and harnesses, and more often than not she takes her walks from the comfort of a stroller. This pair of rescue pets changed my life forever and fill my home with love.
Reb
Many nights before I go to bed I look through emails from pet rescue foundations looking for opportunities to help animals- sometimes I help cover medical costs or rehabilitation fees to get animals to the places where they have a chance at a full and happy life. Reb was a feral cat I was sponsoring; he was receiving medical care so that he could eventually be relocated to a farm. This is often a great way to take care of feral cats; they still get to have their freedom and a purpose but have access to food, water, and veterinary care. One day the vet called me to tell me that Reb hadn’t been eating and they were afraid they might lose him. I came to the vet’s office in pajamas and slippers and took him home with me. He had been wrapped in four blankets because he was swiping at anyone who tried to feed him.
After days of sitting with him in my office, I finally got him to eat some chicken baby food off of my finger. I had been going through a breakup and wasn’t looking for another rescue pet but it was clear Reb was here to stay. For a month straight I would spend time with him every day, just the two of us, gaining his trust and making him feel safe. Finally one day I let my cat Mimi into the room and he sprinted right to her and kissed her. Reb was home.
Sophie
One morning on a walk a couple of my friends found a little grey kitten in the engine of a car. When kittens get separated from their mothers they need a source of heat and many of them end up hunkering down in cars where the engine keeps them warm. My friends asked me to foster her and I agreed; at 5 animals already I definitely didn’t need another permanent addition. The second Reb locked eyes on her he pulled her to him with one of his paws and started cleaning her. I already knew Sophie would be staying with us. Reb and Sophie are still inseparable and can often be found cuddling in a sunbeam.
There’s something so pure about the bond between people and their rescue pets. They’re an infinite source of love, and I believe an animal knows when it’s been rescued. I’m grateful for every animal that passes through my life. The love they fill my house with is one of life’s greatest gifts.
Mimi
Many people got to fall in love with Mimi through my social media over the years; she was a much beloved member of my family, and we tragically lost her last September due to health complications. I met Mimi when I was helping out on a show for Heaven on Earth Society for Animals. Mimi was found on the street with a broken nose and ulcers on her face, a former house cat who had joined a feral colony. The team at Heaven on Earth told me that the stress of being in shelter environments, even in nice places, can be hard on animals with health problems. They thought that, because I have chronic illness as well, that we might be the perfect pair. She was right; Mimi was always a blessing and had a unique gift for lifting my spirits every day. Mimi was a very special cat; it was impossible not to fall in love with her. We called her Mimi Vader because her chronic sinusitis gave her a constant rattling snore. Mimi was one of the friendliest cats in the world, always ready to greet new friends with her peculiar purr. She changed the minds of so many people who are unsure about black cats and she’ll always have a place in my heart.
Pet Rescue Organizations I Work With
Adoptions and fosters are up in record numbers as people look for the comfort and love of an animal companion during this time of uncertainty and isolation. If you’re considering adoption or looking for ways to get involved I can recommend these organizations with my whole heart. You can search for adoptable animals and shelters in your area here.
Over the past year, we’ve faced so much change in so many different ways. Almost every month of last year transformed our daily life in a new way, and much of that transformation came in the form of adversity, sacrifice, and loss. Now we’re experiencing different change in the start of a new year and, with the presidential inauguration, a new chapter in our history as a country. No matter where on the spectrum you lie, big shifts like these are, more than anything, an opportunity for us to evaluate and observe our own responses and consider what purpose change can serve in our lives.
Heraclitus said, “There is nothing permanent except change.” We are always experiencing change; it flows around us like a river, constantly in motion. You can’t resist change any more than you could hope to hold back a river from running, and trying to do so will only create sorrow. If you learn to work with the river instead of struggling against it, allowing it to flow and learn from its movements, it might have something to teach you. Change, not stasis, is the natural order of life and finding harmony with it can grant so much peace.
This day may represent a big transition for our country, but it means little if each of us aren’t embracing change daily in our own lives. By nature many of us may fear or feel discomfort with big shifts; we tend to prefer the things that are familiar to us and the patterns we’ve grown accustomed to. What if instead of being suspicious or resentful of change we greeted it like an old friend? After all, change has always been with us and it’s brought us so much, from the leaves that fall every year to the healing of our own bodies when we experience sickness or injury. Inside of our bodies change is constantly happening as our cells replace and replenish themselves; what if we saw external change as the same opportunity to learn and grow? Can you think of anything in your life, whether it’s a relationship, a job, a home or just a better perspective on something, that you didn’t have 5 years ago? Focusing on these gifts that change has brought us can help us realize that change doesn’t just take away from us without bringing us good things too.
Every day, not just this day, is a new chance to learn something new, adapt, transform, find a new perspective. If we learn to embrace it rather than treat it as an enemy, change can be one of the greatest gifts that life offers us. Change can be scary and, yes, it can mean pain and loss and endings, but it is also responsible for all growth, new beginnings, and any hope for the future that we can have.
I hope that each of us can start to greet change not as something to be dreaded or bargained with but as the dawn of a new day with new possibilities.
One thing that’s harder to come by in the days of quarantine is a genuine brush with wildlife. Nature is such an important part of life, but while many of us stay at home we remain disconnected from a lot of the natural world and all the restoration and inspiration it can provide. Luckily, many wildlife preserves, aquariums and zoos have live cams that allow us to bring that experience to our own everyday. Whether you want to watch a zoo animal eat its lunch in your own home or just experience the sounds of nature while you work, a live wildlife or zoo cam can be a great way to inject a little excitement and stimulation into your daily routine. We may not be able to travel and visit many of these animals in person, but we can still appreciate and enjoy them.
Nothing inspires as much peace and majesty as the ocean, and the Aquarium of the Pacific gives you the perfect opportunity to benefit from that beauty. Watching fish swirl around this gigantic tank is the perfect way to unwind or take a break from your work-at-home responsibilities.
If you love to birdwatch but don’t have a good feeder setup at home, this live cam feed straight from Panama can help provide you with bright birds and nature sounds twenty-four hours a day.
I often find that the sound of waves crashing help me to unwind or focus. This live feed of some of the best waves in the world will be the perfect addition to your desktop if you feel the same way. The Banzai Pipeline in Hawaii is coveted for its surf-able waves, and now you’ll be able to watch the tide come in (and even spot the occasional surfer) no matter where you live.
If you love to see the beauty of a shark swirling around a tank, this eye-catching live cam from the Aquarium of the Pacific is sure to captivate you for hours.
There’s no animal quite as loveable or enchanting as a panda bear, and thanks to the Wolong Panda Center you can invite them into your home. The sight of pandas playing with toys and cuddling is sure to brighten any workday.
If your workday is feeling stagnant, why not take a break to go on your own virtual safari? This live cam gives you the opportunity to look in on an African watering hole and witness all the animals who wander through, from baboons to cheetahs to warthogs.
Tune in for the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s live narrated feedings at 11:30PST Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, or any other time to experience the gentle swaying kelp forest and diverse fish species of one of the most impressive aquarium exhibits in the country.
The sound of lapping water combined with clear skies and mountain range in the background make this feed the perfect one to leave on for a moment of peace.
Use the Smithsonian Zoo’s live cam to check in on their cheetah cubs who regularly curl up in this den after playing outside. The zoo advises you to turn your sound up so you don’t miss their purrs!
This world is full of beauty and interesting experiences. Just because we’re not able to go out and see as many of them doesn’t mean we can’t still benefit from them virtually. Whether you’re in the mood for a quick trip to the cheetah exhibit or want to spend an hour watching an aquarium swirl around you, live cams can be the perfect way to remind yourself of all the experiences we can still have even while we stay safe at home.
As a Capricorn, I’ve always relished new beginnings and the opportunity to start fresh. Every new year, to me, is a gift to leave the past behind and place energy into hope for the future. This year, that hope might be a bit harder to conjure for many of us. Last year was full of difficulties, and the new year doesn’t change the fact that we are still living with a lot of uncertainty. But today, we’re here to focus on the new year and all the opportunities and possibilities that come with it.
On my Instagram Live this Monday, I found myself reflecting on a quote from Maya Angelou: “You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” That is certainly true of this year; none of us can stop the pandemic from happening or ensure that everyone we know and love remains safe. It can be so easy to feel overwhelmed by these big events that shape life around us; this state of mind can swallow us whole if we allow it. I’ve found in times like these that a shift in perspective is in order; like Maya Angelou said, we can decide not to be reduced. We can focus on the factors within our control, shift our gaze from the darkness and work to embrace light instead.
This year on my birthday, I was reminded that beautiful things can happen in the most unexpected places and ways. I felt nervous leading up to it, worried that this year would feel so different. Instead, between the celebrations from my friends at The Talk, a beautiful drive-through electric lights display and a gorgeous birthday cake to share with the people I love the most, I’ve never felt more held or loved. Just because many elements looked different than previous years didn’t mean there wasn’t plenty to treasure and enjoy. A simple shift in perspective, to embrace and lift up the things I was thankful to have instead of focusing on what I was missing, enabled me to feel so much joy, positivity and gratitude.
I know this coming year won’t always be easy; I’m sure we have challenges and obstacles to come that will vie for our attention and attempt to extinguish our joy. But I hope for every one of these obstacles, we are able to fix our focus on happiness and growth and use our energy to create changes that invigorate us. Whether it’s changing a corner of your home to make it your own or discovering a new fitness routine that you love or making a commitment to loving yourself as much as you love your partner, there is promise and potential in any change you strive to make.
Happy new year, and I hope that each of us can find the wonderful gift of the new.
The Wildlife Learning Center, a zoological park based in Sylmar California, has always been about education and wildlife conservation. It all started when founder David Riherd and his co-founder Paul Hahn started bringing animals into kindergarten classrooms to explain simple biology concepts to children. What began with just a tortoise, a frog, and a few other rescues blossomed into a contract with Los Angeles United School District, one of the biggest districts in the country. As the desire for their programs grew, the partners were able to take in more and more wildlife until they bought the old olive grove that now serves as the WLC’s center of operations.
Many of the animals who live at the Wildlife Learning Center were born in the wild but can’t return to their habitats due to injury or socialization, or they were bred and raised as pets. In one of the enclosures lives a raven named Ophelia who has two broken wings that prevent her from flying. Before coming to the WLC, her home was in a caring vet tech’s chicken coop where she picked up a habit of clucking. In another enclosure nearby, a coterie of prairie dogs finds their new home after the field in Texas where they once lived was developed into a Wal-Mart and a rehabilitator with a passion came to the rescue. “They developed a way to vacuum them out of the tunnels,” David says. Often, prairie dogs are seen as pests and nuisances and can be exterminated without a thought. Now, this colony can live a full life at the WLC. “They’re so interesting,” he says. “They have different vocalizations for different predators. They can even distinguish between a person with a gun and a person without a gun.”
The center has been running at its current site since 2007, with a little help from a few generous patrons like Betty White and Pauley Perrette who are passionate about the work they do for wildlife conservation.
Not Every Animal Is A Pet
One of the first enclosures visitors see upon entering the center is a found family of vibrant, playful squirrel monkeys that each represent the backgrounds of many WLC animals. Two were “dropped,” or abandoned, by their mothers, one was a rescue from the zoo at the iconic Playboy Mansion, one came from a shuttered ophthalmology lab, and the last was a surrendered pet from Oregon.
Sid the Sloth, Photo by Daniel Spiller
The laws for owning exotic animals differ wildly state-to-state, but several states like Oregon allow for the import and ownership of wild animals like monkeys, small cats, foxes and even sloths as pets. Several of the animals now in the WLC’s care were former “pets” of celebrities and influencers who only realized too late that they were in over their heads. David says keeping wild animals in a home isn’t a good idea for either the animal or the owner. He cites so many cases where buyers surrendered their “pets” after constant screeching, destruction, urination, and everything else you would imagine a wild animal would do to a home. Meanwhile, domestic vets are often not equipped to treat these more exotic animals and can easily make a mistake that can cost the animal its health or even its life. “My wife is board certified in zoo medicine,” David says. “The amount of experience she has to have to treat all these animals [is immense], and she still has to research things all the time because there could be exceptions. For example, there’s a de-wormer that’s completely safe for reptiles except for one species of snake it could kill. You’ve got to know that there’s the possibility that something could be harmful and you don’t just jump into it.”
He says diet is another crucial aspect that can be easily overlooked by collectors or buyers. The WLC utilizes a zoo nutritionist specially trained in exotic animal nutrition who designs every animal’s diet. He says sloths are particularly tricky to keep well fed, but other animals like monkeys can also quickly face problems if they aren’t fed properly. “There’s a really high incidence of diabetes in pet monkeys. [Owners] may have read that monkeys eat fruit and feed them fruit, but the sugar content in our fruit versus wild fruit is so different.”
One of the Wildlife Learning Center’s missions is teaching an appreciation for these wild animals and educating about wildlife conservation while highlighting the reasons they don’t make good pets. David says this is very intentional; he doesn’t want any visitor seeing a member of staff interacting with one of their animals and getting a false impression. “They see that we have a relationship with them and a lot of people want that, so it’s something we really have to make a point of discouraging.” He wants to show people that he and his staff care about and respect these animals deeply while still emphasizing that they are never pets. “What I like to tell people when they’re presenting animals is, ‘be specific about why it wouldn’t make a good pet when people ask.'” For instance, a visitor might be charmed by a fennec fox’s beautiful fur, giant ears and cute face but find their perspective widened when they also learn that the animals can smell, screech, and have a passion for digging. This education could help lessen the appeal of exotic pets, thus reducing demand that leads to animals being surrendered to centers like the WLC in the first place. David says many countries have banned the exportation of wildlife, but there are still places where baby sloths are pulled from their mothers. “I’ve seen sloths in the wild and I can’t imagine someone going up there and tearing it off a tree.”
See the Animals, Love the Animals.
One of Wildlife Learning Center’s favorite tools for education is their ambassador animals. David says these animals, who have temperaments that allow them to participate in classes or interactions, can help people connect to nature, and understand the need for wildlife conservation, in a new way. He says these interactions can show visitors why these animals are so special. “You can get people to want them to continue to exist. Just for that reason alone, just because you think it’s beautiful or interesting.” He says that the WLC’s two sloths, Sid and Pauley, are the crowd favorites. “Sloths are just a beloved animal,” he says. “People will come in and meet the sloth and they’ll cry.” He shares that the center recently hosted a virtual meeting with the sloths and one of the attendees commented afterward that it made her want to save them. “That’s exactly what I’ve always wanted to hear,” he says. “Sometimes I wonder, are we really making an impression with people? That comment was everything we could have hoped for from someone meeting one of the animals.”
Prairie Dog, Photo by Daniel Spiller
David says they’re careful about the animals that become ambassadors; the choice is made for each animal’s temperament rather than by species. He says the WLC’s armadillos, hedgehogs, hawks and owls have all excelled in ambassador roles. His staff always asks whether it would cause the animal any stress to do an interaction, prioritizing their animals’ wellness above any other factor. For instance, one of the WLC’s grey foxes, Kina, is naturally tame and friendly. She was brought into an animal rehabilitation center as a baby with plans to return her to the wild. “But despite all their efforts, like not letting her associate food with people or even see people at all, she was still too tame!” In Kina’s case, being an ambassador animal means “going to classrooms, being in programs, and she can come out and sit on a table while we do a talk about her, as opposed to just being an exhibit animal.”
The WLC and Wildlife Conservation
In addition to helping guests get passionate about the fight for wildlife conservation, the WLC also actively contributes to helping certain species survive. The Wildlife Learning Center participates in several SSPs, or Species Survival Plans, which help ensure that certain at-risk species are able to live on through selective breeding programs. “Probably the best known SSP in California is the Condor Recovery Effort,” David says. “That one was highly successful because not only do they have a zoological population but they were able to return them to the wild.” The LA Zoo, the Santa Barbara Zoo and the San Diego Zoo all contributed to bringing back condors from the brink of extinction. He says the program was so successful because it didn’t just breed condors for zoo exhibition, but began reintroducing them to the wild and providing treatment to chicks in the field. He also points to the mountain yellow legged frog, a species native to California that has been critically endangered. Just this past year, while it was closed due to COVID-19, the LA Zoo was able to release 1,000 tadpoles into the wild from the insurance colony they were tasked with creating in 2014.
Ralph the Tortoise, Photo by Daniel Spiller
One of the WLC’s own SSP animals, a North American Porcupine named Barbara, is headed to the North Carolina Zoo in Asheville to further preservation efforts there. “We’ve been a significant part of the porcupine SSP because we’ve been really successful in breeding them.” He says he’d love to work to bring back the porcupine population in the Sierra Nevada mountains, where their numbers have been declining. “I’ve spent a lot of time in the Sierras hiking and I’ve always wanted to see [a porcupine] and never have. I would love to be a part of bringing their numbers back up and repopulating them.” He says it’s an honor to be a part of wildlife conservation on a larger scale. “Yes, it’s great to provide a home for an individual animal, but if you can be a part of protecting a species as opposed to an individual, that to me is more meaningful work, especially to a small organization like ours.” He says that breeding isn’t always the endgame for SSPs; a geneticist will make recommendations for diversity and make pairing suggestions, sort of like a dating service for zoo animals, but sometimes participating is as simple as holding a place for endangered animals. “No one institution can maintain a whole population, but if you have a lot of organizations participating you can grow the population.” Sometimes it can even be a temporary arrangement; David says sometimes institutions will reach out seeking placement for animals while they’re renovating enclosures or doing construction.
Get Involved
If centers like the Wildlife Learning Center give you a passion for wildlife conservation, it doesn’t have to end at the door. There are always ways to help the local native species living in your own backyard; you just have to know where to look. For instance, David talks about the mountain lions in the Santa Monica mountains. Locally, California just signed a bill to ban anticoagulant rodenticides that are poisoning rodents and therefore the mountain lions that eat them. “It needed a lot of support to pass. If people realize or really appreciate our biodiversity then it can lead to protections like that.” He points to another effort in Los Angeles to build a wildlife overpass over the 101 Freeway to help mountain lions access a greater stretch of wild land. Trapped on what is essentially an island surrounded by highways, aggressively territorial mountain lions push out newer males into potentially fatal traffic. “To find its own territory it’s going to have to cross one of these major highways. That’s what happened to P-22.” He references the locally famous mountain lion sometimes spotted in the Hollywood Hills. “What makes him so remarkable is that he survived crossing the 405 and then the 101, crossed through Sherman Oaks, the Hollywood Hills, and ending up in Griffith Park. Most don’t successfully cross. I think for male mountain lions the two biggest causes for mortality are getting struck by cars or other males. They’re in a quandary. They have to risk moving somewhere that’s dangerous or being killed by another male.” The bridge would help connect this population to the Simi Hills and the Los Padres, a huge wilderness area with plenty of new territory for ousted males. The big cats would be freer to disperse and it would give them more genetic variability to avoid dangerous levels of inbreeding. Fighting for measures like the bridge can be a huge step in allowing animals like the mountain lions to exist peacefully and reduce conflict and unnecessary death.
Jake and Catcher the Macaws, Photo by Daniel Spiller
Get Passionate
For David, the act of wildlife conservation and education comes from the purest place. “Our main goal is to have people walk away with a greater appreciation for wildlife and our biodiversity. I think that’s the biggest thing we can do— these animals are so interesting. There are so many fascinating animals that we share our planet with. If you can value them that much more because of your time spent here then I think we’ve achieved a significant goal. It’s because of my exposure to nature that I really care about it.”
He describes his trip to the Amazon where the rainforest is being threatened by oil drilling. “To me, there’s always all this talk that we have to save it because what affects the environment and affects animals eventually affects people.” While he says this is totally valid, he thinks that saving animals doesn’t always need additional motivation. “I see these as treasures, as historic buildings or famous paintings or music. These are living treasures that should be maintained for that reason alone. You don’t get it back. Sure, if we destroy the earth and its inhabitants it’s going to affect us, yes, but I think it can be more than that. The biodiversity of this planet is extraordinary. It’s an incredible thing and we should value it for that reason alone.”
He says he hopes that places like the Wildlife Learning Center can be a bridge to people who can’t see animals like this in the wild, helping them get engaged in the fight for wildlife conservation. “If you’re not lucky enough to go out into wilderness and see it, you can gain that appreciation that people that work here have. Why would you ever want to lose sloths? You don’t want to look at it in a book and say. ‘This used to exist,’ like the dodo or the Tasmanian tiger.”
Looking around at what the Wildlife Learning Center has become, it’s not hard to see that it all started with a passion for animals, and a drive to share that passion with others. “I just like to talk about it,” David says, looking around the center. “I think this is cool. Don’t you think this is cool?”
One of the biggest shifts in quarantine is how small our worlds have become. Because of this, more and more of it is contained within the screens we carry with us at all times. Many of our friends are only available to us through these screens- we use them to keep up with each other, share our lives, feel connected. But our phones aren’t solely for connection. I once heard a friend refer to the constant string of distractions and noise that stream into our brains from our devices as novocaine— a numbing agent. The amount of time I’ve spent addicted to my phone in quarantine, constantly stimulated and consuming and yet never learning or gaining anything from it, terrifies me.
Looking at my phone has become such a reflex; it’s the first thing I do when I don’t know what to do. I don’t want my phone to be my whole world. I want to remember that I have a physical body that exists in physical spaces, that I can experience things in reality instead of through a screen even when my options are more limited now than they have been in the past. Using a phone to catch up with a loved one or check in on the world is certainly a blessing. But if you’ve found yourself reaching for it without thinking, as a distraction from your life, you might enjoy a list of easy alternatives.
Here’s a list of fifty things you can do instead of looking at your phone if you feel like you’re battling phone addiction.
Eavesdrop on a conversation and see if you learn anything interesting.
Write down the characteristics of birds you see and try to identify them later.
Pick a flower or two and press them in a book.
Make a quick 5-item list of things you’re grateful for at this exact moment,
Practice drawing your favorite animal until you get it perfect.
Call a friend on a whim.
Stretch.
Do five minutes of deep breathing.
If you have a pet, spend a few minutes playing with them or brushing them or just showing them some affection.
Take any cups, dishes, or finished beverages out of your room.
Pick up a book you bought six months ago and haven’t gotten a chance to read yet.
Write a letter to a friend just because.
Make a collage out of anything interesting you find in today’s paper.
Clear out a junk drawer.
Plan a fancy meal for yourself.
Pick a short mantra and meditate on it for 5 minutes.
Paint your nails.
Look through any physical photos in your house and reminisce.
Write a quick summary of your week so far and keep it in a place where you can keep adding to it.
Write down a story about someone you love. If it feels right, consider mailing it to them.
Sketch a quick self portrait.
Rearrange the furniture in your room.
Spend 5 minutes writing about something that’s been troubling you and see if you feel better afterwards.
Write down 5 goals you have for the next month or year. Keep it someplace where you won’t forget about it.
Make a list of 10 places in the world you want to visit.
Open up your fridge and try to invent a meal out of what you have.
Write down your 5 favorite places in the world with a few reasons for each.
Make a physical list of friends’ birthdays so you can remember them easier.
Go through your closet until you find a piece of clothing you love but forgot about.
Pick up a craft or hobby you haven’t had time for in a while.
Plan 5 nice things to do for yourself this week, whether it’s picking up spa supplies at the store or ordering a yummy meal for delivery.
Think up five compliments you could give a loved one or significant other and resolve to share them with that person over the next week.
Make a cup of tea and let your mind wander as you drink it.
Look through your books and pick one to mail to a friend you think would enjoy it.
See how many plants and trees in your yard you can identify by name. Look up any you don’t know afterwards.
Pick 5 pieces of clothing out of your closet to donate.
Talk to your plants.
Pull up a video of any dance and try your best to learn it.
Write down 5 or 10 memories you treasure from the previous year. Add to this list again whenever you can until you have a good account of the happiness you felt last year.
Try on things in your closet you haven’t worn very much this year and try to make interesting outfits out of them.
Start making a list of gift ideas for holidays and birthdays that normally sneak up on you.
Make your bed, declutter your bedside table, or rearrange the pillows on your couch.
Put on an album you’ve been meaning to listen to.
Write down 10 bullet points about what your dream home would look like. See if there are any of them you could incorporate into your current home (get a window-box herb garden, buy one new piece of furniture, look up DIY solutions, etc).
Stare at the clouds and count the shapes you can see in them.
Look up a tutorial on how to do a makeup or hairstyle you’ve always liked and try it out.
Write down 5 things you admire about yourself and 5 things you could improve on.
Write down 5 interesting icebreakers to ask the next time you’re on a group call or Zoom with friends.
Let your mind go blank and reminisce about someone you love or something you loved doing for a few moments.
When looking at our phone is our default, a small action that is the easiest thing to do at any given time, we start to forget all the other possibilities for that moment that exist. Being present can often feel threatening, especially when our current reality has so much hardship in it that’s hard to ignore. But our imagination, creativity, and happiness are muscles that need to be stretched, and though it may be hard at first to re-train them we’ll often feel better afterwards. I hope you can come back to this list and pick a new item whenever your instinct is to open social media or indulge phone addiction. I hope that it helps you feel more present and alive and helps you remember the gift that is turning your attention and focus away from distractions for a few moments.
We might not be able to have “events” the way we’ve had in the past; as we shelter in place and keep each other safe, it might feel like we don’t have very many excuses to get dressed up and celebrate. But there’s no reason we can’t still create special occasions, even if we’re celebrating on our own or with our partners or families. If you’re looking to celebrate on your own, why not use it as an excuse to make yourself feel glamorous? There are so many ways to feel confident in your own skin and it might be as simple as picking up an inexpensive but beautiful new dress. I’ve always had an affinity for finding fashion bargains; I love being able to fill my closet with dresses that I hunted down on the cheap. A new piece of nice clothing can be so refreshing and make all the difference when it comes to feeling confident, attractive, and excited about a milestone; if you’re looking to treat yourself, one of these cheap dresses might be the perfect addition to your wardrobe.
You can never have too many little black dresses in your wardrobe, and this cheap but elegant option is perfect for day-to-day wear or for making a special occasion.
For a mix between modern and old fashion, this cheaper lace dress provides texture and a gorgeous silhouette while still being easy on your holiday budget.
This striking one-shoulder look will make an impression on any occasion and will be the perfect addition to your wardrobe all year long.
No matter what your style is, picking up a new piece of fashion that makes you feel good about yourself doesn’t always have to cost a lot. One of these cheap but beautiful dress options might be the perfect way to make a day feel special this year even as we still wait to return to normal.
