Tag: Mental health

The end of the lowered expectations experiment

On 30/03/2025

In Art & Practice, Readings, Reflexions, Self-care & self-compassion, TV shows

The fourth week has come to a close, and I have mixed feelings.

Overall, it did some good, even though the original goal was not exactly reached. I’m ending it now because though what it meant to accomplish didn’t happen, something else did that has the same end result.

The past year was very difficult, and though the various losses I sustained were generally processed in a healthier way than those of 2022 were – growth! – I fully expected myself to have a breakdown at some point. The lowered expectations were meant to give myself space to let that happen, so I could let it all out, then move on.

It came really close two weeks ago, when technical work issues had me so stressed and exhausted that the state of overwhelm followed me most of the week. I mentioned it to my supervisor who got really concerned, and then somehow, I think I pushed it all out of the way while reassuring him that this was part of a known cycle – it is – and that I’d be just fine – I was.

Not going to lie, it sorta felt like a missed opportunity. It also didn’t feel like things were getting repressed, so perhaps talking about it really did help process it. Who’d have known!

One consistent issue throughout the experiment has been the lack of energy. There had been hopes of sleeping more, better, and none of that happened. Unsurprisingly, having more time to feel and face my own feelings did not turn into long walks on the beach and romantic dinners with my emotions. Doomscrolling and constant background noise were the numbing poisons of choice practically the whole time. Doing less, in this case, led to burning more energy on unhelpful activities. And that also meant not having enough to infuse into the willpower to do anything about it.

And yet. Sometime last week, as I watched this video of advice on how to better wrangle oneself as an artist, something, somewhere in my mind, clicked back into place. Hard to define and impossible to explain, but for the first time in a really long time, and especially since my dad’s passing 6 months ago, I felt that I was going to be okay. Not yet, but eventually.

That was actually the cathartic moment that my lowered expectations were meant to bring me : the ability to see – no, to feel – a future. Not just being stuck in an uncomfortable, soul-crushing present.

Grief will always take exactly as much time as it needs, and that’s okay. Sometimes it will force me to sit down with it, but I’m not stuck in that chair anymore. I can start moving forward with it, hand in hand.

Today I’m starting my dailies and my tracking again. Immediately jumping back to what I used to expect of myself is obviously an almost surefire way to stumble and get frustrated, so the goal is only for 4 out of 7 dailies for the first week, then I’ll see how it went. My water intake will probably nearly double as it’s tracked – I’m probably somewhat dehydrated.

One major change will be drawing. 2 minutes isn’t enough to return to the levels of passion and skill I have been (passively) dreaming about, so I want to try and commit to an hour a day, on 4 days per week at first, then augment from that point. My job requires 2 office days per week, but then the hour can get split into 2 sessions of 30 minutes instead.

*******

Almost done with Enlightenment by Sarah Perry, as the Grande Bibliothèque de Montréal had available copies, rather than waiting for the digital copy, or for my neighbourhood library to find theirs. 60 pages left!

The Residence, an investigative Netflix dramedy, ended up very binge-worthy! Uzo Aduba was marvellous as the peculiar detective, and while realistic as it’s a Netflix show, I’m hoping for more seasons.

Caught up with the second season’s finale of Severance and looking forward to more confusion in the third one!

The Wheel of Time’s 5 first episodes of season 3 have been incredibly satisfying as well! 3 more to go!

Excited about :

A 3rd series of Avatar coming in 2026! A rewatch will be in order!
The 2027 Legend of Zelda movie! While we don’t know much about it yet, the director seems like a die-hard fan, so hopefully his love for the original material will make this a piece of art worthy of the legend.

Lowered expectations: week 2!

by Laury

On 14/03/2025

In Readings, Self-care & self-compassion, TV shows

TRIGGER WARNING : Mention of cancer and death

A second week coming soon to a close, and the lowered expectations almost achieved their purpose!

The objective, let me remind you, was to give myself space to basically break down over all of last year’s difficult events, after repressing emotions and trauma for months because, simply put, I had more important things to do.

Saturday was the funeral for my aunt, who passed away from cancer last month. There had been several weeks between the two events, so the shock had mostly passed, and I was once again reminded how my siblings and I face death with humour.

(Nothing disrespectful to the lost one, nor to the loved ones. But we get that from my dad who, on his literal death bed chuckled, “Yeah right” when my sister said she would miss him.)

That would have been a logical breaking-apart point. But instead I met human connection with not only my siblings, but my extended family as well. It always wards off the darkness.

And then Monday came around. My work is currently deploying significant updates that suddenly made it impossible for me to connect and work from home, and 5 days later, we still don’t know why.

To be fair, the situation is genuinely confounding, but the stress generated by everything around it – working at the office on the busiest days, extra transit time off rush hour after spending hours talking to IT on several days, much less time to do my actual work, much less time and energy to take care of my home, and the prospect of this situation continuing for potentially much longer – became a lot. On Thursday back pain crept up, which happens under significant stress. Sleep was not very restful, which added to the whole situation.

The breakdown felt imminent. But I wasn’t going to let it happen in front of colleagues, so I planned to hold it together until the weekend.

Then my weekly one-on-one with my supervisor happened and we talked and again: human connection wards off the darkness. They have been supportive and understanding, and I think genuinely disappointed not to be able to help much. My request for next Wednesday off was immediately granted though, and my plans for a self-care day applauded. They encouraged me to make use of every possible resource.

So the breakdown didn’t happened. Though the problem persists, I was able to work from home today, I might be able to do so again next week, and a higher level of support contacted me to take charge of the issue. Now it’s the weekend, we’re having spring temperatures and weather (10°C today! 15°C tomorrow!) and things don’t feel as dire.

It’s never as catastrophic as it feels.

I do wonder if the breakdown is only being delayed, or if it’ll end up being smoothed out and healed. Obviously hoping for the latter, but time will tell!

****

I have not yet managed to finish Sarah Perry’s Enlightenment novel, only halfway through so far. Unfortunately, my digital loan came to its end and I couldn’t renew it as other people were in line. I did try to get it in paper format from my local library, where it was listed as available… but it wasn’t on the shelves. They’ll let me know if / when they find it, but in the meantime, I’m back in the queue for the digital version.

And I’ll be starting a new, physically-owned book until my turn comes : The Origins of Creativity, by Edward O. Wilson. I would have normally tried to start on a memoir (rotating from non-fiction to fiction to memoir) but to be fair, The Art of Learning was a bit of one anyway. Having a paper copy with no time limit on it will also make it easier to pause and pick up once Enlightenment becomes available again, in either format.

Things I’m watching these days :

The Pitt – A pretty hard-hitting medical drama showcasing life in the ER post-COVID.

Daredevil : Born Again – Revival of the formerly Netflix-Marvel series following masked and blind vigilante Daredevil.

9-1-1 – New season! Often lighthearted drama following the crew of the 118 fire station in Los Angeles.

Also excited for season 3 of The Wheel of Time, a fantasy drama where the world is facing challenging that had been brewing for centuries.

Happy weekend!

Lowered expectations : a week later

by Laury

On 09/03/2025

In Reflexions, Self-care & self-compassion

It was freeing at first. Bad weather, and I didn’t force myself to go out for errands to both tick a task and complete a high number of exercise minutes. Or to do it the next day. The errands weren’t urgent, and I didn’t feel like it. I could go to bed when I was tired, without guilt, regardless of what had been achieved that day.

The attempt to get up later than the usual 5am has not been very fruitful. I did not get up as early, however it has not yet managed to be restful. There was an annoyance with my phone’s sleep focus that I’ve only just now found a way around, and guilt about my cat having to wait a bit more for her breakfast. Also, that pesky internal clock is not enjoying derogating to its habits. It’ll take some time.

I also suddenly felt like I had so much free time in my day! Things are so much more fun when there are no expectations. Inspiration rushed in and I did sit down and draw.

So the first few days were a breeze. A nice little vacation that made me think, “I can do that all month, no problem!”

And then guilt and perfectionism saw the space wide open and invited themselves in.

(Not really, they both know they each have a guest room ready, they just also invaded the living room and the kitchen)

It felt fairly subtle, actually. The urges to create were replaced by wasting time on social media and obsessively playing spider solitaire on my phone. Having YouTube videos of people playing games I know by heart just to have unending, background noise droning on, instead of things that engaged me.

The sudden thought that I could be doing something better – with the underlying meaning of “productive” – with my time popped more and more often in my mind, and the awareness of all the things I knew needed doing made that worse.

Then I started to miss the “productive” day high. Clean kitchen, fridge stocked with prepped food, errands done, tasks checked off. And the guilt of not doing my “best” every day.

I’d shared my lowering of my expectations of myself with some of the people closest to me. Not to force any accountability, because it never crossed my mind that I could need any. But suddenly I was thinking, “I could just start up again like normal and not tell anyone”.

Which is very much a red flag. Why would I need to hide this from anyone? Why even feel the need to hide it?

Rationally, I know that it’s a detoxing of sorts and that a week is not enough to be effective. And very fortunately, though evidently not foolproof, I’ve become quite good at coaching myself out of behaviours that don’t serve me. So, as terribly uncomfortable as it has been, I’m continuing with what I’ve started.

There will be some changes though. While at first it felt like anything was possible, including activities previously part of my dailies, at some point “I don’t have to do it” got some of its wires crossed with “I just won’t do it”. This is a time to do away with guilt, not with doing things. I can get up at 5 if I want to, and take an hour-long walk.

This is going to require listening more intently to myself, but challenge accepted.

Correcting course and carrying on!

Normalcy, or lack thereof

by Laury

On 01/03/2025

In Reflexions

Trigger warning: death of a parent.

A month ago, I wrote, but didn’t post, some thoughts on normalcy. I think I was still hoping to return to it in some way, hopefully imminently at the time.

My dad died 5 months ago, three shorts days before my birthday. His health had been declining a bit too quickly in the year leading up to an unexpected hospitalization at the term of which, ten days later, he passed away peacefully.

2024 was not great for me. This time last year, my work life started getting upended, and it didn’t get better in the following months. Then, once my dad was gone, I put my own grief on the back burner (purposefully) to stay with my mom for nearly two months. I’ve been back in my own home for a little under 3 months now.

And for all of this time, I’ve been trying to go back to “normal”. Even being fully aware that I’m not the same person I was a year ago. Knowing that normal can never truly be what I remember it as.

The general goal was to… create some sort of foundation to hold me, before I allow myself to fall apart. For safety. Because I’m always the person I have to lean on during tough times.

But the normal I was aiming for was the normal of January 2024. When I was excitedly working with great people and exercising and cooking and doing all my dailies. Before I cared too much about work and found myself seriously losing sleep over it. Before I touched my dad’s cool cheek and realized he’d passed away while my sister and I were asleep next to him.

That “before” normal cannot exist anymore. I can return to doing all of those things and they can help me in the same ways that they did back then, eventually, but fundamentally, it can never be the same.

I have been so focused on setting up something really solid that I didn’t realize that, once I fall apart, I won’t be able to maintain it anyway. It wasn’t solidifying in the first place, either.

And I need to fall apart. I’ve been patching the cracks for a year, not with the proper glue and lacquer that turn into golden scars, but with cheap duct tape from the dollar store.

Upholding this empty shell of normalcy has been preventing me from processing my grief. Not just about my dad.

And so after years of dailies, mostly completed but sometimes not, I’m giving myself at least this month off. Doesn’t mean none of them will get done – a month without cleaning at all would be bad – just no checks to be completed. I’ll be going with the flow on a day-to-day basis. So when I do fall apart, I don’t also carry the perceived burden of failing self-set expectations. Bad days can just be bad days, not a bad grade.

In March, self-compassion is going to be letting go.

Towards a new normal.

Creativity in dark times

by Laury

On 26/02/2025

In Art & Practice, Reflexions

Walking back to public transit after a trip to the grocery store, I noticed an inscription in a shop window : “Visual arts centre this way”. And my first thought was, “Oh, I should look if they have exhibitions!”

Which is totally in line with this year’s general objective to experience more. But I hadn’t quite realized what this was in answer to until now.

I reflected on how it was still new for me to have that kind of impulse, and then how, of course, it was difficult to be open and creative when you’re dealing with uncertainty, depression, fear, on a personal level. Which is something I’ve known for a good while, but hadn’t yet understood how it applied to me.

As far as the pandemic goes, I was of the very, very lucky ones. As far as I know, there was no loss of employment in the company I work for, and most of us were quickly moved to working from home in March 2020.

Being introverted, and having just then recently discovered how high sensitivity has shaped me, lockdown came almost as a relief. No transit, much fewer people when I went out.

Obviously, again, this was an incredibly privileged position, and I’m also very grateful that it happened to suit me.

But in 2019, there had been a few months of medical leave to sort myself out. And despite my luck work-wise, and how blissfully quiet the world was for my temperament, I wasn’t blind to the distress around me the next year, and in the world at large.

Two family members passed in 2020, though unrelated to the pandemic. 2021 is a blur. 2022 left deep wounds, and the following year was me trying to heal them and deal with the scars. 2024 was difficult is so many, many ways.

Even this year is off to a rocky start.

A couple of years ago, it became apparent that a bad case of perfectionism had robbed me of my passion for drawing. Why start at all if I’m never going to be satisfied with the result? All this time since, I’ve been gently blaming myself for letting it go that far. To be fair, that has been part of the problem.

But somehow I forgot to take into account how difficult the past 5 years have been for me mentally. Not that I dismissed it, nor would I have done so for anyone else in my position. I just… didn’t realize.

Tant qu’il y a de la vie, il y a de l’espoir.

As long as there’s life, there’s hope.

So tonight I will gently apologize to myself for the misplaced blame, and once again practice self-compassion.

Life is what happens when you’re busy making plans

by Laury

On 24/01/2025

In Reflexions

Amazingly, I wrote the post below on Tuesday night, intending to finish up and post it on Wednesday morning.

And then I developed norovirus during that very night, and am just starting to feel human again, 3 days later. Didn’t expect being proven right in such a… way.

****

Only three weeks of January and that has been proven to me a few times already!

First, it feels like the challenging day I had two weeks ago, mental health-wise, has had its after-effects felt since, so focusing and doing the things I want to do, that I know are good for me, is still a challenge these days. At this point it might be too much laisser-aller on my part, and there is definitely a will to do better for myself. Just gotta… do it.

On Monday last week, it was discovered that my mom’s last remaining sister, whose cancer remission had left her in great pain, only had a few months left ahead of her. We lost my dad less than four months ago, so this is quite a hard hit for my mom. My siblings and I are doing whatever we can to be there for her, but grief is grief. We cannot, and should not, shield her from it.

This has of course occupied a great deal of my mind and consumed a lot of energy, not just in worrying for my mom and for my aunt’s comfort, but also empathy for my uncle and my cousins, having gone through something similar quite recently myself.

The psychotherapist I had started seeing also turned out not to be a good fit for me after only two sessions, which left me a bit stressed. While I’m not giving up on therapy at all, I will be waiting to see how things are shaping up around my aunt’s care before I make new plans for regular therapy sessions.

Writing this, I realize that those things are probably more of an explanation to my difficulty to resume my best habits than laisser-aller might be. Always exercising self-compassion, but currently it’s gotten to the point where actually and actively starting on recovery is probably going to be the right choice. Going to gently nudge myself towards doing the right things for myself to start that positive cycle..!

(After I fully recover from norovirus now..!)

(Don’t forget to wash your hands thoroughly!)

What I’ve learned this week

by Laury

On 15/01/2025

In Art & Practice, Reflexions

Already almost halfway through a first month! How are you doing?

One of my general objectives this year is to get more curious. I know, I know, having too many goals at the start of the year is an almost surefire way to ditch all of them. However, being curious is more of a practice and state of mind that can only benefit every sphere of my life.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back!

So here are a few things I learned this week :

Entity VS incremental theories of intelligence. I’m currently reading The Art Of Learning by Josh Waitzkin and it crystallized what I had generally understood here and there – the way we approach learning early on has a tremendous effect on how we approach a lot of things in life. Very simply put, entity theory refers to attributing success to an innate and fairly unchanging level of ability, whereas incremental, or learning theory refers to associating it to effort and improvement. The former focuses on accomplishments, which can in turn lead to prioritizing the things that come naturally and shy away from what would require growth. The latter encourages practice and is more likely to have failure as a normal part of the learning process. For example, incredibly lucky to understand things quickly, I went through primary and secondary school pretty easily, without having to study all that much. When schooling became more complex and I didn’t understand new material as easily, my performance dropped drastically. Same with drawing – I was told I was talented from a young age, but I never had the drive to practice and get better – I just drew so much it happened on its own. For a while. Once perfectionism also soured the fun of it, art became a source of anxiety when it had once been a core part of my life. I’m only now realizing how crippling it has become, hence my desire to go back to basics, and to try new things, especially if they feel uncomfortable.
It can easily take several days to recover from one bad mental health day. The last part of 2024 was a significant challenge, and being now fairly well-acquainted with grief, I’m aware that it can creep up on you any time it wants, for no particular reason. It did so over a week ago, and while things were already much better the next day, it took almost five more to start feeling like myself again. My therapist said it’s normal! It’s important to let yourself feel the hard stuff too, and to exercise self-compassion through it. That is why I haven’t taken the time to follow another Skillshare class this week.
Speaking of classes, I learned that a one-line drawing, of florals at least, should be started from the bottom, and that my left-handedness is definitely going to be a challenge in taking art classes! Some of the exercises, which I’ve been repeating almost daily, have been challenging because of it – I start them in the right direction but my brain gets confused as I progress. Clearly something I need to practice further!

What have you learned lately that tickled your mind?