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January 24, 2022

My Biggest Mental Health Game Changers

 

 

Up until four or so years ago, I knew about mental health and how important it was, but I figured I was fine and didn’t need to manage my own. I mean, technically, I never had any sort of mental health disorder. I’ve always been super disciplined, so I figured me just getting up daily, working out, eating right, working, and overall living my life was good enough.

That is, until I really started elevating my entire approach to wellness (which was right around the time I began exploring my spiritual side), where I began recognizing that every part of me is connected.  I began recognizing in meditation that my thoughts were just thoughts and weren’t true unless I decided to make them so. I began noticing when I would have negative thoughts and questioning them, then deciding to release them and replace them with brand new, better-feeling thoughts. I basically learned how to control my mindset, and became really good at it. Which, by the way, literally anyone can do if you commit yourself to doing it daily and integrating it into your life. 

In doing this consistently, I slowly began to change as a person. I became more calm and less reactive. I became more confident. I became more in tune with myself and really learned how to listen to and trust my own intuition over anyone else’s opinions. I became more certain of my own beliefs and values, and became crystal clear on who I wanted to be and what I wanted my life to look like. I became more equipped to be able to enter an annoying situation, like dealing with flaky ass people cancelling last minute on shoots, and rather than getting pissed and letting it ruin my day, adopting the knowledge that it was just one thing that happened that had nothing to do with me, releasing my frustration, and instead deciding to pivot immediately and change my plans.

On my journey to become a true master of my own mindset, I also learned stuff like removing and rearranging my limiting beliefs and old stories around areas like my work schedule, finances, setting boundaries with other people, feeling really comfortable saying “no” without worrying about upsetting someone else, and that everything I need to create, say, do, and/or bring to life is already within me. Yes, this shit goes deep.

Like I said, literally anyone can do this with daily, consistent practice. I wasn’t born wired this way. I taught myself how to be this way.

Here are some of my favorite tools and tactics for mastering my mindset and drastically improving the state of my mental health:

  • Meditating. I meditate every single day, often for five minutes at a time. I’ve heard people say “I don’t have time for that,” which is a. An excuse, because everyone has five minutes to spare and b. A cop out, because what’s the alternative? Keep living life with a chaotic brain, spinning your wheels? Meditating isn’t this big scary thing. It’s literally just sitting down and zoning out, focusing on only your breathing, and learning how to quiet your mind. Because it’s in that state in which your subconscious can release all the wonders it’s been holding on to, that you, in your normal day-to-day state, drown out with all the internal mental chatter and random thought loops. Meditating is now something I can’t live without. It’s like an instant “reset” for your brain. I like to do it first thing in the morning while my mind is still fresh and to set the tone for the rest of my day. Just Google “five minute meditation,” or even just play ambient sounds, and do it.

 

  • Getting intentional about what I consume. The world we live in now is so fast paced. We’re bombarded on the daily with ads, social media feeds, news…just a fuck ton of information to the point where it’s overload. Not only that, but whether we notice or not, we are actually consuming and processing this. So, for example, if there’s someone on your social media feed who complains all day every day, mute that shit. If you’re scrolling Instagram and see someone with a sick house and sick outfit and seemingly amazing life, but you’re not at the place where you can feel happy for them and instead feel bad about yourself, mute that shit. If you’re constantly watching the news, or if it’s even playing in the background of your day-to-day all day, you are absorbing all of that negativity whether you know it or not, and it is affecting you. If you’re constantly reading celebrity gossip magazines, the lives of other people are constantly going to be occupying your head space rent-free. I do this with literally everything in my life, from who I follow on socials to what I watch on TV to the material I read. It all counts. I only choose to follow/read/listen to content that uplifts and/or inspires me.

 

  • Limit my screen time. Even though the majority of my work does require me to spend time on my phone and/or online, I’m still as intentional as possible about this. As in, if I’m posting on Instagram, I’ll post what I have to post, spend a few minutes engaging with other accounts and my followers, then I get the fuck off. I spent many years spending way too much time online, just hustling hard, sharing my content everywhere, checking for feedback nonstop…until I realized just how unnecessary and detrimental it was. I’m intentional about my screen time and make sure I’m using it for the right reasons, and I don’t spend any more time on there than necessary because that takes away from me actually living my real life, in real time.

 

  • More proactivity, less reactivity. I am not a slave to emails, texts, phone calls, etc. I have a personal filtering process that I use to screen stuff like texts. If they’re from certain important people in my life and/or they require an immediate response, I respond. If not, it can wait. My text inbox typically has 50+ unread messages. I think it’s incredibly invasive for people to assume that if they text me then I’ll respond immediately. I’m not on call. I’ll get to them when I get to them. It’s nothing personal. It’s that I literally cannot function at the level of productivity I need if I’m spending all my time reacting to messages. I answer my emails maybe twice a week. And wouldn’t you know, everything continues to ebb and flow smoothly. If I were constantly reacting to any and all messages that came my way, I would constantly be thrown out of my groove and be far less productive.

 

  • Journaling. Writing for me is extremely therapeutic. Near daily, I’ll open my journal and just write whatever comes out without filtering or editing myself. For me, this is a way to take all the chaos that’s swirling around in my brain and get it out onto paper so that I can actually see it. It’s a way for me to organize my thoughts and get clarity around my inner workings.

 

  • Therapy. I’ve been doing near-weekly therapy sessions for the past year and a half or so, and it’s been a game changer. Sometimes I’ll go a few weeks without it, but I find it’s been extremely helpful to me as far as getting an unbiased opinion/guidance from a trained professional on my life to help guide me in the right direction. We all have blind spots. Therapy has helped me be able to pull back the curtain on mine, and recognize stuff like behavioral patterns that I can change so I can show up to my own life better.

 

  • Hobbies. As in, doing stuff just for fun without trying to monetize it. For me, this has been a challenge because as someone who’s in business for herself, I never really “shut off.” But I’ve found that stuff like this blog, where I can at least share it with others, has been a super rewarding hobby for me. Other hobbies I’ve found I really enjoy are stuff like hiking + doing outdoor activities, playing games, dance class, doodling…basically just  fun stuff simply for the sake of pleasure. This not only brings me joy and allows my brain to shut off while I live fully in the moment, but giving myself time to do this stuff also means that I show up to my life refreshed, recharged, and in a far better headspace than if I were to just work nonstop with no breaks.

I’ve ultimately realize that it’s been in the small (but consistent), day-to-day changes I’ve made in my life that really add up over time and have ultimately made a huge impact, for the better, on the state of my mental health. All it takes is deciding to take it one moment, one day at a time, because it’s from the present that the future is created.

 

Filed in: HEALTH | By xoalynx | 2 Comments

March 17, 2021

Mental Health Matters – We Can’t Do It All Alone

 

 

Mental health. I know this has been the focus of a lot of conversations, especially this past year with most of us having our lives turned upside down in some way or another. And that’s a good thing. Continuing the conversation, keeping it alive, keeping it flowing, helps others feel comfortable and safe enough to talk about it, too. 

Everything is always a ripple effect, and especially when it comes to topics that tend to have a stigma attached to it…like, MENTAL HEALTH…speaking about it helps dissolve the fear around it. Speaking about it helps NORMALIZE it. Which is exactly why I’m writing this. 

This past year was the first time in my life that I got a therapist. Before that (even though I definitely could have benefitted from one since, well, BIRTH) I just thought that a therapist wasn’t something I needed. That I was strong enough to handle life without help. That I could process all my shit by myself and be fine. 

And yes, much of that is true. I’m fully committed to a lifetime of daily personal growth and development. Daily self-improvement. Daily learning. Daily upleveling of myself and my life. I read a fuckload of self-help books. I listen to podcasts. I journal. I work with business coaches. I do more non traditional shit like psychedelics. I’m spiritual AF and believe in a higher power, which I believe guides me through my day to day. Needless to say I do a LOT for myself to make sure I’m actively being the best version of me I can possibly be, and contributing to the world every day in the best way that I can. 

I consider myself to be a really, really strong person. I’ve been through a LOT in my life. I’ve dealt with a lot of scary stuff and bullshit and come out the other side of it all strong as fuck. 

But even though that’s true, 2020 opened my eyes. A LOT. To the fact that not only is it OK to seek help, but we SHOULD seek help. Even if we don’t think we need it. 

To me, now, seeing my therapist is like any other doctor appointment. I stay on top of my teeth cleanings. I stay on top of my checkups. I stay on top of my eye exams. Why the fuck would I neglect my MENTAL HEALTH?! 

I mean, the state of my inner being…the state of my mental state…is what’s guiding me through day to day life. 

When my mental health is clogged up with stress, anxiety, and overall chaos that builds up from all the different circumstances that life throws at me…at all of us…I cannot possibly expect to make THE BEST decisions for myself from this space. 

I cannot possibly just “leave my problems at the door” because they’re STILL there when I leave. 

I cannot possibly just “brush things off” (which is what I used to do, without processing them) and expect that by doing so, my problems will magically disappear. It’s like putting a Band-Aid on a cut that keeps coming back no matter what…until I do the work to discover what’s creating that cut in the first place. 

I decided to get a therapist in 2020 because not only did I want to be able to unpack all my goings-on in a safe environment, but I also wanted to do so with a trained professional involved who could give me unbiased insight, as well as the tools and resources necessary to process them. 

Of course, talking it out with friends helps, too, but I also didn’t want to be unloading all my issues onto the same handful of people all the time. 

While I did part ways with my original therapist from last year, I just found a new one who I really like and who I’m going to keep around for the foreseeable future. I just think it’s really, really important to have help when it comes to unpacking and processing whatever it is that’s happening in my life, working through it, and moving forward. 

I truly believe that EVERYONE can benefit from therapy. I no longer believe that therapy is for people with “big problems.” I mean, who am I to say what’s a big problem and what’s not, anyways? We all live different lives. What one person might consider a “big problem,” the next person might find it to be trivial. And it’s ALL OKAY. We are ALL on different paths. We are ALL experiencing life at a different pace, through different lenses of experience and worldviews. 

Therapy has already helped me SO much, and I look forward to spending a lifetime maintaining my mental health by consistently showing up for myself at my appointments and doing the work. Just like going to my physician’s, dentist, (or hell, even my Botox!) I am making my therapy sessions just as important. And normal. 

P.S. If you’re thinking about seeing a therapist, I currently use Better Help. I love this app because it matches you with the best therapist for you and what you need help with, and gives you a bunch of different ways to communicate, whether it’s via text, phone or video chat. It’s been a game changer for me <3 

xo, alix 

Filed in: HEALTH, WELLNESS | By xoalynx | Leave a Comment

January 20, 2021

Sh*t to Do in Your 20’s so Your Life is Awesome

 

 

I VIVIDLY remember going to college, graduating, and being thrown into the real world, real quick. I got my first “grown up” job (clearly that life was NOT for me) and went about figuring my shit out. I’ve had a rebellious streak since, well, day one of my existence, and always been hell-bent on creating my coolest, most awesome, fun life possible. and THANK GOD FOR THAT.

Because without this tenacity and out-of-the-box way of doing life (I’ve ALWAYS been one to take risks, be ballsy and go after what I want) ingrained in me that came from god knows where, I would be one miserable motherfucker, probably still letting my soul die slowly every day at my desk job.

ICK.

But even with my personality and way of doing life being what it is, I STILL had a rude awakening after graduating. Point blank, I felt like I had been sold this LIE. I had spent years working my ass off to get this degree, was working on another degree, and was working at a desk job doing mundane work that I DID learn a lot in, but was still super boring. All I could think was, “Holy FUCK. I can’t believe THIS is this life I signed up for…for the next 40 or so years. FUCK this shit. There has to be more for me out there.”

Canadian Studies and Math B were NOT going to help me figure out how to make money on my own, let alone figure out how to invest it, do my taxes, or start a corporation.

I was determined to figure all of this out and would be damned if I had to spend the rest of my life sitting at a desk working for someone else. So, I did…thanks to endless brain-picking of successful entrepreneurs I knew as well as one of my BFFs, Google.

Here’s all the shit I figured out and started in my 20’s to set myself up for a lifetime of fun, financial security and freedom over my own schedule…and LIFE..

 

  • Start a retirement account. NOW. I opened my first Roth IRA at 22 because I knew I should. Did I know what the fuck I was doing? HELL NO. I stumbled around in the dark and slowly figured my shit out along the way. For a long time, all I did was deposit money and not invest. Then I started learning about investing. Then I started investing. The point is…just START. Even if you’re just putting $20 a week in. Even if you’re just putting $40 a month in. JUST. START. Be consistent with it. Commit to learning about investing. I am the LAST person I thought would be interested in investing (I used to think it was super fucking crusty and boring, but it’s actually REALLY FUN to see your dollars multiply)! I read books. I subscribe to Kiplinger’s. I read blog articles. I listen to podcasts. There’s literally no way around educating yourself about money. Either you do it or you stick your head in the sand and emerge 10 years later to be broke as fuck. Your call. 

 

  • Start stacking cash. Just like above. This is something I DIDN’T do for a while – I moved around a lot in an expensive city. I had a lot of expenses. I was putting my cash back into my businesses (which IS investing in myself for the long haul, but it’s still important to have extra cash). This shit ALL adds up. I make it REALLY easy for myself: I use the Digit and Acorns apps to automatically pull money out of my accounts each week. I also have my payroll take out a certain amount each time I’m paid and it goes to a separate bank account. I also have autodrafts on another account that goes to ANOTHER bank account that I don’t touch. This makes it an efficient AF and a literal NO-BRAINER, and let me tell you, it is SO motherfucking satisfying to see those numbers grow…and grow…and grow. People are weird about money, as I once was, but there is nothing noble about being broke. Don’t you WANT to live in your dream house? Drive your dream car? Look your best? Feed yourself the best of the best food? Have a cash reserve for when you have surprise random bills that come up, like the rock that went through my windshield last week? You can’t do that if you’re broke. And how good does it feel to have cash in your account? You feel like shit when you don’t. And once again, it doesn’t matter HOW much you save. Just START. Trust me…it WILL add up.

 

  • If you want to do something, just start. When I restarted my life to move cross-country from NY to LA in 2014 to do adult film, I had an agent and a place to stay in LA. That was IT. I started filming. My scenes were NOT good. When I first got on YouTube and was trying to find myself and figure out what kind of content to produce, my vids were NOT good. When I first got into my music project, the shit we would put out was NOT good. My point here is, if you REALLY want to start something, whether you dream of being an “influencer,” coach, actor, whatever…just own the fact that you’re going to fucking suck for a while. It’s going to be a lot of work with little reward for a while. Sometimes years. You either want it or you don’t. Stick with it and eventually you WILL get your momentum. You WILL get good. You WILL make it all happen. But you HAVE to have an attitude of “I’ll do whatever the fuck it takes to get to where I want to go,” and NEVER quit. There’s no shortcut. But would you rather create your dream life, or stick to what your friends and family think is a safe, “practical” (EW) job with a steady schedule and salary…even though you want to gouge your own eyes out every day? Both paths are challenging. Pick one.

 

  • Get comfortable being alone. I’ve been an introverted extrovert since…forever. As in, I fucking LOVE people, but I also LOVE being by myself. I love reading, writing, and just being quiet and cozy. Some people HATE this. As an adult, you’ll have bouts of time where you’re alone with your thoughts. You’re not in school anymore, so you’re not constantly surrounded by your peers. You can’t AVOID it. Plus, you should be your own best friend. So just wade through the uncomfortable-ness, one day at a time. I also found that the more time I spent by myself, working ON myself (doing shit like reading, listening to podcasts, just LEARNING) I grew to trust my own intuition over anything or anyone else. As in, I stopped asking people for their opinions on shit. I started making my own decisions…confidently. And there is NO better feeling in the world than knowing that you 100% have your own back at all times. Of course, you NEED help from other people. We’re not meant to do life fully ALONE. Everyone has different life experiences and areas of expertise. What I’m getting at here is to just get comfortable being alone with your own thoughts, and entertaining yourself. And, if you’re an artist and/or entrepreneur, this is double crucial. Quadruple crucial, even. Because this is also the place from where your best work and ideas will be born. 

 

  • Outsourcing shit you don’t wanna do. We only have X amount of time in each day. Sure, you technically CAN spend hours at the grocery store, cooking meals, cleaning your house…but do you really WANT to be doing that? Don’t you want to spend your time not working on more fun stuff? (unless this stuff IS fun for you). Even when I was making peanuts, I would still get my groceries delivered and split a house cleaning with my roommates so I could spend my free time ENJOYING myself. Now, of course, I’m a boss lady and genuinely LOVE to work, so I spend my time working and earning money and outsource as much shit as possible to other people. Life is meant to be enjoyed, so don’t spend your time doing stuff that’s mundane and annoying. Working smarter vs. harder and creating jobs for other people…yes, please.

 

  • Don’t buy shit you can’t afford. I remember when I was 18 and got my first credit card, which I promptly maxed out at Abercrombie and Fitch, spending it like a gift card. Then I forgot about it and it took me years to get my credit score un-fucked. Debt isn’t BAD. It’s neutral. And credit cards are a good thing to use. I also never learned ANYTHING about using credit cards, or financial management growing up. But racking up a fuckload of debt on your credit card just to buy material shit that’s cool in the moment and getting overwhelmed and freaking out over the balance…NOT THE VIBE. I pay my credit card off every week now, and set monthly spend limits for myself to keep myself on track. AKA….just be responsible. If you’re treating yourself to something fabulous to reward yourself for crushing it at work, and you spend from a place of knowing you will pay it off…that’s one thing. If you’re out having shopping sprees because you’re using shopping to fill a void that could be remedied with a creative outlet or fun hobby (BEEN THERE), that’s another. Nothing is hotter than feeling good around how you handle your money…and a big bank account to boot. 

 

  • Get serious about your self care. In your 20s, you can get by with little sleep, eating crap, and it doesn’t show on the outside…yet. But eventually, it does. Think of your body like a Ferrari. You get ONE Ferrari to take care of to get you through life. If you don’t drive the Ferrari, it’ll rust. If you put shitty fuel in your Ferrari, it won’t run NEARLY as well as if you use Premium. You get it. And if you don’t, what I mean here is take care of your body. Get your 8 hours of sleep. Start a fitness regime NOW. Start eating well and fueling your body with real, nourishing food NOW. Done right, you’ll feel like you’re aging in reverse when you’re in your 30’s and beyond. I seriously look and feel better at 31 than I EVER did in my 20s. It gets WAY more challenging the older you get, with more responsibilities piling on right and left, to get a grip on this shit. Getting to a point where self care becomes a crucial, non-negotiable, no-brainer part of your existence makes it REALLY fucking easy for you to stick with it for life.

You’re the only one who’s in charge of you.

You’re the only one who’s responsible for the kind of life you create…and the kind of person you become.

Set yourself up for a lifetime of maximum awesomeness early on makes it all one big non-negotiable no-brainer…for life.

And trust me, if I can do all of this…so can you.

 

No excuses.

 

xo, alix

Filed in: BUSINESS, FINANCIAL, HEALTH, LIFE STYLE, REAL TALK, WELLNESS | By xoalynx | Leave a Comment

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