Day 5: Fight off the 'green monster'
PIN IT!
Jealousy, which is also commonly known as the green monster, is one of the worst feelings to have. Jealousy can make you feel angry, resentful, frustrated, irritated, desperate, sinister and even depressed. But it’s a feeling we all know, some more than others, all to well. [Especially women!] Jealousy comes in all forms and can take hold of everyone, even the people we think “have it all” or seem to have their lives together. As Americans, we are known to strive to keep up with the Jones’, or feel inadequate if we can’t measure up to our neighbors, coworkers, best friends or strangers. Why jealousy is dubbed the green monster is simple. When jealousy over comes us, there’s really no saying what we won’t do.
I’m definitely not as jealous as some people [see picture above] but I do feel the negative emotion more times than I’d like. My jealousy stems from feelings of inadequacy and self conciousness, which are pretty detrimental to my self-esteem. My feelings of jealousy are tied directly to my finances, my current position in life and my body. When I see women who are perfectly thin and toned, I can’t help but feel jealous of their body type and then badly about how my own body looks. When I see/read people who are able to buy all of the things I desire [designer bags and shoes, a new car, a home] I too feel jealous of their success and start to wish I had more money, a better job, etc. These feelings ultimately lead me to feel inadequate about my own body, my own life goals, my own dreams and depressed and scared that I’ll never live up to other people. Just a small twinge of jealousy and I’m soon spiraling downhill in feelings of sadness.
If it’s not blatantly obvious already, these feelings are not conducive to a healthy mind or body. Feelings of jealousy lead to mental instability, which ultimately can have a negative effect on your physical stability as well. My feelings of jealousy towards women with perfect bodies has had very harmful effects on my own physical well-being, none of which I need to go into now. Either way, jealousy is a feeling that does not need to define me and frankly, I’m tired of the taste it leaves in my mouth.
So how do you fight off a feeling that can come out of left field? It all starts with becoming more self-aware and garnering some positive self-esteem. According to The Pathway for Happiness [www.pathwaytohappiness.com], there are five, fool-proof steps to take that will help eradicate these strong feelings of jealousy from your life.
1) Getting control of your emotions and refrain from the reactive behavior.
2) Shift your point of view so that you can step back from the story in your mind.
3) Identify the core beliefs that trigger the emotional reaction. [Why do you truly think you get so jealous of your sister? Does she have a good job? Good body? If so, how can you get those things for yourself?]
4) Become aware that the beliefs in your mind are not true. Your sister is not better than you because she has a higher paying job or is a smaller size. She is just in a different place in her life. There is nothing saying that you won’t have these things just because you don’t have them at this very minute.
5) Develop control over your mind and body so you can consciously choose what story plays in your mind and what emotions you feel.
Another key way to fight off jealous feelings are to replace them with positive feelings about yourself. Instead of comparing yourself to a thinner coworker, remind yourself what you have going for you, like your mind, your sense of style or your intelligence. Replace your feelings of inadequacy with feelings of empowerment. Another good way to overcome this feeling is to use these feelings for good. Instead of feeling bad about yourself because someone has a better body than you, use that to motivate yourself to hit the gym harder or eat better. Use their body as a motivational tool and push yourself to get a body like that instead of feeling like you will never have those abs or legs.
As human beings, we aren’t engineered to be perfect or always feel great about our lives. There are days when we are going to feel sad and inadequate, which are breeding grounds for jealousy. But these days and jealousy don’t need to take over our lives or our train of thought. It’s perfectly normal to compare ourselves to others, we just need to learn to understand that we are all different and our differences and flaws are what define us, and what make us beautiful.
A contest, A contest!
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Nutrition in the News: Cooking on a SNAP budget
For those who have never seen the above image before in your life, consider yourself very lucky. With the recent economic downturn and the millions of people still out of work, these little paper bills have almost replaced the ‘greenbacks’ the rest of us all know and love. Food stamps, which were once only associated with the people living below poverty level, are finding their way into the wallets of even the high middle class, thanks to the still staggering unemployment rate. Luckily, the economy is on an upswing and hopefully the number of people needing to use these will decline.
Where did this talk of food stamps come from? An article posted in the Associated Press yesterday [April 14th] which discussed how people living on a food stamp budget could still prepare healthy and delicious meals for their families. I think this is a very interesting article in it tackles a subject that isn’t talked about much in our society and adds a bit of a twist to the coverage.
As you’ll see in the article, the author’s asked famous chefs to prepare a week’s worth of meals on only $68.88, which is the standard amount of money allotted to a family of four on SNAP, the food stamp program. What I found interesting was that two of the chefs went over budget, one more substantially than the other. Although the head of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program [SNAP] states that this should be used as a supplement to a families’ food allowance, I believe that some families do not have any supplemental income and that this is the only money they have to use for groceries. This definitely got my mind rolling on ways to better administer the SNAP program and convey the importance of nutrition to these families at the same time.
I think this article needs to be reiterated to families who are solely depending on the SNAP allowance to buy food. I imagine that most of these people are focusing on how they can best stretch their dollar so they can buy the most food for their dollar. Processed, high fat and high sugar foods are notoriously cheaper, so many people run to stock up on those when they are on a tight budget. But this article really shattered the idea that you can get more for your buck buying junk than you can health food. Anna Last, editor of Everyday Food magazine, stayed under budget but filled her cart with proteins, produce and whole wheat products. What she found was that foods like meats and pastas can make meals that can be used as leftovers for the next day, whereas instant soups and microwaveable dinners can just be eaten once. I think this is such an important point to stress to people who are mainly focused on staying in budget. You can still buy good for you food that will feed your family twice as long as the cheaper, processed stuff.
I think the SNAP program could really benefit in doing some census work, to really gauge how many families are solely dependent on the food stamps provided and how many families are also able to use some of their own income. I’m not saying, at all, that the amount allotted needs to be adjusted, mainly because I have no idea the logistics of how the SNAP program works. As one of the administrators points out, these are supposed to be used as supplements, but how many families are using them as their only means to by food? I think it could provide the government with some strong insight to see how many families might actually need more than is provided or how many might not need all that is provided.
I think a really interesting follow-up article could see how far this budget stretches for families of 5, 6 and above. Families of four are common, but are not the standard. There are many families who have up to six children. I would be very interested to see how a family of 8 or more could make the maximum budget stretch out for their families.
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Days 3-4 [Wedding]: Overcome procrastination
This picture sums up the current state of my life. I have about 5,000 things I need and want to do but keep putting off actually doing them. Oh, the fine tuned art of procrastination. I’d like to thank college for introducing me to procrastination, because it was there that I learned and mastered, quite effectively, the ability to put off everything in my life until it absolutely had to be done. I had the naive notion that when I graduated, the excitement and ambition that got me there would persevere, leaving the art of procrastination back in Georgia. Well, folks, notice how I said “naive notion?” Because here I am, almost a year later, still procrastinating on…well…everything in my life.
So, to go along with my mini-lution to declutter my mind and get a great start to the month, I am going to overcome procrastination by setting realistic, yet hard, deadlines and getting a start of all of my major projects today and this weekend. Now, you’ll notice that the headline has “wedding” in the brackets, for a few reasons. 1. Most of the things I keep “pushing off” have to do with my wedding 2. I’ve gotten lazy in my planning since we have all of the big things taken care of. So I’m going to continue to declutter my mind and get started on the thousands of wedding details I’ve, sadly, put on the back burner.
1. Theme. Trying to come up with a theme is, without a doubt, what put me into the wedding procrastination predicament. [It’s just too darn hard!] I have an idea in my mind but then my fiance, who is a bit more stubborn, shoots it down. I want to do a somewhat traditional, old south theme, but he does not. I came up with a few more but we just could not find something to agree on. With any relationship, agreeing on something is hard enough, but add the stress of the wedding? Argument central. However, just putting off the topic at hand is not a good solution either. So to avoid a fight and still get this done in a timely matter, we are going to sit down and customize our own theme, with aspects of the traditional southern idea that I love and a more modern feel for him. Check and Mate friends!
2. Giftbags. Something that should be really fun and creative is turning out to be one of the biggest things I procrastinate on. People outside of the wedding planning realm have NO idea how much work goes into gifts for guests and goody bags. A wedding is one of the biggest days of your lives and you want to show that you appreciate everyone for coming [in my case, for flying, getting a hotel, renting a car], but you also don’t want to blow your WHOLE budget on just the bags. After doing some brief Google searches, I can easily see how some brides can spend upwards of 10,000 on gift bags for their guests! As much as I LOVE my guests, I just can’t be forking over that kind of dough for these bags. The inital price tag is what pushed this duty far off my radar. So to tackle the gift bag assembling and stay within budget, I’m going to harness my inner Martha [and seek help from my loving and dedicated bridesmaids] and make some of the gifts from scratch [see my previous post on DIY weddings to get a sneak peek of what else I plan on making!] That way I’ll save money and will have a way to keep busy and occupied on the task at hand.
3. Honeymoon. With 345 days until the wedding, the honeymoon is not high on my priority list [as it shouldn’t be]. But with our plans including out of country travel, I might need to stop putting that off [or leaving it to El] and bump it to a bit higher on my forever long to-do list. Planning an out of country honeymoon has a lot of components and in order to get the best price, we need to book sooner rather than later. What makes this so easy to procrastinate is that the date is not as steadfast as our wedding. However, to get the best rate, best flights and ensure we have everything we need for a two-week getaway, we need to start making some plans soon. So, to make sure we don’t end up staying in hostels on our honeymoon, I am going to create a “honeymoon to do list” that includes all of the necessary components. I’m also going to start talking with a travel agent to figure the best deals, when to book and what kind of packages are geared towards newlyweds.
So wish me luck in kicking my nasty procrastination habit to the curb as I continue on my wedding planning!
