Salty Mom Soaps is not only having a line of salt bars, but also has some salty names! I love the ocean, it heals my soul! I love and try to live by the saying “The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.” That being said, it has been challenging for me changing careers and being my own boss.
Rewind real quick, my former job/career was being a case manager in substance abuse. Daily I encouraged people to do what needed to be done in order to help them in their recovery, whether it be during an individual session or a group I was teaching. I had friends, co-workers and family come to me asking for encouragement or suggestions on what to do. My favorite groups to run were experiential and one had to use coping skills to get through them. My favorite was the minefield, which one of my client’s renamed Mindfield. I became so driven by helping others, and less interested in helping myself.
Now fast forward to this career change. I have to set my hours, figure out how to brand, market and develop a website. All these things are difficult. All these things are outside my scope of what I know. All these things make me feel overwhelmed and like I’m going to fail. All these things can be put on the back burner because I only have myself to look to and to get written up by and I’m not about to do that! I listen to podcasts, read inspirational quotes, read books, yet nothing can get me outta my own head and into my work. My favorite parts about this career change are making the soap and going to events. It takes a lot of discipline to stay focused, and focus is not my strong suite. In fact I’m listening to music right now to help concentrate and stay focused. For me, and maybe you, the little voice of self-doubt starts to become louder and louder. I know all the things I should do to help myself, I’ve taught it for the past 5 years to adults. I’ve made up groups and worksheet on how to cope with negativity, but I’ve allowed this negativity to take over. I’ve done the crying, the sweating and the ocean water but this time I needed more.
How did I get to what this “more” is? Well let me tell you about a good former co-worker of mine. There would be days that just rock you to your core. It could be someone you work with, someone you work for, an outcome that broke your heart or overall frustration. Either way my friend would come to my office, and usually it would be a Saturday when there weren’t a lot of staff in the building and the clients were out at the beach or had their phones. He would come to my office and we would have a dance party. Well he would dance and I would laugh my ass off as I blasted the song. It wasn’t the dancing, but the song we listened to. The other day he popped up on my Facebook and was in my thoughts. Also I got lost in Youtube watching lip sync battle. The song we would blast in my office was one of the songs performed. It got me thinking a little clearer for a moment, and sometimes all it takes is a moment. I remembered all the times we would blast it and how happy it would make me feel, but also realized that sometimes you need to blast it and sing it to yourself. To that negative, judgmental, no good, beach inside your own head. Tell those thoughts and that negative feeling that you have no time to waste on it today and just for today, you are not going to believe it. You are going to remind yourself out loud what a strong, engaging, determined and courageous person you actually are. That no matter what thoughts are swimming around in there, that you will persist and you will move on stronger than ever.
Along with having this song as my anthem for the week, maybe even month, I have started journaling again. For now I am only writing positive affirmations because if I allow myself more time to journal, I will get sucked into the negativity and lose track of what I’m doing and where I am heading. Also, for me, if I tell myself to journal daily, it just won’t happen. Baby steps. Write down the affirmations and say them as loud as you can to yourself. Heck if you feel up to it, look yourself in the mirror and say them. Quite literally I had to look in the mirror and tell those negative thoughts swimming around in my head…”I don’t F*ck with you!” This is the song that we would blast and is my anthem to those negative thoughts, “I don’t f*ck with you,” by Big Sean. Definitely NOT a song to be played around kids! If you love Youtube and don’t care about cursing, look up “fist fight” and “I don’t f*ck with you.” It gets me laughing every time! Now go find your anthem and let it rip!