The Other Side of Nice

Tag: mental-health

  • Choosing the right people

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    loriday1974
    in

    I’m an avid listener of the Mel Robbins podcast, so when I saw an episode last fall about the 80-year Harvard study on what makes a good life, I was excited to listen. A couple years back, my youngest had just gone off to college and was taking a sociology course. One night, she told…

  • You Don’t Need to Become Someone New

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    loriday1974
    in

    Every January, for most of my life, I made the same New Year’s Eve promises: This year I’ll lose weight. Spend less money. Get myself to work on time (when my kids were little—lol).And every December, I’d find myself wondering where the year went and what happened to all that motivation. We’re told that when…

  • Why I chose to stop drinking in a world that doesn’t know how to stop

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    loriday1974
    in

    I chose to stop drinking regularly two years ago.  When I say that, I’m not claiming to be on a sober journey and no, I don’t have a problem with alcohol.  I just noticed weekend after weekend of going without it, I was happier, I was sleeping better, and I had some spare change in…

  • Hi, my name is Lori and I “add to cart” for sport

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    loriday1974
    in

    How many times have you told yourself this holiday season, “I’m not going overboard this year” or “I’m all done shopping,” only to walk into a store and magically find more things someone in your life would “love”? My husband says if our Amazon driver misses a day, he’s going to file a wellness check.Honestly?…

  • Boundaries without guilt

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    loriday1974
    in

    In a recent post, I spoke about how I slowly started realizing my worth.   The word boundaries always felt heavy and selfish to me. My belief was simple: if I loved someone, I had to prove it by giving them everything—my time, my energy, my peace. Saying no felt like letting them down and…

  • Divine timing and the quiet work of souls

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    loriday1974
    in

    It’s a small world!We’ve all said it. We’ve all heard it. That moment when you meet someone who knows your cousin’s best friend’s sister — even though they grew up hours away — and you just kind of laugh and shake your head like, How is that even possible? But the older I get, the…

  • If you want a village, you have to be a villager

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    loriday1974
    in

    We’ve all heard the saying “it takes a village.” Usually, it’s in reference to raising children — but honestly, it applies to almost every stage of life. We all crave connection, support, and a sense of belonging. I’ll be honest: I’m an introvert. I do love people when the time is right, but being social…

  • Rewriting my inner voice

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    loriday1974
    in

    If there’s one voice that’s followed me through every stage of life, it’s the one inside my head: the critic. You know the one, the voice that whispers you’re not enough, you should’ve done better, they’re upset because of you. For far too many years, I listened to that voice without question because I thought…

  • Making peace with my past

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    loriday1974
    in

    I’ve lost count of the years I carried the weight of my past mistakes like a heavy coat I couldn’t take off. Exhausting! Every wrong choice, every argument, or every time I fell short was a reminder that I wasn’t enough. I used to think that if I could just fix the present, I could…

  • How I finally learned my worth

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    loriday1974
    in

    Photo credit: Jordyn Day It took me far longer than I care to admit to finally like who I am and celebrate my worth.  It wasn’t until I was in my very late 30’s that I started to see that I was a good person who deserved to be happy. Codependency taught me to look…

  • World mental health day – why awareness matters

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    loriday1974
    in

    October 10th is World Mental Health Day, and for me, in recent years, it lands like a gentle nudge. A reminder to stop, breathe, and ask myself: how am I, really? This day reminds me that mental health isn’t something “other people” deal with. It’s all of us. It’s me. It’s you. It’s the quiet…

  • The power of positivity: How shifting my self-talk changed everything

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    loriday1974
    in

    There’s a period of my life I look back on now and actually chuckle. My friend Ali and I used to have what we called our “bitching sessions.” We’d either get together or email (yes, we’re ancient) and pour out everything that was wrong in our lives, feeding off each other’s frustrations. At the time,…

  • You don’t have to drink to need a 12-step program

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    loriday1974
    in

    When most people hear the words 12-step program, their minds immediately jump to Alcoholics Anonymous. To be fair, that was always my assumption too. I never dreamed it would be something I would benefit from. The reality is, there are 12-step programs for codependency, and they speak to your struggles just as powerfully as they…

  • The voice that changed the room

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    loriday1974
    in

    Some words live rent-free in your mind; not because they’re dramatic or loud, but because they arrived exactly when you needed them. I’ve always been anxious and terribly self-conscious. (I’ll share more about how I learned my worth in a future post.) I think this ties into everything I’ve written about so far: our life…

  • Breaking generational curses – even now with my grown children

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    loriday1974
    in

    “I will never treat my children like that!” I used to mutter those words to my parents often, especially in my teen years. It was my small rebellion, my private promise to myself that I would do better—even if I didn’t know yet what “better” looked like. For a long time, I believed healing had…

  • Letting go when the nest finally empties

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    loriday1974
    in

    This post might not be original because I know many parents have shared similar stories about the empty nest when kids go off to college or university, but here’s my perspective. Even though it’s a common experience, the feelings are still deeply personal each time a parent goes through it. From the time my children…

  • The hardest boundary I’ve ever had to keep (and why I still struggle with it)

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    loriday1974
    in

    Over the years, I’ve learned how to set boundaries. It used to feel impossible but with the help of therapy, a few tears, and trial-by-fire, I have learned how to say no. There’s one boundary that still knocks the wind out of me. One that I have to recommit to daily, sometimes hourly: Not rescuing…

  • Letting go of resentment

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    loriday1974
    in

    Photo Credit: Jordyn Day Resentment is one of those quiet weights we carry without realizing it. We don’t always realize how intricately it has woven itself into our thoughts, actions, and relationships until the moment we try to embark on releasing it. Resentment is not what I ever would have imagined; for me, it wasn’t…

  • Being kind doesn’t mean being a doormat

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    loriday1974
    in

    There’s this perception that a kind person is one who always says yes.Or at least that was my perception for a long time. I thought that if I said no to extra work, invitations, favors, or anything that made me uncomfortable, I’d be viewed as difficult; maybe even bitchy, and for someone like me —…

  • Burnout isn’t always obvious

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    loriday1974
    in

    Burnout means something different to all of us. Maybe it looks like lying on the floor, unable to move, crying in the bathroom at work or not being able to get out of bed. The thing is, yes, it can absolutely look like all of that, personally I’ve learned that sometimes burnout is sneakier. Sometimes…