Returning to Yourself with Ariana

Ariana discusses five ways to return to yourself and your creativity that helped her  after moving through a period of overwhelm, loss and imbalance.   

In this episode, Ariana’s starting point of conversation is the importance of recognizing when you need to take a step back and take care of yourself.

Transcript

SPEAKER - Ariana Sanchez

INTRO - 0:00

The one thing that I've learned the most, in the past month and a half, is really how do you want to be remembered? 

0:07

This is And You Will Dance.  I'm your host, Ariana.

0:22

Hey, everybody, and I am here and I am back. It's been a good shoot like, a month and a half to two-ish months to four months since I last uploaded an episode. And as I had mentioned before, on social media I had planned to take, since the last episode aired with Emily, I had planned to take a scheduled like two, two and a half, three ish weeks off, because I had planned things with my family, and I knew I wasn't gonna be as active at home, as well as on social media for that reason. And then it turned into it turned into a month long, May of silence and it kind of spilled into June as I am coming back into being active on this platform, on this podcast, and just in my life in general. 

1:22

In May, actually, on Mother's Day, I and my family suffered a loss in our family, and it was one of those, I'm not saying like one loss is greater than the other. But sometimes I just feel like when it's somebody who's young, and it is very unexpected, it just kind of like hits you and gets you more than I don't know, it just kind of like more than an anticipated loss. Whereas like, if someone's sick, you kind of expecting them to, you know, leave at some point, but when it's somebody that is young, that seemingly had a whole bright life ahead of them, and to just be told one morning that they're no longer here, I feel like that. That's something that not a lot of people and nobody ever will ever get used to. And and for me, I've - well, one I had to, I had to recognize at that point that I needed time for myself or to process my feelings and to be like with my family, specifically my cousin at the time. And and it really just like, really makes you think about life, where you're at in your, in your, in that current point in time in your life, and where where you want to be where you want to go. And you kind of just like look at all the things that you worried about, stressed about, and then you realize like not a lot of it is worth the stress for.  Not a lot of, I guess things that have timed out in your life, for example, like relationships, like worrying about, "Oh my gosh, why didn't this person ever say this to me?" or "Why did they walk away the way they did?" or "How come we're not friends anymore?" "How come this person broke up with me?" and you realize like, none of it matters because at a certain point like the cards are dealt the way they're dealt, and you really just have to roll with it and kind of just work on your responses to them. And I think for me at that time, not only was I stressed about really miniscule things, and kind of superficial things, and then being kind of hit with that type of getting hit with that type of jolt and realization of reality, how we can really, really be taken instantly in an instant and anything that you had left on the table could be taken and swiped off in a second, in an instant. Really, really makes you think about what exactly it is that you are working for what exactly it is that you just want in your life; what it is that you want in your life, who you want in your life and all the things that you don't. So So yeah, like, I guess the month of May, I was just taking that time very slowly. I really wasn't on social media that much because I realized how little it mattered to me. I guess at that point And how, you know, I just really needed to be present with myself and the things that I was feeling and the things that I was questioning and thinking about after, after the passing. 

5:13

And, and I, and I feel better because I am, I know that when stuff like this and life happens like you can, you are more than welcome to feel all the feelings that you feel there's nothing, there's nothing that will make you 100%, you can't get over something like that, you know, you just kind of learn to move with it. And I know that, like, I have to keep going forward with what I've learned in this moment and this point in time, and apply it to my life and what I what I just want to be working on going forward. 

6:00

So kind of brings me to talking about what I really wanted to talk about in this episode was like, kind of coming back to yourself, or how to come back to yourself creatively and overcoming these types of blocks in your creativity. And I'm not talking about like, you know, just creativity blocks. But these could also just be like mental blocks in general, I was actually inspired by everybody that knows me, well knows that I love my planner. And at the back. At the back of my planner, I have this planner, by the Day Designer, and a is a line that they did an a collaboration that they did with every girl, every girl calm. And in the back of the planner, there is a section that just says resources. And I had looked at I think a couple pages before like when I started using it. But the past few weeks, I was actually flipping through it. And I saw this one that was titled How to reach your personal goals. And it's like a list of 11. 

7:17

And it kind of got me to think about how I in this time in my life was approaching my, my block my creative block or like my block was myself and how, what was helping me navigate around that. So I have a list of five things that worked for me or what helped me navigate

This time. And so the first one is, I think the most important one, is recognizing that you need to take time for yourself. What that means is, you know, I had that time where I was

Really giving myself a hard time because I wasn't producing something or it wasn't like, I felt like I wasn't moving and I felt that I had more momentum to begin with. But the reason why I wasn't having the momentum is because I was feeling a deep sense of burnout, and a deep sense of like, I guess like disappointment in myself because I kept wanting to move and I kept wanting to do things but I was so tired, like not getting enough sleep.

Not sticking to like my schedule. Not - 

8:35

What's another one?

8:39

Overthinking that was a huge one. But so before that, like I said before that I had already planned on taking a scheduled break. And then when I was planning on coming back loss happened. And when that happened, I felt completely completely depleted of energy and like mental space. And then as that happened that day or that night, I remember telling myself, okay, you can't do this right now. You have to give yourself time. And so what that allows me to do or what that allowed me to do is that really allowed me to recognize what I was going through and recognize what I wanted to do when I come back into myself.

9:28

And just give me time so that way when I came back I can deliver, if not fully, deliver to a standard that I had for myself and I wouldn't feel as terrible.

Second that I had written is: change up your scenery.  That could be anywhere between cleaning your space or finding another creative space or just a space to be yourself at I feel like I - I weighed I weighed myself, or that's not the right way to put it.

10:08

I feel like I, I leaned on my close friends and in spaces that I, I felt comfortable in. During this time like my room, if I had cleaned it more, I had cleaned up more, and made my chair, my comfy chair like more available for me to just sit and relax in, that would have helped me - going to see friends, hanging out with my family, going to the beach, going on drives (like going on drives to a certain area that gives you peace). I know one of my one of my places that I love and I feel like it gives me peace is Barnes and Noble because I love the smell of books. It's so calming and quiet in there. And I feel like I can just like freely think and talk to myself in a Barnes and Noble. But that's another one. 

11:01

Set creativity time is the next one - number three.  Set your creativity time. It is sometimes hard to stick with a schedule - "sick", to stick with a schedule. But in instances like these where you do want to set aside time to be productive in this way, it's probably best to set some time like a "10 minute timer to write", a "10 minute timer to read" and that is something that I did a lot more of, in this time - I, for 10 to 15 minutes a day, I would read off of my Kindle, which I love,

11:40

But I would also read in the morning when I woke up for about (I guess it doesn't sound like a lot, but-) five to six minutes on a book on self development. And it's five to six minutes doesn't sound like a lot. But when you're reading from a book, right now I'm reading "Atomic Habits" by James Clear. When you're reading from a book that focuses solely on self development, it really does set the tone of your mindset, especially at the start of your day. And it really, I guess, moves your - moves your mind into the right direction of where you want to go. Same way if you are a content creator, or if you're just a creator, in general, you want to set aside time for your work. Find a place where you can just sit edit, go to a coffee shop where you can sit and write. But as long as you have that time block of creativity to fill yourself in that way, it's there and you and if you stay according to that time, whether that be on a timer, whether you give yourself a time block of an hour, two hours of a day, you will get something done in that time, if you just stick with it.

12:57

This one,

I wrote this one down: number four, keep yourself on a strict social media scrolling limit that, that I think was my saving grace. I had mentioned that I was not on social media that much I was on it. But I am telling you, I would probably be on it max like Max 10 minutes a day if that. Because it's just - it's such a distraction, and you don't want you don't want to interrupt your flow. And then especially if you're a creator, you can only scroll so much to the point where you start to comparing yourself you start to compare yourself, there's nothing wrong with looking at other things for inspiration, people in your same market look at them for inspiration, but it can quickly very quickly turn into I'm not doing what I should be doing and oh my goodness, my stuff doesn't look like this, or oh my goodness, my product is not doing as well as this person.  I can't talk - 

13:58

my product isn't doing as well as this person's product. What am I doing wrong? It's just it could be a rabbit hole of problems. So I would say keep yourself on a strict social media scrolling limit. So that way that that doesn't happen to you and then you can resume being completely like available for other things and not just scrolling on social media. And the last one, and I think is one of the more most important ones is number five, don't forget why you started so I tell myself this a lot with a lot of things that I do, whether that be like in my work, whether that being the things that I'm doing outside of my work, this podcast, this you know, studying, trading, studying, investing in, you know, my retirement account and all this stuff like it gets so overwhelming, so overwhelming. So when you really think about all the things that require, that are required to excel in each field, right in each category of my life, it gets so overwhelming. And it's really easy to submerge in the dam, this is so much for my head, I have a headache, I would just rather go to my room, sit on my bed, read a book for two hours and not think about any of this, it's so easy to do that. And I know that that's not the way to go. In order to be great at something, you got to start, just to have the chance to be great. I read that somewhere or something along those lines. And I saw that and I'm like, Oh, stop yelling at me. That's like, I know, I know. And we all know that right? But what separates people from doing those great things are the people that actually stick with them and actually try so every, every time that I even think about like, you know, I'm just gonna throw this to the side, forget this, I can't do this anymore. I think about that. And I know that there's a reason there's always a reason to stick with and hold on to something as good as it makes you feel. If it if it'll get you to somewhere that you want to go. Like, don't forget that hold on to it, work on it a little bit every day, will go a long way.

16:29

And that is what I'm telling myself every day. And hopefully, all of you have a system in place already that you can work off of and do a little bit of work on every single day. Because one thing that is super evident in that "Atomic Habits" book that I'm reading about, is breaking down your goals into small pieces. So that way they seem not what not that they seem more attainable. But if you break them down smaller, you'll make a 1% increase in progress every day. So if you have something that you want, you want to work towards, if you know, increasing your audience by 25% seems so crazy, at one point or losing 20 pounds seems so crazy at one point, break that down into smaller goals, smaller figures, and work on it every single day, whether that be increasing your water intake, or showing up on your social media more and engaging with people on you know, Facebook, on Clubhouse and showing your face more in just a little bit of something every day. If it gets you closer to where you want to go and it doesn't pull you back, like you're going in the right direction. So

think about - 

18:00

how you want to attack the next thing that you want, how you want to show up for yourself, how you want to how you want to like attack this goal. All in all, just how you want to attack this goal. But most importantly, I think think about how you want to be remembered what it is that you are making in your life that you're creating in your life. How that will help the next person and how that will continue to your legacy.

Think about that.

18:42

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of And You Will Dance. I am so ready to drop the episodes that I have had in my back pocket from last month that I had recorded with two of the nicest and the most cool people I've met and had the pleasure of speaking wit - that is coming in this month of July and why not drop two of my favorite conversations this month, my birthday month.

19:14

See you guys later, bye!