Make Your Damn Bed

The act of returning home after spending a decade 1,100 miles away is a daunting one. There are direct contradictions to the way I feel at nearly every turn. Learning to bend with them has been a process but I am starting to realize, that's the whole damn point.

The.Ashfiles Original Video: https://www.tiktok.com/@the.ashfiles/video/7396990066129784069

The Cut Advice Column: https://www.thecut.com/2016/11/ask-polly-i-moved-back-home-and-im-miserable.html

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Read Julie's Medium Blog.

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There’s something freeing about realizing it’s time to let go. 

Life’s cycles sometimes match with my own, and things feel serendipitous and “meant to be” but more often than not, life cycles move faster than my own + I’m forced to play catch up on changes and news that I wasn’t just unprepared for, but in denial about. But things do happen. Life surprises you. And no matter how much you resist that reality, it doesn’t change it. I think life is a little bit fate and a little bit chaos. Like an improvised dance. Some steps may surprise you and others may feel like second nature, once you learn to stop resisting the unpredictability of it. 

Because the steps are not meant to become more predictable to us, we’re just supposed to get better at flowing with it. Of learning as we go. Of learning how to let go when there is a mis-step and to have faith that the dancing will get more fun and beautiful as we continue.

But just because we stop cold in the middle of the dance, doesn’t mean the dancing stops. You can take a break, get a water, and become a wallflower if you want, but the real power comes from stepping back into the chaos and embracing the next moves with as much enthusiasm and joy as possible. 

Because even if you choose to “hate dancing” and “sit this one out” life will eventually sweep you off your feet, and it’ll feel a lot more comfortable and enjoyable if you know how to confidently take a step or two for yourself, once in a while. 

Learning a new way to dance in a new environment is not just possible, it can actually be enjoyable if I stop worrying about what I look like, or what the song was supposed to sound like, and instead I focus on finding my own rhythm within the flow that’s currently taking place. 

I think I’ve spent a long time waiting for a more familiar song to play, so I can dance with confidence, but the longer I wait, the more resistant I get. If I can learn to jump in and “figure it out”, then the unfamiliar becomes familiar and the newness I feared is no longer new, and the resistance loses its power. 

It feels counterintuitive, but sometimes the thing you’re resisting is the resistance itself. Once you stand up and listen to the music that’s playing, you may find yourself actually enjoying the process of finding your place within it. 

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Read Julie's Medium Blog.

Support JULIE (and the show!)

Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.

Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.com

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Absurdism claims that existence, as a whole, is absurd and although objective meaning does not exist, it doesn't mean we can't find + create our own. We're allowed to change our minds + reflect at any time, because the only meaning that matters, is the meaning we decide matters.

RESOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism#:~:text=Absurdism%20is%20the%20philosophical%20theory,a%20conflict%20with%20the%20world.

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Read Julie's Medium Blog.

Support JULIE (and the show!)

Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.

Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.com

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Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed.

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personal rant about my current state. moving has made me realize how stagnant I really was.

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Read Julie's Medium Blog.

Support JULIE (and the show!)

Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.

Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.com

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People are in denial, because admitting we may need to become a part of the change is scary. Resistance is a common response to accountability. People will jump through mental hurdles to avoid admitting there may be a new physical one. That said, knowing better and doing better are two very different beasts.

RESOURCES: https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/debunking-misinformation 

https://medium.com/@bellacaledonia/diagonalism-the-cosmic-right-and-the-conspiracy-smoothie-d827b1650e39 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-forensic-view/202408/conspiracies-in-mind

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Read Julie's Medium Blog.

Support JULIE (and the show!)

Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.

Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.com

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conspiracies are all fun and games until they scapegoat entire groups of humans and cause real world harm. today, we're digging into the reality of conspiracy theories + what makes someone take a conspiracy too far.

RESOURCES: https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/conspiracy-theories-are-dangerous-even-if-very-few-people-believe-them 

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conspiracy%20theory https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/coronavirus-response/fighting-disinformation/identifying-conspiracy-theories_en

https://newhampshirebulletin.com/2024/05/08/how-to-tell-if-a-conspiracy-theory-is-probably-false/

https://newhampshirebulletin.com/2024/05/08/how-to-tell-if-a-conspiracy-theory-is-probably-false/ 

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Read Julie's Medium Blog.

Support JULIE (and the show!)

Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.

Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.com

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so, here are some ways to take it a little less seriously.

RESOURCE: https://medium.com/@lukaboenisch/dont-take-life-so-seriously-it-doesn-t-take-you-seriously-either-613fb1bef264

https://medium.com/@valuable_mindaro_jellyfish_659/14-things-that-make-games-fun-to-apply-to-gamify-life-06557a1bd722

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Read Julie's Medium Blog.

Support JULIE (and the show!)

Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.

Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.com

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Our microbiome has a direct impact on our mental health, and the science is growing to support this. The more diverse our diet + microbiome, the healthier we are as we age.

RESOURCE: https://www.brainfacts.org/thinking-sensing-and-behaving/diet-and-lifestyle/2024/the-growing-link-between-microbes-mood-and-mental-health-062724

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Read Julie's Medium Blog.

Support JULIE (and the show!)

Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.

Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.com

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Today we're talking about Vivien Burr's book: Social Constructionism. The key ideas are: language impacts our reality, our history + culture + social hierarchy impacts our language, and we should be critical of everything we consider "true" because of this socialization. We put everything in a box to better understand it, but sometimes it can be helpful to throw that box away + consider things outside of them.

Resource: https://medium.com/@reading_group/unlocking-the-foundations-of-understanding-a-summary-of-an-introduction-to-social-40bbaffb4edb

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316052889_Social_Constructionism

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Read Julie's Medium Blog.

Support JULIE (and the show!)

Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.

Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.com

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Hope is one of the more valuable practices, but I often forget it's a practice + kinda just wait for it to hit, instead. Today we're discussing some thoughts about hope before diving into some actionable items on how to create + nurture more of it in your life.

RESOURCES:

https://news.asu.edu/20210615-solutions-science-hope-more-wishful-thinking

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/making-hope-happen/201304/looking-hope

https://thefemalegaze.org/2019/02/12/light-in-the-dark-staying-hopeful-in-a-dystopian-mediascape/#:~:text=We%20need%20to%20respond%20by,to%20actively%20find%20better%20content.

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Read Julie's Medium Blog.

Support JULIE (and the show!)

Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.

Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.com

Tune in on INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBE or TIKTOK

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.