Sonya's Patates Braavos: Edition #18 💌🥔

TLDR: exhaustion, meal prep, coaching

welcome note 👋 

Hello, brave patates. 🥔 You ever just feel… exhausted? Sure, it’s fun to go out and see friends. Sure, it’s good for you to socialize. But we all have differently sized batteries and mine is feeling empty. After a particularly gruelling 2 hour call with my grandma, my emotional capacity tank is at a negative. And then I wonder if I’m just tired, or feeling depressed because I don’t want to do anything, even watch TV. I guess we all need a moment to feel sorry for ourselves sometimes. Well, this is your permission. It’s better to embrace it than stifle it. Emotions have a tendency to stick around in our bodies.

cool things corner

Watch: AnotherSelf is an emotional Turkish drama about generational trauma. Through connecting with ancestors and seeing what they went through, three lead women confront their own cycles of unhealthy behaviours and patterns, that stem from unresolved issues in the bloodlines. Highly recommend if you are interested in spirituality, psychology, or just really well-made TV.

Eat: Meal Prep Ottawa is an awesome local business that delivers macro-friendly healthy meals right to your door AND for a good price. Breakfast is from $9.99 to $11.99 per meal while a 5-meal kit is $71, which is only $14 per meal! Last week I tried the “clean & mean” kit and enjoyed a well-seasoned variety of meat, fish, and poultry coupled with veggies and carbs like potatoes. My favourite was tomato & mint-pulled beef. I also got protein cold brew and a “munchies” flavoured protein shake and they were delicious. This week, I’m trying the keto meal kit. These services are a godsend, whether you just don’t wanna do groceries and cook, are too busy with work, or feel really down. I often feel a weird pressure to do everything on my own but why not use the tools at our disposal? Why not take the shortcuts and make our lives easier? Struggle does not mean a higher self-worth. I want to prioritize a calm nervous system instead of setting unrealistic expectations.

Health: this week I got back into yoga with Adriene (whose in-person event I’m attending in Toronto on July 7th!), and stretching on my own. I even did it when I didn’t feel like it and that’s when it helped the most.

Find your tribe: I found a local Jewish group on Facebook and shared this photo and felt an incredible amount of support from the likes and comments. I even made a new friend - we look very alike and have the exact same background. It’s easy to feel isolated in today’s world, especially with a loud minority and extreme opinions, but there are positives to the internet too. Just like with anything, there is an audience and your people, and a market for everything.

Work-wise, I have begun the third year of a big Telfer project that I do every summer, interviewing successful alumni. I am continuing my work with a local B2B graphic design agency, doing SEO copywriting for a nursing clinic, a weight loss clinic in the states, a local windows & doors company, and writing & editing for Allied Voices for Israel, amongst other things. I’m posting on LinkedIn and frequently thinking about additional self-promotion and updating my website, for the purpose of finding new, good, ethical clients for copywriting & content writing services.

Alongside my business, I’m continuing my Exponential Coaching studies, with a rigorous structured weekly schedule and additional practices. Last week, in a 10-minute session with my buddies, I helped a 30-something Russian man understand he was projecting his feelings onto his wife, which was a big insight for him, and something he didn’t realize before. He realized it himself, I just held the space for him and helped guide him there. This is the impact of this work, that supports the client in emotional self-reflection. The biggest thing is the client has to be open-minded to change. Because a lot of things come from within. And that’s a difficult truth for people to be confronted with. It’s often easier to blame others, stifle our feelings and want them to go away, than to actively dig into the uncomfortable, into the fears, and deal with it.

If you got this far, thanks for reading ❤️ cooked something yummy? lmk. went to a cool event or read a fun book? lmk. see you on the flip side 🥔