This is my usual appointment to try to keep consistent with my blogging and commit to writing at least once a month to check up on myself and see how good/bad I did over the month that has just gone. To check up the June update check here. I would strongly recommend this activity because it’s important to be your best cheerledeer and accountability buddy. As queen of investment Tori Dunlap said “A lot of people think that selfcare is bubble baths and a glass of wine but if you don’t deal with the hard questions in your life, you’ll always be unhealthy!”.
External validation is no validation!
You’re too pretty podacast
All right, then! Let’s get started. After a sluggish month at work in June, mostly due to impostor syndrome and low confidence in my skills and knowledge, I decided to take a couple of days off from work and reset. It was a great decision. The last 4 weeks in the lab have been a killer. I was very focused and did my 100% best. After months and months of working on a synthesis, I finally managed to crack the most difficult step. Yoohoo! 🥳 Research is such a tough job and it’s very normal to have periods of time when your motivation is low and days when you go all in! A job is a job and, as it is for life, you learn how to accept the good and the bad. A research job when you have good results every day does not exist. It’s daydreaming. Sorry not sorry for the unpopular opinion!
A job where they pay you the big bucks to work 6h/d, you love all your work colleagues and make no mistakes does not exist!
My own, welcome to reality!
Outside work, I started changing my nutrition and exercise routine. After listening to the podcast episodes of Dr Hannah Roberts “Life with the echoes” (of your mothers) and “The rise of superwoman”, I just realised that I was trying to fit the idea of having it all together. The 9/5 type of job was created for men whose wifes stayed at home doing all the chores. As a woman in full-time employment, it became clear to me that trying to be productive at work while being the queen of the house was leading me to the edge of burnout. Back in January, I moved from cooking every day to batch cooking on Sunday night. Now, I get stressed even to cook once a week on Sunday night. Why do I have to take time from my summer weekends to cook? I decided to just buy 5 portions of soup for every day of the week and have it for lunch. 5£/w, a healthy option, keeping up with my 5 a day and absolutely no fuss outside putting it in the microwave. Game changer!!
A sustainable lifestyle isn’t only plastic-free and all natural crap, make sure that it’s also mentally and physically sustainable.
My own, bye bye patriarchy!
To my susprise, having a light lunch seriously boosted my level of energy. I feel way better than ever before, more energetic and I also reduced my dose of daily caffeine because I don’t get sleepy! I would have never guessed. As for many other people, the lockdown had a serious impact on my mental and physical wellbeing. I’m slightly recovering mentally thanks to my new medications, but my physical health has been a struggle for over a year.
I lack the motivation to get out from the sofa!
My own!
Honestly, keeping up with my exercise routine has been very difficult. I haven’t set foot in a gym since March 2020. I’m now in that state of mind of choosing the sofa over the running trainers any time it comes to work out time. I feel terrible 😬. I’m not sure if this is a bit of the side effect of the summer and wanting to enjoy and have fun after a dreadful winter at home in lockdown! I hope to get back on track this fall when I’ll sign up to the gym again to cope with the gloomy weather.
Lastly, just because I called this article plastic free July, I renewed my commitment to refuse single-use plastic and unsubscribe from consumerism and capitalism. I wrote many articles in the past so please check my old ones on plastic free items and sustainable living. I started doing plastic free July since 2018 and I’ve been doing it every year since. Sustainable living is a lifestyle and, as for anything in life, implementing changes takes time and commitment. It takes time to go to a farm shop or buy at the local market on weekends. In fact, it’s much easier to just go to the grocery store and put all you need in a trolley. It takes strong will to adapt your wardrobe to second-hand shopping instead of relying on fast fashion. You won’t find all the sizes, that particular colour or a specific brand! It takes space in your bag to bring a resusable water bottle and coffee mug. And it’s also a lot heavier to carry!
The best thing I did this month was to have my lovely and adorable white blazer professional cleaned. Honestly, I bought it for 25£ at 75% discount from Zara when I started my new job last year. It was so cheap that I could have just put it in the bin and buy a new one, like many people do when items go out of season of have stains. Instead, I decided to give it a new life and keep using it as long as it lasts! Same for my new leather bag, I was looking for a professional bag but I didn’t want to go bankrupt to buy a durable and long-lasting item. Then, I went to my first kilo sale in Canterbury and found the bag of my dreams just by chance. It was love at first sight 😍, I’ll wear it forever and ever! And it was only 25£
See you next month! Ciao
Teresa Ambrosio Consulting 