I am the luckiest girl in the world

I keep writing and deleting and leaving drafts on my site but I don’t want to write just to write. I’m not gonna lie, I’ve been feeling pretty uninspired lately and it’s hard because I’m naturally a very negative person. I find that it’s just easier to complain and find something wrong with things or situations because that protects my feelings and grounds my expectations. If I don’t expect anything great to happen then I’m probably not attracting great things to happen. I used to think that kind of mentality was absolute bullshit but “I saw this thing on TikTok” (lol) about lucky girl syndrome. You basically manifest good things to happen to you by saying things like “I’m the luckiest girl in the world” and then lucky things happen to you. Sounds crazy and unrealistic but somehow it’s not.

When I first saw this trend, I thought it was just another trend that was going to fizzle as quickly as it began, but I swear it has changed my life. Once upon a time, I was almost kicked off my college tennis team because I was so negative. Granted, I was going through it in college and when it was when I first realized I had depression, but nonetheless, my coach (and great friend) could not have a toxic virus on the team. I had saved exactly zero dollars and zero cents, so losing my scholarship was just not an option. I wish I had discovered lucky girl syndrome back then because that would have saved me a lot of trouble! I went to work the day after I had seen lucky girl syndrome videos and I said my manifestations:

“I am the luckiest girl in the world.”

“Everything goes my way.”

“Everyone comes to me when they have questions or a problem.”

“My coworkers respect my opinion in my subject of expertise”

Things like that. I logged into my machine and looked at my calendar and was so annoyed that I had a full back to back day of meetings, in some slots double or triple booked. Let me tell you, there is absolutely nooooo reason for me to ever be double or triple booked. I felt myself complaining and decided to take a deep breath and say my manifestations again in my mind. Obviously, it’s not like magic and good things didn’t happen instantly but throughout the morning, meetings started to fall off the calendar and each time I would say jokingly “wow, I’m the luckiest girl in the world. Everything goes my way”.

I think at first it started as a joke and me making fun of it but secretly hoping that it would work. It was working. I found that the more I looked for these “lucky” moments, the more I found them. And it’s not like they were randomly happening to me, I think it was more that I started to create them. It was so strange for me to feel so positive and happy all the time.

A lot of you probably know that I struggle with anxiety because I’ve talked pretty openly about it before. What I haven’t really shared, is that for the better part of last year, it has gotten much worse and became very hard for me to manage. Despite mental health being a more open topic these days, I didn’t want people to see me as being weak or as someone that was making excuses for their behavior and actions. Also, I feel like I am a sounding board for a lot of my friends and colleagues and how could I make them feel better about their problems if they knew about mine. It was like my little secret and I thought I could deal with it on my own.

Things didn’t get better on their own, obviously. In fact, they kept getting worse. I found myself declining plans all the time and struggling to leave my apartment at all on the weekends. My social battery was so drained at the end of every in person interaction and I felt so lost and exhausted. It was awful but I was so stubborn and did not want help from anyone else.

I started to realize that I needed to do something to break myself out of this, especially if I wasn’t going to let other people help me. My friends had a wedding in Spain but most of our circle of friends couldn’t make it. Never in a million years would I go to a social event alone, much less a wedding in a different country, but I did it. I think that wedding was the start of me taking control of my life again. I put myself miles outside of my comfort zone, literally thousands of physical miles! I didn’t know anyone that was going to be there and at one point I even thought about not going at all. I remember complaining to my coworkers that I didn’t want to go because I didn’t know anyone and I had to rent a car and drive two hours in a foreign place after not driving for many years. I had plenty of reasons not to go but I wanted to be there for my friends.

It was one of the best weekends of my entire life.

I was forced to make friends with people I had never seen or even heard of before — and that probably sounds very easy and normal for most people but for me it is one of the scariest, most daunting things ever. But I did it. I still have a group chat with some of the people that I met there and it’s called “equipo” which means team in Spanish. I was so proud of myself in that moment and I wanted to chase that feeling again.

I also went to Budapest before and after the wedding to meet some of the coworkers that I worked closely with. Our entire relationship had been long distance and over zoom! We had a good relationship but it’s not the same as meeting in person and going out for dinner and drinks or shopping and doing silly things. We even had inside jokes in the first few days. We built a bond that was really strong and this trip proved to me that I could thrive outside of my comfort zone if I was willing to put in the effort. Traveling caused a lot anxiety for me but when I pushed past it, it was one of the most rewarding feelings I have ever experienced.

The holidays came and went and I was able to spend some much needed time with both sides of the family. My grandma has always been a strong individual but my grandpa spoiled her rotten :). In those last few years, she did not have to lift a finger, and so when he passed away, we worried that she would struggle to do anything for herself. And she did, at first. But like most women in my family, she was strong and knew that she had to “ponerse las pilas”. This is a saying my mom says a lot which roughly translates to put on the batteries(?!), just meaning that she had to start paying attention and focusing and learning how to do things for her self again. That’s exactly what she did.

I’m about to start crying as I type this (because I literally cry all the time hahaha), but I don’t know if she knows how much my family looks up to her. My mom and I in particular are always in awe of everything she does and she continues to amaze us every single day, even in her weakest moments. She is the strongest person I know and from her, I have drawn a lot of strength and inspiration and even motivation. Seeing her made me put on my batteries as well.  (I actually made it through this paragraph with just one tiny tear and a big smile).

The last thing that really helped me change my life around was something even more silly-sounding than the lucky girl syndrome manifestations. You all are going to think I’m crazy but my friend (the one that got married in Spain) got this device that sends tiny vibrations to your nervous system and it replicates the feeling your brain feels when you are being hugged or when you have a purring cat laying on you. Long story short, it has different modes that can be associated with stress and each setting is like a different set of vibrations, all designed to help you bounce back from stress faster. Is this going to eliminate anxiety and stress for you? No, absolutely not. But it has helped me manage stress and my response to stress.

I think it could be a combination of something that is scientifically proven to work but also me being more aware of these moments and having something that helps me bounce back or regulate my responses. It’s called Apollo Neuro and I can share the link if you want to try. I wear two gadgets and those are the Apollo Neuro and  the Whoop. Whoop tracks everything about me- my sleep, my strain, my exercise, my HRV, etc. it automatically detects activities such as tennis, and running (I don’t run but you know what I mean). It also tracks yoga, Pilates, and functional fitness. Well when I started wearing and using the Apollo Neuro, my Whoop registered the sessions as meditations and it blew my mind.

At first I thought that it was feeling the vibrations of the Apollo so I moved it to a different arm and even tried it on my sports bras or waistbands. Each time, it would detect it. For it to detect an activity is not that crazy but for it to register it as meditation was so telling. It showed a spike in my heart rate usually in the beginning (likely when experiencing stress) and then it leveling off to a very stable and relaxed heart rate. I’ve used this thing for almost 100 sessions and each chart looks so similar. I’m a data person so I love looking at my own data to see if and how something is working. This absolutely blew my mind and erased any hesitations or concerns I had about it. It has helped me manage my reaction in many stressful situations and I have seen positive improvements to my mood as well. Not hard to see a positive correlation because stressful situations or anxiety attacks aren’t generally associated with me being in a great mood, ha!

I never know how to wrap these things up. I feel like I’ve rambled a lot but I’ve been really struggling with finishing a post for months now. Maybe after reading this you will better understand why that was happening. I can’t say I necessarily recommend dealing with your mental health issues alone, but different things work for different people. Apart from everything I’ve mentioned, I started speaking to my therapist more regularly and also started taking my antidepressants more consistently. This is just the combination of things that have been working for me recently and that may or may not change in the future. I hope that if you’re struggling with depression, anxiety, negativity or anything mentioned, that this has helped you feel like you’re not alone and you’re not the only one that is trying to function with these conditions. If you need help, seek help, but don’t expect people to just assume you need help if you don’t tell them.

I am the luckiest girl in the world.

Xx hangrymarn