Mindfulness - Blog Posts

(i had to make this post again, bc i accidentally deleted it instead of saving it to drafts)

Again with my face angle angel, i present to you one of my OCs...

dun dun DUUUN!!!

Well.. what did ya expect? A blue guy with horns and a third eye? Naaeh (nothing's wrong with that tho)

This is my normie OC Anthony, or you can call him Tony or Tonda! One thing i would say about him is.. that he's very cheeky.

(i would say that almost all of my OCs are normies and i love them dearly. You should do it to!!! Embrace the normie OCs!)

Second. He's older than he looks, and acts even younger (that poor fella has an age regression thing)

I always imagine my OC in different universes. This one is more of a fantasy, but it's not that visible xD other things might come in the future.

His role in this universe is him as a sly and cheeky rogue with a face of an innocent baby

Enough about him and about my process xD well it was certainly interesting. This is my first time trying to use smooth lineart. I preferred to make it messy or to just skip it.

Or to just make it black.

Anyways, I'm super happy with how it turned out!

Self-Discipline Isn’t Always the Answer

So I wasn’t really taught to brush my teeth every day as a kid. So I didn’t. I got to be an adult and realized “hmm teeth are expensive I need to start brushing them” and brushing my teeth twice a day has been on my actual to do list every single day of my college career. It’s a habit I needed to build.

Have I successfully done it? Absolutely not. I’m pretty good about doing it at least once a day, but some days it just doesn’t happen. It’s not that I forget usually, I just had some aversion I couldn’t figure out, until last week.

I’m at the grocery store, in the toothpaste aisle with my roommate, and I complain about how much I hate mint. I FUCKING HATE THE TASTE OF MINT. The taste and the smell, any kind of minty thing in any form, I HATE IT. But literally every “adult” toothpaste in the aisle was some type of minty disgusting nonsense. And my roommate was like “you know you could like get kids’ toothpaste? You like bubblegum right?”

And y’all, it was like the clouds parted. I got some strawberry bubblegum kids’ toothpaste. I brushed my teeth with it and it was a whole new experience. I have successfully brushed twice a day every day since, because the mental block I had towards it is gone! 

I thought my lack of brushing was just a moral failing on my part; I was too lazy, too undisciplined, to build a good habit. But really? I just hate the taste of mint so much I didn’t want to brush my teeth.

This made me realize that when presented with a change you want to make, a habit you want to build, if you’re encountering resistance in yourself, you should lean into that resistance and really investigate what’s causing it, then work on accommodating that. 

Say you hate washing dishes so they pile up and then you’re overwhelmed by how many you have to do. Why do you hate it? Deep down, what about it do you dislike? Is touching wet food super gross for you? Try thick rubber gloves while you’re washing. Does the sound of dishing clanking together grate your nerves? Do them with headphones in and turned up loud. Do you hate the smell? Light some candles, spray some air freshener. 

Do these things instead of gritting your teeth and forcing yourself, then ultimately failing and getting discouraged by your “lack of self-discipline”

TL;DR: When a task is consistently hard for you, relying on self-discipline, forcing yourself, and gritting through doesn’t always work. Lean in and listen to your discomfort, and find what makes the task hard, then try to accommodate that. Also, mint toothpaste is gross.