I want to hear everybody’s voting plan! The baseball stadium in Washington, DC is going to serve as an early voting location, so I think I’m going to vote there as soon as it opens!
The first part of my voting plan consisted of acquiring and filling out a change of address form for vote-by-mail in California, then double checking to make sure that my address had been successfully changed in the system! And the second part will be to fill out the ballot and mail it back as soon as it arrives at my new address!
My voting plan started with registering for mail-in ballots and changing my name on my voting registration to my married name. We got email confirmation that registered! We plan to fill them out as soon as they arrive and drive them to drop off location the following day!
I plan to vote in person, early if possible, and am already registered. (Unfortunately, USPS in Chicago lost my trust years ago and continues to have issues in my area). I will take every precaution possible to prevent potential spread of germs while voting (mask, hand washing, etc). Thanks for sharing your own voting plan!
I'm signed up to be a poll worker in my county so I have to wait for my schedule to come out, but I will be early voting in person. I don't qualify to vote by mail in Texas, so I'll be going as early as I can.
I’m of the age where I can vote by mail. However I prefer to hand in my completed ballot to either one of the Township office clerks, or the locked box on their counter or if their out to lunch the big locked box right outside the doors, where the Police Station windows faces. I’m waiting for the meeting for driver volunteering so I can pick up people to go vote or to drop off their ballot.
peeps, in spite of my best efforts this video ended up feeling a bit more repetitive than my usual output (IMHO). If you're sensitive to such things, I apologize! I'm still learning! Trial and error! Bandwidth! Voting plan! Thank you for watching!
Hannah Louise Poston, thanks for analyzing our times in such intelligent manner. I loved when you brought your grandmother’s life as example. We, who had lived with some sort of privilege or having access to most life commodities that we took for granted, had never felt held back by our circumstances like right now with the pandemic and the raw reality before our eyes of serious social injustices. My life will never be the same after these events (starting with Hurricane Maria 3 years ago). I am still trying to adjust and adapt to a new way of life as my instincts resist change and our cultural and society tendencies do not allow us to change. But nature (and human nature) is stronger, and we already feel that this way of life we were living is unsustainable. Despite all the negative feelings and frustration and “our hands are tied” disposition, weirdly, I feel hopeful and positive that a new world is about to be born.
Last year I dropped out of school because of a chronic illness, it broke my heart. College was the plan that was ALWAYS laid out for me and I didn’t know what life held if I didn’t have that. I attempted to go back as many times as I could until my parents told me I was going to put myself in the hospital for longer. I came home and didn’t have anything to do but doctors appointments. My friends were at school, my parents were working, it was just me. I felt so alone and my mental health was in a bad place. This video describes in so many ways the intense emotions and rawness I felt, I didn’t feel like a person, I felt like it took everything from me. These videos help me reflect on where I’ve grown since then. Around this time last year I was in the hospital and last week I got my first apartment. I’m so proud of myself and thankful to you for the help with insight, your videos always help me reflect on myself
Yes! I’m in a similar boat-I was a teacher for 9 years and this year I decided not to return as my state is going back in person with no masks. Since I have health issues it simply wasn’t safe and I’m lucky enough to be able to take a year off and be financially okay. However it’s hard to accept the reality and accept that I’m rebuilding. I really related when Hannah talked about how she felt like scraps of a person. I’m definitely feeling that way. I like the positivity at the end and the encouragement to reinvent. I’ll be okay and maybe even better, I just have to believe in the future rather than clinging to the past.
I have a hand-calligraphed piece done by Thich Nhat Hanh. He did them to raise funds for the monastery and their good works. It says that very thing "No mud, no lotus."
Agreed! Even when my fever is so high I write an instragram post from my cats dedicated to her and call her SOPHIE. Three days later, I thought about it, literally levitated out of bed, grabbed my phone and edited the post. I'm so sorry SADIE. She looks so much like my Julie that I'm like cmere Sadie, lets snuggie.
If we had to go through all of this hardship as Americans and everything goes back to "normal," I will be so sad. We are seeing all the cracks in our society, and if we can't get it together to fix them and change our course -- how disappointing that would be!
I really wish we would get comprehensive health coverage out of this, but it looks like even the global pandemic will not convince half of our government that it is a desperate (and more economical) necessity. :/
I'm relatively new to your channel, but I have been keeping up with the last several weeks of your videos, and they have been keeping me good company through my ridiculously long summer break from college. While I find your philosophy of evaluating the true value of beautiful things beyond the price tag inspiring, I'm commenting now to let you know that you have finally convinced me to prepare for voting. I watch Smokey Glow and other small UA-camrs that have been very vocal about voting, and while I believe that it's very important, every time I hear "remember to vote!" my mental response is more or less "yeah yeah I know will do." It's worth noting that I haven't voted before (but am registered), so my only experience of voting has been going with my parents to the polls and watching them do it. Obviously, things are different now, but when I hear people telling me to vote even by mail-in ballot, I think I was still envisioning that relatively simple process. Your sister's words of having a voting plan really woke me up to the reality of the situation, and in some possessed state of civic duty, I immediately visited the vote.gov link in the description to explore my options. Thank you for inspiring me to take action, and thank you for your honest and valuable ongoing discussion of the value of beautiful things in our lives.
One my favorite expressions is to gird ones loins. I think I needed to hear that today because I shut down about a month ago but that’s dangerous. Having the luxury of shutting down is how bad things are allowed to happen and the disenfranchised remain disenfranchised
Absolutely this. Good on you for recognising and acknowledging this - as long as we keep waking ourselves back up and re-girding our loins, we can do the work that's needed. Wishing you strength.
Hi Hannah. Thank you for this check-in. Life has definitely permanently changed. If nothing else reminds after the pandemic ends, at the very least I will be wearing a mask every flu & cold season for the rest of my life. I take public transit everywhere and I don't know why I let myself be exposed to those germs all these years.
Just wanted to throw it out there in case people were unaware, if you're nervous about voting by mail or maybe left mailing in your ballot until it's too late you can always drop off your ballot at drop-off locations! There may be drop off instructions in with your ballot, or just Google where the ballot drop-off locations are where you live. You can drop them off anytime between when you receive your ballot and when polls close on election day. It's really easy! I hope this helps someone out there. 😊💜✌️🇺🇲
“...in a time lacking in truth and certainty and filled with anguish and despair, no woman should be shamefaced in attempting to give back to the world, through her work, a portion of its lost heart.” ― Louise Bogan
I’ve been reading about climate change lately and forcing myself to learn more about how to show up and advocate for radical change in many areas but it’s extremely taxing work and it makes me feel this horrible existential fear and sometimes even cynicism. It’s true that on top of everything else going on it’s hard to face these realities, it’s way easier to create mini realities to escape into but as you express beautifully here, I am also trying to balance passion and facing reality with forgiveness toward myself and my own reasonable fears and anxieties. Anyways, thanks as always for helping verbalize this really complex time we are living in! Much love 💜💜
On a lighter note: I bought those clip-in pastel hair extensions, I had no idea they even existed in non-neon shades until I saw them on you. I had to trim them a bit, which was easy, and they look absolutely stunning (if I do say so myself) in my wavy silver hair, so thank you. They're so cheering, those oddly muted pastels, and I love coordinating them with my clothing and makeup.
The difficulties in voting are really bewildering and unacceptable. It is such an important and incredible time for the usa, i have been following a lot... best wishes from italy
Thank you for articulating how I’m feeling. I have been saying for months, whenever I hear someone say “I can’t wait for things to get back to normal,” I tell them that I think the normal we knew is gone and that something else will emerge that will be the “new normal “ but it won’t be what we have had before. I feel this because of how much the pandemic has changed people and how it has made people afraid of each other and afraid to touch each other. I think people view each other as germ vectors and judge each other’s activities. For the positive, I think this pandemic also helped some people reevaluate what is important in life and to value time with their family. I think some people realized how horribly over scheduled they were and will cut back on all their kids activities and spend more time together as a family. I think we will value relationships a bit more and stuff a bit less overall. This pandemic also gave people the chance to truly see some of the inequities that have existed in our society for far too long and motivated people to do something about it.
Thank you, Hannah. So many of us are grieving; but not everyone is able to articulate how and why, which is a solid first step toward trying to mitigate some of that grief. And yes, we are among the fortunate -- hey, I'm sitting here watching you on UA-cam on my day off -- but I believe we are entitled to our feelings, as long as we aren't bludgeoning other people with them and making the world even less enticing than it is at right this moment. There have been times in my life where things did NOT go at all as I had planned (and I am an excellent planner!) and a few dark days where I thought, will I ever enjoy my life again? And the answer is: yes. Not all at once, and not immediately, and not without some cost, but joy did come back, often in unexpected ways. If I could, I would pack you up a rich, generous slice of joy in my prettiest box, and give it to you, because that's how I feel when I get a notification that you've posted.
When you mentioned voting, it just made me realize that I NEVER received my ballot for the primary this year! Even though I’m in WA state and we are 100% absentee - I need to figure out why I didn’t get my mail in ballot!
Hi Gina! I am also in WA state and used this site to confirm my registration status. Hopefully it will help you figure out what happened: voter.votewa.gov/WhereToVote.aspx
Your self introspection in all things has helped me to see myself in new ways. I am so grateful! I really have appreciated that you have been reflecting on the seismic shift in your self-perception...and sharing it with us.
merp you might console yourself with the fact that most Americans don’t either. It comes down to a few 100k people in swing states. The rest don’t make that much of a difference. 🙄
Esther Urwin I understand your point but I hope this doesn’t discourage people from voting because last time the definition of what we consider swing states was definitely shaken. You never know.
I think the idea of how covid will effect us all long term is interesting and I've been thinking about it what "generational norms" it may cause. My mom sometimes tells stories about how her grandmother would peel an orange and give the segments to her and her cousins and then her grandmother would eat the rind so as not to waste it. I someone poking fun at this concept, saying that our grandkids will make fun us for disinfecting our groceries and we'll just say that they don't understand lol. In some ways I find that kind of joke very reassuring because it presupposes a point in which we will have a normal future.
The things you said in this video really resonated with me and made me think. I wrote a super long paragraph about all the thoughts but it got out of hand so I decided not to bother everyone with a wall of text that ended up only mildly related to this video. Anyway, I thank you for all the wisdom you give us once again.
I too have been enchanted by the Polene bags recently. I would love one of the smaller of the classic design. They look such beautiful quality. I’m trying to buy less and better quality. I have a separate account that I put a small amount into each month and a small running list of items I want to purchase. I then review my situation each month and buy only one of the items if I feel so inclined. That way I know I can afford everything and I have ruminated on them for several weeks so know they are for me. It will be interesting to see if the bag makes it through my waiting/buying procedure. Lots of things don’t make it these days...
You are such a lovely calming presence even in your more frantic mental moment times. Your words regarding the need to be gentle with yourself is so necessary and rang so true for me. As for voting, as far as I know Mississippi only allows for mail in voting in extremes, so I will be going to the polls in person. I am fortunate that I am home on WC so if I need to wait I can. I have verified that I am still registered though, and as of right now my polling location is the same.
Those bags look gorgeous!! I'm so happy you're slowly getting used to this new normalcy and reality. I really empathize with you when you said that this was not the year you were planning to live... but we need to adapt to survive and to try to make the most of this shitty time. Thank you for updating us and I wish you the best!
I had been meaning to check my vote by mail request since I sent it in months ago and this made me to it. They had no record of it even though I sent a paper in. I was able to do it again online so hopefully that will work but the whole thing is so fucked up. If I have to risk my immunocompromised life by voting in person it would be worth it but it should not be this difficult.
Thanks for making this video, Hannah; I needed to hear a lot of this. I'm trying to push myself, with love but firmly, into phonebanking for the first time (I'm a fellow Californian so my voting plan is similarly all set), and the effort even to get close to starting is requiring me to confront so much of my anxiety and legitimate fear about the world, requiring me to imagine a future complexly - a future that I *will* live in. It's terrifying and overwhelming but I've also started to watch those choice points, and to teach myself that it is possible to choose to not shut down.
Thank you for putting such beautiful words to your experience and sharing them with us. Wow. You touched on so much of how I too am feeling in the world. Truly inspirational. Thank you! ❤
I’m so happy to hear you talking about reflecting on what we have been through as transformational. I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently; we can’t just hold our breath! We need to feel it and change because of it 💕
TY Hannah 😘 I’ll definitely be listening to this video a second time... your way of expressing your feelings and thoughts is so beautiful and really helps me (and others too I know it) reflect on how we are doing/feeling/thinking. I aim to also “start re-gaining the inner poise that I have lost” this year in 2020. Being a full time working woman + momma of three littles, I know that I can ALWAYS take on one more thing and 2020 has currently proved that x 1 million 🙃 yes, extraordinary times and extraordinary challenges... but we MUST rise, move forward + carry on AND redefine OUR lives! TY again, you are lovely human being
Thank you for saying all this out loud. Definitely needed to be reminded that we cannot go back in time and it is okay that this is a time to feel feelings and grieve ❤️
Yesss. My no-buy/budgeting resolve has been wavering and guttering recently, and your videos always bolster me up! What a lovely start to the weekend. Thank you 👽✨
Hannah, I have to thank you for this video ♥️ it’s one of the most beautiful and helpful videos I’ve watched on this topic. Thank you for this gentle reminder and for making me feel less alone in my feelings 💜💜💜🌹
I honestly hope that many things brought on by this terrible period will stay- less people flying, enjoying our families in our homes, working from home/less 24 hour work culture. I hope those things don’t go back to the way they were before.
I really appreciate what you said about trying to avoid switching off or numbing ourselves to the problems of the world (although I think that’s fine and necessary in short doses, especially at certain times in a day etc). I want to add though that I’m not sure a primary focus on our own emotional engagement is necessarily helpful. I remember when I was younger feeling a need to open myself up to extreme empathy with everyone suffering in the world, and felt almost like it was obscene for me to be happy when others were suffering, or obscene for me to feel sadness when I had it so good. Now I have learnt that we don’t have to try and feel how others feel to listen to and try to understand them (and indeed it’s naive to think we can experience the world through someone else’s eyes). And I think it’s much more important to respond to the world’s problems with action rather than radical empathy. I work with victims of domestic abuse nowadays, and that work has further impressed on me how much more important it is to preserve my mental wellbeing in order to be able to take action to help others than to try and take on and feel others’ pain. I’m not saying that this is in contradiction to what you said, and I liked the examples you gave of actions people can take (eg around voting). But I thought this was a useful addition
Thank you for having the courage to speak about these topics when a lot of people on UA-cam are not. Keep fighting the good fight and thank you for your truth ✊🏽♥️
I've been struggling a lot with letting the feelings in vs blocking them out and it's led to a real rollar coaster of mental health that has been real shit. Right now, I'm sorta blocking stuff out, but my focus is on letting stuff in and feeling it carefully and intentionally. I'm trying to be more intentional about where and when I look at the news (not doom scrolling on social media), and also I've been focusing on radical empathy. I truly believe that MOST people are kind hearted and well intentioned people. Not all, for sure, but most. I've been making a point to consider when I come up to someone with opposing beliefs, what in their life may have led them to their position, as well as considering what led me to mine. That doesn't make their beliefs less wrong (people who are anti blm for example), but it does make me less hateful towards them as human beings, which I think leads towards less extremism and radicalization. I can't be open to feeling it all. It would LITERALLY kill me. Like, for serious. But I can be open and intentional about not shutting it all out and going totally numb. That's my goal.
I have been forced to reinvent a few times in my adult life and I'm always surprised looking back that how well it works out. I'm happier than I have ever been doing a job that was an enormous pay cut and less prestige. I love that I can do my work in the world instead of what I'm qualified for!
Thank you for this video. Your feelings and the way you express them echo so much of how I’m feeling right now. It really helps to hear these things expressed aloud rather than just knocking around my head every day.
Bandwidth has been coming up a lot for me, too. I’m trying to do and undo things in my life to create more bandwidth, which also takes bandwidth. It’s interesting because my version of how the pandemic has affected me is kind of the opposite of yours: my job and living situation have been stable, but I was hoping to be out of each of them by now. Wrestling with “accepting the things I cannot change” (the job market, the housing market) while trying to remain optimistic is a constant struggle. And there’s a part of me that just gets so disheartened that I have to do anything at all other than grieve and demand justice. If you start a commune, please let us know.
That is so true and helpful about not being able to turn back time. I think alot of us have the fantasy of everything going back to how it was before, but that truly is unrealistic, at least in the short term. And I do hope that this experience, as shocking and taxing as it continues to be, will bring out some beautiful resilience in all of us 🤗 sending hugs
I agree with you about going through a crucible phase. Thank you for taking the time to make this video and sharing these profound insights with us. It helps to know that this intense experience is being shared by so many other people.
The best video from you to date! Thank you for blossoming in front of us. I def see it and your willingness to feel the deep feelings and forgo your appetite for “things” def shows SO much progress from your no buy year. Trauma from this last year has changed all of us. We can’t be the same, just like we can’t be the same when we lose a loved one from this lifetime. But we will likely be better than we could ever have imagined had we never felt the feelings of that trauma at all. I’ve never shared a YT video from an influencer on social media before. I’m going to try and do that with this video. The whole video but especially the first several minutes are very powerful and well spoken. So many people will be better off if they see it. ❤️
When you or I purchase the item, we tell ourselves that we are closing the gap between the self we are and the self we want to become or somehow we are getting closer to the life we want/should have. It’s really interesting.
yes! it's like instead of doing the work to become whoever/whatever want to be, we think buying something will do the trick. it's easier than doing the work and it will LOOK like we're whoever/whatever we want to be. but it's only a thing and we have only have X amount less in our bank account to show for it. we're still the same person.
The idea that two seemingly non congruent ideas can be true at the same time is a mindset that I remind myself about often. Its actually scarily reminiscent of my current situation too... I have also just had some huge positive changes in my life (including moving house) but the state of the world is a constant source of concern to me. The pandemic, global warming, bLM movement. We are still in severe restrictions where I live and have been so since March (1 hour of excercise per day, curfew, and not allowed to leave a 5km radius from home) many of my friends and family are simply not OK! I like your description of a stress bandwidth... I have always talked about this in terms of a traffic light system of emotions. I think the state of the world at the moment has most people sitting at an emotional baseline in the orange... it doesn’t take much to flip orange into red and I am seeing that every day with the people around me. I’m glad you are in a place of more stability and similarly it is ok to not be ok!
Recently my childhood dog passed away and I’ve just felt so heartbroken. That quote really hit hard. As silly as it might sound to someone that doesn’t own a pet, it is like I truly have to reinvent life for myself without him
I love and use some variation of "I'm sorry, I don't have the bandwidth" for this conversation, news, even book right now. It took me a LOT of years to get to a place where I felt like it was okay for me to say and I will still only say it to my closest of friends and wife. But I will often say it to myself, which is maybe more important. And I will even more definitely encourage all my friends, my staff, random strangers, to say it. We feel like we should. And we push ourselves until we cannot anymore with all this we should. It's a marathon, not a sprint. So if I only have the bandwidth for the news (except perhaps as delivered in clips by Trevor Noah on youtube) one to two days a week, I am not bad citizen of the world, I'm not a bad feminist or liberal or social activist. I'm trying to conserve my energy for its highest and best use. And that is true about a lot of things. Life is a marathon, not a sprint and 2020 is our Hunger Games-like reminder of it. (So sorry to have paused you for 9 hours, but I don't like to multitask your videos). And you can save all your news for one day. Somedays I read all the news from WaPo and NYT and Vanity Fair, and other days I just save the emails to a folder and come back another day to read them. Oy. Yep, I'm still scheduled to be in trial on election day. Will my case settle? Probably. But I have all FIVE of the forms that I have to fill out to vote by mail in an email and a meeting with my paralegal in person (she's a notary) next week to complete and notarize the forms and mail them in. And if I cannot get an absentee ballot, I will drive home 2 hours after my first day of trial, vote, and drive back. Even though I live in a state that has been red for forever. I only bring up my voting play because I think part of allowing yourself to feel your feelings is monitoring your bandwith and conserving your energy for your important work in the world AND those activities that you deem most important. This is such a good video Hannah!!
Hearing your thoughts on our collective, continual reinvention is helpful, reassuring, & soothing! So often I feel like I'm in purgatory--vacillating between terrifying and almost peaceful. My appetite too has returned & I've started to buy unnecessary items again--justified somewhat by their utilitarian natures (sunscreen, shampoo, silk pillowcases, etc...). I've submitted a request for my absentee ballot to vote by mail for the November election because that feels safest to me at this time--I'm very grateful that you talked about this, BLM, & Breonna Taylor!
Sadie just looks a little bit like one of my two kitties. 😻 Hannah, I just wanted to tell you that your sheer presence gives me a sense of comfort. I wrote it here before, but I'm a rather quirky, introverted person who often feels misunderstood by the world. Watching your videos is like catching up with a dear friend but also like looking into a mirror and seeing the beauty others (myself included) might unexpectedly see in myself. ❤ Edit: Sometimes I cannot believe how connected we can feel with people from across the ocean, speaking a different language. This is the true blessing of social media.
Inner-poise - great description! I've had a big job upheaval for like 2 years now and inner-poise has been nil. Thanks for putting your finger on it :)
I am indulging myself with your old videos, right now is 2024 and I have been feeling lately that I miss the “acknowledgment of going through difficult times” that became so mainstream in 2020-2021 I feel that right now we are still living hard times, some of the pandemic effects remain and some other things as climate crisis, water shortages, wars, among others, make me need that collective acknowledgment of difficult times and higher levels of social support, that we seem to have lost since 2022
The pandemic changed me too, in ways that I didn't expect and are hard to recover from. I'm lucky, because my job is still there, my family is ok, and I live in one of the least affected areas of my country (Italy). Yet...I should have gotten married in a week, and that's not happening. We're moved the wedding to June, and this means we're moving in June, starting a family in June, maybe that won't be enough to celebrate with our friends and family. Also, my mom is a nurse, and ever since March I've been fearing for her life. I spent months sleeping 2-3 hours a day, worrying, crying, having nightmares. "Will I ever see her again?" I wondered. "Will she see my wedding?" "Am I going to make a toast remembering her during my wedding?". She had such a hard life, losing her father at 10 to a horrible cancer, losing the family's wealth due to pettiness and cold heartness, having to work at the age of 12, getting married to a horrible man that she hoped would save her but instead beat and humiliated her. She raised me and my sister alone, away from her family, in a part of the country that was extremely hostile and racist against people that came from Naples (it's a thing here). At 45, having a middle school degree she paid for herself when she was young, she studied hard and finally became a generic nurse. Due to people getting advantage of her she didn't gather enough "pension points" to retire properly, and will retire the latest allowed within our system with the least amount of money possible (around 400€ a month). I couldn't help but feel that life would give her one final slap and take her away from me before she had the chance to enjoy life a little bit, rest (finally) and enjoy herself. I still fear. I still cry. I still wonder. This pandemic took away from me my voice: I literally have a hard time speaking, in Italian, Japanese or English. It took away my focus, and I have a hard time working hard and having my main job, my teaching side hustle, my sewing, my dieting and my social life together. It took away my reading, because I can't focus anymore. It took away my motivation, and I stopped losing weight. It took away so much, but I won't allow it to break me. I'm struggling to rebuild myself, bit after bit, piece after piece. Hannah, you're being an inspiration for that. I too tried to fill the void of my life and my heart by buying stuff. I want to be strong again, I want to be me again. But it's so hard. But I'm trying. Sorry for the long comment
Awee we love a Sadie cameo 😍 I’m so happy to hear you are feeling more optimistic, and doing well in your new living situation! I love the orange sweatsuit and it is absolutely beautiful. I obviously don’t know your history of sewing and whatnot,but based on what I do know and what I’ve seen you have excellent craftswomanship. Would you consider possibly DIYing it? I’d love to hear more about your sewing career, as it is a hobby I’ve picked up in the last year or so, but I totally understand if the wound is a bit too fresh 💕
So many thoughts provoked within this video. When you were talking about a lipstick not transforming us to look like the model, made me think of going to the hair salon with magazine photos for a new hair style.....not once did I ever end up looking like Meg Ryan! I have been challenged for years being a person that loves a system and feeling the desire to purchase the entire line. And also being "brand" oriented, if I bought a certain bag, I had to have all the other components, wallet, key-case, cosmetic bag etc. I have been feeling the urge to jump ship of my current no-buy, that ends 12/31/2020. However, I return to my journal and my planner where I have listed my goals in great detail and what they will look like and know that making a purchase is not going to get me where I am going. Always love hearing your thoughts Hannah! Sunday Hugs from Salem!
SADIE'S FACE IN THAT OUTRO hahaha. In less laugh out loud news, I am so glad you are starting to feel like you landed on your feet. I know this year has been rough for everyone, but especially feel for you and anyone in the same position of losing a main source of income.
I know, the funniest thing is that I didn't know that she was making that face when I filmed it and I was so calm and normal and she was like "WHY IS IT LIKE THIS"
Thank you both for this reminder! I got my voter card in the mail last week and checked where the early voting locations are. I live in a swing state this time so it'll be a little more interesting!
Yes we must all move forward, however i find comfort in the fact that those curtains behind you are the same ones Carrie Bradshaw had in her apartment in sex and the city not to even mention that you remind me of Amanda Blake ( Miss Kitty) in Gunsmoke, but the real show stopper is the beautiful plant, tho Sadie comes in a close second. I do enjoy your channel!
Go to scenetherapy.com and in her early days of her apartment those look like the exact curtains! A few years back I was trying to find her shower curtain and I remember reading about those curtains I believe they also were from bed bath & beyond as was the shower curtain.
I fellt that bandwidth talk in my bones. I feel like all the stress has weakened my stress resistance so much that it's so much harder to do stuff and to be grounded...
You are so correct, Hannah. We ARE fortunate. That's why it's so important that we all continue to do our work of good in the world. Working for justice. For peace. For a new world where equality is reality. Your honest, calm, intelligent and compassionate content gives many hope. You're doing good work in this world. Consider yourself seen, held, and loved. 🍁🌟💖
Washington State has mail in voting (has had for years now), but we're holding a small ballot party where people can ask questions and discuss things and then I check to make sure every I is dotted, T crossed, and signature legible then hand deliver all the ballots straight to the auditor's office.
I also experienced the first instance of an intense desire to buy something since we all hunkered down. It's a throw blanket by A Beautiful Mess X Etsy that feels so right, but it's too rich for my blood. When I'm reflecting on it now, I think I felt certain that this blanket was the only thing that could comfort me through the Covid Autumn, and that I needed it to make the Autumn season bearable. Really, it won't comfort me any more than any other blanket. I see that now.
You look so doe-eyed and happy in this check in. Very much like “yourself”. I’m so glad to see the small positive changes for you that are moving you in the right direction.
My head is filled with a similar flavour of brain noise. I'm in the UK, but we've got our own version of upheaval happening with Brexit on top of the global pandemic and the various global sites of creeping fascism. On top of that, I have a bunch of really hardcore personal life stuff going on with physical and mental health, among other things. I'm an EU citizen who is an immigrant in the UK, so Brexit meant I had to deal with the possibility that I wouldn't be able to stay in the country I've lived in for a decade now. I finally got my official settled status just before shit hit the fan with covid, so I had no time to absorb the relief of that small victory before everything was horrendously stressful again. I came to stay with my Partner Unit just before everything got locked down, so I've spent the whole quarantine in someone else's space (not that I'm not happy to be here, with him, and not that this wasn't preferable to being apart for half the year, but it's still not my space). On top of that, my mother is in Italy (where I'm also from), where things got really bad really quickly, but she had a bad fall and broke her leg just before Covid hit Italy, which was actually a really good thing in the end because she was laid up at home instead of out and about being infected. But broken legs are still bad, especially at her age, and it's been really difficult not being able to see for myself that she's ok. The pandemic situation also hit pause on a lot of...medical explorations I had going on (I was recently diagnosed with a rare-ish chronic health condition that has really wide-reaching implications, but is very idiosyncratic, so I was bouncing around from specialist to specialist to figure out what my version of this disorder looks like and how to manage the various bits). On top of that, I've had to stop paying attention to the news or social media at all, because I kept seeing medical professionals suggesting that people with chronic health conditions like mine, or brains like mine, should not expect to be resuscitated, and in fact should make sure to have Do Not Resuscitate orders in place, if we find ourselves in the hospital with severe complications from Covid-19. So that was a nice little addition to the large swathes of the population who want me to fuck off back to the foreign lands from whence I came. Plus I work freelance, so it's been a constant back and forth between feast and famine in terms of how much work I have coming in, and both are super stressful in their own ways. tl; dr - I'm doing great.
As my little sister would say, you seem to have most of your sparkle back. Which makes all of us in Hannah's Pod very happy! But dude, no. I know I was very sick the week of the RNC, but I haven't had the upheaval you've had this year and I have many days where I feel like I am hanging on by the very barest thread with regard to my psyche's relationship with the world at large, and that was WRIT LARGE during the RNC when I struggled to accept that this, our country, is actual reality (I won't go on, but I expect you understand). I think we ALL need to expect to operate at a lower mental and emotional capacity for the remainder of the year and expect to have days where we either struggle or feel trapped in an out of body dystopian universe. I have to remind myself of that so much I may paint it on my bedroom wall for a few months. Actually, that's not the worst idea, especially because I have loads of canvas paint (I have no idea what to do with wall paint except to use it as a cheap way to stretch a canvas) and the room needs to be repainted anyway. Something like your thumbnail quote. I'm terrible at graphic design style art, but mayhaps I will make letters out of trees and plants and flowers and have that blunt of a reminder that I do not need to be firing on all cylinders so I feel less of a failure when predictably I am not some days.
I'm in Alabama and I'm planning to stand in that stupid line, mask on, and vote in person. I am deeply troubled by all the controversy over the USPS and I feel that the only way to reliably vote (for me) is in person. I'm teaching middle school every day, in the building, so voting in person won't expose me to any more germies than I get on the daily anyway. But am I Royally Pissed that this is where our country is?? YES.
I’m voting early. I’m having it sent to my house and mailing it back in. I just don’t want to be around large group of people. I’m glad you’re feeling better.
it's okay to not be okay-- but i'm finally feeling more like me again as well, and it's not the old irresponsible me-- serendipitously, Danessa is having a sale! i grabbed the prismfx lotion with glee in my heart knowing i waited for my finances & a sale to align. i even panned some similar products in the meantime! and then i literally said "oh!" out loud when you started flashing the pics of the loungewear. that charcoal grey ommmmmgggg. i need to dupe it with goodwill and clearance finds-- i think i can even alter some old sweaters or shirts!
I thought I’d just hop on here and comment. I’m definitely not your target demographic (18, male), and I’m only at 9 minutes into the video, but wow. Already subscribed. A lot of things have been moving in my life recently, ranging from corona, to parents getting cancer, to college... growing up I guess. This video really has already forced me to challenge truths within my life, and the truths beyond my life shared with others, such as you, and I want to thank you. It’s rare I see this side of vulnerability, and it’s TERRIFYING, but so needed, as it shows me it’s ok to face myself and be honest. Thank you! Edit: Made it to the overbuying piece, and yeah. This is an issue that I have as in order to try and cope I revert into these mechanisms that aren’t working for me.
yay Ryan, thank you for watching and commenting! I'm so glad you are here. I have cousins in college so I've been thinking a lot about how much the pandemic is changing the college experience, I really feel for you. Cheers to having the courage to face oneself and be honest! Sending a big hug
Beautifully said and moving as always. I will try to stretch some of my bandwidth to thinking about that quote. I definitely am guilty of the “holding my breath” mentality at times where I am living somewhat passively “until it’s over” (whatever that looks like or means, who knows). On the bright side, I just sent in my advanced ballot form in the mail a couple days ago so my voting plan is under way!
I agree with your decision to drop the “year of less stuff” as the framing device for your channel. I love to follow what’s going on with you and your channel but I felt like that focus was a little too narrow and not as compelling or relevant as some of your previous and current themes. I’m excited to see the direction your channel takes and I know that it is still developing and you’re feeling your way ahead. We’re here with you for the journey.
Future generations aren’t going to question our hoarding or anything like that (as was the symptom for many sufferers of the Great Depression), rather our grandchildren will wonder why we sanitize our groceries before putting them away
I am catching up on my videos. My email does not post my subscriptions anymore and I have tried several things but to no avail. I just am going back thru and watching all the ones I may have missed since maybe September. Yes, I totally agree that what has happened in this world has changed it and us and we will never be the same. We just have to move forward. We have to. When this first began, I wrote a story in past tense about what was currently happening. It scares me. But I lived thru it. Wow. I'm glad that things are good for you right now. We just can't make too many future plans because we don't know the future. As you were discussing the lounge wear you loved, I could see you making and creating your own. You can sew and I bet you could make some even more beautiful than the ones you liked. LA has the resources for beautiful materials. Make your own lounge wear. It may be an opening for a new door for a new line for you. Just sharing a dream I had for you. I can see it in my minds eye but only you can decide for your life. It would be fun to make your own lounge set though.
Sorry not sorry I'm commenting so many times but you are just saying so many good things! I really relate to what you are saying about identity muddle this year but I feel like for me, instead of not wanting to buy fancy sweatpants because I need a whole person to put in them, I'm buying the fancy sweatpants because maybe *that's* the right container. Which I know is wrong but I'm on the struggle bus right now. I'm not a perfectionist so I'm still working out some of the details, but for me a lot of it I think is about "maybe I can find my identity again if I just get this thing".
Love your video, as usual. Howevery I don't like the policy of the company that made your dress. How's a non-sewer supposed to know what measurements they should provide for a dress they never owned? They should use body measurements (like everybody else) and then work out how much ease THEY need to add for THEIR design. I guess that's their way of not being on the hook but it works out to be a bad deal to me.
I’m going to be honest here....I don’t come to your channel for “year or less stuff” anymore. I end up purchasing a large amount of makeup because my lifestyle allows it. I come to your channel for therapy. That’s the real reason I watch your videos. 🤷🏻♀️
I want to hear everybody’s voting plan! The baseball stadium in Washington, DC is going to serve as an early voting location, so I think I’m going to vote there as soon as it opens!
The first part of my voting plan consisted of acquiring and filling out a change of address form for vote-by-mail in California, then double checking to make sure that my address had been successfully changed in the system! And the second part will be to fill out the ballot and mail it back as soon as it arrives at my new address!
My voting plan started with registering for mail-in ballots and changing my name on my voting registration to my married name. We got email confirmation that registered! We plan to fill them out as soon as they arrive and drive them to drop off location the following day!
I plan to vote in person, early if possible, and am already registered. (Unfortunately, USPS in Chicago lost my trust years ago and continues to have issues in my area). I will take every precaution possible to prevent potential spread of germs while voting (mask, hand washing, etc). Thanks for sharing your own voting plan!
I'm signed up to be a poll worker in my county so I have to wait for my schedule to come out, but I will be early voting in person. I don't qualify to vote by mail in Texas, so I'll be going as early as I can.
I’m of the age where I can vote by mail. However I prefer to hand in my completed ballot to either one of the Township office clerks, or the locked box on their counter or if their out to lunch the big locked box right outside the doors, where the Police Station windows faces. I’m waiting for the meeting for driver volunteering so I can pick up people to go vote or to drop off their ballot.
peeps, in spite of my best efforts this video ended up feeling a bit more repetitive than my usual output (IMHO). If you're sensitive to such things, I apologize! I'm still learning! Trial and error! Bandwidth! Voting plan! Thank you for watching!
Hanna, can you add to description that great quote about reinventing?)
I won't be the same either. Thank you for sharing with us...it helps to know we're not alone.
You are just great
I didn't find it repetitive, it is actually one of my favourite one of yours thus far!
Hannah Louise Poston, thanks for analyzing our times in such intelligent manner. I loved when you brought your grandmother’s life as example. We, who had lived with some sort of privilege or having access to most life commodities that we took for granted, had never felt held back by our circumstances like right now with the pandemic and the raw reality before our eyes of serious social injustices. My life will never be the same after these events (starting with Hurricane Maria 3 years ago). I am still trying to adjust and adapt to a new way of life as my instincts resist change and our cultural and society tendencies do not allow us to change. But nature (and human nature) is stronger, and we already feel that this way of life we were living is unsustainable. Despite all the negative feelings and frustration and “our hands are tied” disposition, weirdly, I feel hopeful and positive that a new world is about to be born.
Last year I dropped out of school because of a chronic illness, it broke my heart. College was the plan that was ALWAYS laid out for me and I didn’t know what life held if I didn’t have that. I attempted to go back as many times as I could until my parents told me I was going to put myself in the hospital for longer. I came home and didn’t have anything to do but doctors appointments. My friends were at school, my parents were working, it was just me. I felt so alone and my mental health was in a bad place. This video describes in so many ways the intense emotions and rawness I felt, I didn’t feel like a person, I felt like it took everything from me. These videos help me reflect on where I’ve grown since then. Around this time last year I was in the hospital and last week I got my first apartment. I’m so proud of myself and thankful to you for the help with insight, your videos always help me reflect on myself
Yes! I’m in a similar boat-I was a teacher for 9 years and this year I decided not to return as my state is going back in person with no masks. Since I have health issues it simply wasn’t safe and I’m lucky enough to be able to take a year off and be financially okay. However it’s hard to accept the reality and accept that I’m rebuilding. I really related when Hannah talked about how she felt like scraps of a person. I’m definitely feeling that way. I like the positivity at the end and the encouragement to reinvent. I’ll be okay and maybe even better, I just have to believe in the future rather than clinging to the past.
I think we’re all in the mud phase of the lotus flower, in the depths in order to blossom to a beautiful flower later.
I have a hand-calligraphed piece done by Thich Nhat Hanh. He did them to raise funds for the monastery and their good works. It says that very thing "No mud, no lotus."
@@womanofacertainage5892 Awesome
Sadie never fails to give me the little boost of serotonin I need to keep going
ME TOO
Agreed! Even when my fever is so high I write an instragram post from my cats dedicated to her and call her SOPHIE. Three days later, I thought about it, literally levitated out of bed, grabbed my phone and edited the post. I'm so sorry SADIE. She looks so much like my Julie that I'm like cmere Sadie, lets snuggie.
Sadie-tonin FTW
If we had to go through all of this hardship as Americans and everything goes back to "normal," I will be so sad. We are seeing all the cracks in our society, and if we can't get it together to fix them and change our course -- how disappointing that would be!
I really wish we would get comprehensive health coverage out of this, but it looks like even the global pandemic will not convince half of our government that it is a desperate (and more economical) necessity. :/
I'm relatively new to your channel, but I have been keeping up with the last several weeks of your videos, and they have been keeping me good company through my ridiculously long summer break from college. While I find your philosophy of evaluating the true value of beautiful things beyond the price tag inspiring, I'm commenting now to let you know that you have finally convinced me to prepare for voting.
I watch Smokey Glow and other small UA-camrs that have been very vocal about voting, and while I believe that it's very important, every time I hear "remember to vote!" my mental response is more or less "yeah yeah I know will do." It's worth noting that I haven't voted before (but am registered), so my only experience of voting has been going with my parents to the polls and watching them do it. Obviously, things are different now, but when I hear people telling me to vote even by mail-in ballot, I think I was still envisioning that relatively simple process. Your sister's words of having a voting plan really woke me up to the reality of the situation, and in some possessed state of civic duty, I immediately visited the vote.gov link in the description to explore my options.
Thank you for inspiring me to take action, and thank you for your honest and valuable ongoing discussion of the value of beautiful things in our lives.
I'm so, so excited for you to cast your first vote! YAY!
One my favorite expressions is to gird ones loins. I think I needed to hear that today because I shut down about a month ago but that’s dangerous. Having the luxury of shutting down is how bad things are allowed to happen and the disenfranchised remain disenfranchised
Absolutely this. Good on you for recognising and acknowledging this - as long as we keep waking ourselves back up and re-girding our loins, we can do the work that's needed. Wishing you strength.
Hammy feet: never have I felt more understood.
Bravo.
Hi Hannah. Thank you for this check-in. Life has definitely permanently changed. If nothing else reminds after the pandemic ends, at the very least I will be wearing a mask every flu & cold season for the rest of my life. I take public transit everywhere and I don't know why I let myself be exposed to those germs all these years.
Just wanted to throw it out there in case people were unaware, if you're nervous about voting by mail or maybe left mailing in your ballot until it's too late you can always drop off your ballot at drop-off locations! There may be drop off instructions in with your ballot, or just Google where the ballot drop-off locations are where you live. You can drop them off anytime between when you receive your ballot and when polls close on election day. It's really easy! I hope this helps someone out there. 😊💜✌️🇺🇲
YES YES YES!! I'm already worried with the postal service mishigas. This is my voting plan.
Thanks for reminding people about that!
“...in a time lacking in truth and certainty and filled with anguish and despair, no woman should be shamefaced in attempting to give back to the world, through her work, a portion of its lost heart.”
― Louise Bogan
thank you for this! i've been meaning to make a quote wall by my computer, and this reminded me. it will be the first to go up. so good!!!
LOVE THIS!!!!
I’ve been reading about climate change lately and forcing myself to learn more about how to show up and advocate for radical change in many areas but it’s extremely taxing work and it makes me feel this horrible existential fear and sometimes even cynicism. It’s true that on top of everything else going on it’s hard to face these realities, it’s way easier to create mini realities to escape into but as you express beautifully here, I am also trying to balance passion and facing reality with forgiveness toward myself and my own reasonable fears and anxieties. Anyways, thanks as always for helping verbalize this really complex time we are living in! Much love 💜💜
On a lighter note: I bought those clip-in pastel hair extensions, I had no idea they even existed in non-neon shades until I saw them on you. I had to trim them a bit, which was easy, and they look absolutely stunning (if I do say so myself) in my wavy silver hair, so thank you. They're so cheering, those oddly muted pastels, and I love coordinating them with my clothing and makeup.
They immediately went onto my Amazon wishlist!
The difficulties in voting are really bewildering and unacceptable. It is such an important and incredible time for the usa, i have been following a lot... best wishes from italy
Thank you for articulating how I’m feeling. I have been saying for months, whenever I hear someone say “I can’t wait for things to get back to normal,” I tell them that I think the normal we knew is gone and that something else will emerge that will be the “new normal “ but it won’t be what we have had before. I feel this because of how much the pandemic has changed people and how it has made people afraid of each other and afraid to touch each other. I think people view each other as germ vectors and judge each other’s activities. For the positive, I think this pandemic also helped some people reevaluate what is important in life and to value time with their family. I think some people realized how horribly over scheduled they were and will cut back on all their kids activities and spend more time together as a family. I think we will value relationships a bit more and stuff a bit less overall. This pandemic also gave people the chance to truly see some of the inequities that have existed in our society for far too long and motivated people to do something about it.
Thank you, Hannah. So many of us are grieving; but not everyone is able to articulate how and why, which is a solid first step toward trying to mitigate some of that grief. And yes, we are among the fortunate -- hey, I'm sitting here watching you on UA-cam on my day off -- but I believe we are entitled to our feelings, as long as we aren't bludgeoning other people with them and making the world even less enticing than it is at right this moment. There have been times in my life where things did NOT go at all as I had planned (and I am an excellent planner!) and a few dark days where I thought, will I ever enjoy my life again? And the answer is: yes. Not all at once, and not immediately, and not without some cost, but joy did come back, often in unexpected ways. If I could, I would pack you up a rich, generous slice of joy in my prettiest box, and give it to you, because that's how I feel when I get a notification that you've posted.
When you mentioned voting, it just made me realize that I NEVER received my ballot for the primary this year! Even though I’m in WA state and we are 100% absentee - I need to figure out why I didn’t get my mail in ballot!
Hi Gina! I am also in WA state and used this site to confirm my registration status. Hopefully it will help you figure out what happened: voter.votewa.gov/WhereToVote.aspx
@@creativequince Thanks so much!
"She refuses to be held!" Same, Sadie, same. We are fearsome tigers and they shall never tame us.
Your self introspection in all things has helped me to see myself in new ways. I am so grateful! I really have appreciated that you have been reflecting on the seismic shift in your self-perception...and sharing it with us.
I can listen to this girl all day all night. It's therapeutic and refreshing at the same time!
I wish I was American so I could participate in that election. But I'm Canadian and have no power over who runs your side of our continent.
merp you might console yourself with the fact that most Americans don’t either. It comes down to a few 100k people in swing states. The rest don’t make that much of a difference. 🙄
Esther Urwin I understand your point but I hope this doesn’t discourage people from voting because last time the definition of what we consider swing states was definitely shaken. You never know.
That quote hit hard. I feel like this so much. All of this is making me rethink how I live my life and how yeah, I can't go back to how I lived.
I think the idea of how covid will effect us all long term is interesting and I've been thinking about it what "generational norms" it may cause. My mom sometimes tells stories about how her grandmother would peel an orange and give the segments to her and her cousins and then her grandmother would eat the rind so as not to waste it. I someone poking fun at this concept, saying that our grandkids will make fun us for disinfecting our groceries and we'll just say that they don't understand lol. In some ways I find that kind of joke very reassuring because it presupposes a point in which we will have a normal future.
The things you said in this video really resonated with me and made me think. I wrote a super long paragraph about all the thoughts but it got out of hand so I decided not to bother everyone with a wall of text that ended up only mildly related to this video. Anyway, I thank you for all the wisdom you give us once again.
I too have been enchanted by the Polene bags recently. I would love one of the smaller of the classic design. They look such beautiful quality.
I’m trying to buy less and better quality. I have a separate account that I put a small amount into each month and a small running list of items I want to purchase. I then review my situation each month and buy only one of the items if I feel so inclined. That way I know I can afford everything and I have ruminated on them for several weeks so know they are for me.
It will be interesting to see if the bag makes it through my waiting/buying procedure. Lots of things don’t make it these days...
You are such a lovely calming presence even in your more frantic mental moment times. Your words regarding the need to be gentle with yourself is so necessary and rang so true for me.
As for voting, as far as I know Mississippi only allows for mail in voting in extremes, so I will be going to the polls in person. I am fortunate that I am home on WC so if I need to wait I can. I have verified that I am still registered though, and as of right now my polling location is the same.
Thank you Hannah! For making us feel less alone and saying those vulnerable things that have us trapped in this chaotic time. Gracias!
Those bags look gorgeous!! I'm so happy you're slowly getting used to this new normalcy and reality. I really empathize with you when you said that this was not the year you were planning to live... but we need to adapt to survive and to try to make the most of this shitty time. Thank you for updating us and I wish you the best!
I had been meaning to check my vote by mail request since I sent it in months ago and this made me to it. They had no record of it even though I sent a paper in. I was able to do it again online so hopefully that will work but the whole thing is so fucked up. If I have to risk my immunocompromised life by voting in person it would be worth it but it should not be this difficult.
I'm glad you followed up! I hope it goes through and you are able to vote by mail. It really should not be this difficult, I'm so sorry.
I have to say, i love the plant in your background
Thanks for making this video, Hannah; I needed to hear a lot of this. I'm trying to push myself, with love but firmly, into phonebanking for the first time (I'm a fellow Californian so my voting plan is similarly all set), and the effort even to get close to starting is requiring me to confront so much of my anxiety and legitimate fear about the world, requiring me to imagine a future complexly - a future that I *will* live in. It's terrifying and overwhelming but I've also started to watch those choice points, and to teach myself that it is possible to choose to not shut down.
loved hearing your thoughts - glad to hear you're being gentle with yourself and taking time. Very here for Sadie outros
Thank you for putting such beautiful words to your experience and sharing them with us. Wow. You touched on so much of how I too am feeling in the world. Truly inspirational. Thank you! ❤
I’m so happy to hear you talking about reflecting on what we have been through as transformational. I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently; we can’t just hold our breath! We need to feel it and change because of it 💕
TY Hannah 😘 I’ll definitely be listening to this video a second time... your way of expressing your feelings and thoughts is so beautiful and really helps me (and others too I know it) reflect on how we are doing/feeling/thinking. I aim to also “start re-gaining the inner poise that I have lost” this year in 2020. Being a full time working woman + momma of three littles, I know that I can ALWAYS take on one more thing and 2020 has currently proved that x 1 million 🙃 yes, extraordinary times and extraordinary challenges... but we MUST rise, move forward + carry on AND redefine OUR lives! TY again, you are lovely human being
Thank you for saying all this out loud. Definitely needed to be reminded that we cannot go back in time and it is okay that this is a time to feel feelings and grieve ❤️
Yesss. My no-buy/budgeting resolve has been wavering and guttering recently, and your videos always bolster me up!
What a lovely start to the weekend. Thank you 👽✨
Hannah, I have to thank you for this video ♥️ it’s one of the most beautiful and helpful videos I’ve watched on this topic. Thank you for this gentle reminder and for making me feel less alone in my feelings 💜💜💜🌹
I honestly hope that many things brought on by this terrible period will stay- less people flying, enjoying our families in our homes, working from home/less 24 hour work culture. I hope those things don’t go back to the way they were before.
This was so thoughtful and wonderful x
I really appreciate what you said about trying to avoid switching off or numbing ourselves to the problems of the world (although I think that’s fine and necessary in short doses, especially at certain times in a day etc). I want to add though that I’m not sure a primary focus on our own emotional engagement is necessarily helpful. I remember when I was younger feeling a need to open myself up to extreme empathy with everyone suffering in the world, and felt almost like it was obscene for me to be happy when others were suffering, or obscene for me to feel sadness when I had it so good. Now I have learnt that we don’t have to try and feel how others feel to listen to and try to understand them (and indeed it’s naive to think we can experience the world through someone else’s eyes). And I think it’s much more important to respond to the world’s problems with action rather than radical empathy. I work with victims of domestic abuse nowadays, and that work has further impressed on me how much more important it is to preserve my mental wellbeing in order to be able to take action to help others than to try and take on and feel others’ pain. I’m not saying that this is in contradiction to what you said, and I liked the examples you gave of actions people can take (eg around voting). But I thought this was a useful addition
In the UK here and hoping so hard things change in your election. We're going down hill fast and need something going right with you 🧡
I'm in the UK too and agree 100%. Worried about what our future will be like.
The thumbnail describes my general feelings about everything right now.
Same
also same.
Thank you for having the courage to speak about these topics when a lot of people on UA-cam are not. Keep fighting the good fight and thank you for your truth ✊🏽♥️
I've been struggling a lot with letting the feelings in vs blocking them out and it's led to a real rollar coaster of mental health that has been real shit. Right now, I'm sorta blocking stuff out, but my focus is on letting stuff in and feeling it carefully and intentionally. I'm trying to be more intentional about where and when I look at the news (not doom scrolling on social media), and also I've been focusing on radical empathy. I truly believe that MOST people are kind hearted and well intentioned people. Not all, for sure, but most. I've been making a point to consider when I come up to someone with opposing beliefs, what in their life may have led them to their position, as well as considering what led me to mine. That doesn't make their beliefs less wrong (people who are anti blm for example), but it does make me less hateful towards them as human beings, which I think leads towards less extremism and radicalization. I can't be open to feeling it all. It would LITERALLY kill me. Like, for serious. But I can be open and intentional about not shutting it all out and going totally numb. That's my goal.
I have been forced to reinvent a few times in my adult life and I'm always surprised looking back that how well it works out. I'm happier than I have ever been doing a job that was an enormous pay cut and less prestige. I love that I can do my work in the world instead of what I'm qualified for!
Thank you for this video. Your feelings and the way you express them echo so much of how I’m feeling right now. It really helps to hear these things expressed aloud rather than just knocking around my head every day.
Bandwidth has been coming up a lot for me, too. I’m trying to do and undo things in my life to create more bandwidth, which also takes bandwidth. It’s interesting because my version of how the pandemic has affected me is kind of the opposite of yours: my job and living situation have been stable, but I was hoping to be out of each of them by now. Wrestling with “accepting the things I cannot change” (the job market, the housing market) while trying to remain optimistic is a constant struggle.
And there’s a part of me that just gets so disheartened that I have to do anything at all other than grieve and demand justice.
If you start a commune, please let us know.
That is so true and helpful about not being able to turn back time. I think alot of us have the fantasy of everything going back to how it was before, but that truly is unrealistic, at least in the short term. And I do hope that this experience, as shocking and taxing as it continues to be, will bring out some beautiful resilience in all of us 🤗 sending hugs
I agree with you about going through a crucible phase. Thank you for taking the time to make this video and sharing these profound insights with us. It helps to know that this intense experience is being shared by so many other people.
The best video from you to date! Thank you for blossoming in front of us. I def see it and your willingness to feel the deep feelings and forgo your appetite for “things” def shows SO much progress from your no buy year. Trauma from this last year has changed all of us. We can’t be the same, just like we can’t be the same when we lose a loved one from this lifetime. But we will likely be better than we could ever have imagined had we never felt the feelings of that trauma at all. I’ve never shared a YT video from an influencer on social media before. I’m going to try and do that with this video. The whole video but especially the first several minutes are very powerful and well spoken. So many people will be better off if they see it. ❤️
When you or I purchase the item, we tell ourselves that we are closing the gap between the self we are and the self we want to become or somehow we are getting closer to the life we want/should have. It’s really interesting.
yes! it's like instead of doing the work to become whoever/whatever want to be, we think buying something will do the trick. it's easier than doing the work and it will LOOK like we're whoever/whatever we want to be. but it's only a thing and we have only have X amount less in our bank account to show for it. we're still the same person.
"Did I go back in time and start a brand?" omg, yes! i've had this exact same thought before! it's a weird feeling. :-)
The idea that two seemingly non congruent ideas can be true at the same time is a mindset that I remind myself about often. Its actually scarily reminiscent of my current situation too... I have also just had some huge positive changes in my life (including moving house) but the state of the world is a constant source of concern to me. The pandemic, global warming, bLM movement. We are still in severe restrictions where I live and have been so since March (1 hour of excercise per day, curfew, and not allowed to leave a 5km radius from home) many of my friends and family are simply not OK! I like your description of a stress bandwidth... I have always talked about this in terms of a traffic light system of emotions. I think the state of the world at the moment has most people sitting at an emotional baseline in the orange... it doesn’t take much to flip orange into red and I am seeing that every day with the people around me.
I’m glad you are in a place of more stability and similarly it is ok to not be ok!
What makes me angry about this election year is the post office is already saying they’re not going deliver ballots in time. What is that?!?
Ah. This video felt like a breath of fresh air! Let this be a reminder that it is ok to change course in the middle of a project/process/situation.
Sadies face 😂
My cats just refuse to be held.
You have verbalized so beautifully exactly how I feel right now. I really needed this. Thank you X
Recently my childhood dog passed away and I’ve just felt so heartbroken. That quote really hit hard. As silly as it might sound to someone that doesn’t own a pet, it is like I truly have to reinvent life for myself without him
That lip with that dress 😘
I KNOW, right? 😍
I love and use some variation of "I'm sorry, I don't have the bandwidth" for this conversation, news, even book right now. It took me a LOT of years to get to a place where I felt like it was okay for me to say and I will still only say it to my closest of friends and wife. But I will often say it to myself, which is maybe more important. And I will even more definitely encourage all my friends, my staff, random strangers, to say it. We feel like we should. And we push ourselves until we cannot anymore with all this we should. It's a marathon, not a sprint. So if I only have the bandwidth for the news (except perhaps as delivered in clips by Trevor Noah on youtube) one to two days a week, I am not bad citizen of the world, I'm not a bad feminist or liberal or social activist. I'm trying to conserve my energy for its highest and best use. And that is true about a lot of things. Life is a marathon, not a sprint and 2020 is our Hunger Games-like reminder of it. (So sorry to have paused you for 9 hours, but I don't like to multitask your videos). And you can save all your news for one day. Somedays I read all the news from WaPo and NYT and Vanity Fair, and other days I just save the emails to a folder and come back another day to read them. Oy. Yep, I'm still scheduled to be in trial on election day. Will my case settle? Probably. But I have all FIVE of the forms that I have to fill out to vote by mail in an email and a meeting with my paralegal in person (she's a notary) next week to complete and notarize the forms and mail them in. And if I cannot get an absentee ballot, I will drive home 2 hours after my first day of trial, vote, and drive back. Even though I live in a state that has been red for forever. I only bring up my voting play because I think part of allowing yourself to feel your feelings is monitoring your bandwith and conserving your energy for your important work in the world AND those activities that you deem most important. This is such a good video Hannah!!
Thank you for the mental health reminder. I was needing to hear it.
Hearing your thoughts on our collective, continual reinvention is helpful, reassuring, & soothing! So often I feel like I'm in purgatory--vacillating between terrifying and almost peaceful. My appetite too has returned & I've started to buy unnecessary items again--justified somewhat by their utilitarian natures (sunscreen, shampoo, silk pillowcases, etc...). I've submitted a request for my absentee ballot to vote by mail for the November election because that feels safest to me at this time--I'm very grateful that you talked about this, BLM, & Breonna Taylor!
Sadie just looks a little bit like one of my two kitties. 😻 Hannah, I just wanted to tell you that your sheer presence gives me a sense of comfort. I wrote it here before, but I'm a rather quirky, introverted person who often feels misunderstood by the world. Watching your videos is like catching up with a dear friend but also like looking into a mirror and seeing the beauty others (myself included) might unexpectedly see in myself. ❤ Edit: Sometimes I cannot believe how connected we can feel with people from across the ocean, speaking a different language. This is the true blessing of social media.
Inner-poise - great description! I've had a big job upheaval for like 2 years now and inner-poise has been nil. Thanks for putting your finger on it :)
The hardest lesson I have learned this year is, it is ok NOT TO BE OK. This video really hit home for me. Thank you.
I am indulging myself with your old videos, right now is 2024 and I have been feeling lately that I miss the “acknowledgment of going through difficult times” that became so mainstream in 2020-2021
I feel that right now we are still living hard times, some of the pandemic effects remain and some other things as climate crisis, water shortages, wars, among others, make me need that collective acknowledgment of difficult times and higher levels of social support, that we seem to have lost since 2022
The pandemic changed me too, in ways that I didn't expect and are hard to recover from. I'm lucky, because my job is still there, my family is ok, and I live in one of the least affected areas of my country (Italy). Yet...I should have gotten married in a week, and that's not happening. We're moved the wedding to June, and this means we're moving in June, starting a family in June, maybe that won't be enough to celebrate with our friends and family.
Also, my mom is a nurse, and ever since March I've been fearing for her life. I spent months sleeping 2-3 hours a day, worrying, crying, having nightmares. "Will I ever see her again?" I wondered. "Will she see my wedding?" "Am I going to make a toast remembering her during my wedding?". She had such a hard life, losing her father at 10 to a horrible cancer, losing the family's wealth due to pettiness and cold heartness, having to work at the age of 12, getting married to a horrible man that she hoped would save her but instead beat and humiliated her. She raised me and my sister alone, away from her family, in a part of the country that was extremely hostile and racist against people that came from Naples (it's a thing here). At 45, having a middle school degree she paid for herself when she was young, she studied hard and finally became a generic nurse. Due to people getting advantage of her she didn't gather enough "pension points" to retire properly, and will retire the latest allowed within our system with the least amount of money possible (around 400€ a month). I couldn't help but feel that life would give her one final slap and take her away from me before she had the chance to enjoy life a little bit, rest (finally) and enjoy herself. I still fear. I still cry. I still wonder.
This pandemic took away from me my voice: I literally have a hard time speaking, in Italian, Japanese or English. It took away my focus, and I have a hard time working hard and having my main job, my teaching side hustle, my sewing, my dieting and my social life together. It took away my reading, because I can't focus anymore. It took away my motivation, and I stopped losing weight.
It took away so much, but I won't allow it to break me. I'm struggling to rebuild myself, bit after bit, piece after piece. Hannah, you're being an inspiration for that. I too tried to fill the void of my life and my heart by buying stuff. I want to be strong again, I want to be me again. But it's so hard. But I'm trying.
Sorry for the long comment
Godspeed to you and your family.
@@MeridaEllaSDB thanks
sending tons of love to you
We're two months away and I'm already requesting a ballot by mail. Unfortunately, I can't trust Georgia to leave it to the last minute.
Awee we love a Sadie cameo 😍 I’m so happy to hear you are feeling more optimistic, and doing well in your new living situation! I love the orange sweatsuit and it is absolutely beautiful. I obviously don’t know your history of sewing and whatnot,but based on what I do know and what I’ve seen you have excellent craftswomanship. Would you consider possibly DIYing it? I’d love to hear more about your sewing career, as it is a hobby I’ve picked up in the last year or so, but I totally understand if the wound is a bit too fresh 💕
So many thoughts provoked within this video. When you were talking about a lipstick not transforming us to look like the model, made me think of going to the hair salon with magazine photos for a new hair style.....not once did I ever end up looking like Meg Ryan! I have been challenged for years being a person that loves a system and feeling the desire to purchase the entire line. And also being "brand" oriented, if I bought a certain bag, I had to have all the other components, wallet, key-case, cosmetic bag etc. I have been feeling the urge to jump ship of my current no-buy, that ends 12/31/2020. However, I return to my journal and my planner where I have listed my goals in great detail and what they will look like and know that making a purchase is not going to get me where I am going. Always love hearing your thoughts Hannah! Sunday Hugs from Salem!
Prescription for all of our current sadness: More Sadie.
Sadie seemed a tad reluctant to participate! That expression!
SADIE'S FACE IN THAT OUTRO hahaha. In less laugh out loud news, I am so glad you are starting to feel like you landed on your feet. I know this year has been rough for everyone, but especially feel for you and anyone in the same position of losing a main source of income.
I know, the funniest thing is that I didn't know that she was making that face when I filmed it and I was so calm and normal and she was like "WHY IS IT LIKE THIS"
Thank you both for this reminder! I got my voter card in the mail last week and checked where the early voting locations are. I live in a swing state this time so it'll be a little more interesting!
Yes we must all move forward, however i find comfort in the fact that those curtains behind you are the same ones Carrie Bradshaw had in her apartment in sex and the city not to even mention that you remind me of Amanda Blake ( Miss Kitty) in Gunsmoke, but the real show stopper is the beautiful plant, tho Sadie comes in a close second. I do enjoy your channel!
the curtains! Are they? They belong to our friends whose house this is, I wonder if they did it on purpose! I will ask!
Go to scenetherapy.com and in her early days of her apartment those look like the exact curtains! A few years back I was trying to find her shower curtain and I remember reading about those curtains I believe they also were from bed bath & beyond as was the shower curtain.
I fellt that bandwidth talk in my bones. I feel like all the stress has weakened my stress resistance so much that it's so much harder to do stuff and to be grounded...
You are so correct, Hannah. We ARE fortunate. That's why it's so important that we all continue to do our work of good in the world. Working for justice. For peace. For a new world where equality is reality. Your honest, calm, intelligent and compassionate content gives many hope. You're doing good work in this world. Consider yourself seen, held, and loved. 🍁🌟💖
thank you, Erin
Washington State has mail in voting (has had for years now), but we're holding a small ballot party where people can ask questions and discuss things and then I check to make sure every I is dotted, T crossed, and signature legible then hand deliver all the ballots straight to the auditor's office.
Excited to see what you discuss in this check-in - I feel like August has been a big month!!
it has! truly!
I will never be the same, either. Thank you for having the conversation.
I also experienced the first instance of an intense desire to buy something since we all hunkered down. It's a throw blanket by A Beautiful Mess X Etsy that feels so right, but it's too rich for my blood. When I'm reflecting on it now, I think I felt certain that this blanket was the only thing that could comfort me through the Covid Autumn, and that I needed it to make the Autumn season bearable. Really, it won't comfort me any more than any other blanket. I see that now.
You look so doe-eyed and happy in this check in. Very much like “yourself”. I’m so glad to see the small positive changes for you that are moving you in the right direction.
i'm reading the comments and someone suggested you could perhaps make your own loungewear. maybe it could be a new clothing line for you?
My head is filled with a similar flavour of brain noise.
I'm in the UK, but we've got our own version of upheaval happening with Brexit on top of the global pandemic and the various global sites of creeping fascism. On top of that, I have a bunch of really hardcore personal life stuff going on with physical and mental health, among other things. I'm an EU citizen who is an immigrant in the UK, so Brexit meant I had to deal with the possibility that I wouldn't be able to stay in the country I've lived in for a decade now. I finally got my official settled status just before shit hit the fan with covid, so I had no time to absorb the relief of that small victory before everything was horrendously stressful again.
I came to stay with my Partner Unit just before everything got locked down, so I've spent the whole quarantine in someone else's space (not that I'm not happy to be here, with him, and not that this wasn't preferable to being apart for half the year, but it's still not my space).
On top of that, my mother is in Italy (where I'm also from), where things got really bad really quickly, but she had a bad fall and broke her leg just before Covid hit Italy, which was actually a really good thing in the end because she was laid up at home instead of out and about being infected. But broken legs are still bad, especially at her age, and it's been really difficult not being able to see for myself that she's ok.
The pandemic situation also hit pause on a lot of...medical explorations I had going on (I was recently diagnosed with a rare-ish chronic health condition that has really wide-reaching implications, but is very idiosyncratic, so I was bouncing around from specialist to specialist to figure out what my version of this disorder looks like and how to manage the various bits).
On top of that, I've had to stop paying attention to the news or social media at all, because I kept seeing medical professionals suggesting that people with chronic health conditions like mine, or brains like mine, should not expect to be resuscitated, and in fact should make sure to have Do Not Resuscitate orders in place, if we find ourselves in the hospital with severe complications from Covid-19. So that was a nice little addition to the large swathes of the population who want me to fuck off back to the foreign lands from whence I came.
Plus I work freelance, so it's been a constant back and forth between feast and famine in terms of how much work I have coming in, and both are super stressful in their own ways.
tl; dr - I'm doing great.
As my little sister would say, you seem to have most of your sparkle back. Which makes all of us in Hannah's Pod very happy! But dude, no. I know I was very sick the week of the RNC, but I haven't had the upheaval you've had this year and I have many days where I feel like I am hanging on by the very barest thread with regard to my psyche's relationship with the world at large, and that was WRIT LARGE during the RNC when I struggled to accept that this, our country, is actual reality (I won't go on, but I expect you understand). I think we ALL need to expect to operate at a lower mental and emotional capacity for the remainder of the year and expect to have days where we either struggle or feel trapped in an out of body dystopian universe. I have to remind myself of that so much I may paint it on my bedroom wall for a few months. Actually, that's not the worst idea, especially because I have loads of canvas paint (I have no idea what to do with wall paint except to use it as a cheap way to stretch a canvas) and the room needs to be repainted anyway. Something like your thumbnail quote. I'm terrible at graphic design style art, but mayhaps I will make letters out of trees and plants and flowers and have that blunt of a reminder that I do not need to be firing on all cylinders so I feel less of a failure when predictably I am not some days.
I bet you can do it well :)
I'm in Alabama and I'm planning to stand in that stupid line, mask on, and vote in person. I am deeply troubled by all the controversy over the USPS and I feel that the only way to reliably vote (for me) is in person. I'm teaching middle school every day, in the building, so voting in person won't expose me to any more germies than I get on the daily anyway. But am I Royally Pissed that this is where our country is?? YES.
The thong demonstration with your hands Hannah made me laugh out aloud. 😂😂😂
I’m voting early. I’m having it sent to my house and mailing it back in. I just don’t want to be around large group of people. I’m glad you’re feeling better.
it's okay to not be okay-- but i'm finally feeling more like me again as well, and it's not the old irresponsible me-- serendipitously, Danessa is having a sale! i grabbed the prismfx lotion with glee in my heart knowing i waited for my finances & a sale to align. i even panned some similar products in the meantime!
and then i literally said "oh!" out loud when you started flashing the pics of the loungewear. that charcoal grey ommmmmgggg. i need to dupe it with goodwill and clearance finds-- i think i can even alter some old sweaters or shirts!
yay Chad, I'm so glad you are feeling more like yourself!! I love the idea of duping the loungewear with thrifted stuff and alterations :)
@@HannahLouisePoston it's the chonky sleeves that really sparks joy for me! it's mini, casual kimono esque. we live!
I thought I’d just hop on here and comment. I’m definitely not your target demographic (18, male), and I’m only at 9 minutes into the video, but wow. Already subscribed. A lot of things have been moving in my life recently, ranging from corona, to parents getting cancer, to college... growing up I guess. This video really has already forced me to challenge truths within my life, and the truths beyond my life shared with others, such as you, and I want to thank you. It’s rare I see this side of vulnerability, and it’s TERRIFYING, but so needed, as it shows me it’s ok to face myself and be honest. Thank you!
Edit: Made it to the overbuying piece, and yeah. This is an issue that I have as in order to try and cope I revert into these mechanisms that aren’t working for me.
yay Ryan, thank you for watching and commenting! I'm so glad you are here. I have cousins in college so I've been thinking a lot about how much the pandemic is changing the college experience, I really feel for you. Cheers to having the courage to face oneself and be honest! Sending a big hug
Beautifully said and moving as always. I will try to stretch some of my bandwidth to thinking about that quote. I definitely am guilty of the “holding my breath” mentality at times where I am living somewhat passively “until it’s over” (whatever that looks like or means, who knows). On the bright side, I just sent in my advanced ballot form in the mail a couple days ago so my voting plan is under way!
I agree with your decision to drop the “year of less stuff” as the framing device for your channel. I love to follow what’s going on with you and your channel but I felt like that focus was a little too narrow and not as compelling or relevant as some of your previous and current themes. I’m excited to see the direction your channel takes and I know that it is still developing and you’re feeling your way ahead. We’re here with you for the journey.
Future generations aren’t going to question our hoarding or anything like that (as was the symptom for many sufferers of the Great Depression), rather our grandchildren will wonder why we sanitize our groceries before putting them away
I appreciate your very thoughtful video.
I am catching up on my videos. My email does not post my subscriptions anymore and I have tried several things but to no avail. I just am going back thru and watching all the ones I may have missed since maybe September. Yes, I totally agree that what has happened in this world has changed it and us and we will never be the same. We just have to move forward. We have to. When this first began, I wrote a story in past tense about what was currently happening. It scares me. But I lived thru it. Wow. I'm glad that things are good for you right now. We just can't make too many future plans because we don't know the future. As you were discussing the lounge wear you loved, I could see you making and creating your own. You can sew and I bet you could make some even more beautiful than the ones you liked. LA has the resources for beautiful materials. Make your own lounge wear. It may be an opening for a new door for a new line for you. Just sharing a dream I had for you. I can see it in my minds eye but only you can decide for your life. It would be fun to make your own lounge set though.
Sorry not sorry I'm commenting so many times but you are just saying so many good things!
I really relate to what you are saying about identity muddle this year but I feel like for me, instead of not wanting to buy fancy sweatpants because I need a whole person to put in them, I'm buying the fancy sweatpants because maybe *that's* the right container. Which I know is wrong but I'm on the struggle bus right now. I'm not a perfectionist so I'm still working out some of the details, but for me a lot of it I think is about "maybe I can find my identity again if I just get this thing".
Love your video, as usual. Howevery I don't like the policy of the company that made your dress. How's a non-sewer supposed to know what measurements they should provide for a dress they never owned? They should use body measurements (like everybody else) and then work out how much ease THEY need to add for THEIR design. I guess that's their way of not being on the hook but it works out to be a bad deal to me.
I’m going to be honest here....I don’t come to your channel for “year or less stuff” anymore. I end up purchasing a large amount of makeup because my lifestyle allows it. I come to your channel for therapy. That’s the real reason I watch your videos. 🤷🏻♀️
Thank you for this video, Hannah