what I’m learning | #1

Since I moved my goals to being quarterly, I realized sometimes I want to share random things I’ve learned without having an individual post for all of them.  I don’t have a time parameter for how often I’ll post these, but this little what I’m learning series will be a good catch for me when I do want to share. 

1.  Books that require a lot of processing often take me a long time to read.

My reading has definitely slowed down a lot.  However, in the beginning of the month, I woke up in the middle of the night to have my 3 AM pregnancy meal and began buying self-help books to read in bed 🤪.  I just finished one of them: (affiliate link) Out of the Fog by Dana Morningstar and thought it was excellent.  The author focuses on relationships that make you feel fog (fear, obligation, and guilt).  While the book is centered around mostly marriage relationships, I feel like this is a great book for anyone who leaves an interaction feeling confused (which often fog or other abusive behaviors does).  She describes boundaries in very easy to understand terms. 

I also loved the book introduced called thought holes.  Essentially, thought holes are pattern of thoughts that people pass on to each other that create cognitive dissonance and create that fog.  Thought holes can come from anywhere, but after having a term for it, I loved being able to dissect some of the thought holes that I have encountered and disagreed with over the years.  Everyone encounters thought holes in life. 

These are some thought holes I have been introduced to and are easy to discuss here:

• “If you love who you’re dating, you have to marry by a certain time frame.”  Someone told me this in college once and it made me super uncomfortable.
• “You have to work on a relationship with family no matter what.”  I don’t agree with that at all.  I think relationships are a privilege, not an entitlement.  If someone is abusive, continually is cruel or violates boundaries, and shows no remorse for their actions, I have no issue with limited or no contact.

The list continues, however, the concept of thought holes are that once you hit them, they create dissonance and sometimes some pain as you figure out why they feel wrong and what you actually think about them.

2.  Pregnancy is weird, but our baby is cute.

 When you’re pregnant, apparently sometimes your nose expands.  This happened to me fairly early on before I had any other body changes.  I remember looking in the mirror and thinking “what in the world?!”  Estrogen causes it and apparently my nose will go back to normal after I have had the baby.  

We had ultrasounds that actually had our baby being still for once.  I had so many people text me and tell me that she has my nose (when it is normal 😉 ).

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3.  I’ll never get tired of personality tests.

Recently in a facebook group I’m in, someone posted this personality test that includes a 20 page personality report that you can take here.  I really like it because it actually is free (with no sign ups!) and it also covers personality type, multiple intelligences, learning styles, and dominant brain hemispheres.  For personality test junkies, I like this one.  You can see my results here.  I probably am an INFP, but I used to randomly score as an ENFP too sometimes.  Out of the results, I thought the intelligence preferences were the most useful information for me.  I never knew that naturalist was considered an intelligence, but I feel even more justified for loving plants and animals so much now 🙂 .

4.  We potentially have more big changes coming our way.

This is vague, sorry.  I like to have a semi loose idea of what is going on in life, and right now, nope.  I’ll keep y’all posted.