Author: Christina Bruni

Christina Bruni is the author of the new book Working Assets: A Career Guide for Peers. She contributed a chapter "Recovery is Within Reach" to Benessere Psicologico: Contemporary Thought on Italian American Mental Health.

Benefit of Having a Routine

The number-one benefit of establishing a routine is to feel like you have control over what’s happening in your life.

Ever the trouper that I am it wasn’t until this month that I understood exactly how hard it’s been for me to live under quarantine.

What helped was having a consistent routine all along since my job shut down in March:

I exercised every week for one or two days each week with only a few weeks of not exercising.

I cooked my own dinners 5x per week throughout the last four months.

Having a routine gives a person stability.

A lot of things aren’t under our control. “Let Go–and Let Life” is my motto for accepting what I can’t change.

It hit me only recently that my old routine wasn’t working pre-pandemic. Post-pandemic I was given the hidden opportunity to make changes I might not have made before.

Having to “put out fires” and respond to repeated “emergencies” is no way to live our lives.

By establishing a routine we take back control over what happens in any given week.

Inside of the unpredictability of the COVID-19 outbreak is indeed a silver lining for all of us:

The ability to reclaim our power as individuals living our lives.

My book-publishing goals have been put on hold. Yet inside of this dashed dream I take joy in keeping the 3 blogs.

My intention is that readers can learn from my insight and observations.

Hope is called for. Optimism is called for.

A better day lies ahead. I firmly believe this.

Step 4 – Persevere

I’ve started Step 4 of the 90-day action plan. This is the Persevere step.

For going on four months I was forced indoors because of the COVID-19 outbreak in New York City.

New York State went from having the highest number of cases to having the lowest infection rate as of today.

My goal had been to use my paycheck to buy food. Which I was able to do for the duration of Step 3 Perspire.

Living indoors I wasn’t tempted to buy things impulsively that I didn’t need.

Today and in the coming four weeks this is when I’m supposed to use tactics to persevere in maintaining this goal.

After I publish Working Assets my goal is to publish a personal finance book for peers.

To feel like you have control over the direction of your life is imperative. To have control over what you choose to spend money on is the first step in gaining economic freedom.

A shift in behavior can create a corresponding mental shift. And two goals can co-exist at once. Like my goal of cooking my own dinners 5x per week and creating on Sunday a routine for the coming week.

By relaying in this blog my progress with my own goals I strive to empower readers to tackle their own objectives.

To create lasting change you and I need to be able to maintain the new behavior for the long-term.

I will talk in the next blog entry about the number-one benefit of establishing a routine in a time like this pandemic and beyond.

Creating a Weekly Routine

I find that imposing a structure to each week is a way to feel like you’re in control.

Creating a routine on Sunday for the coming week is my strategy for getting through the pandemic and beyond.

Automating recurring tasks can help.

I have my groceries delivered the same day every week. I budget in a set amount to spend on this food delivery so that the cost doesn’t fluctuate.

As I might have talked about before in here and in my Flourish blog it’s imperative to take care of your mental and physical health in a time like the pandemic.

The outbreak is still in effect in most cities and towns in America.

If you ask me this is the perfect time to create a routine.

I recommend the Julie Morgenstern book Time Management from the Inside Out 2nd Edition. She gives readers ideas for breaking each day into time zones.

In the coming blog entries I”m going to talk about setting up a weekly routine in more detail.

In August I would like to return to career topics.

Accounting for Time Off the Job

A gap in employment due to COVID-19 doesn’t need to be accounted for.

Time off before the pandemic–before March 2020–can be talked about.

It helps to have done volunteer work, learned computer skills, or otherwise been active during the time you weren’t working.

Even caring for an ill family member is a justified reason for a gap.

Should you have a mental illness and not have been doing anything while unemployed:

Doing volunteer work and better yet volunteer work linked to the job you want to get can help.

Doing an unpaid internship while you’re collecting government disability benefits makes sense too.

Log on to Idealist or VolunteerMatch or Internships for search options.

Strategies for Resiliency

In the webinar on managing stress the instructor talked about these things as well:

Building resiliency happens when we are able to feel we’re doing the best we can.

You might not feel like you have control. In fact I believe each of us has more control than we think we do.

My strategy has been to re-frame what I think about a situation or circumstance in my life.

Though the situation or circumstance might not change right now or ever I find that once I change how I view what’s going on it’s easier to cope with.

One strategy for resiliency is to ask what do you want to keep in your life and what do you want to discard.

Setting short-term goals and obtaining support for this is critical.

In the time of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak [which has not ended] I have set only two short-term goals.

Setting up a new weekly routine is my current objective.

I’ll end here by saying what turned around my recovery for the better was when I changed what I thought about having an illness.

Viewing what happened to me as the catalyst for finding my life’s purpose helped me put things in perspective–another strategy for resiliency–maintaining perspective..

Bouncing Back

Last week I attended a webinar on managing stress in a time like the pandemic we’re living through today.

It was said that the art of bouncing back is the ability to modify thoughts actions and behaviors as needed in order to succeed.

The goal is to focus on your zone of control to engage in behaviors that build resilience.

The FORCE of resiliency is comprised of:

Flexibility

Optimism

Resourcefulness

Curiosity

Empathy

To be curious about alternatives to choose from as options to employ strikes a chord with me.

In short keeping an open mind and trying a variety of techniques to see what works.

For too long I’ve put off starting the art practice I want to have. I might have talked in here before about having a practice:

A culinary practice. An exercise practice. And for me I’ve wanted for years to have an art practice.

Seeing how you can impose a structure to your routine could help if you ask me.

I find myself with two and three hour chunks of time. Breaking up the day into time zones for activities can help.

Julie Morgenstern wrote about this in her book Time Management from the Inside Out.

How can any of us bounce back when we feel like we’re adrift with no anchor?

Resiliency requires that you first acknowledge where you are and what capabilities you have right now.

The metaphor is that of “ducks”–where like a duck you have everything together on the surface and underneath you’re pedaling with challenges.

I’ve had my share of challenges since March when my day job shut down. I’m glad we have returned to work this month.

Most people bluff. It’s rare that a person is outspoken about struggling. Maybe you don’t want to appear weak in a country–America–where the myth of rugged individualism persists.

Though I’ve struggled I can vouch for the benefits of cultivating the FORCE of resiliency.

Empathy is called for now more than ever in society.

In the next blog entry I’ll talk more about strategies for resiliency.

Summering in Place

I would rather celebrate Juneteenth than the Fourth of July.

No–I don’t like barbecues because I don’t eat hot dogs and hamburgers. Nor do I like sitting around a patio table doing nothing but talking.

A friend invited himself to my house. On tap: a salad and green beans and chicken cutlets. A lemon pie for dessert.

While the outbreak continues I will talk in here more about goal-setting and bouncing back from a struggle.

I’m set to attend a Zoom meeting on resume and career help during the pandemic when people are losing jobs.

Will give the details in here about what I learn. As well I attended a webinar on managing stress. I’ll share these tactics next week.

For readers everywhere I wish you buona salute that is good health on the Fourth of July.

As Italians say when we raise our glasses in a toast: Salut!

Coping Takes Work

I gave Ashley Smith the author of the book above a review of her book for the back cover.

I recommend you buy What’s on My Mind? Coping Takes Work. The book gives great information about coping with challenges while living in recovery.

While I do reveal details of my own life in my 3 blogs I carefully choose what I write to send out to everyone in the world.

Ashley Smith’s unvarnished honesty is the selling point of her blog and her books.

Coping Takes Work is even better than her first book that I wrote the Foreword to.

We need more peers like Ashley Smith who are willing to stand up and speak out to tell our stories

You can read her Overcoming Schizophrenia blog. I have been reading her blog since 2008 when she first starting keeping it with no photos and using an anonymous name.

For 12 years she’s been going strong as a go-to blogger on the topic of mental health and recovery.

Coping Takes Work Amazon page.

Direction of Blog

I will be taking a break from posting blog entries here until this coming Tuesday.

On Tuesday I will return with the book review of the recovery guide that a peer published to empower readers.

In the future I will be blogging on this website on Tuesdays and Fridays every week.

At this time I’m involved in an outside project.

I want to tell readers of this blog:

Yes–I care about everyone living on earth. I care about peers living in recovery.

It’s because I care that I implore readers:

Refrain from starting to smoke cigarettes.

Refrain from using any kind of street drugs even marijuana.

Recovery is often not possible when you have a mental health issue and an addiction at the same time.

In fact the continued use of street drugs could very well make it impossible for a person to recover.

I care a lot that everyone has the equal opportunity to recover.

On Tuesday of next week I will return with the book review.

Acting Resilient

This is how I see things:

I think resilience is a skill that can benefit a person in recovery.

It hinges on thinking a setback can be temporary.

On not giving up and not resigning yourself to the status quo.

I was down for the count numerous times in my life and I got back up.

This is not easy. Recovering from a setback is not always quick and easy.

I’m skeptical that a person can rebound instantly.without any perspective as to what happened to them. You need to examine the setback to see how not to repeat the mistake.

If you ask me to be able to assess what got you in the mess and quickly resolve to do things differently is the way to effect change.

The definition of resilient is:

Tending to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.

Sometimes you can’t spring yourself from a situation right away. In the interim It’s the consistent resilient habits that can be the gateway to success down the road.

As far as having a job I made the pivot to working in a public library instead of remaining in a law firm library

Opportunity is the door. You need to knock on it. Rather than waiting for a big break to come along.

Acting resilient just might be the way to get back on track. Or to shift tracks when you’ve outlived where you’re at right now.

In the next blog entry I’m going to review a peer-written book that was designed to empower readers living in recovery.