Category: Soprano Musings

Self Care Season

K. McCoyLeave a comment

The holidays are approaching, and for me that means that it’s time to up the self care regime.

On any given day I find myself waking up well before my alarm clock and just laying in silence as I listen to the traffic outside. It’s nice.

Or I’ll queue up a playlist to motivate myself to get up from the comfy warm covers to dance. Depending on the song that random plays, I tend to dance in three stages: Silly, Sensually, or Super Sonic Fast đŸ™‚

Each stage is an expression of self love. They remind me of how far I’ve come (from my ‘Siren Muse’ days) and how much more I have to grow. And it’s just fun to be in my little studio dancing by myself, enjoying my own company. Recently in one of the Facebook groups that I am in, there was a post for a 20 day mental wellness challenge starting in November. I decided to take part in it and share the challenge with all of you!

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Now, I won’t lie – at least 4 of these tasks will be hard for me to complete. But I will try my best to do them all. That is really the heart of all of this – to try to get through this thing called life on our best terms and at peace with ourselves.

What are your steps towards self care? How do you protect your mental health?

I would love for you to think about those questions and then share one of your answers in the comments. Until next time Musings!

Be inspired. Stay inspiring.

– Soprano Musings

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Just Another Day

K. McCoyLeave a comment

Only Zion T on heavy replay is going to get me through the next 2 days.

As most of you know, I have been in South Korea for the past few months. I was accepted into the TALK program. Overall, it’s great! For teaching English in a public school, I get to live and experience South Korea.

Then there are the days like today. Day one (of 3) of our culture trip. I’m in a pretty swanky hotel room, showered and ready for bed. But there is a curfew that I have to stay up for, so I decided to share my feelings with you all before studying for a bit. The hardest part about being here in South Korea is all the mandatory social interaction. From having dinner and scheduled fun times with my co-workers to these culture trips with the TALK program, I struggle to get through them.

Yes, I knew that these would be things that I would have to comply with while overseas.

Yes, I have been asked to do more strenuous and demanding work in my previous jobs.

Though for someone like me, who enjoys exploring solo and takes things in differently, this is difficult (AF). In the beginning it starts off okay – seeing and saying hello to everyone. Catching up on missed small talk and the commute from one location to the next. Then after 2 or 3 hours of listening to over 2 dozen folks talking and laughing on loop begins to wreck my nerves and I’m looking for an exit.

It is exhausting! And I need to recharge – stat. I try not to let it show by smiling when folks address me or by getting out of site, but it doesn’t always work. So I nap, listen to music, study, or find inspiration to write about to pass the time. Well, tonight I did a combo of 3 of these and it wasn’t enough. And I almost snapped at the girls I had the misfortune of dining with too.

Handling my emotional state is enough, so once they started in (and never quit) about how they didn’t like the food, I knew it was time to go! I ended up wolfing down my seafood dish with some rice and bolted out of the restaurant into the welcoming cold.

I say all this because my post lately have all been about my amazingly positive and wonderful thoughts about being in South Korea. As they should be, because for the most part – being here has been amazingly positive! I’m slowly gaining confidence in my Korean, learning the ropes as far as how to best teach my students, and I feel like my health has improved too from the lifestyle changes of having a BMW (that’s a bus, metro, walking for those of you out of the loop).

The holidays are rapidly approaching and it is my least favorite time of the year. And just as I did today, I will make it through them as best as I can. Because today may not have been the best, but that doesn’t mean that I should forget all the beautiful days that I had before it. Or go into the future with whatever negative vibes that I have about how today was for me. It’s just another day, and if I allow it to it can ruin my experience while overseas.

And I went through too much to get where I am now to let that happen.

I’ll be sure to try my best to post once more this month. Thank you so much for making it through this surprisingly long post.

As always, be inspiring and stay inspired Musings!

– Soprano Musings

 

Falling Into Old Patterns? No More!

K. McCoyLeave a comment

Why hello Musings!

I’m sorry for my absence (again-lol). Being in training for a month and (finally) teaching in South Korea has kept me away longer than even I expected. And even though I was told in advance that it may happen, I’ve begun to experience some sort of emotional roller coaster. Yeah, August was full steam ahead – me focusing on getting to South Korea and making it through the first round of orientation/training.

No lie, that ish was hard! Over a hundred other teachers from all of the globe and the staff in charge of handling all of us. Everyone was just excited and bouncing off the walls with energy and it was almost too much for me after the first week. Then we were moved to our final leg of orientation, which was much needed for me because too many folks and not enough time to recharge solo was making me a bit bitter. lol

When we were finally released to our schools and mentor teacher(s), I was ecstatic!  We were finally in our city and would begin to really teach. The first week was okay, I was only nervous when it came time to try to pronounce my students names đŸ™‚

Sigh. Though as we all know, good times don’t last long.

There have been a couple incidences since being South Korea (along with the seasons changing and bringing up feelings that I’d rather it didn’t) that had me ready to hide away until it was time to teach. Tonight I saw a video in one of my groups on Facebook that was all about not dimming my light because of others’ negativity. And I truly needed to be reminded to not reveal in some asshats behavior or hide away because of a few uncomfortable moments. The only thing that happens is that you end up giving power over yourself to those that are not worthy of anymore of your time.

Not only that, but I would also lose out on seeing what wonderful adventures await me. I’ve wanted to come and see South Korea for far too long to let that happen. So, I’m going to continue to see the good that is in front of me and not focus on the other nonsense that is now behind me. When I think about those not so pleasant moments, I almost chuckle out loud.

Of course those dim witted fools wanted to invade my space. They really can’t seem to help but want to get as close to my brightness as possible, with a smile that is as bright as the sun, naturally they would want to.

So I’m going to keep on shining, and reminding folks to respect my space along the way.

I hope you all will do the same.

Until next time Musings!

Be inspired and stay inspiring!

-Soprano Musings