Tag: #skills

Leisure, Mental Health

An underrated life skill…

beingmesober

What’s the most underrated life skill?

One underrated life skill is learning to pause before you speak. Its taken me a long time to master this, even if I haven’t mastered it at all.

I’ve always been defensive when I feel threatened or feel I need to get my point across. I’ve had a difficult time holding my words and patience. I’m a truth seeker and stand by honesty. I would call people out when they were wrong. If I chose to stay quiet, my face would say it.

As I’ve gotten older and understand what staying silent means, it’s shown me patience and strength and most of all peace.  It doesn’t mean you’re weak or wrong. It doesn’t mean you have nothing valuable to say. Silence means listening and trying to see things from others point of view or just protecting your peace. Silence allows you to absorb the words or actions and assess them and either deal with it in a calm manner or not at all.

Silence is golden. Listening is a skill. The urgency to respond right away is also a skill that takes work.

My most recent practice is trying to stay silent when my daughter is complaining or discussing with me things in her life that feel utterly impossible.  To me, it’s easy what to do and I try to help her and explain what to do but my advise is at time irrelevant to her. So, I must learn to just listen and say nothing. Simple words like, I understand or just a simple okay. I can’t give her the answers she is looking for so I must try to stay quiet but also keep my face in check.

Sometimes the best thing we can do for them and ourselves is pause and wait before we speak.

Leisure, Mental Health, Stages

What skill would I master if I could and why?

beingmesober

If you could instantly master any skill, what would it be and why?

Carpentry is a skill I wish I could instantly master!

I’ve always been passionate about interior design, but as I’ve gotten older and expanded my inner designer, I’ve wished I was a carpenter or wood worker.

It became something I’ve wanted to do when I started my Art journey. I wanted to be able to do my own frames or cool wood signs, maybe hairing bone patterns or just being able to master the right cuts. Math was not my forte in school and has not improved over the years, lol. All the inches and mm, cm, ugh…My mind goes fuzzy!

My husband and I have renovated, gutted and beautified 5 homes since we’ve been together over the last 20 years. It has been both stressful and exhilarating! I absolutely love revitalizing old outdated homes to bring them back to life. We’ve been very fortunate to be able to do this. Its not cheap and finding the right contractors is also a chore. We’ve been very lucky. 

There’s also a mastery when renovating homes and reselling. We are not home flippers, I am just someone who has visions of design in any home I’m in. But when doing this you have to be mindful of how much to invest in your home to be able to profit when selling. NEVER over design. Always keep in mind the necessities of a home to max out. Little details add a lot of value.

Watching the contractors do their magic has often made me wish I knew carpentry. If I could turn back time just a little I think I would have loved to be a home builder. Maybe in my next lifetime!

There’s still time for me to pick up that skill saw and make those cuts, but I think at this point in my 56 years I will leave it to the professionals.