Life lately

(Wearing the CUTEST summery strawberry sweater from one of my favorite brands, Collectif, and it's currently on SALE! Want to snag one for yourself? Click the direct link to the product HERE.)

Happy June! I can't believe that it's officially summer here, and that I've now been living in Sweden for half a year. Not much has changed since I arrived in January with my giant suitcase, except the weather has gotten TREMENDOUSLY better and I now have a job (yay), but my health has been in a weird place.

I recently visited the lady doctor to obtain new birth control (boo for Sweden not carrying the pill I love and have used happily for the past few years), and she took my blood pressure, which ended up being preeettyy high. We tried it again and it was even higher the second time. She assured me that maybe it was high because I was nervous to be in a doctors office, but I also think it could be a result of all of the stress I've been under for so long now. It's not even bad stress necessarily; some of it stems from a lot of really happy moments in my life: meeting Max, falling in love, visiting Sweden every few months in the beginning, obtaining my permit to live here, moving here, etc. It's a lot for one person to take in in a year.

I also have battled anxiety from the whole Instagram algorithm change. I don't like to admit it or talk about it often, but yes, like all of us, I have been very frustrated with my lack of engagement and lack of growth which has really slowed down in the past year compared to 2-3 years ago when I feel I was at my highest level of success. And up until recently, my anxiety would get to a point where I would cry if my post was "bombing" (aka not even getting up to 100 likes), and if I couldn't get a photo posted fast enough because life got in the way, my heart would be racing and I would be extremely anxious until the moment when it would finally go live. I thought because I wasn't getting a large amount of likes or followers, that must have meant that people didn't like ME or what I was doing or contributing, which sounds so ridiculous now. It's all pretty embarrassing to admit, really, because - Instagram is just an app. But it is what it is. I had a problem, and once I started working, I physically and mentally didn't have the energy or the time to put in as much time as before, and that actually resulted in a POSITIVE mental change within me. I'm working so much right now that it's actually hilarious - 10 and a half hours of work, on my feet, and starting this week, I will be working 7 days in a row. I'm so grateful for this big life change because it's caused me to step back from what I know was a real issue. It actually made me realize that it's OKAY to not be posting to my feed every day, and OKAY that I may lose some followers here and there. In the end, I know I have a very dedicated group of amazing people who love what I do (thank you thank you for that!), and that's all that matters.

I recently started taking one day a week off from posting to my feed, but it might become more frequent as things gets busier at work. But don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. I intend to continue to share even more fun and exciting stories and photos of my life here in Sweden. <3

If you've been battling anxiety, how have you been trying to combat it? I'd love to start a conversation on healthy tips and tricks that we can all share and use together!