Master your emotions with confidence

The ponderings of a Feral Housewife

Issue # 67 || May 2, 2025 || Previous issues​

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Hey Reader,

Happy Friday!

The weekend is upon us, and if your life is anything like mine, it's already booked up.

It’s like there’s no room to breathe, let alone dream!

Don't you hate that?

Haha, I do! Having a booked-up day or weekend or week or month makes me CRAZY 🤪.

I love S P A C E.

Yes, the universe too. The stars. The planets. The Moon. All spectacular. But that's not the s p a c e I'm hinting at. Although, you know what, 🤔 we can learn a thing or two about s p a c e in the universe. It’s got a secret we need in our overbooked lives.

It takes light-years to travel from one planet or star to another.

Imagine if you had all that space (and time) around you!

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A quick astronomy lesson

The closest star to Earth is Proxima Centauri, which is 4.25 light-years away.

That's 40,208,000,000,000 km or 40.2 trillion kilometers away. For those who can't fathom kilometers (like me) that's 24.98 trillion miles away 🤯!

What a trip that would be! (Sign me up!)

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If you were on the fastest spaceship, it would take roughly 75,000 years to reach Proxima Centauri. (Calculated with Grok-if you're a NASA nerd-you'll have to forgive me and educate Grok if it's not accurate🤣).

But you get the point—space is huge!

These are astronomical distances for our puny limited earthly minds to wrap around, but the idea. THE IDEA!

What if you gave yourself loads of s p a c e in your schedule to:

• relax?
• breathe?
• sketch or paint spring flowers, just because you can?
• reflect on what matters?
• process whether or not you're heading in the direction you want?

The possibilities are endless, aren't they?

Even a sliver of that cosmic space could change everything.

I wish I could tell you I'm 'walking the talk'. I'm trying to figure out what to shed in my schedule and how NOT to feel guilty about doing less.

Our worth is often tied to our productivity.

We also keep ourselves on the constant-go because we're hoping to avoid the static in our minds—those nagging thoughts we don’t want to face.

I challenge you in the upcoming weeks to take a morning, an afternoon, an ENTIRE DAY, or even a whole weekend to just listen to the static in your mind, until it settles.

Get quiet. Give yourself the gift of time and silence. Shed all obligations (as much as you can) and turn off the phone.

See what comes up.

Let your thoughts flow like a river and simply observe them, without judging or criticizing yourself.

It's not easy. I know.

But it's worth it.

You are worth it.

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A few other thoughts before I go

You have no idea how many topics are floating around in my mind (and in my journals) that I want to share with you!

I could write a book every week.

If I could write you every day, I would!

But for now, I’m pouring my heart into these Friday, punchy, creative newsletters that respect your time and your inbox.

Above all, I want these newsletters to feel valuable to you. Even if it's just one nugget of wisdom or one sentence that helps you relax your shoulders, breathe, and take better care of yourself.

Here are two thoughts I wrote down to share with you ASAP.

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Thought #1

This idea is from Jay Shetty when he was being interviewed on Mel Robbin's podcast recently.

It's insightful, deep, and worth applying immediately in your life.

He said,

Read it a few times. What do you think he means?

Often, we do exactly the opposite. Because we understand our own intentions, we don't second guess our motives. We know we mean well, so we give ourselves the benefit of the doubt. For a truer self-assessment—judge yourself by how you behave or treat others.

On the other hand, when someone says or does something we perceive as unjust or mean, we immediately judge their actions. But what if we did the opposite? What if we gave them the benefit of the doubt?

We might painfully brood over people's actions because we assume negative intent. For a better assessment of others—assume they have good intentions (or no intent at all). Most people aren't intentionally trying to hurt you. They're just trying to get their needs met in the best way they know how.

If, however, you've confirmed someone is intentionally hurting you, then by all means give yourself s p a c e from that person.

Just think of how many 'people problems' you'd solve in your life right now if you followed Jay Shetty's advice.

It's been helping me not to be so quick to judge others when things don't turn out like I prefer, or people don't act like I think they should.

Try it this week and see how it shifts your perspective!

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Thought #2

How often have you heard that meditation is the secret sauce for solving every dilemma in your life?

I'm not against meditation (the right kind) but it’s not a magic fix.

Have you noticed that meditation only takes you so far? Maybe you meditate as much as you can, and it helps a little, but it's NOT really solving much.

Why?

Here are 3 possible reasons meditation isn't working for you.

(1) The problems that are stressing you are STILL THERE after meditating.

This seems obvious. But imagine before leaving your bedroom in the morning, you spend a good 15 minutes putting yourself in a state of relax so you're ready to face the world. You clear your mind. You breathe. You relax your shoulders. You pray, etc. Then you open your bedroom door and BAM the outside world comes flooding in.

You disappointedly wonder why no one's made you tea yet, despite the fact that you HINT to your family every morning how wonderful that would be. (True story, in my house 🤣)

Your house is a mess and it's your job to clean it up. Your kids are screaming for your attention. A pile of bills awaits you on your desk. Your menopausal or PMS symptoms are still raging. Ugh.

That's when your shoulders tense back up. The pit in your stomach returns. You sigh deeply and hold your breath to face another day.

Sound familiar?

Meditation is great. But it doesn't resolve the problems you're facing each day.

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(2) You haven't identified and changed your beliefs or stories.

You know that your feelings come from thoughts, right?

But where do thoughts come from?

Thoughts emerge from the stories you believe about yourself, the world, and others. Some of these stories are deeply ingrained from childhood.

Some of your stories are true. Many of them are not.

Meditation helps you get into a calm state, but it doesn't teach you how to challenge the stories or beliefs in your head that affect your thoughts and decisions.

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(3) You're the same person after you meditate.

This is kind of related to reason #2.

Meditation is great for giving yourself room to breathe and for temporarily calming your nervous system (by the way, calming your nervous system is goal #1).

But meditation time shouldn't be just about emptying your mind or clearing your thoughts. That's only a small piece of the equation.

You also need to figure out how and where you need to grow. You must come out of a meditation session having learned something. Kind of like an aha moment or a light bulb moment 💡. The shifts don't have to be dramatic or drastic, simple will do.

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In Summary

Take a lesson from the universe: it's vast, unhurried, and full of possibility. Give yourself S P A C E and see how you grow.

Judge yourself by your actions and others by their intentions. This will free you of most people problems.

Meditate with a goal. Identify your stories / belief systems. Address and eliminate stressors in your life if you can. Meditate to challenge your thoughts and to grow as a person.

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Here’s to finding your own little corner of s p a c e this weekend.

I’d love to hear how you create s p a c e in your life!

Hit reply and share your favorite way to pause and breathe.

Let’s inspire each other. 🌟

I can’t wait to read your replies!

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Until our next feral, fun, Friday adventure,

Anna

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​www.aferalhousewife.com (Check out my work-in-progress blog for more articles)

​https://linktr.ee/aferalhousewife​

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This weekly newsletter is a labor of my creative love meant to inspire you to intentionally grow in all areas of life, especially emotionally, because what you think and how you feel influences everything. ​ If you're enjoying this newsletter why not forward it to a friend? ​ You can also send them a subscribe link: ​​​​Start Mastering Your Emotions with Confidence Today!​ ​ Heal your inner world to heal your outer world. ​ With love, Anna Celotto Creative & Digital Writer