Welcome to the first Jumble & Flow newsletter!
I began creating what it means to live a Jumble & Flow way of life about three years after having twin girls, moving from our one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn to the Chicago burbs to be near my family — all the while holding down a demanding full-time job for an SF e-commerce company. And finding out one of my daughters has a rare syndrome and cannot walk or talk. And that I may be going through what I’m calling peri-peri-menopause.
Basically, I went a little bonkers and realized I needed to make some changes. With your help and the help of like-minded women everywhere, I’m focused on staying positive and true to my creative roots on the regular.
Jumble & Flow is about embracing the mess that is life, love, art, and creativity. It’s about letting go of perfection and accepting that pretty good is pretty great. Shooting high but loving the little things too. It’s about celebrating how we grown-ass ladies have figured out a thing or two, and we’re all the wiser and braver now.
Amy Cuevas Schroeder
Founder of Jumble & Flow
Meet Holly Seymour Jasinski
For this ‘bipolar light’ yoga-teaching nonprofit manager and new stepparent, there is no ‘done,’ and that’s A-OK
What three jumbles are top of mind for you right now?
Caring for parents and family members who are aging: illness, Medicare, confusing paperwork, assisted living, etc.
Navigating this new world feels really daunting. I want to say, “Excuse me? There must be some mistake. I am not qualified to be in charge here.” As a kid, I always thought the adults knew what they were doing. It turns out we just improvise to the best of our abilities, but deep down we are all scared shitless.I have recently “gone public” about having a diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder with Mixed Features, which I think of as “Bipolar Light,” since the periods of depression and mania, while definitely sucky, don’t stick around for too long.
I realize putting it out there is a risky move. I just decided that I didn’t want to hide that part of me anymore and perpetuate the stigma that mental health issues are something to be ashamed of. Managing my symptoms can feel like a full-time job. I’m always surfing — constantly trying to find a sweet spot between doing what I can to feel OK and not sweating it too much if I don’t drink all the water and do all the yoga and meditate on a beach and journal every feeling every day.Opening up to friends and family has been the most helpful thing I have done. I am also very fortunate to work in a field where mental health, addictions, and abuse are talked about openly and without judgement. We have a lot of work to do to break the myths around all of these issues; there is still so much shame and blame. A lot people would be risking losing their jobs or even custody of their kids if they went public with their diagnoses like I have. I am privileged to not have to worry about that kind of backlash.
Settling into a new position at work.
After a 20-plus year career working mostly on the front lines, the decision to step away was essential to my well-being. By front lines, I mean hearing stories of intimate partner violence and sexual trauma every day, working tirelessly to secure grant funding for crisis services, challenging the systems that do not adequately protect victims or their children and fail to consistently hold perpetrators accountable, and supervising a team of therapists and case workers who experience hefty doses of vicarious trauma. It was not an easy decision by any means. My job had become so much of my identity and admittedly, it fed my ego. Doing work with trauma survivors is not something that most people want to do, so it’s easy to start having a sense of superiority about it. Self-care and secondary trauma were not really on anyone’s radar at the beginning of my career. Even after I learned about it, it was difficult to break old patterns.
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