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I have some things to work through about my foot and about my body, aging, and my overall opinion of the healthcare field. I was so frustrated and irritable last night and by the time it came to dinner I decided that I didn't want to eat what I had planned out and the day was tough enough that I just had a bean burrito with cheese and sour cream on it. My brain is really having a huff about eating clean right now. Yet I keep pushing back. I know my eating was off schedule yesterday, and maybe my salad I had for the afternoon didn't do a good enough job of keeping me full until I got home around 7pm, but in reality, it was my emotions eating that burrito, not me.
So today I am trying to put things into perspective or find out why I reacted that way to the news. I'm irritated that I'm aging, this isn't just something that I can "exersize" or strenght-train away, I am deformed and I am aging. It doesn't help that I carry extra weight. I'm worried about the future. I now have arthritis starting in multiple places and it makes me wonder what my mobility will be like in 10 or 20 years. I am hoping someone will figure out a way to make arthritis tolerable before then. As much as I don't want to admit it, while I really didn't want the pain and inconvenience of surgery, I was thinking about having a couple weeks off work. I know that's a surface thought, and I need to scratch a little deeper. I have had this constant nagging feeling that I need more time to rest, more time to think, more time to find out why I'm not happier.
And that was the gold I was digging for. It could be a mid-cycle mood shift, but I feel like I have been irritable and unhappy for days. Its like there's a barrior between myself and happy. I haven't been myself and I don't like it. But knowing what I'm feeling is only part of the battle, now I need to figure out why I'm not happy and what I can do to help. Yes, I am prone to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and I do use my Happy Light consistently, but so far I haven't noticed a huge difference other than when I am directly using it, which feels like someone drew back the curtains on a bright spring day. I may check into how long I should be using it every day, I may need to increase my time.
One thing I figured out is that my "to do" list is the mental equivelant to a stack of unorganized papers exploding out in every direction. I do not have a good organizational system for all the to-do's and things catch me off gaurd and I feel frantic, and when I forget something alltogether it makes me fee awful. So, I have just learned about and dowloaded Google Keep, it's a way to organize tasks and whatnot. This morning, I made a big list of things I need to do right now, and I got a bunch of things done and my mood lifted a bit. My brain has been exhausted thinking about how and what and when, I do tend to get down when I have a lot on my plate, so maybe an organization system will help. I did give my husband a "Honey help!" task to do for next month (an appointment that I won't be able to make) and he was more than happy to help. I was expecting friction but got the opposite.
Maybe I need to take a break from all the fitness/diet hype out there right now. Over the weekend, I watched a clip of Jillian Michaels talking about why keto is not a great choice for everyone. I am not a big fan of hers but I was impressed with how well articulated her point was. You can watch the video Here. And then I remembered that I saved a free webinar from Brooke Castillo, life coach from a program called the Life Coach School (lifecoachschool.com) so I listened to that. I also watched a TedTalks video of Tony Robbins talking about what drives us to do what we do. I will say that the Brooke Castillo seminar was OK, it has steps of self-awareness and such, and also discusses briefly what drives us. (Pssst! Emotions). Of course, she doesn't really offer solutions in the webinar, it is all a big pitch for her Scholars program where she coaches you how to overcome anything for a low-low price of $300 A MONTH!!! Unless I win the lottery I'm going to have to find a different way! The one thing that she really stressed is that the reason we eat is to try and buffer or escape from unpleasant emotions. Yep. And she said in order to overcome we need to learn to feel and even embrace those negative feelings. I need to think more on that. I have tried this and it is hard, accepting things and feelings we don't want to feel. I need more work for sure. It is different than the Buddhist manner of not letting our minds get too swept away by the highs or the lows, learning to detach from those feelings so they don't make us suffer. I am not a practicing Buddhist but many of the teachings do bring me a more peaceful mind. Learning to accept what is without feeling the need to be emotionally reactive. I see that in peaceful people that I admire, like His Holiness the Dalai Lama the 14th, and Thich Nhat Hanh, and I want that.
The Tony Robbins thing was actually interesting and made me want to buy a book of his. He quickly flashed a chart of emotions and I believe it was describing a deeper emotion behind the emotion, but those talks go so fast that he could barely get all the information out in the alloted time. The take-away I got is that emotions drive us, and until we learn to have control over them, they will drive us to places that leave us unsatisfied. I buy that. I want to fix my emotions, re-wire my brain so I don't feel so vulnerable to these things because I do feel like I'm constantly on a roller coaster between "life is awesome no matter what weight I am " and "Nothing I do makes me happy, I'm so overwhelmed." So I may see if I can rent his book "Awaken the Giant Within" from the library because I have a feeling it can help me. Has anyone read this book? Opinions?
Maybe, just maybe, in focusing on "dieting" and trying to force myself where I don't want to be (restriction always backfires on me, ALWAYS) I am feeling some of this unhappiness because I got away from fixing my happy, which seems to be something that is lacking right now in a big way. I'm not despairing, I have hope that I will lighten up and move on in the coming days, I will return to my normal self and feel better. I do take these down periods to be a gift because it makes me pause and look within and ultimately, I know it will lead to an answer at some point.
So today I am trying to put things into perspective or find out why I reacted that way to the news. I'm irritated that I'm aging, this isn't just something that I can "exersize" or strenght-train away, I am deformed and I am aging. It doesn't help that I carry extra weight. I'm worried about the future. I now have arthritis starting in multiple places and it makes me wonder what my mobility will be like in 10 or 20 years. I am hoping someone will figure out a way to make arthritis tolerable before then. As much as I don't want to admit it, while I really didn't want the pain and inconvenience of surgery, I was thinking about having a couple weeks off work. I know that's a surface thought, and I need to scratch a little deeper. I have had this constant nagging feeling that I need more time to rest, more time to think, more time to find out why I'm not happier.
And that was the gold I was digging for. It could be a mid-cycle mood shift, but I feel like I have been irritable and unhappy for days. Its like there's a barrior between myself and happy. I haven't been myself and I don't like it. But knowing what I'm feeling is only part of the battle, now I need to figure out why I'm not happy and what I can do to help. Yes, I am prone to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and I do use my Happy Light consistently, but so far I haven't noticed a huge difference other than when I am directly using it, which feels like someone drew back the curtains on a bright spring day. I may check into how long I should be using it every day, I may need to increase my time.
One thing I figured out is that my "to do" list is the mental equivelant to a stack of unorganized papers exploding out in every direction. I do not have a good organizational system for all the to-do's and things catch me off gaurd and I feel frantic, and when I forget something alltogether it makes me fee awful. So, I have just learned about and dowloaded Google Keep, it's a way to organize tasks and whatnot. This morning, I made a big list of things I need to do right now, and I got a bunch of things done and my mood lifted a bit. My brain has been exhausted thinking about how and what and when, I do tend to get down when I have a lot on my plate, so maybe an organization system will help. I did give my husband a "Honey help!" task to do for next month (an appointment that I won't be able to make) and he was more than happy to help. I was expecting friction but got the opposite.
Maybe I need to take a break from all the fitness/diet hype out there right now. Over the weekend, I watched a clip of Jillian Michaels talking about why keto is not a great choice for everyone. I am not a big fan of hers but I was impressed with how well articulated her point was. You can watch the video Here. And then I remembered that I saved a free webinar from Brooke Castillo, life coach from a program called the Life Coach School (lifecoachschool.com) so I listened to that. I also watched a TedTalks video of Tony Robbins talking about what drives us to do what we do. I will say that the Brooke Castillo seminar was OK, it has steps of self-awareness and such, and also discusses briefly what drives us. (Pssst! Emotions). Of course, she doesn't really offer solutions in the webinar, it is all a big pitch for her Scholars program where she coaches you how to overcome anything for a low-low price of $300 A MONTH!!! Unless I win the lottery I'm going to have to find a different way! The one thing that she really stressed is that the reason we eat is to try and buffer or escape from unpleasant emotions. Yep. And she said in order to overcome we need to learn to feel and even embrace those negative feelings. I need to think more on that. I have tried this and it is hard, accepting things and feelings we don't want to feel. I need more work for sure. It is different than the Buddhist manner of not letting our minds get too swept away by the highs or the lows, learning to detach from those feelings so they don't make us suffer. I am not a practicing Buddhist but many of the teachings do bring me a more peaceful mind. Learning to accept what is without feeling the need to be emotionally reactive. I see that in peaceful people that I admire, like His Holiness the Dalai Lama the 14th, and Thich Nhat Hanh, and I want that.
The Tony Robbins thing was actually interesting and made me want to buy a book of his. He quickly flashed a chart of emotions and I believe it was describing a deeper emotion behind the emotion, but those talks go so fast that he could barely get all the information out in the alloted time. The take-away I got is that emotions drive us, and until we learn to have control over them, they will drive us to places that leave us unsatisfied. I buy that. I want to fix my emotions, re-wire my brain so I don't feel so vulnerable to these things because I do feel like I'm constantly on a roller coaster between "life is awesome no matter what weight I am " and "Nothing I do makes me happy, I'm so overwhelmed." So I may see if I can rent his book "Awaken the Giant Within" from the library because I have a feeling it can help me. Has anyone read this book? Opinions?
Maybe, just maybe, in focusing on "dieting" and trying to force myself where I don't want to be (restriction always backfires on me, ALWAYS) I am feeling some of this unhappiness because I got away from fixing my happy, which seems to be something that is lacking right now in a big way. I'm not despairing, I have hope that I will lighten up and move on in the coming days, I will return to my normal self and feel better. I do take these down periods to be a gift because it makes me pause and look within and ultimately, I know it will lead to an answer at some point.
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