After a break because I was injured and fed up I decided to start a new gratitude book. I wrote down what had happened so that I will remember how I was feeling. But I didn’t want to start right from the beginning. So today I’m actually on day 420.
Three gratitudes a day helps balance the bad things that are going on as well. I like adding a small sketch to each gratitude to make it more real to me and helps me remember what went on during the day. I’m glad this idea was suggested to me. It really helps x
Sitting waiting for two housecalls. I booked them in my diary last week and got up to tidy up, did the washing up and put a load in the washing machine.
Now I’m sitting and waiting. I’ve tried to find the email address and phone numbers for the visitors but they are on a bit of paper ‘somewhere’ and I’ve tidied it away ‘somewhere’. To find it I think I’m going to have to go through all the papers I piled up in a big pile to get them out of the way.
When you make an appointment it would be good to let the person know if you are going to be delayed as a courtesy. I know I’m old fashioned. But I wish I knew what was going on!
What details of your life could you pay more attention to?
Recently I’ve been putting my head in the sand and taking avoiding action. Anxiety will do that to you. Pulling my mind and life back up out of it is hard work.
A lot of it is external, caused by things out of my control. But even so I must pay more attention to things. I must not let things to continue to spiral out of my grasp.
The plan is to look at easy, medium and hard things to do. Trying to do one or two or even three of them a day.
What I found was that trying to do all three one day exhausted me, made me too tired the next day to do anything more. I think I am a bit burnt out? Maybe getting things done less quickly and trying to build up is the best way to go?
Anyway I’m going to try and get back to normal soon.
I’ve been disorganised and muddled for a while. I need to get some semblance of organisation back in my life.
So, I am trying to use my diary more, and not ignore it. I’ve got into the habit of moving things on instead of doing things. I’ve got to stop. I think I mustn’t overload myself with plans.
My main problem is procrastination. Like a rabbit caught in the headlights, I get worried about how I’m going to get something done, that leads to anxiety, and I find it easier not to do the thing that needs doing.
Life has a way of getting involved, things crop up and stop you in your tracks. Pain and anxiety mix into a cocktail of disasters. The world spins you round the wrong way and everything gets out of kilter.
So now I have to start getting over things, I need to break my fears down into achievable goals, or I will just sink into a deeper mess. Getting organised is definitely my number one priority.
I was just wondering how big the UK is relative to the USA. Turns out according to Google it’s 40 times smaller than the USA! (also 32 times smaller than Australia).
We can drive across the country in a day. I could drive for maybe two or three days North to South John O’groats to Lands end, although it has been done much faster. The direct distance is 603 miles, but the road distance is 837 miles. So driving over the limit at 83.7 mph you could drive it in ten hours. But if you drove at just 40mph you could do it in less than 24 hours!
Goodness knows how long it would take to drive across America and I guess it also depends where on the coasts you drive from. America is wider in the north than in the south?
I think its important to care about people. It means a lot to me. Empathy is important too. Trying to understand where people come from. Sometimes people are hard to get, they don’t make sense. But I still think you have to care.
Compassion is key to that, seeing the problems people are suffering and trying to get to the bottom of why it’s happening. Not blaming them for how their lives are turning out.
I know I cannot aways help people. It’s so hard to explain what I mean. But if you put yourself in their shoes at least there is a chance you can understand their motivations.
I hate rhetoric that describes people in a bad way and that creates a feeling of us and them. It is just a way to divide and conquer. In the modern world there seems to be such a blame culture, where compassionate thoughts could make things better for everyone?
I know I’m an idealist and most readers will find my thoughts wishy washy and weak. But it’s ingrained into me. I make no apologies for it.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
I used to be hurt when people said things to me to upset me. I would take on board what they said, and it could lead to several sleepless nights, or mistrusting my judgement or feelings.
After a few years of this I talked to a new friend who explained a way of getting through or over the uncaring words.
What they said was imagine the nasty words are poison. The words are absorbed by the victim (in this case me) and the poison works it’s way into the mind of the person they want to hurt. This affects that person’s confidence, thoughts, security.
But in the meantime the person doing the poisoning walks away scot free. With no effect on them, able to go and place poison elsewhere, spreading their cruelty and getting a rise out of others.
The trick is to realise what they are doing and train yourself to ignore their jibes. Inoculate your mind against their poison and learn to stop their tricks before they can get to you. It really does help.
I’m trying to be honest with this post, I am honest when I blog but I don’t express my emotions here very much. What I will say is that when I’m down I get energy from love and friendship from family and friends. But what I don’t do is seek out those people when I feel sad. I guess I don’t like dragging others down with me. I hide away from them and instead of getting healing energy I feel lower moods.
But when I allow people to know what’s going on, I think I get positive energy from them. Which can lift my mood. It’s just finding a balance, it’s hard to do that.
I think I also get energy from doing art. It increases my enthusiasm to do more. It makes me feel free and able to use my imagination. I get a lot more energy from Art when family and friends enjoy what I do, in that way I know what I’m doing is possibly worthwhile. One thing I do have is imposter syndrome which means I feel like I question my validity a lot. Perhaps that’s why I blog.
So, we have equal amounts of day and night today according to this.
Days will get shorter than nights until the Winter Solstice around the 21st of December 2023, then lengthen again. In the Southern Hemisphere the days will get longer until their Summer Solstice.
I don’t like the lack of sunlight and the change from British Summer time to Greenwich Mean time also gets to me. We lose an hour of evening daylight in October, although we get lighter mornings. But studies in the 1960’s or 1970’s showed that overall there were less accidents when they kept British Summertime for three years. Sadly the change was abandoned.
Maybe we could revisit the idea? Saving an hours electricity in the winter evenings might even help the environment?
You’ll find me at the back of a crowd. My legs are little and I can’t keep up with big people’s strides. I’ve never been a leader, I think my imposter syndrome stops me thinking I could be! I’ve never been massively confident and I always question my abilities, plus to be a leader you have to have charisma and I not sure I do.
A leader seems to have overwhelming faith in themselves and I don’t know if I could do that, it almost feels like leaders fool themselves into it. Or are bought up to be important and think they are the best.
I guess my view is quite negative, but considering how politicians act and deceive to get power then it must be understandable. Clearly there are other types of leader, religious, royal, a head of a company for instance, I’m sure there is good amongst them, but there also appears to be a ruthless streak. Maybe it’s from childhood sibling rivalry, or being an only child.
Finally would I like to be a leader? Maybe I could do it, I’ve chaired meetings in the past, but honestly? I’m old enough not to relish it.
Mallaband-Brown 