Tag: #Selfcare

  • Letting Go of Past Mistakes

    I’m finding it hard to stay motivated. I was able to put a blog together yesterday, but I never made it to journal or work on anything else, which, at the end of the day, I was feeling like I had failed. And with my anxiety started a death spiral of thoughts about, well, just being a failure. Then I started thinking about everything that I had screwed up on in the past three years, replaying the mistakes over and over…

    It’s exhausting…

    Digging myself out of that isn’t easy. The first step is watching an old MST3k on PlutoTV. That helps in just calming my head down. Then I have to start telling myself that tomorrow is a new opportunity to make changes; to get it right.

    But, when it comes to thinking about the things I did wrong in the past, that one is much harder for me to put to rest. I have been told in therapy, by friends and loved ones, and Oprah that I have to forgive myself. You know, I’ve tried, but there I was last night thinking about old work situations, and people I haven’t seen in years. I don’t think there is anything that I can say to myself to enact a state of forgiveness that will cause the exorcise these thoughts. It is unattainable.

    But what I think is attainable is more attune to what being an ex-smoker, or recovering alcoholic is like; It is a daily struggle to choose not to take part. I used to smoke, and it took me about a year to ween myself off of cigarettes, and a good part had to do with changing my behavior. I had to stop having the first cigarette in the morning, or right before I went to bed. The desire was still there, but I had to say no to myself. That was seven years ago, and still I have moments where the craving for a smoke over takes me, but I fight it off. I don’t have to forgive myself for the craving, I have to fight it.

  • Taking A Walk, Clearing My Head

    We had a pretty decent weekend. We weren’t too ambitious, like coming up with home improvement projects, or deciding that we had to go on a road trip. We just stayed at home and ran errands.

    One of the errands that I took care of was going grocery shopping. I got a crazy idea, which was that I going to do the shopping out of our neighborhood, but I was going to walk there. (I have put on some Covid weight. A nice solid ten pounds.) It was a good 40-minute walk to get to the 93rd street Trader Joe’s.

    It had been a while since that I had left our neighborhood, and it was a nice Fall day to take a walk. It was cool, but I found not cool enough to wear a light jacket. There were more people out than I expected. With the exception of masks, it almost looked normal out. I know we are still a long way from getting back “to normal,” but I have to keep hope alive.

    The other thing was that this was the first time, in a very long time, that I did something by myself. And had a good amount of time to myself. Time to think about ideas, and stories, and current events, and odd song lyrics. I even thought about that guy skateboarding while listening to “Dreams.”

    It was a simple act of self-care. Just a walk, listening to music, and thinking about things. It did give me a lift, and made me feel better about where I am in my process, which is still very much in the beginning phases. And being at the beginning is a good place.