Tag Archives: relaxation

How to relax

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“Relaxing my Ass back on” to counter “Working my Ass off”
I come from a family where the number one belief was “you are only a good person if you are constantly hard working, you can get drunk sometimes, but then get up the next day and work.”  And like someone said in my other group, that’s a good recipe for burnout.  Which I have done.  Burnout seems to have been my middle name for about 10 years.  I look back and think…well, I don’t know what I think.  Oh, brain fog.
Anyway, I’m trying to learn to listen to my body–I’m having a hard time not getting bored and feeling guilty staying home trying to stay within my energy envelope.  I feel really angry about everything right now.  I realize that my denial about what I really can do, am doing, did do (in terms of overworking)is so huge and breaking it down is the only way I will be able to figure out how to pace myself and make myself happier.  I think I also use work like a drug to avoid my feelings–so I have feelings I don’t like, which I deny by throwing myself into work and then I deny that I’m overtaxing myself with work.  Oh the circuitous routes of my mind!
I haven’t written a goal for a couple of weeks I don’t think (everything blending into everything else lately, weeks go by without me being aware).  My new goal is to what?  Chip away at my belief that I’m only worthy if I’m working my ass off?  (funny, the older I get, the less ass I actually have!!LOL Talk about a self fulfilling prophesy!)
Okay, but seriously, how to chip away?  well, I guess it’s just affirmations and self talk that counters the old belief.
What:  repeat to myself “I am a good person even if I do nothing.”
When:  as much as I can–especially when feeling lonely, bored, or guilty.
Confidence: 8
Thanks for reading.

Fermenting

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Fermenting

Well, one thing I’m getting into is lacto-fermenting foods.  Here’s a pic of some garlic and red onions, and some cucumber pickles.  It’s very good for one’s tummy to get some of those probiotic bacteria in there.  And it doesn’t taste too bad.  Helps the digestion.  They say a happy belly leads to a happy mind, the gut being the second brain and all that.  Anyway, I recommend it.  I still haven’t gotten very good results with  my water kefir grains, but hopefully soon.

But really, fermenting myself is what I’m doing.  I realized I haven’t written much because I am just kind of treading water or floating or…something.  I’ve been having a midlife crisis since like third grade, so now that I’m actually…da da da dum…forty seven years old, I think I might be having a midlife crisis for real, but I don’t know how it’s so different from every other time in my life.

I’ve always wondered if I were doing the right thing, in the right place, woke up in a parallel universe where everything is just harder.  And I’ve learned to calm those worries by saying to myself, “everything happens for a reason” and “you’re right where you need to be.”

I took a part-time job working with autistic kids and the company is new so things are kind of flippety-floppety in terms of training and other administrative stuff.  It bugs me.  It’s also hard work–I have four clients–funny calling little kids clients, huh? Well, they are really great except when they are melting down and I don’t know what to do.  But I’m just trying to be okay with that.  I want to be able to say, “I love it!  this is my next career.  I’m no longer lost or confused.  I’m focused, ambitious, on a path.”  But I can’t say that. I just don’t know. Sometimes I just want to stay home and do nothing and sometimes I really like the job.  I don’t trust myself to even know what I want to do.  I want my husband to get really rich so I can live off of him!! Haha though, I don’t know if I’d ever be able to do that.  As a little girl in the women’s movement of the 1970s I committed to being independent fully forever.  No one was going to have me under his thumb like all the grown women I knew.  This is a truth that is way deep for me.  I don’t know if it’s true.  Maybe it’s false and just another tentacle of the “don’t ever trust anyone ever” monster that lurks in my subconscious mind.  I don’t know.  Anyway, he probably won’t get rich enough to support both of us in the lavish fermented foods style we’ve grown accustomed to anyway.

So…I am fermenting.  Trying not to worry about money.  Not to work more hours just for money.  Not to worry about financial dependency.  Trusting that I will know what to do next whenever next gets here.

I keep forgetting that I had to quit my more than full-time teaching career because of fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue, and that what I am fermenting, is a new life where I stress less and have fewer symptoms of exhaustion and pain.  This is what’s in my jar.  I can wait for it.

real food, real life

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Well, I’ve been eating real food for a couple of weeks now.  I am designing a new blog at projectrealfood.wordpress.com.  It’s not really up and running yet, but there’s a little bit of stuff there.  I’ve been practicing taking photos of food and thought I’d post this up here.

I wonder if all of this navel gazing (both psychological/metaphorical, and chubbiness-obsession/literal) is tied to the SAD (standard american diet).  We shall see.  I do feel better, but that might just be that I’m not going back to school!!!

I have a couple of friends who are a tad older than me who don’t really “work” in the sense of going to a 9 to 5 job everyday.  They said the other night “Do what you love and don’t worry about the rest.  It’ll all work out.”

So, I’m experimenting with real food recipes, practicing blog skills,  taking food photos, making jewelry, and relaxing some more.  Keep your fingers and toes crossed!