I was too unwell to gym this week. Look I’ve been once this year now, isn’t that enough? My daughters still went (smug belongs in this part of the sentence) and after I collected them I somehow managed to accidentally eat four nutella scrolls. They were only little – and I baked them myself, does that help? I did wash them down with a few glasses of really good chardy – surely that helped to break them down just a little faster.
You see, in my brain there was a party going on. I was celebrating my other good health achievements of the past 24 hours (no, I cannot remember what they were). Yes – to my healthier friends I understand that celebrating good health moves with dumb ones makes no sense, to me it’s just another day on the everlasting celebration circuit. Perhaps I wasn’t really quite as unwell as I’d thought before the gym class.
I’ve been busy lately.
Busy.
I loathe myself when I say I’m busy just about as much as I loathe being busy.
I know something has to change. But what?
I cook
I’m a good cook and I like cooking healthy food. Last Sunday I made not one but four vegetable soups, ready for the food warmers I bought last week. That worked a treat as it turned out. Even though the kids didn’t use them for the evening activities (yet) they had hot healthy lunches most days.
I still haven’t solved the fast food stops required when daughter is hangry following gymnastics and needs chicken nuggets (yes I am aware I enabled that beast). At least I’m not partaking in the consumption now – oh, except for the slider I bought at one of the lard peddlars last week. I can assure you I won’t be doing that again.
The flu has also been present in my place all week. Half of the house has been snot ridden hiding the tissues amoung their bedclothes. The other half (including myself) have chosen the passive-aggressive version of the flu. You know, the one where your bones ache and your skin prickles but that’s about it.
The extra vegetables helped us all.
Exercise
I begrudgingly took the dogs for a walk a couple of times through the week. The younger dog is strong and being half husky she seems to think I’m a sled. It’s not enjoyable – especially when a wallaby or bush turkey can be seen in the paddocks beside our walking track. I realised that I’m bored with this exercise and need to find something else that’s fun to do. Looking…
Time
My weekly singing lesson has found a place in my diary. It isn’t always the perfect place but I really look forward to it. I may have mentioned before just how much the lessons have helped me with breathing and reducing anxiety. I’m now really enjoying the practice of singing and can feel my voice getting stronger.
Through the week a friend, Grace published about stopping at the end of the week to express gratitude and then taking time away from work to rest and recuperate. The post really invoked a sense of hopelessness in me at first. Last week was a busy one (yes, I know I already said that, ever notice how often busy people tell you that they are busy? My busy badge of honour is shiny this week) – I was doing something every single evening (mostly taking kids to sports) and across the weekend as well. Often weeks just feel like everything mishmashes into one big pool of busy and it’s hard to find any space where somebody doesn’t want a chunk out of me.
But then I stopped to really think about the message (Grace is a lady worth listening to afterall – she publishes the diary I buy every year). I became very aware that the ability to stop lies within me. So I tried something different as the week came to a close, I started blocking out times just for me when nobody could break into my consciousness – unless for emergency. Email off, social media off, kids in school, phone answered on an emergency only basis. At the end of the week I did switch everything off and today (Saturday) I did some things around the house I’ve been putting off for a long time (painting – I actually find it quite relaxing once I’m into it).
I’ll be applying this again in the following week – lock in time to focus and close the books on Friday.
Consciousness
Through the week I had an epiphany. I noticed that I spent the first 15 minutes of each and every day listening to my inner asshole telling me that I’m a fat boozy cow with no self-control. Jesus! How did I not notice I was doing that? While I’m not about to break out the Louise Hay (I’m not that up myself as yet – that’s tongue in cheek in case you haven’t ready my stories about being up yourself yet).
I also noticed that a lot of my bad health behaviour comes when I’m not being conscious about what I’m doing – wine while cooking dinner, chips while watching Netflix. I decided that in the next week there’s just one thing I’m going to do – it’s to be conscious about what I’m doing as I’m doing it. Perhaps that really is what’s referred to as living in the moment.
Let’s see how that shifts things.
I do have a revoltingly optimistic nature and I have no doubt that will eventually propel me towards what I will accept as good health. Who knows, there may even be some goal setting on the horizon.
Image by Photo by Pineapple Supply Co. on Unsplash
