With so much attention on the new C-word, it suggests denial to focus on what continues to be everyday, but this is an overdue update so you know I’m still in this realm and conscious. I’m actually in a good place despite the climate of uncertainty, and I owe it to the meanderings I’ve shared with you in this blog.
Prioritising Activities
A number of experiences—dividing my life into befores and afters—made me question my mortality almost a year ago. This catalysed a further reduction in the activities consuming my time to those I cared most to continue. I’ve decided to stop writing, but will edit and publish the short stories I’ve already written. One trilogy was put online by an editor I shouldn’t have trusted, so I can’t promote the work (yet?) because I don’t know if I’ll be paid.
I continue to awaken through my experiences, though, and experiences are life. I like what I know of myself – the flaws and what I consider good bits, like my increasing even-temperedness. I attribute this to consistent meditation practice and being more compassionate with myself, accepting the things I can’t control…like other people. “Radical acceptance” it’s called, and it promises to free me emotionally when dealing with the complicated relationships I am, for what is ultimately but a moment, unable to avoid.
Unrealistic Expectations
Something often seems to test my tenacity regarding regular exercise, but, again, self-compassion. I was hoping to be a model of success before writing this, but that’s a tendency, isn’t it? To focus on the destination rather than the journey.
So, I’m still figuring out why I feel guilty about being unproductive (and how to fix it). Although, maybe that’s the issue…trying. Perhaps radical acceptance applies and things will change when I accept the imperfection of being, when I accept that it feels like happiness isn’t sustainable, and that I’m a failure at my concept of it because it isn’t sustainable and we all fail at being continuously happy. Humans have a wide range of emotions and we need the disagreeable ones to fully appreciate the others. What I took away from Einzelgänger’s The Art of Not Trying is that it’s best to seek the middle ground between trying too hard and not doing anything at all.
Addiction
I’m again addressing tech addiction, which I’ve mentioned in past posts, by having a self-care action plan. I realise the addiction is to being consistently hyper-stimulated. It’s probably heightened because of pandemic-related anxieties. Binge watching series online is my new vocation…even the truly bad ones aimed at teenagers.
Regarding Facebook, my work involves posting on a Facebook page, and personal accounts cannot be unlinked from your other page/s (you win again Facebook). However, since most posts are about the new C-word, initially it was easier to stay off, but Facebook keeps attempting (successfully) with emails and alerts to draw me back in, no matter how many prompts I unsubscribe from (God blind you Facebook!).
What’s been creating a shift has been the implementation of almost everything on this list of suggestions of how to wean yourself off social media because social media will ruin your life if you let it:
Fate Versus Friction?
As with any addiction, you’ve got to go from one comfortable habit, through a not-so-comfortable interim phase, until it becomes another comfortable (albeit, oftentimes, less intense) habit, if you can get through the discomfort without returning to stay. In my experience, you do what you can and fail less until you define your actions as successful.
I’ve often unblocked the Chrome extensions suggested in the previous link to go on the sites, but it’s so inconvenient to do that every time that you’ll either delete them or start to use them the way they’re intended. It’s not necessarily about giving up tech altogether and forever, but using it in a way that makes you feel ok with you (understanding that this may mean not using certain types or giving it up altogether and forever).
I used to smoke cigarettes. I’d get to where I felt awful in my body and my conscience. I’d start exercising and I’d eventually have to choose, because each dulls the other’s effects. Of course, I’d choose the cigarettes! Just kidding, I’d always (eventually) choose exercise. I’d feel great and then sabotage feeling great by chain smoking because staying healthy was walking a tight rope, fearful of being happy or of maintaining happiness, because from up high you can fall. Things started to change once I began learning to accept the imperfection of being (as mentioned earlier) and to not be so hard on myself. I ended up letting the addiction run its course with many attempts at giving it up, and today I don’t smoke…but won’t say I won’t smoke again. I’ve just created new habits that decrease that probability…like not going to the rum shop every weekend (this was before rum shops in Barbados got banned as part of the current lockdown).
Similarly, I’m using tech more as a tool because I had to make that choice between deleting the Chrome extensions, and the nuisance it is to keep going into them to switch them on and off. I am getting better at taking guilt-free naps during the day; have occasionally been bird and bat watching (the latter come for insects at dusk), taken up lock picking (yes…lock picking), I’m reading for pleasure again before bedtime (an actual physical book) and am considering stargazing, since I’d like to find other ways to reduce screen time before I go to sleep. (There’s an app called Star Walk 2 which defeats that purpose).
Self-care
I’m looking forward to trying other self-care routine ideas:
Make and drink herbal teas (mint and lemon grass, not cannabis…ok…maybe cannabis**).
Meditate (so difficult to mentally reclaim that space once I’ve done it in the morning).
Take a bath (in a tub, not because you’re self-isolating and now have poor hygiene).
Aroma therapy (lavender not cannabis…ok…maybe cannabis).
Listen to music and try on all the clothes I bought just before we weren’t allowed out anymore. (Just made this one up).
Update gratitude list.
Connect with someone online.
Explore/do something new (what’re those noises in the basement you’ve been ignoring?).
Baby Velociraptor*
Walk through the neighbourhood (if permitted…and you’re not a black man in a hoodie surrounded by murderers of black men).
Massage (from a partner…who wants to spend two weeks in quarantine as my partner?).
Before – The Desert
Peanut (before the rats dug them up and left husks in their place
To encourage the bees
Tree high, coconut dry…
Man below, hell of a blow!
Ripe passion fruit
Green passion fruit (the monkeys can’t pull them out the holes in the fence! Haha!)
Marigolds as a natural pest repellant (Tip: carry in pocket to throw at some humans)
Bull shit (should have seen the bull’s expression when I approached with my bucket!)
Kale
Broccoli
Plantain plant…and sucker
My garden is better than yours!
Doing nothing still immediately feels like a space that needs to be filled, but once I’m mindful enough, I don’t panic. “I can do nothing if I want to,” I tell myself like a true mental stimulation junkie. “I can just lie here and stare at the ceiling,” I say, instinctively reaching to check my phone for WhatsApp messages. I still want to be like cats that spend two-thirds of their lives chilling and the other third also doing exactly as they please, but ultimately I’m getting better at being ok just being me.
Stay safe my friends.
*No baby velociraptors were hurt during writing. This specimen was released so it could grow up to decide that humans are its main prey in movies.
**I have smoked it, but am more interested in being high on life
Comments