Thursday, February 7, 2013

Self-Care is Not My Biggest Strength

Despite my lack of entries, I'm fully aware it's February. 

January didn't finish with quite the BANG that I had hoped for, but for someone who lives with her phone attached to her person, I think I did pretty well. It definitely made its way out of hiding a more than it should have, and I gave it to my boss' demands for its use during work hours, but generally speaking ... it was a pretty un-telephoned month. Just ask the dozen or so people that I owe texts to still. 

February, tho, I am really liking. This is the first month of two Challenges, and on January 31st, I changed what one of the Challenges was going to be so I felt a little thrown into the month. 

For February I'm
1. EATING BREAKFAST AND LUNCH EVERYDAY
2. TAKING 15 MINUTES FOR "MEDITATION" DAILY

I can absolutely say that I'm rocking the breakfast thing. I've also eaten my lunch each day, however it's sometimes a little later in the day than it's meant to be - does 3pm still count as "lunch" if it's only the 2nd time you've eaten? I'm struggling a little more with the meditations, to be honest. 

BREAKFAST
Well, for starters, I was delivered a stock-pile of Starbucks ready made breakfast sandwiches which made breakfast much easier for the first week. I didn't have to put any work in, I ate one each morning with my coffee. Now I'm going to have to work a little harder at it, so we'll see how I keep up. 

What I've noticed most about eating breakfast -- I'm starving most of the rest of the day. Yesterday I was already on my 1st snack by 10:00am. I get that eating breakfast is like "throwing a twig on fire instead of on a log." That makes sense, but for years my problem with breakfast has been that I'm just never hungry in the morning. Add to it that I drink coffee - appetite suppressant. Add to it more that I take a medication each morning that has "appetite suppressant" as a side-effect. But once in the hustle of the day, I'd often not eat anything before 6 or 7 at night. My body has been unhappy, my energy was at 0. 

So now, hungry. Body is burning food. I'm eating. And because I'm planning out most of it by taking lunch, I'm eating good stuff I like. 

This will probably be easy to keep up.  



LUNCH
So my problems with lunch have been:
1. Not hungry,
2. Too busy, 
3. Don't remember to pack it, 
4. Don't have extras at work, 
5. Don't take the time to go get food while at work. 

Bottom line, I eat lunch even less often than I eat breakfast, which is NEVER. 

For the last 6 days, I have had a mid-day meal. I have taken my lunch to work 3 of the 4 days, I ate lunch each day at home over the weekend, I bought lunch yesterday when all I brought with me from home was yogurt and lunch meat. 

What I need to do this weekend, is fill my extra fridge in the garage with lunch foods so I can fill my lunch bag in the morning without too much time/energy/creativity. 


MEDITATION
This is where I suck ass. <-- That's an actual literary phrase. Be impressed. 

I started February trying to do 30 minutes a day. But that wasn't happening. Ever. 

I was really trying to tell myself that the drive to work for 20 minutes in the morning and/or afternoon was good alone time. And that the 20 would be good enough. 

But the idea is pure alone time. Nothing I have to do with my body or mind as a distraction. Just think, write, be at peace, practice daily meditation scripts, etc. And that isn't something I'm doing well. The best I've got is 20 minutes in the car to think about things that I think I should be thinking about. 

So, I have a renewed focus on this. I need to spend the time - starting with 15 minutes and trying to work my way to 30. The "meditations" can be anything that gives me mental focus: exercise, writing, thinking, scripts, music. But the point is to be alone, be in quiet surrounding, and be actively thinking. 




Now the question is: Can I make my self-care enough of a priority to follow thru with this? 

No comments:

Post a Comment