My comfort zone

I just started reading The Confidence Kit by Caroline Foran. I mentioned her before when I was reading her first book: Owning It. Basically, she tries to help you work with your anxiety rather than against it. I’ve only read one chapter, but it’s already explained in plain text to me what was wrong with me this past weekend.

On Friday, I travelled down the country to Waterford with my work colleagues for our annual summer outing. I opted to do the water sports as my chosen activity, which involved kayaking, canoeing, and stand-up paddleboarding. I was terrified of the paddle boarding because I was convinced I would fall in…and I did! Twice! I never got to fully experience it and I’m full of regret because my fear took over. That evening we stayed in a lovely river-side hotel and had dinner. Once we were kicked out of the dining area around 10.30pm, I slipped back to my room and went to bed, deciding I had pushed my social anxiety far enough.

It was that night that I was asked to bring my niece to see Taylor Swift the following night (Saturday), as her stepdad had to cancel. I wasn’t a Taylor Swift fan – nothing against her, I just never really listened to her music. I was reluctant, though, because I knew I’d be exhausted. I went nonetheless and her show was nothing less than AMAZING! My niece had a fantastic time, which was the most important thing. I got home at around 12.30am and set my alarm for 9.00am the following morning, why?

Another last minute addition to my calendar was volunteering for a sponsored dog walk that I do every year, but didn’t realise it was that weekend. Everyone told me to cancel, but I couldn’t. I wound up ignoring my alarm and sleeping until 11.30am (we were supposed to meet in the park at 12.15pm). Needless to say I was late, but just by half an hour. And again, I enjoyed it.

I vowed to do nothing when I got home except relax and finally finish the last Lord of the Rings book.

Feeling so overwhelmed could simply be the reason I was in a weird humour all weekend, or PMS (sorry!). But now that I’ve read in-depth about the concept of the comfort zone, I realise that I was so far out of my comfort zone all weekend and that’s why I was out of sorts. You need breaks in between and it felt like I never stopped. I’ll be sure to avoid this in the future, all I’m doing this coming weekend is going to a show on Friday evening, and to the dentist on Saturday (yay). That’s it!

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Something is not right

There are plenty of reasons not to buy a particular house – too much work needs to be done, rough neighbourhood, etc. However, yesterday evening my fiancé and I viewed a house in a nice area that, yes, needed some work, but nothing out of the ordinary. As we discussed it later, we realised that something put us off this particular house but we couldn’t quite put our fingers on it.

The previous owner died (whether in the house or not, I don’t know). I can’t help but wonder, was the house haunted perhaps? I’ve read so many paranormal stories of people stepping into houses/buildings and getting an uneasy feeling. I didn’t feel afraid or anything, but there was something bothering me throughout my time in there that I still can’t explain.

Whatever it was, we won’t be finding out!

Yoga Glo

I’m always hearing ads on my podcasts but never really gave them much thought. I stopped doing yoga at the end of last year when the studio I attended closed down. I’ve tried apps and YouTube videos but I just couldn’t follow them. Right now I’m on a 15 day free trial for Yoga Glo, which was advertised on the Unsolved Murders podcast. I’ve done three sessions so far and I like it. It’ll be $18 per month (I think) if I decide to stick with it, but obviously I’m unsure because I’m saving every penny I have. I have to decide if it’ll be worth it!

Life on hold

When you’re saving every penny you have for a mortgage deposit, it’s hard to justify buying certain things. Everyone around me is going on nice holidays and/or buying new cars. House hunting is very disheartening right now because every house we’ve considered so far has been snapped up because we can’t compete with the high bids. I feel like we’re going to have to settle for a house that may need more than cosmetic work, so naturally, this has got me down. I don’t really have anything to look forward to, just mountains of debt.

[Self-pity rant over].

Self-motivation vs self-discipline

Nowadays my wisdom seems to come from Reddit. Now and then someone posts a comment that strikes a chord with me. In this case, the comment basically said to forget motivation and work on self-discipline instead. So I gave it a try. When my alarm went off in the mornings, I usually snoozed for about 30 minutes, which is ridiculous. I’ve once again given up on my Morning Pages due to the energy that I just don’t have, but I decided to “discipline” myself to snooze for just twenty minutes and do my morning meditation. It hasn’t always been easy. Yesterday, for example, I had been awake half the night with a migraine so my 30 minute snooze was too tempting to give up.

I find myself internally telling myself to “get up!”, sometimes in a harsh tone. Is that good or bad? I’m working on getting rid of the negativity of my thoughts but does shouting at myself to do something not hinder my progress? It seems to work, however, and I’d like to think I’m now motivated to get up especially now that I’m doing one of Headspace’s meditation packs, which is a 30-day course. I’m also meditating at night before I go to sleep. I know meditation is better sitting up (apparently) but I lie down for my nightly practices.

If I discipline myself enough, will it eventually turn into motivation? I believe that you can’t have one without the other, but I think self-discipline is a good starting point to achieving self-motivation, especially when you’re suffering from depression and energy is lacking.