Attitude is Everything    -      Donna J Evans 5/11/18

I love old sayings, many of them are so right on and get immediately to the point with so few words.  In songwriting, they are called clichés and their use is frowned upon as outdated, outworn and unimaginative.  However, I do resort to them often as they are so to the point and convenient.  One that suits my reflection today is “Attitude is Everything”. 

I was emailing back and forth today with a seasoned Nashville musician who had had some early success there but has seen the industry change so much in recent years.  I could tell he was depressed and so adamant that songwriting had went to hell in a handbasket  and that was that.  He couldn’t be persuaded that anything good could ever happen in the future in the music industry.  And he still teaches songwriting, why?  So for him, he’s probably right as he argues for his limitations.  But what he doesn’t see is that everything always changes.  Life is changes every day.  The four seasons constantly change.  Life changes against all odds.  The only difference is your attitude and your beliefs.  If you are positive and open good things can and will come to you.  You probably keep at something much longer than the person who gives up and is convinced it’s over.  That the best is behind us and gone and nothing new or good is coming in the future.

I was just reading about an oil tycoon, George W Strake, in America from Texas who discovered the 3^rd largest oil reserve in this country during the Great Depression near Houston that every other “wildcatter” had given up on. This oil became the life blood of the allies during WWII and Strake made a fortune. 

If you listen to Donald Trump you will notice that he’s always positive and everything is always the best, the biggest and the greatest.  Many times he has been a winner and his attitude is everything.  You will notice against all odds he doesn’t give up but is always planning some way to win, to negotiate and make a deal.

So what do you get if you just throw your hands up and say “It’s over, nothing’s going to work out.  I’m not going to try anymore”.  What if George Washington had had that kind of attitude.  He had a small rag tag army but he won the Revolutionary War against the British.  What if he had not tried?  America would not have been the greatest country and the beacon of light to the world. 

The difference is the light and the power of the light versus darkness.

  

Darkness can be easy, just do nothing and you will fall into it.  You will accept it and be a slave to the ideology of it. This is a planet of duality and there’s a lot of evil here.  I’m not a particularly religious person, but I do believe in a divine power a light, a force that creates, that can make things happen if you are receptive and believe in it.  Many on the left today, unbeknown to them side with evil, with the darkness.  There is no God (or I would call it the divine power), therefore this is the only life they have which is pretty bleak at best.  They die and that’s it. So for those people, nothing can change their minds and no good can really happen for those who believe that way, because change would mean moving towards the light.

But change is happening for those of us who do believe in the power of light.  Old establishments are crumbling and evil is on the run.  Peace and prosperity is coming to America again and to the world against all odds.  The tide has turned and those who resist it are being swept away. 

So I told my Nashville friend that even the business model of the Nashville corporations filled with insiders who only work with and promote their own, closing out anyone on the outside, will be crumbling.  He didn’t believe me as in his mind I am someone far away who doesn’t have a clue about how the industry works.  He thinks I am wrong for thinking I could ever make any money with songwriting.  But I don’t have to live in Nashville or know the insides of the industry.  They are just like almost every other large corrupt corporation where the big wigs at the top skim off the profits, only promote their own within, or if there are fresh young talent pretty much rip them off.  Many of them are engaged in dark, evil activities (remember the @metoo crowd).  The same attitude of the liberals to Trump, underestimation of what’s really happening in the world and the cosmos. The energy and power of change has been ushered in with the election of President Donald Trump and all establishments will change.  The swamp will drain.  There will be prosperity and peace in the coming years.  A lot of evil and darkness is going away.  This whole change is not just Donald Trump, but it is a divine intervention that has moved and will not be stopped by anyone. 

Finally, being a very determined person who tries hard not to let the negativity of many people in the world get to me.  I don’t know if I will ever earn any money from my songwriting but why should I give up and not try?  I will leave it up to the divine force if something might happen.  I am not attached to fame or money.  I just need to do my work and not be attached to the outcome.  I’ll bet those Houston wildcatters were kicking themselves after Mr. Strake struck paydirt.  So for us people aware of the light and the change currently taking place, may the force be with us.

The Trashcan is My Friend  -  Donna J Evans 4/24/18

It’s 3:00 am and I can’t sleep, my mind being too active.  It’s like that,  getting stuck in loops and processing and regurgitating crap over and over. Constantly bringing back the bad things, people that used me, let me down and disappointed me.  It all brings back reminders of my own weaknesses,  failings and neediness.  I’ve written about all this in my diaries many times over the years and sometimes I could let it go a little only for it to rear it’s ugly Loch Ness head when things would get bad again.  Each new recent  encounter with some nasty, self-centered person would start bringing out the smell of rotting corpses I thought I had filed away.

Oh, I’m so much better now about not getting involved and moving on fast.  Life’s too short to deal with some people.  So, I’m down to only a few people I trust to talk to, like my mom, sister, son and husband.  Those are the only people I think I could call in the middle of the night with an emergency. 

Then the computer and online interactions became more of a part of my life.  With less real friends these sites were enticing with the possibilities of casual friends and common interests. I’ll have to admit I did learn a lot and found lots of resources for things that weren’t locally available, but the downside was also daunting.  Every crazy, unbalanced, self-centered asshole now had a soapbox to comment and weigh in on something anyone said.  “Better to keep your mouth shut and appear a fool than open it and remove all doubt”, seems to be the banner for internet conversations.  Everything that sucked or was mediocre had a podium, of course making the creator think they were true rock stars as someone out there would probably uck it up.  The nastiness of insults never ends against innocent people, a place people spit out garbage expecting their opinions to have validity.  Their insults say more about their lack of intelligence and morality than the people they are referring to.

I do have to admit I did meet a couple of really nice people and there seemed to be more if I’ld wanted to take more chances, but I also met a couple of the most asinine characters who at first put on a front of being helpful and friendly.  Over the years, I’ve gotten good at sizing up people pretty quickly and knowing who not to get involved with.  Unfortunately, that’s meant a lot of people.  I guess I’ve gotten pickier over the years.  I know my own problems and I consider myself intelligent, capable and have been working on my personality for years.  With all my efforts, I’m still not the person I want to be so it’s really hard to be around mindless, low information people who don’t even know they have a problem, let alone want to work on themselves.  From time to time I do still get tripped up as I try to give most people the benefit over my doubts.  I do try to see the good in people. But…..

One guy seemed to be a half-decent songwriter online and he’d had a lot of classes with a pro-writer in Nashville, so I befriended him to learn to write a little better.  Unbeknownst or overlooked by me he was an old nasty drunk soured by a life that he wasted, four failed marriages and a music career that went nowhere.  Most of it was his fault in that he is incredibly lazy and self-centered and never dealt with his problems. The kind that doesn’t even know he has a problem but blames everyone and everything else.  A classic case of an addictive personality.  One day he ruthlessly attacked me and a song I was writing that he didn’t like, probably in a drunken stupor.  My husband would have never talked to me like he did.  Of course, I let him know in no uncertain terms that our friendship was over.  He left a bad taste in my mouth for writing with internet people.

More recently a Facebook young guy tried to friend me and at first I thought he just wanted someone to be helpful and interesting to talk to.  I should have known although I wanted to believe he was a good person, but he wanted to engage in over the computer sex.  Ha! He knew I was the age of his mother and he still tried to come on to me.  Of course, I had to cut that one short since I am happily married to a magic man.

Anyway, back to 3:00 am and I can’t sleep rehashing all the wrongs in my life, I came across a site that suggested an on your computer trashcan where you write about the people who wronged you and you drop the writing in the trashcan.  At some point you can even empty the trashcan and they’re gone.  Finally purged from your life and forever gone ever knowing them.   So easy, so nice, mental house cleaning.

Dealing or Not-dealing with Stress and Unhappiness –

Donna J Evans 4/19/18

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how negative thoughts  can set us up for failure and sabotage our best plans and accomplishments.  Negative thoughts cause negative emotions, depression, anxiety which causes stress reactions in the body and then ushers in our addictions and lack of ability to cope.  Our negative mental response to not being at ease or in control of what’s happening causes mental and emotional pain.

The addiction cycle starts with emotional pain of some kind.  Then a substance is chosen to temporarily anesthesize oneself. Usually the potion is something slightly poison or toxic which stimulates the brain to release natural painkillers and results in a high, a stimulant followed by a depressant as the liver seeks to  cope with the offending substance.  Or the substance could be food or sugars which is also a drug. Next comes more pain or discomforts either from our body not feeling well or of something we did or did not do under the influence and in many cases both.  We feel guilty and remorseful and blame ourselves starting the whole cycle over again as more pain is felt.  This is addiction in a nutshell and is like beating ones head against a wall as nothing changes.

So how to break out of this cycle and how to handle the difficulties and stresses of life.  We are all different in our reactions to stress as what bothers one person will not bother another.  Some people are overwhelmed by the least little thing and seem helpless to do anything about it.   Other people are big risk takers, seem fearless and always in control.  Most of us are somewhere in the middle.

 I’m fairly independent, pretty strong and healthy, can deal with a lot, yet there are a few things that always seem to trip me up, even after a lifetime of dealing with them.  I seem to get stressed by the pressure of deadlines, having to work quickly and accurately and dealing with a lot of different projects and people at the same time.  Every day for a couple of months my life is like grand central station.  I feel out of control and that I won’t meet my deadlines, or I’ll screw up or forget something important and in most cases all of this costs me or the other person money.  Of course, my clients hold me responsible and believe me I have screwed up and gotten penalties and had to deal with unhappy clients.  After all I am only human, but certain times of year my workload is very difficult.  I usually get through it some way and have been doing so for forty some years.  I am usually pretty exhausted and very, very tired at the end and have to slow down some, although it’s usually a few more weeks before I can really take a break. 

Recently I’ve tried to limit the amount of work I take in and that does help, but somehow during the rest of the year I tend to get involved with other projects and they show up again during my busy time. 

I had not been feeling well for the past couple of years, a little too tired, low energy, had gained some weight, so the past July I started a wonderful diet program which was basically low carb, low fat (except good fats) and lean meats.  I lost a lot of weight,  reset my insulin, metabolism and hormones and really felt much better.  I had a lot more energy and I do admit it lasted throughout this year’s crazy work schedule, even with the onslaught of stress, not getting enough sleep and bad habits.  The good healthy eating habits I had established from the prior seven months and weight loss did help even though I caved into stress and my go to daily alcohol and extra sweets.  My time to cook was limited as well as planning meals.  Eating out became more regular, although I did go to good restaurants and not fast food.  But nonetheless I definitely was eating more calories and gained back some of my weight loss.  The new owners at the café my husband and I love have decided we are their best customers and that I like sweets, so I’m being given homemade gluten free desserts to sample from their kitchen.  Who could turn that down, free homemade raspberry cheesecake or lemon meringue pie, lordy.  I can only thank the spirit and tell the divine mother I want to stay at my best healthy weight regardless of being pampered with specialty homemade desserts.

I have studied a lot of Chinese medicine and philosophy my entire life and they have the notion that in order to establish good new habits you have to do them consistently for at least 120 days.  So, I did accomplish that as I was able to be really good on my diet last year and lost 27 pounds.  Even now I still prefer to eat the foods on the diet and really like them and feel healthy when I eat them.  What I was not prepared for was the effect of stress on my body from  my crazy job and workload for two months.  I have to admit I lost it in some regards and did  regain some of the weight I had lost.  I get so busy, tired and stressed  that I don’t do my yoga and I eat too many calories and I crave sweets and alcohol.  I don’t take care of me and I try to comfort and anesthesize myself.  So now, I’m ending my crazy busy time and I’m thinking what can I do to prepare me for next year to not do a repeat of all this?  To be more in control and to maintain better. 

So what to do.  First, I am going back on the eating plan, maybe not as strict.  I do need to cut back on the sugar and alcohol.  I need to get some rest and also exercise in nature.  I am not going to beat myself up or feel guilty about my failings.  I did the best I could to get through.  I want to handle my stress better for next year, so I’m pulling the legs out of that part of the addiction cycle.  Then I need to deal with the negative emotions of that I can’t handle it or that I’m out of control.  My husband says not to see it as stressful but rather normal for that time of year. I ran across a personal development site called nperov.com and he changed his life by meditating and doing things he would not normally do, breaking routines and in that regards building up willpower.  I used to think journaling helped and maybe it does some, but doesn’t seem to be the cure. Not sure if there is a cure or how to change my negative thoughts as how my body reacts to this difficult period, but I have a whole year to figure it out.  I’ll continue to post my experience, my results and conclusions.

How to Deal with Stress  3/20/18

   Not all stress is bad, actually some stress is necessary to help you be excited and active in the world.  The stress a performer feels before a show can help someone do their best in training and performing. You will always have some stress if you’re alive. However too much chronic stress that never goes away and interferes with daily quality living, needs to be investigated.  Sometimes what bothers us wouldn’t bother someone else, so it mainly comes from our internal reaction to something external.  Sometimes it’s our faulty or distorted thinking that causes it.  However until we are able to change our perspective and grow beyond old habits of thinking and reacting, there are things we can do to make life a little easier.

    I encourage you to keep a daily journal, writing is a more sophisticated and in depth thinking process.  It gets abstract thoughts and feelings out of your head and down to a more concrete level you can look at what happening and deal with it.  In your journaling, you will look at what’s bothering you and come up with a plan using the four “A’s” below.

Four “A’s” of Stress Management (Avoid, Alter, Adapt and Accept)

1.        AVOID

Learn to say “NO”.  Learn where your limits are.  Taking on too much is a surefire way to create stress that will backfire.

Avoid or limit people who stress you out.  Choose your friends and people you interact with wisely. 

Take control of your environment.  If the news and social media are too negative and stress you out, don’t go there.  If traffic bothers you, plan to go at an off time of day.  If your phone rings too much, get a voice recorder and only check it once in a while when it’s convenient for you.

Pare down your to-do list.  We always think we can get more things done than is realistic.

2.        ALTER

Express your feelings, don’t bottle them up.  Journaling is good for this as well as talking to someone (friend, clergy, therapist, etc).  If someone is causing the problem, address it immediately but respectfully.  Let your emotions cool before you talk, but don’t keep it in and let resentment build.

Be ready to compromise.  Give a little and try to meet someone in the middle. 

Create a daily BALANCED SCHEDULE with time for yourself in it.

3.       ADAPT

Learn to look at some stress in a more positive light.  Driving in heavy traffic can be time to listen to podcasts or new songs or a favorite radio station.  A heavier workload mean could mean you are very qualified at what you do and people come to you.

Look at the big picture.  Is this event or situation going to be remembered or even important in a month or a year?  Is it worth getting this upset?

Adjust your standards.  PERFECTIONISM is a major cause of stress.  Set reasonable standards and learn to be okay with good enough.  All humans make mistakes.  If you don’t make any mistakes you aren’t doing anything.

Practice daily gratitude.  Learn to appreciate your positive qualities, good people in your life, riches you have and your own gifts.

4.       ACCEPT

Don’t try to control events or people you cannot change.  However, you can control your reaction to it.

Look at the positive side of the issue.  You are learning life’s lessons here.  If you have made poor choices, learn from your mistakes and move on.

Learn to FORGIVE.  Forgiveness is not to justify what happened but more so that you can move on.  People are unaware and imperfect.  Don’t take it sooo personal.

Share your feelings, journal, talk to someone.  Most of all, come up with a plan to change the things you can.

OTHER STRESS MANAGEMENT TOOLS

Rhythmic Exercise -  Dance, running, walking, etc., the body releases feel good hormones.  MOTION helps EMOTION.

Carve out “ME” time every day.  Time for exercise, a walk in nature, time to do something you enjoy, wind down time.

Eat HEALTHY – A good diet helps you have more energy to deal with things.

Get enough quality SLEEP.  Try gentle stretching before going to bed.  Read something relaxing or meditate.

Cut down on the CAFFEINE, SUGAR and CARBS.  Also cigarettes and alcohol all of these interfere with good sleep and your body’s energy levels.

MEDITATE – Do a ten to fifteen minute easy relaxing meditation each day.  This allows the thoughts to come and go, like clouds across a sky.  It allows the brain to process and digest and is very calming to the body and blood pressure.  Over time meditation can increase awareness, how you think and react and is great for dealing with stress, anxiety and depression.

Writing in Your Daily Journal

1.       Write down the incident or problem that’s stressing you out.  Read through the (4) A’s and write down some solutions that might help remedy or resolve the issue. 

a.       If this is something you can change, write down some solutions to avoid or alter the external stressor?

 

b.      If this is something you cannot change, write down some solutions for you to adapt or accept?

2.       Revisit the problem and solutions.  After journaling, maybe take a walk in nature and think about the situation and solutions, or talk to a friend or therapist, think over your solutions.  Maybe the incident will resolve itself, maybe you’ll decide you didn’t handle it well or it wasn’t that big a deal.  The key here is to calm down the emotions and look at the problem again from a different perspective.

3.       Implement your solutions and see what happens.  If it’s not effective you may need to think of other solutions. 

How Songs Grab and Keep a Listener’s Attention  3/17/18

What gets a listener’s initial attention and keeps it? 

1.       Catchy Song Titles

2.       First lines that are catchy, contemplative, asks a Question, makes a strong statement, something that stands out.

3.       Shows instead of tells (like describing a video)

4.       Great imagery

5.       Interesting story lines

6.       Uses a lot of stronger active verbs (notice the word grab above)

7.       Not too preachy

8.       Not too sad or depressing

9.       Not too long or wordy  (no epic Dylan songs)

10.   Universal meaning or general audience can relate (don’t make it too personal)

11.   Unique or unusual topic or lines (don’t get too abstract)

12.   Uses metaphor and similes sparingly to add interest

Next the question is how can you write this way?  Are some people just more talented and creative when they talk or write?  Can you learn to write more creatively?  The answers are yes and yes.   While some people just seem to be born more creative or are naturally funny, practice and training go a long way also.  You have to have the desire and persistence to get better at anything.   

1.        Keep a song title list and everyday search for interesting titles.  Song titles generally aren’t copyrighted, so you may find several songs using the same title. 

2.       Write a lot of songs and write bad songs, but always go back and rewrite lines to make them more interesting.  Think about how can I say this better.  How can I be more interesting with this line.  How can I show by adding more action and imagery, turn this into a metaphor or simile, etc.  You have to start thinking this way, not just going with the first thing that pops out of your head.  Some people think songs are special gifts from God and rain down on a privileged few talented people and that they come totally perfect and are not to be messed with.  Wrong, this way of thinking is a lot of pig headed ego. 

1.       Practice being creative every day in some way.  The days you don’t write a song still spend some time writing and doing something related.  Search for titles, topics, concepts, catchy phrases, interesting photos on the internet in books, movies, photos, interesting web-sites, etc.  Out in public look for interesting things people do and say.  Train you mind to always be looking for interesting ideas and write them down somewhere.  Spend some days just free writing about something on your titles or idea list. 

4.       Have a way to keep organized where you can find your stuff.  I like programs like One Note or Evernote and Microsoft Word and set up folders to find ideas I accumulate.

5.       Practice object, simile and metaphor writing frequently.  It will help you to be able to incorporate more imagery into your lines.

6.       Learn to write lines that make sense and are clear to the listener.  I heard a quote that says “Just because you write material that is vague, abstract and no one but you understands it, doesn’t make you an artist”.  If the listener has to ponder or try to figure out what you are saying, they will move on to something else.  Do not write something so personal it only relates to you or only you would know what you’re talking about.  Do not write something that is so flowery or abstract it could be poetry.  Do not write lines just to try to force a rhyme.  Do not use too many similes or metaphors in your song, a little goes a long way.  Do not write songs that are too dark, depressing or preachy.  Most people do not like being told what to do and they want some kind of a lift or understanding with their daily life and problems, not more negativity.  You can write these kinds of songs if you make it humorous or in some way you have an uplift to the story.  Finally, don’t let your song get too long or wordy.  Three to four minutes is enough.  Gone are the days of the long jam sessions or the Dylan epic story songs.  Get in, get out and leave ‘em wanting more.

7.       Realize becoming the songwriter you want to be takes time, a lot of time, could be ten years or more.  Do you really like it enough to stick with it?  What are you going to do with all the songs your write?  You could reach out and maybe you’ll be lucky and find a musician or band that really likes what you write and wants to create original music.  Your songs could end up on an album and go somewhere, maybe?  You could be the Emily Dickinson type and leave catalogs of songs in your Estate and become famous post mortum.  You could make your own home recordings or have a SoundCloud, Bandcamp or YouTube channel where you can try to get a fan following.  If you’re young you could move to a big city and co-write and hope to make your break.  You could join a band and go out on the road touring and writing music for the group. Songwriting is a lot like anything else in life, maybe it’s just a hobby and it’ll go nowhere. But if you enjoy it, then that’s okay.  Better to be songwriting than bored or depressed.

How to Learn Anything Quickly and Easier  - 3/14/18

I came across a podcast by Josh Kaufmann on some of this material, the rest is from my lifetime of classes and learning new things.  It is so much harder to learn new things when you are older, so I was particularly interested in Mr. Kaufmann’s material which I believe is called You Can Learn Anything in About Twenty Hours.  He has about five steps in his talk and I’ll incorporate those in mine.  He talked about the book “10,000” Hours and that’s fine if you want to master something, like if you want to become a virtuoso on an instrument.  But for most of us, we just want to be able to do something halfway well, enough to enjoy what we’re doing.  So, if you want to learn something new and challenging, first ask yourself these questions.

1.   1.  Why do you want to learn this particular subject?  Are you willing and interested enough to do what’s necessary to learn it? 

2.      2. You  need to breakdown your learning into specific sub-sets of only what’s useful learning and start small.

3.     3.  You need to be willing to accept the initial frustration level.  Everyone sucks in the beginning of learning something new.  There will be a certain amount of time before you like anything you are doing.

4.      4. Make learning this one thing very convenient and workable into your schedule.

5.     5.  Practice only this one small thing for 20 hours, breaking it down daily into (2) twenty minutes sets early morning and later for 30 days.  The best practice time is within two hours of waking up or from a nap or quiet time.  Scientific research shows your brain easily builds new neurons within that time period.

6.     6.  Use simulation and all your different sensual methods of learning.  There have been scientific studies on different types of learners and retention rates and the best was using all methods visual, auditory and kinesthetic.  That means you need to read it, see it, hear it and then manually do it.  Simulation means you practice it in your head mentally and visually and later back it up with physically doing it.

So let’s take a couple of examples and work through the process.  Let’s say I want to learn a musical instrument.  First, I would ask myself why do I want to learn to play this instrument.

Do I want to play music with others, or play out at open mics or other events, do I just want to play for my own enjoyment?  Am I really willing to set down for twenty minutes two times a day to learn this?  Many of us hear someone else play and think it’s so cool, but when faced with the hard work of actually being able to do it half decent then that’s a different story.

So, let’s say you answer an enthusiastic “yes” to the first question.  Then let’s decide where to start.  If you are totally new to music you’re going to have to start with basics of notes, scales, rhythm, usually all the boring stuff.  Or, you could start with learning just an easy song and forget all the other basic stuff.  That would definitely be much more fun.  Or, if you already know music and another instrument you could just focus on one aspect of an instrument like finger picking on a guitar.  Only study what you need to do that one thing.

Accept that it’s going to be somewhat frustrating and maybe even boring when you start.  It happens to everyone.

Make it convenient to learn.  Keep your musical instrument close where you can grab it twice a day.  Carve out a time in your schedule where you won’t be interrupted and you can focus.  Maybe find an online teacher or a site that shows you how to play this song and you have your laptop at your fingertips.

Practice just that one thing for a month, two twenty minute sessions a day, first one early in the day upon awakening.  Maybe do a short meditation before the later practice session.

Make sure you use all your senses when learning, including simulation followed up by actual manual practice.

Another example would be learning another language, maybe Spanish.  Why do you want to do this?  You want to talk to the people at your favorite Mexican restaurant.  You want to be able to order in Spanish and carry on some conversation.

You don’t need to learn all the words, variations and grammar of the language.  You just need to learn conversational Spanish and more specifically what you would need to order at a restaurant and speak generally.  Hello, Goodbye, Thank you, How are you today, etc.

Are you willing to practice every day, maybe find a tutorial online.  Go to the restaurant more and engage with speaking there more.  Maybe befriend a Spanish speaking person to hang out with sometimes and speak only Spanish. 

The Storm Before The Calm   3/14/18

In my life it has always seemed that just when I make up my mind to master a personal change, as they say more “shit” hits the fan.  I chose a difficult career and occupation at least for about four months of each year.  The rest of my year, work is not too bad, but from February through May it’s a bear.  I am a tax accountant and it’s a job where a tsunami of work arrives with a deadline and lots of rules and regulations that change at the last minute or when you don’t know it or have the time to learn it.  A job that deals with people’s monies and potential penalties, a job where people of course want to pay the lowest amount of tax and agencies trying to squeeze every penny out of their constituents.  It’s a job with a lot of pressure, when you have to be focused, very accurate and you have to get a lot done in a little bit of time.  You get tired, things slip through the cracks and sometimes you make mistakes and screw up and there’s the stress of that, especially when people have to pay more money and there’s penalties.  At that time, I hate my job.  I beat myself up, how did I screw up.  It’s what I call “tax season hell”.

So last year I had six months or so of being successful with my healthy eating diet and losing a fair amount of weight.  I thought I had locked in my new habits of eating enough to withstand tax season stress and my usual go to relieve stress of alcohol and sweets.  Wrong, a lifetime of that kind of go to doesn’t change with six months of a good diet.  And so I’m not only beating myself up for things that go wrong during my work day, I’m beating myself up for failing on my eating plan and starting to gain some weight again.

I had realized a month ago that I had not dealt with my negative emotions when I had done my diet and I had started on a personal development plan to change and help me manage my stress levels better. But it’s kind of hard to change horses in mid-stream as they say.  In the middle of tax season, it seems hard to start a personal development change plan, but maybe that’s exactly when it should start.  I fail but I see what’s happening.  So right now it seems things have gotten worse and the only positive is the awareness I have developed of my internal dialogue and  over reacting to events that happen.  I guess that’s a positive and maybe when my stress calms down in a month or so I can work the rest of this year on my negative emotions and get back on the healthy eating plan.   And I will get tested again and again, maybe next year I will handle things better.

My husband says I’m way better than when I was younger and more unaware as my bad moods back then went on for weeks and months.  It’s hard for me to remember exactly how I used to be, but I vaguely do.  Now many times I catch myself being in a bad mood but not wanting to bring that to my family and I don’t.  I also see myself sometimes starting to worry about a disease and I’m able to stop it and I say to myself you know you usually over react. 

I was reading on the Personal Development site, neprov.com, that many times the struggle intensifies as the change starts happening.  I am seeing things more clearly than ever.  Sometimes now when I start being a hypochondriac, I maybe don’t even really care so much about a disease or death.  I think, oh well maybe it’s not so bad to be out of here I wouldn’t be dealing with this or that anymore.  I also see some negative things I used to want to do and now I don’t enjoy it anymore.  I think tonight I would like to watch the news and I turn it on and then everyone starts yelling and being negative and I turn it off.  Or, I go on Facebook and I see nobody’s really doing much of anything interesting or productive.  They just post silly comments or pictures of ordinary lives, nothing intellectual or spectacular or that interesting.  I used to like to see what the belly dance community was doing as that seems like a lot of fun.  I will see a video of a belly dancer in a restaurant and she’s dancing away and hardly anyone is watching.  The dance and her costume may be pretty but gets boring and monotonous very quickly.  Then I listen to music people have created or lyrics they have written, again a few good ones but mostly fairly amateur.  But maybe all this is just a reflection of my mind and now at a different space and level than your every day Jane.

I read about Buddha yesterday, very interesting a person who had everything in this world.  Wealth, fame, the best food, clothing, he wanted for nothing and was in line to be the next Emperor.  At a certain age I believe he was in his twenties he saw the suffering in the world and realized even he wasn’t happy with everything he had.  The material things and even people you have or acquire in this world does not make you happy.  We see this so many times when musicians or Hollywood people become rich and famous and they slowly kill themselves with alcohol and drugs.  They have finally made it and they have everything, but they are miserable.  The external world does not make you happy.

So what makes you have a happy, peaceful, contented life?  The internal work has to be done, you have to deal with your deficiencies and negative emotions.  Unhappiness comes from our reactions within, not from what happens outside ourselves.  It’s not easy, it’s a lot of work but it has to be done or things remain the same.  We were not born to be the way we are and we are not locked in our personalities.  It’s not because we are a virgo that we act the way we do. 

I can see that changes are starting to happen from things that were seeped in negativity that I no longer enjoy doing (watching the evening news).  I can see things about my own internal negative reactions that must change.  It’s starting to happen, but right now it seems worse because I see it more clearly.

I’m in the storm before the calm.