Life is For Learning  3/11/18

Just when we think I think I have things under control, my life falls apart.  For once in my life I had been successful in losing a fair amount of weight and staying on a good healthy eating plan for over six months.  This was a huge improvement from my past where two weeks was about the longest I could stay on a so called diet.

Chinese Taoism philosophy says it takes 120 days to establish a new habit, so I was much encouraged that after six months I was firmly rooted in my new healthy eating habits, enough to maintain during my annual few months of intense work stress.   The testing is always surprising as to how much work still needs to be done.  So this year when the work stress had intensified I found myself falling off the wagon, eating sweets, cheese and drinking alcohol to cope and maintain.  All my go to triggers, which cause weight gain and inflammation in my body.  And they don’t really solve anything, it’s just a crazy kind of coping.  I was not the cool, calm and collected person I had wanted to be, but upset and stressed out.   Of course, I always want a friend to care but it doesn’t happen.  Fair weather friends, no one’s there when you’re down.  I have to be compassionate even to them as I know they are also struggling and maybe just don’t have the skills either to be helpful.

I had recently came across a blog on personal development as to how to be a happy person.  How to get rid of internal negative emotions such as anger, irritability, self depreciation, etc. I had started working with his plan to increase the peace in my life.  I had started meditating,  journaling, not watching the drama on the news or going on social media sites to hear uninformed people make stupid comments, all which seemed to help somewhat, but did not stop my work stress and freak out.  I slid back into my old habits of a lifetime.

So, in the middle of this strong current I’m trying to reassess and come up with ways to get control of my life, if there is such a thing.  Some of the positive steps I’ve maintained or newly initiated are

1.       I have continued to eat my good healthy foods soups, salads, plain yogurt, fish, etc.

2.       I have continued to walk and do some yoga.

3.       I have continued to journal and write songs almost daily.

4.       I took control of the phone and appointments, so scheduling is working better.

5.       I do have a little office help and am better about getting things out the door.

6.       Just read there shouldn’t be a wagon at all to fall off of as I need to be compassionate with myself and not set hard rules.

Life is learning and doing the best you can at the time without rules.  Priorities change as life changes, so hard rules don’t always work.  We need to be flexible and compassionate with ourselves, especially when we struggle.  Taoism always says a trees needs to be flexible in the wind.  Sometimes we find ourselves in pain and coping the best we know how until we figure out a better way.  We need to be thankful for our learning experience as this is how we grow and become the better person we want to be.  Our struggles make us think and figure things out.  I now feel I need to spend time each day getting more organized and coming up with a way to measure my productivity and keep things moving.  If I can see it visually on paper, then I’ll feel more in control and know it’s all going to work out. 

So life is a process of learning.  Don’t miss it!!  My new song for the day.