Taking those concrete beneficial steps

[Blueberry]

Thank you for the suggestions, notalone. Those are good questions rn. 

[Hope67]

  to you Blueberry. 
Hope 

[Jazzy]

Take care Blueberry, I hope you feel better soon. Remember that you have been dealing with difficult things lately, maybe you just need a break.

[sanmagic7]

  i love the idea of focusing on 'healthy' choices.  sending love and a caring, supportive hug, blueberry.   

[Sceal]

I think it is good that you are aware that it is your ICr, meaning it's fears, thoughts, memories of the past. Not necessarily truth of today.
I hope you did go to the farm, and that you decided you did want to go.

[Blueberry]

Remember that you have been dealing with difficult things lately, maybe you just need a break.

My thoughts this morning before getting up made me realise it.

[Blueberry]

I didn't go to the farm. I feel a little bad about that, because they really could have done with me.

However, today I managed to get up and teach at 9 am. I even prepared in advance, wow.

I think the most beneficial thing for me to do today would be to stay upright ie. not go back to bed. I'm going to the funeral of a choir member this afternoon. So that's been another thing on my mind too. When somebody dies that tends to derail me a bit. Reminds me of my own mortality I guess. It was sudden too, an accident of the kind I go in for. When it's somebody of my parents' generation, as is the case here, it derails me even further.

Well, other than staying upright, I promised myself I'll finally go and have a bath and a hairwash. Don't want to go to a funeral feeling as physically messy as I do, even if emotionally in a bit of a mess atm. Though I can feel I'm on the way back up again, a little.

[sanmagic7]

sorry about your loss, blueberry.  these things can be tough to deal with. 

glad for you that you feel on the way back up.  sending love and hugs.

[Blueberry]

Thank you, san   

I still keep seeing our deceased choir member in my mind and it's still difficult to believe that he's gone. Going to the funeral did me good in various ways beyond the normal funeral reasons. I was back singing, I was back in the group. People were pleased to see me again.

After the funeral there was a wake at the church where we sing and then the choir practice after that. I was there the whole time, long enough to realise: in the main these people really accept me and singing in a group does me good. It's generally worth making the effort. I hadn't for quite a number of months. Today I even went to the other church choir practice where our choir director has recently started directing. Not all hymns are the same, but there is some overlap, and sometimes we even sing together. This way I get two evenings a week and get to practise more, which does me good.

I have a tendency to deny myself things based on Idk what exactly. It will certainly have something to do with my childhood. Some punishment mechanism probably. "You don't deserve this because..." / "You ought to be able to manage without this". That sort of thing. With being able to work a bit more, I had been neglecting pursuits that give me joy. It's very important for me to keep going with things which give me spontaneous joy. Singing does this for me, so does singing God's word. This evening we were singing something like  "the most badly injured will help heal the world" and I realised that that fits partially. Obviously there are people who have been very badly hurt emotionally who go on to hurt more and more people, but there are others e.g. on here who help hurt people indirectly (or directly) through their own healing.

[Snowdrop]

So sorry for your loss. 

[Blueberry]

Thank you Snowdrop 

______________________________

Concrete beneficial step: On the spur of the moment I phoned ll. Good in a way because I dared and just did it! Bad because I wasn't well-prepared for his obfuscations etc. He came out again with the: "Look what all I do for you, how can you complain??" this time it is because he 'generously' paid for some small repairs in my apartment but didn't have to. That's news to me and I said so. It's a new law, tenants can be made to pay a certain amount a year for some repairs. What he of course neglected to add is that the new law is only applicable if the rental agreement is amended, which of course mine wasn't. I know because I've just researched.

Anyway, instead of criticising myself for not reacting better on the spur of the moment I will give myself  for phoning him at all because it really is difficult.

[Not Alone]

 

[MoonBeam]

Definitley 

[Hope67]

 
That is great, Blueberry.
Hope 

[Blueberry]

Thank you all   

______________________________
As I sit down to write, I notice I'm quite tired. That is good to notice because actually I had been intending to do some more work this evening, as well as write a few emails. I also need to make myself something to eat. There are vegetables to wash, chop and cook. So skip the work and make myself something nourishing to eat. Skip the emails too, whether work-related or other stuff.

This is what happens when I come back out of a bad spell: I have all sorts of impulses - things that have been waiting days, weeks, months to be done + new things where I suddenly have a creative idea + the day-to-day stuff + whatever occurs to me as plausible in next few days (e.g. it's sunny so do laundry and hang outside) - all this zooming around in my mind. It feels a bit as if energy is ricocheting around in me without me being able to pin it down and direct it into useful action.

A couple of hours ago I did manage to direct it into finally filing my current teaching notes into their proper files (by student).  It's good for me to note that having done that, I feel better grounded. Energy could still go ricocheting around in me if I let it. But there is another part of me that could direct energy into something concrete and beneficial rn. So, even before doiny any moderating, I'm going to go and make myself something nutritious.