#1 priority for 2020: Self-care

[Zigzag Idiot]

I've had near chronic neck tension for most of my adult life. Luckily there is an abundance of massage therapists where I live. I've sampled enough of them to realize that some of them are especially gifted. A good massage therapist can help relieve deep tensions which can realign the body posture and make a significant difference. That's my experience anyway. Hot steaming shower on neck and upper back at the end of the day also helps me a lot.

[tsuki]

@Zigzag Idiot How long do the effects of a professional massage last for you?
I am indeed taking hot showers after coming home from work, but I never thought that they are of help here. Thank you for this link.

I'm currently using a rubber ball that I bought at a pet shop to massage my back against the wall.
I can massage myself by pressing one side of my neck against the ball and providing pressure with a hand from the front.
It feels totally awesome.

Edited January 14, 2020 by tsuki

[Zigzag Idiot]

3 minutes ago, tsuki said:

How long do the effects of a professional massage last for you?

It varies a lot it seems and often depends the kind of work I'm doing as well as how mindful I am with my posture. The effects for me are immediate though and often lasts for several days.

That's a good idea with the rubber ball. My father used to do something very similar to that. 

I near constantly adjust/crack my neck. More than once a day for sure. 

[tsuki]

On 14.01.2020 at 1:28 PM, tsuki said:

1. Go to bed at 8 p.m. This is critically important.
   1. Went to bed at 9 p.m. but I had an hour-long nap. I feel better today, but I still have some catching up to do. I have an ambivalent relationship with naps because they mess up the way in which I fall asleep. I feel anxious during the night that I won't get enough rest.
2. Journal about my feelings and (or) read the Bible.
   1. I did some reading, but just a few pages. I also wrote a few words, but only today before work.
      My plan for yesterday was scattered because I decided to spend some time with my wife instead.
      After getting some physical affection, I fell asleep like a baby. 
      Critical voice, pls go. I've got this, I don't need to feel guilty to keep my promises!
3. Stretch my neck.
4. Do the laundry.
5. Zero youtube and social media today.
   1.  It felt really good! I may be onto something here.

----- Routine streak -----
Shopping after work : 5
Body care (2x)      : 1

Body care routine consists of: shower, eating and stretching.
I do this twice a day, after waking up and after getting home from work.

I'm considering social media + youtube + music detox.

Edited January 15, 2020 by tsuki

[tsuki]

Today I promise to:

1. Go to bed at 9 p.m.
2. Prepare food for tomorrow.
3. Read the Bible.
4. Stick to my routines (body care and shopping).
5. Start social media + youtube + music detox.

I decided for the detox because:

1. I bought noise cancelling headphones for silence and I'm blasting my ears off with music instead.
   I exhausted the enjoyment of my playlists and need some time off. I'll listen to forest sounds instead.
2. I read an article about internet addiction and realized that I use social media as a distraction from my feelings.
   I'm following a few valuable feeds on facebook that deal with psychotherapy and post interesting/inspiring quotes, but that's about the value that I'm getting. I want to somehow squeeze more reading into my life instead, but I find it difficult.
   The problem lies in mobility because the books that I'm currently engaged with:
   • require my full attention, or
   • are written in Polish, so I can't use my kindle.
3. Youtube is such a huge time sink for me. I think I'm through with educational material there, it's too shallow and unfocused for me for the time being. Instead of looking for it, I fall into a rabit-hole of cat videos, anime fights and dancing. The last part is getting me aroused and I'm squirming for porn/masturbation so it is feeding my addiction needlessly.

I will start with a week-long detox and will keep re-evaluating my progress.
I already hid youtube and uninstalled facebook on my phone a few days ago and it's been a success.
I may sneak some cheat hours in when I can check things up because I'm an admin of 2 facebook groups.
________________________________________________
I really admire the way in which my wife is handling her cooking. She's so creative with it that she can stock up on raw materials for a few days and just use them as needed. When I'm going to the mall, I have a mental stock of recipes and I'm trying to match the contents of the shelves with what I can cook. Having a supply of materials handy would be such a time saver. Today I will buy some random vegetables and try that as well.

Edited January 15, 2020 by tsuki

[tsuki]

16 hours ago, tsuki said:

• Go to bed at 9 p.m.
  • This is getting ridiculous. Ahem, critical voice, please go away. Thank you.
    I'm not sleeping well lately. Weird dreams mixed with Bible contents.
    I'm also anxious because my new employer has not sent the papers yet.
  • I delay going to bed because I schedule reading right before it and enjoy myself.
    Maybe, if I would schedule my body care routine right before bedtime, I would sleep better?
  • Also, I'm delaying it because I don't want the day to end.
    There is a big tension before going to work and I want to postpone it. <~ I should contemplate this.
• Prepare food for tomorrow.
• Read the Bible.
• Stick to my routines (body care and shopping).
• Start social media + youtube + music detox.

-------- To be continued --------

[tsuki]

I can't sleep. I went to bed at 7 p.m. and woke up at 2 p.m. Lots of thoughts about reality, God, Christianity, Islam, reincarnation, Hermeticism and my threefold division of experience. I may have to start an insight journal soon to offload them.

The social media/music detox is a success in the sense that I'm munching on Wikipedia instead .

Edited January 18, 2020 by tsuki

[Rebecca Kalamata]

Oh Tsuki, you break my heart, I bleed for you, you are struggling so valiantly. When I first arrived here a few months ago you replied to something I wrote I think. You thought I was someone that you recognized but I don't think that was correct. But mostly no one replies to stuff that I write (one other person did) so I appreciated the hell out of you.

Here (in Leoland) as everywhere, I don't fit in. That point of view has become so OLD. People seem so intelligent and knowledgable with talking the talk and walking the walk, such discipline! Me? Tonight I wanna ask about how about "Holding The Cat Meditation While Lying Down?" I screwed up with this guy (Tiko The Magical Cat) when he came to me at the same time I discovered Leo (and also that everything is here for me in Kalamata). Think Inspector Clouseau and Kato in 'The Pink Panther". I'm kind of a rough type and I played rough with my baby cat and my arms have been scratched and bitten and bandaged for 4 months from our attack games. FINALLY, he comes into my arms without wanting to play "Get The Hand" when I am lying down and we breath each other's breath and his purring seeps into my cells.  And we both go so quiet and calm. Seems like good meditation to me. But I seriously digress... In the real world everyone is so unconscious. Where are all those smart people that go online? 

Anyway, this is supposed to be for you. A miracle happened the morning after I bought Leo's book list (Who SELLS their book list? Who BUYS a book list? But what an ingenious idea!} When I got it I was blown away by the WORK he put into his reviews. I only managed to get through listening to about 10 of them that first night. Next morning I woke up to this old guy going on and on on my wall. (I project youtube etc. onto my wall.)  I'm like, who's the dude and I leave him on in the background as I proceed to wake up and get up. After a while, I begin to notice that he is funny and then he says some stuff that made me SIT-UP AND LISTEN. Whoaaaa. So I exit full screen and get his name and google him. The author of 'Conversations With God'. Wait a minute, that book is on Leo's list and he raved about it!  Just another co-incidence.  A synchronicity. A MIRACLE.  It's like this all the time now. I am given all that is before me that I do not see. This started when Ho'opopono appeared and I began to say it. "I'm sorry, Please forgive me, Thank you, I love you". One needs to be aware of 100% responsibility for all that is before (and behind them). So a bunch of really unlikely things happened. The gist is that all has been given to me. All the promises have been fullfilled.

It's been a long life, hard every step of the way. Who designs a life the way I did? Who consciously sets out to test and break every social taboo to get to the bottom of it all? To get at TRUTH? Well me. And you are breaking my bleeding heart with your round and round and struggling with whether or not to do the laundry. (My husband and I have pretty much always lived in separate countries and he won't clean. When he comes to the US I stop cleaning until he leaves. I won't cook either. No problem. One has to be flexible after all). So here's Neale and the video. Listen from 50:00 to hear the thing that I (and Neale) needed to hear. And as for the Bible... I got so disgusted with the characters and their shenanigans unto each other when I decided to go back and review the story of my namesake Rebecca that I stopped cause I remember the rest. And these are the folks 'GOD' had to work with within all THREE major western religions. No wonder Christ had to come and nail himself to a cross just to get everybody's attention. And the poppycock that has always gone on within the divisions of Islam is insane, and the crap that I hear from the various major Christian sects (Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Protestantism)! Poor God, poor me, poor you, poor we. Two words only: LOVE, FORGIVE. 

[Rebecca Kalamata]

PSI bought a neck hammock on Ebay. It works.

[tsuki]

@Rebecca Kalamata Loneliness is the price for breaking every social taboo... to get to what, TRUTH? Hmm?
The ego is deceitful precisely because it is fragile and powerless. By not honoring it, you are disposing of your humanity.

Maybe that's why you don't fit in, Mrs nympho?

Edited January 18, 2020 by tsuki

[Zigzag Idiot]

                                                                            Two Treasures

9 minutes ago, tsuki said:

The ego is deceitful precisely because it is fragile. By not honoring it, you are disposing of your humanity.

Also, everything @Rebecca Kalamata articulates. ?

Haven't listened to the video yet but I read and reread his (Neal's Donald Walsch's) first 6-8 books as they came out years ago.

[tsuki]

For the past two days I went totally off the rails. No scheduling, no promises but I kept to my routines.

My back started to hurt because I was trying to keep it straight ?. I found a comfortable spot where my muscles aren't strained, but I can walk upright like a proper human ?.

Edited January 18, 2020 by tsuki

[tsuki]

During the weekend I was unable to uphold my social media/youtube detox.
A lot of emotional turmoil was happening, also between me and my wife and I felt drained.
I did cook for myself, but I did not do any stretching and scheduling. I do not feel guilty because of this.
What I do feel guilty for is that I did not read as much Bible as I would want to. I'm still 350 pages in.

After finding out the importance in Christ in Holy Trinity, I gave in and decided to read the Book of Jon.
The fact that I feel like I "gave in" speaks a lot about how critical of myself I am.
I'm holding to my promises too tightly, but they are one of the few things that I find dependable.

[tsuki]

When I stop systemizing my self-care, I feel like I'm not doing my 100%. I stopped scheduling, so my reading efforts are unfocused.
I also stopped stretching so much because I strained the shoulder blade region of my spine. I need to be gentler with myself, but it's difficult when the effects feel so good. I'm still cooking for myself and sticking to my buying routine though.

I am too critical of myself and of other people. I need to learn to relax, joke and have fun in other ways than satisfying my curiosity.

[tsuki]

The week passed by on relaxation, mostly, but I was not satisfied with it. There were some awesome days where I genuinely had fun, but I'm also aware that I'm avoiding my feelings a lot. I'm being very mindful of my inner critic and letting go as much as I can. My crying got a little better recently, as I can tear up more freely. Unfortunately, I need the presence of another person for this, so I can't just cry when I'm alone at home. I feel kind of guilty because of this because I think that I'm a burden to my wife because of it.

Today we fought about money, specifically, because we haven't been budgeting for the past few months and I'm burning through my savings like crazy. I feel threatened and overburdened because of it. The role of the main provider for our family is weighting on me and I know that she can't relieve me from it. The squabble was pretty on my part, some unimportant details about account setup, but I felt abandoned and left on my own. That is when I become controlling, when I start to boss around, to protect myself. In the end, she agreed to my suggestions/demands, but what I really wanted was emotional support. I tried to communicate that in parallel to the squabble and I think that she understood that. It's weird that I switch between my adult and wounded personalities during these arguments. She was confused a lot because of it in the past, but she understands and sees it now. Her codependency and fear triggers are definitely not helping here.

She was conditioned to not be a burden to her parents because of all the fights they went through prior to their divorce. I also learned that they took her to court and she witnessed all of the divorce nastiness first-hand. I think that her triggers have something to do with becoming a child that is responsible for adults, being unprepared for the job.

I love her.

[tsuki]

My wife went to work and I'm alone. I was cleaning the kitchen when it just occurred to me that I can ask Jesus to heal my wounds. So I prayed and asked him to take my wound away, that I can't do this on my own. I bursted into tears and cried for a solid half an hour. Every time I looked at the cross and said "thank you", a new wave of tears came. I don't even know if these are tears of sadness, releasing repressed trauma, or joy. It feels so good to cry. ???

Thank you Jesus.

[Bill W]

28 minutes ago, tsuki said:

My wife went to work and I'm alone. I was cleaning the kitchen when it just occurred to me that I can ask Jesus to heal my wounds. So I prayed and asked him to take my wound away, that I can't do this on my own. I bursted into tears and cried for a solid half an hour. Every time I looked at the cross and said "thank you", a new wave of tears came. I don't even know if these are tears of sadness, releasing repressed trauma, or joy. It feels so good to cry. ???

Thank you Jesus.

Lovely post my man. 

[tsuki]

 

[tsuki]

I haven't felt this good in a long while. So peaceful. Deep belly breaths feel amazing, but I also feel exhausted. Crying is hard work.

Some time ago I applied to a programming school as a trainer. They called back and I'm going to see an introductory lesson. I will be teaching children C# and programming Android apps. I want to learn to have fun and increase my empathy.

[tsuki]

Today I am kicking my own ass for being so damn entitled to everything.

My top priority for 2020 is self-care, but the highest form of self-care is self-love.

I love my entitled ass.

Edited January 28, 2020 by tsuki