The true beginning of growth

[Gabriel Joy]

Entry 21: Mom's house and Dad's house.

Being a minor as I previously mentioned is difficult at times, especially when your parents are seperated and the functionaliy of the houehold is noticably different. Let me start with my father's home.
 

• I share a room with my olderbrother
• The house is noisy all the time except early in the morning and late at night (1 hour when I wake up and 1 hour before I go to sleep)
• I have a decent amount of chores (dog walks, mowing the law, talking care of recycling, cleaning the kitchen, cleaning my own clothes and rotating cleaning chores)
• Half of the time were out of vegetables  and healthy protein sources unless I tell them to buy some more.
• House highly unorganized (we have too much stuff)

These four reasons mainly drag me down for my personal developement as they slow my progress and limit my concentraiton. Sometimes this discourages me to continue and even affects me academically. It's not an excuse to slack off, but it's a reason why I keep oscillating between my weeks. One week I'm doing fantastic and the next week I realise how little progress I made.

Now let's look at my Mom's house.

• I have my own room
• The house is always quiet, with the exception of rare calls my mom takes to catch up with someone at night
• My chore is watering the plants and washing my own clothes (although I occasionally help around the house from time to time)
• There are always vegetables and a variety of foods I can eat.
• There's a treadmill I can run on

This leads to me having more spare time and having to worry less about basic needs or homework as I can concentrate more. I often find it's during the weeks at my mom's that I grow the most due to this, but especially because I can concentrate a lot easier. I haven't figured out how to solve this issue yet but having longfully thought about it before I came to the conclusion to make the best out of it. There's nothing I can change other then gently give advice and push them in the right direction for a better home. Not in terms of material, but in terms of organisation and food.

Anyways, I believe I had an insight on the bus last thursday which I want to share with you. I was standing in the bus, going home as usual and suddenly, for no apparent reason I  look at everything and though it was beautiful. I smiled, all my worries melted away and I stood there, filled with love. As cheesy as it sounds, that's what happened which I haven't figured out why yet. I'm trying to understad what caused it as I was feeling down that day and nothing was there to cheer me up. I think it might be that I'm starting to love everything more and more, seeing that everything is part of reality and slowly, my love is becoming unconditional. (Although not everything demonstrates an equal amount of love due to a lack of conciousness) I'm still going to have to reflect on it.

On a final note, I'm continuing reading the Six Pillars of Self-Esteem by Nathaniel Branden. The book has so much useful information that it's difficult to take notes of it and keep up the pace. Instead, what I'll do is read everyday as usual and then take notes whenI have time. I'll try t do it atleast once per week. That's all. See you next week!

[Gabriel Joy]

Entry 22: A new approach to journaling

I've been realizing that I haven't been using this journal to it's full potential. I've been just noticing things and saying them without contemplating them too much. Instead, from now on I'm going to change up the method of journlaing. I will do the following now:

• Address a problem that I'm noticing within my life
• Weight out all the benefits of the problem
• Come up with a long-term, holistic solution that you can apply to your life.

The reason I'm writing down a three step process is to refer to it from time to time. Now, Let me begin by applying this right now.

My stepdad wants to lose some weight. He's gone through mutliple programs and has always met failure regardless of what the program was. They alll involved restricting food and not considering the behavior, mindset or relation of the person to food. Therefore, I want to propose him a diet plan that's going to work for him in order to help him. It benefits me somewhat, making me practice my convincing skills, having a family member feeling better and improving my environment while also feeling good for helping someone. Therefore, I'll do this through recommending him a way to lose weight permanently. (proceeds to go do some research)

I've got my plan. I'm going to recommend him Noom. This is because they focus more on behavior change and your relationsihp with food compared to other programs, such as Jenny Craig. This means that the change is going to be more permanent than the previous programs he took and will be more likely to stick to it even after he stops his subscription. I'm simply going to recommend him the Noom and explain the differences compared to other weight loss companies. (Essentially what I said above) Now I just need to go tell him. Wish me luck.

 

 

[Gabriel Joy]

Entry 23: Problem number 1! Psychotherapist or Psychologist?

I've been thinking for a while now the differences between these two roles and after much research and reflextion, I came up with a solution, but first let me lay the groundwork here to make sure I'm making the right decision.

Psychologist advantages:

Owning a business of psychotherapy.

Being able to chose one own's work and vacation schedule.

Making more money int he long-run (assuming I dedicate myself to the buisness for atleast a few years)

Having more knowledge about psychology (need a PhD to be a psychologist)

Higher chances of making a greater positive impact on the world

Disadvantages:

Requires more years to study

Living in parents home a few more years

Be in debt (most likely) for a while due to studies until paid off

Have more paper work to do due to owning a buisness

 

That's everything for Psychologist. Now psychoherapist.

Advantages:

Start working earlier

Less Paperwork to do

Less studying to do

Less debt

Moving out earlier

Disadvantages:

Illegal to start a buisness

Long-term I will have less money (job pays less)

Less fufulling as I know I won't have gone to my full potential

Smaller impact

Advantages:

Less studying

Get to live independently earlier

Eaiser to pay off debt

 

Its pretty obvious once I put it in writing which option is better. I'm going to be a psychologist as it's the right long-term choice financially and personally fufilling even if I have to be more patient to get results. Furthermore, it allows me to work on my schedule even if I have to work harder to get it. That's all.

 

[Gabriel Joy]

Entry 24: Changing...again

Its been a while journal. I'm now only going to wrtie when I need to. Not for anyone else, but me. As of right now, I'm greatly suffering and I'm here to dismantle that suffering to come up with a plan that I will put into action.

For the past few months, my father and stepmom have both recieved promotions. My step mom got a new (better job) and then got promoted roughly a few months later as Vice-president of human resources. It was fine, as she did occasionally work overtime, but we still saw her and spent time with her. Everything was okay. Then my dad got a new job at the same company. He became busy as his departement was short-staffed. He had to do the work of two individuals. He did it, but sacrified most of his free-time doing. In terms of work-life balance, it fell completely apart. Then his boss left for another position. He applied for that position. He got it. Now he's doing the job of three individuals and has no life outside of work. (recently there's been someone hired, so it's two, but he has so much work to catch up on that it might as well still be 3.)

This left me with a feeling of neglect, as most of my childhood I'd say I'd been moderatetly neglected by him and overtime this accumulates. Now, I feel this neglect deeply, especially that I have almost no attention from him. On top of this, my youngest sibling is feeling the same thing, although he's too young to understand it. Therefore, I must assume the responsibility of helping my father putting his life back on track. Two reasons.

1. It's negatively affecting the family (less happy than before)

2. It spicifically and greatly affects me.

This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to go on a long walk with him. And we'll talk. As simple as that. I need to tell him in a proper, respectful way what he isn't seeing. The walk is to make sure none of us can escape the conversation and it'll be at the chalet, since they'll be no one to disturb us. The neglect of his family, the self sacrifice of his health and decrease in overall of happiness for himself and everyone around him.

Notes for talk:

1. Ask him about if he's happy and polietly ask him if it's true. (If he lies mention that he doesn't eat dinner with us anymore.)

Ask him why this is the case and discuss.

2. Tell him his neglect of the family in general and that were no longer as close as we used to be. Also mention that I feel hat I don't really know him, the time he said "I don't want you guys to feel like your on your own."  and the time I mentioned the worries about Raph, he replied "He's on his own."

3. Tell him he's sacrificing his health. (explain why too)

4.Tell him change is needed for everyone, and ways to do it (barrier with work or life, and then stick with it.)