Mindfulness

 My mindfulness is not where it needs to be for me to be happy. Not at all.  Let me explain. 

I posted yesterday about how I was bored and sinking into depression - that's not normal for me. Anymore. Then, yesterday I took Mavy to the groomer's and didn't stop them from shaving him. Why? Why did I allow that to happen? The conversation went like this: 

Me: I need him deshedded

Groomer: Okay, shaved. 

Me: No, not completely. 

Groomer: About as short as his head? 

Me: Okay

I knew in the moment what was being said. I knew what was happening and yet I let it happen. Why? I can't explain it and I don't like that. 

My meditation has been off. It's been 10 minutes of me thinking about all kinds of things instead of clearing my mind. It's time to get back to the mindfulness. But how exactly do I do that? Since I left DSMC I have not been focused on mindfulness. I have been under the assumption that I had it under control. My exact thoughts were - I got this! I don't got this. This is something that needs to be worked on all the time. Clearly. So I have to get back to it. I can't let anything like this happen again. 

I should add, that while I am a little crazed about the shaving, I'm far more upset about the fact that he is in a lot of pain. Clearly whatever happened at the groomers hurt his leg and that bothers me a whole lot too. So basically I am a mental mess over him. 

So my meditations have been a hot mess, just sitting there for 10 minutes thinking about things. I do catch thoughts but then they drift off again and there are times when the thoughts go for minutes before I catch them. My activity level has bottomed out. Okay, part of the reason for that is the cataract surgery. Because of that I can't lift weights or do anything strenuous because it will increase the pressure in my eyes. That will end while we are on vacation, so that has an end in sight (ha-ha). I have let my mental attitude slip into boredom and depression - apathy if you will. My eating has also gone complete off the rails. I've been eating bread almost every day, sometimes twice a day, I've been eating sweets. I bought some lemon pound cake at Sprouts the other day and I've eaten over half of it. So the things that I know for a fact are most important to my well being:  meditation, movement, good food; have fallen by the wayside and I've waived bye-bye to them without a thought. That has got to change. 

Back to my mindfulness and getting it back. With DMSC we focused every week on some aspect of mindfulness. Maybe I could do that again. Every week I pick a topic (lord knows I have them all in my planner somewhere) and focus on that. Or, honestly there are some that are not an issue for me, so maybe I should focus on them all at once. That seems  a little insane. Maybe I should focus on discomfort. If I focus on that it will incorporate almost all of the others into it. Maybe I should take a step back and focus on mindfulness to start. Maybe I should do the weakless challenge. Maybe I should throw it all away and just give up. No, I did not mean that last line. When I was on my game. When I was doing all the things and had my mental house in order, I felt amazing. I found myself constantly smiling. I wanted to do things. I felt awesome. I want to feel that way again. 

Okay, I just took an hour and listened to a podcast about just this subject. As I was listening, I took notes and developed some morning and evening routines. My self care has slipped so much and I want to get it back. I want to feel that happiness and satisfaction with my life. So I have made a checklist and will follow the checklist until it becomes a habit. I want to do everything that is on the checklist. I know that these things will make me feel amazing and that is what I want - to feel amazing. So it starts today. No more putting things off until after vacation. OMG!!! I just had an epiphany. I started down this road of slippage because of the surgery. I developed the mindset that until we came back from vacation I would not be able to do these things. That's bullshit. I can't do everything, but I can do somethings. And I can do the mental work. 

Oh, I feel so much better. Mentally. I felt stuck. I felt like I did not know why I could not get back to that place where I was feeling so awesome. Now I see what happened. I let it get away from me. I let my mind tell me things that just were not true. I see that now.

Knowledge is power. Time to kick some self care butt.