Fallen From Grace

Muddling Through It All

When I do an assessment of my life, it usually starts when I admit hard truths to myself, as it rarely involves telling other people because it starts with admitting the truth to myself first. When I tell others because I can, there are few trusted people I trust, but, more importantly, who really hear me. Yet before I tell anyone anything, I turn to self-help. It's about me meeting my own needs to get there, which didn't involve being dependent on anyone. This consisted of little bits of information I remembered from therapists over YouTube. So every morning when I was in the shower instead of just thinking I wanted to be clean and smelling nice for the rest of the day I membered Marrisa Peers words about saying quietly in my head to try saying that I was a strong confident woman ready to face the challenges of the day ahead. To be fair, I didn't not believe myself when she said to use strong motivation self talk because it never hurt myself to say awesome empowering things to remain in my head, but it did get me amped and jumped up for the day. By listening to her, she also taught me to tell myself better lies to my brain and it started with "I love to be clean," because for some reason although I grew up in an environment where things were always tidy and clean at my parents I always thought it said more about someone who knew how to relax but pick up the slack when needed. Just because I found someone who couldn't switch off where their brains were on all the time annoying, that they'd take the coffee cup out of my hands before I finished swallowing because they wanted to clean the damn cup. Or impatiently feeling the need to remind me all the time of times dates and appointments I've got coming up. I wouldn't mind them writing it down on a calendar in front of my face where I could see it, but badgering checking up on me just frustrated the hell out of me. Or if they decided it was better for holiday packing to be done but in a ridiculous time frame like a month before going.
This is the type of person who looked for things to clean, doing things all the time and never present in the moment to sit down have a cuppa and chat with me basically this was someone who prioritied doing everything they could in one day even over their own self care and I knew I wanted to be that person who realised the importance of self care, who could kick back watch TV and eat a pizza. Without worrying how many calories were in it and might do the dishes in the morning. So, I did this for a long time, but after either watching Marrisa Peer or Evy Poumpouras to take control of your life starts with taking care of your body and your needs and I had the idea of self care a little skewed. Taking time out when I was that stressed or tired I had got that down because I just focused on not doing anything where I was the main priority but it also meant taking care of my body and my focus had to be on other personal needs and home. Things got done, but they manifested for a while before they got done, so if I couldn't attend to myself and home, how could I be in control? So thanks to Marrisa Peer, I changed my self-talk around, which just started with five simple words, "I love to be clean.'

This consumed my thoughts to my actions from taking extra long in the shower to make sure all body parts were thoughly attended to, to my teeth whereas before it was a five seccond thing I didn't enjoy doing, I told myself I liked it and spent time around each tooth to which the dentist passed comment when I next went, to keeping my house cleaner and tider. Saying that, though, I also tried the five sessond rule from Mel Robins. If I saw my washing up from the day before because I hold my hands up as I have been guilty of telling myself I'll do things in the morning, so 54321, I didn't think I just did. The next thing I knew, I had not only the energy to do that. I'd done the ironing and sorted out my closet under the stairs. So I do pay attention to what I see in front of me. Now, however, I had a puppy who wanted my attention and the last time in the evening when I thought she was playing nicely in the front room as I was tidying and making the kitchen spotless she was happily chewing on our remote! So something in my brain told me I couldn't do that, I had to watch her, and then housework took a backseat.

Our Mother and daughter bonding time was usually in a morning after she'd woken me up for her morning wee and I'd quickily sort out a cup of tea, grab a small item like a banana to eat and pull the overhead blanket off the sofa over my legs and either catching up on Eastenders or watching Harry Potter Penny would run across the room and jump onto my lap and would nuzzle herself into me.