First, I hope everyone likes the new look of the blog. I went back to a theme that I like instead of one that felt too…idk, bright and busy. Plus dark mode on it was just uggy. I attempted to find a true neutral color scheme that doesn’t change for light or dark mode, because it compliments both.
Second, I hope today can be a bit of a catch up day, both blog and personally. Which I explain in the post. Planning on incense, some books, and maybe a second post before the evening is out, since I’d like to test an idea for a new post category. Anyway…
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I am so done with this place LOL. Not really. Our instructor today came up with a playful acronym for something we’re doing – and he literally used GRWM. Goals, Readiness, Work, Mastery. So like you have something you want to do, you set a goal. Readiness involves planning and preparation. Work is obviously putting in the effort. Mastery would be achieving the thing.
All I could think of was daadisnacks saying his nasally “get ready with meee” bit. And there were a couple of people who didn’t know what GRWM was, so I got to pull him up. “Get ready with meeee” lol
So I guess in terms of my 5k walks, which are slowly becoming jogs (slowly, I am not losing weight at any noticeable speed at the moment), my GRWM would be:
Goal: Get my 5k to under 30 minutes.
Readiness: water bottle, energy packets for the walks, ensure I’m getting proper nutrition and sleep when not walking
Work: do the walks, slowly decreasing the time it takes to do them as I go
Mastery: oh look at that, I did a 30 minute 5k
Simplicity is key, so I chose the easiest one.
Speaking of sleep, I did not. I probably went to bed at around 3:30, which is not good. It is temporary, but I have to make damned sure to get my ass in bed by midnight tonight or it will become an issue. I decided to hit up some gig work since the $$ was good last night, and ended up nose diving in my stream of thought.
Here’s the weird part. The triggering event, in my eyes, doesn’t connect to what it led me to in my thoughts. I got a rather large order from a grocery store to a house 20 miles south of town. Not quite five dollars, but hey, people do give cash tips in cases like this. I got the stuff, which filled my spacious trunk, drove it the whole way down, and got zero tip. They were in a very nice house, multiple cars, and gated land around it. Fucking cheap skates. No wonder the guy wouldn’t make eye contact with me.
But that led to me going into a tearful rant to myself about how I am always showing up for others, I’m calling them, I’m reaching out to them, I’m texting, I’m encouraging them to keep going, they tell me I inspire them to do better, show off to their friends how they’re doing better (or whatever), and they love to talk about themselves when I call, but then they don’t invite me to events they hold, they don’t let me speak about my own wins and losses, and if I stop calling or texting, the relationship stops. And that makes me feel lonely or unwanted or just…idk. Unseen, maybe.
But something about this was a lot different than when I would normally go off on that tangent (which is something I do think about, though not all the time anymore). I didn’t once think about reaching out to anyone for support. I didn’t default to my formerly regular “where’s mom” mentality. I didn’t regress to feeling like a literal child looking for someone to care. No. I let myself speak on my feelings. To myself, of course, I was in my car alone driving from that guy’s house. But I let myself speak up about it. To me — and I listened.
And the thoughts changed. I am here for me. I am doing my work. I am active in my life. I am confident where I am. I am pushing myself to be better. Not just heal, but actually live a life worth living. Maybe I’ve not yet met the people who are on the same vibration, in the same element. Maybe this is why these folks never call back, or never reciprocate.
Then I noted that all of the people I was thinking of in that context of me doing the heavy work of the relationships — every single one of them just want to complain. They demonize other people. They get mad when they cannot control other’s behavior. They gripe about their bodies or their cars or their houses or their jobs. They spend more time watching TV or doom scrolling than focusing on their lives. They complain about like…everything. And then they’re not doing anything about it, because I believe it’s because they’re stuck in their own heads about things.
That was me, though. That was who I was. Those behaviors were like layers of my life that I’ve stripped away over time. Still working on permanence with a lot of it, all things considered. I don’t believe I’ve demonized folks, though, but I’ve had people demonized for me in the past (family for example). I do try to error on the baseline ideal that everyone is good at their core, but not lately, obviously…but I mean I do try to look at people from where they are. Kind of like how I’m starting to learn how to step outside of my self and see where I am with things.
I noticed in letting myself speak, and like I said, stepping out of myself to look at what I was saying, really listen to myself, at the core was “I am changing, these people are not. Maybe that is why they do not speak. I was a convenience to them, not a meaningful person.”
I got home from my work at around 11:30pm with the intention of winding down and hitting the sack, but I ended up laying down with all of the thoughts of how that exchange with myself worked out. Not just the internal dialogue, but how I managed it, how I followed my thought process, how I chose to react differently — and possibly in a second-nature way — how I didn’t manic out, how I didn’t let it consume me. I didn’t feel proud of myself or anything like that. I was just — okay, I don’t know how to explain it. You know how as a kid, if there’s a storm outside and it’s a nasty one, there was often an adult that you could crawl up into their lap and kinda cuddle up and hunker down in their lap and feel safe?
No? Yes? Maybe?
That’s what I felt like. I felt safe. But I was in my bed by myself. Can we talk about how that’s not really been a thing? Usually, it’s go to bed, just kinda lay there in your anxiety, and hope the single thing distracting you (for me, it’s been mobile games like Raid Shadow Legends or even Runescape) will be just detailed enough to take your mind off of it so you can fall asleep playing. That has been my life up to a couple of weeks ago. But this is the first night I can think of where I literally felt safe and didn’t close my eyes with the anxiety of that creeping loneliness and fear that I may have done something wrong that day.
Is this proper parenting of self? Does this mean that I’m starting to listen to myself better, that I’m actually willing to hold my own hand? Or at least trust myself to do that kind of thing? Is this normal? Or…is this what normal feels like?
I don’t know, but I hope I can keep that feeling going. It sure felt nice to be able to close my eyes and not instantly start going over every little detail of the day or something that happened 15 years ago. It felt nice to feel like I was okay.
All that over a cheap ass mo fo who didn’t care to leave a tip.
But yeah, today was GRWM, our once a week IPSRT review, and a ton of CBT stuff. Lunch was teriyaki chicken with fried rice and an egg roll. Tomorrow is a campus we’ve not been to, yet, and I’m kind of excited, because it was my old stomping ground for a couple of years. It’s bipolar stuff but from an educational level. Hopefully lunch will be at the food court there. It’s bigger than the one at the mall and they have a bagel shop that I feel like nobody knows about unless they have business there, it’s a national chain but it’s THE BEST bagels and lox that I’ve had in the area (we don’t have a lot of eateries with bagel options here).
I do plan on writing another post tonight, just to hopefully share another drawing and quote and talk about my planned reading of Daily Stoic and Daily Carrot Principle, which I thought I’d dive into again. I also hope to look at the next chapter of the MSC book, which my internal Grimhilde abhors that it makes her feel so good. Tough rocks, inner rude lady.
I’m also thinking about slightly rebranding the blog just a little bit. While staying on the concept of the radical self, I kinda really do want to adjust it a bit. Because my version of radical self is going to be different than anyone else’s. So I can share my story and progress, things that motivate me, and things that keep me inspired and creatively attuned as I go. People can glean from that what helps them keep going as well. I may have different musical tastes, for example, but if I have a feeling about a song, maybe someone can see the post where I talk about it and say “the song that does that for me is ___” and go get the same feeling for their self when they listen to their song. Like you know…write things that open doors for ideas for others to take action in their own lives. I wonder if I’m already doing that…
Ok, that’s all for now, I got things to do.
