28 Days to Form a Habit: Day 2

(Pic found on Pinterest, from pickthebrain.com)

This morning our postman delivered another parcel (anxiety has made me discover that internet shopping/home delivery is the way forward - so much easier, less stressful and I don't have to worry about where/how to park!!) - it's my latest jigsaw puzzle.

I feel a bit of an old fuddy-duddy admitting it (!), but anxiety has also taught me that I LOVE jigsaw puzzles, because they help my brain stop over-thinking and over-worrying. For me, there is enough to concentrate on to distract, but it's not too-taxing a concentration (like work has become. Which is a bugger, but there you go. I'm ill. What can you do?)

Anyhoo. The jigsaws I like to do are a little bit different to usual (story of my life!) - they're mystery ones, where there is no image to follow for guidance, just a mystery story booklet which sets the story and poses questions that the completed puzzle solves...if you can figure it out. I love it! It's like being in Murder, She Wrote or Columbo (my lifelong faves), without the cheese or dodgy 70s fashions/sets.

Today's puzzle was started around noon, and I stopped just before 5pm - I've done about half, I think, and have the pull to go back and carry on... I've identified elements of the scene but can't yet see the overall setting, and I'm intrigued to figure out quite what the smudgy grey stuff is in the middle.

Really is the story of my life, then!

~ ttfn ~

28 Days to Form a Habit: Day 1

I ran out of ink, Pen Pot Blog, which is why I’ve not posted in forever. Ink is hard to refill when you’re swimming for your life through the thrashing oceans of depression and anxiety.

(Once, I was really, really good at actual, physical swimming– I had all those patches-presented-as-badges and the bronze, silver and gold proficiency certificates. Shame primary school had to end, eh?!)

Swimming is kind of a habit, I guess – and someone once told me that you can form a new habit in 28 days. 28 consecutive days of conscious thought and effort results in an automatic-habit. Let’s try it, then.

Habit I Want to Form =

Recognising and expressing my thoughts and feelings (you know, the deep, difficult, private ones, not the I-take-tea-with-milk-and-two-sugars kind. I do, though, so let me know when you’ve got the kettle on). I want to form the habit of getting these thoughts OUT, so I’m not alone and pushed down with them ALL. THE. TIME.

How Can the Pen Pot Blog Help?

By being somewhere I can share them, pick at them, try to figure them out. By being the place and motivation to create and share 28 consecutive posts of change, just like days in real life.

Maybe no one will read us, Pen Pot; maybe some will. Maybe we’ll have just one actual reader. But these kinds of numbers don’t have value here: it’s the habit of opening up and putting My Self out there, as much as exorcising my thoughts, that I’m trying to form.

Today's Thoughts

So. Day 1. I’ve noticed the blue sky and thought about how its blueness communicates change; is a vehicle for it: clouds move across it, but the sky and its blueness remains. Endures. Is appreciated, and loved. And will be seen again, once those clouds have buggered off. Just like me and my depression.

(I was writing a sentence, just then, questioning if this thought-approach is what they mean when they say ‘be mindful’, because I always want to yell, ‘But what am I supposed to do to be mindful?!’ – and then a phrase announced itself in my mind, all authoritative and authentic-like: ‘You don’t do, you be.’ So… I don’t need to do anything about the sky being blue – I don’t have to remark on it, take a photo of it, research the science behind how we see colour and/or how weather forms. I just need to know and accept that I’ve seen the sky is blue, and that – to me – it’s kinder and friendlier being blue than grey; that I’m alive today to see it, and that’s enough. God, this mindfulness thing still seems bonkers!)

(Any tips on how to improve my attempts at being mindful?! Answers on a postcard, please – or in the comment box below!)

I’ll be back tomorrow, Day 2, for another thought and exploration – want to join me in this habit?!

~ ttfn ~