Elephant eating update

Yeah, elephants eat my updates all the time… 😉 but strangely I never seem to have the camera handy, so no photo of that!

Basically I was set the challenge of starting to deal with two of my elephants by doing them for five minutes a day and ticking a box. It is supposed to be five minutes *every* day, but if I miss a day then I’m allowed to do five more minutes another day and backdate it. If I get ahead, I just add extra ticks to that day’s box, I don’t get to add them in advance as the idea is that facing them every day helps somehow.

I’m not sure how, I’m not a big fan of stuff you have to do every day. I sometimes only eat because I start to feel ill if I leave it. Oh and, yeah, I do like food… 🙂 I just can’t always be bothered.

So I’m doing quite well with Zaza (that’s the messy elephant if you don’t remember from my last post). It helps that I watched a great programme on telly about architecture and the home which suggested that you actually cope better with pain in beautiful surroundings! The presenter got into a bath full of ice cubes in a grotty cellar and an opulent hotel. He was out of the one in the cellar in under a minute, but survived the nice one for about a minute and a half.

Well that made me think of how the room I spend most time in and relax in when I’m ill and in pain really ought to be more beautiful! It’s not hideous (although husband thinks it is because it is messy and that upsets him, but just a bit of yarn and a few books strewn around don’t make me unhappy :D) but neither is is as beautiful as it could be.

A major part of this is I decided to remove from my line of vision anything that makes me feel bad, guilty, or has sad memories or anything negative. That doesn’t mean get rid, just that I don’t need my eyes to keep falling on it when I’m trying to chill out. Instead I shall put things that make me smile and feel good.

I have to be careful what, because that varies depending on my mood! Memories in particular can be tricky things, especially with getting arthritis at around 20 – things from before then can have happy memories, but can also make me feel sad for things I can never do again 😦

But it’s been a good decision! It’s not finished yet and will take a while because of my energy levels. I was energised to do loads on several days last week and made great progress, but the last couple of days I have been feeling quite ill. Blah virus again – which I am told is the symptoms of the stress and anxiety so I’m not quite sure why that would strike then, but I was tired and also perhaps I feel a bit overwhelmed by the magnitude of the elephants.

I decided to put my studies away in the bottom of my wardrobe in a different room. It felt weird doing that and replacing them with craft books and boxes of yarn, but it also felt like a relief to have it out of the way for a bit. I still have six months to run of my fallow year, so it is worth trying it now. After all, if I gave up then that would be my life and I need to know how I feel about that. If I miss the stuff and want it back or if I’m just happy to not have think about it still, that gives me a clue as to my deepest desires, which I guess I’m not all that in touch with.

That meant I had to clear out the bottom of half that wardrobe. There were loose plastic bags and re-enactment kit and 3 bags with stuff in. Out it all came and made a big mess on the floor 🙂 I also decided to remove all the empty clothes hangers. I could not believe how many of those there were! I had about fifty trillion! Well, more than fifty anyway.

Fifty trillion coathangers and some plastic bags.

It made a big space with loads of room to hang more clothes up 🙂 so I hung up the re-enactment kit for a start.

Room in my wardrobe!

It would be even better if I could say that I hung up all the clothes which are lying around, but I had already done way more than five minutes! In fact hanging some of those up has been today’s five minutes plus another for yesterday when I was ill.

But I did make great progress. I’ve written over 800 words now so this is getting too long and I have to cut it short. But I should fess up that the admin elephant has not responded so well. I have done some, which is more than I would have! But I know I am still trying to wriggle out of it and I let myself sometimes, which is bad 😦

At least I wrote a blog post! It’s been over 2 weeks! Sorry.

Bleh, my head is still woozy even though I’ve done stuff. What’s up with that? What am I stressed about now? Surely I should know that! Oh well, time to go to my not-quite-beautiful-but-nicer-than-it-was relaxing space for a lie down!