So I’ve been on this reset period for the last two weeks since my holiday. It wasn’t just the holiday that left me feeling so out of sorts but also the month before that or even a bit longer. I’d just been getting into worse and worse habits somehow. So I’ve been tackling my diet mostly and that’s been the main thing. I’ve been deliberately ignoring everything else apart from eating right and also doing strength training to get over a niggle I’ve got in my right hip at the moment and the small amount of running I’m able to do given the niggle.
Things have started to move in the right direction. I have been feeling clearer. I’ve written every day. I’ve stuck to the Whole30 diet (ish) for 10 days now. And my niggle is starting to clear up as well and my last couple of runs have definitely felt a lot better. But I’ve been deliberately not taking on too much all at the same time because I tried to do that in June, implementing too many habits all at once to try to correct my life, and ending up completely failing. Maybe I shouldn’t say it like that but I did. My diet went completely off the rails. I just kept reaching for sugary and processed foods again and again. So anyway, now back to recognising the absolutely foundational importance for me of eating right, and of doing the strength work to injury-proof my body. Those are the only things I’m really insisting that I do. I suppose you could add writing and studying A Course in Miracles to that list, and Duolingo, but they’re easy and enjoyable habits I’ve been doing for a long time now.
But I woke up this morning just feeling really off, and my initial thought was that it was due to wrong thinking because I was listening to an audio yesterday and I got really triggered by this comment about how “fixed” a lot of people are in their lives and the implication was that you should be traveling all over the place and eating loads of different foods and seeking out variety and if you weren’t doing that you were just really boring. And it kind of got to me a bit. So I tried to work through that in my writing this morning but by the end of it I was no happier. I still felt quite foggy to be honest, and considering that one of the main reasons I’m fixing my diet is because I find that I get quite foggy when I eat too much sugar and drink too much alcohol, and I ate virtually perfectly yesterday, actually TOTALLY perfectly, it’s a bit annoying to find myself in a fog this morning.
Then I realised as I sat down to meditate just now that I watched maybe six hours of TV yesterday. It was the Wimbledon women’s semifinals and they were both great matches and you couldn’t walk away from them so I literally sat there stuck for about four hours just crocheting and watching with limited movement at the changes of ends which only last for a minute so there wasn’t much I could do. Then after dinner I suddenly decided to start watching a series on catch up that was on last year but I missed as the second series is about to come out and it looked really good. And it was way too good and I ended up binge-watching about three episodes. So I completely broke my rule of turning off all screens at 8pm (which I haven’t really been sticking too lately anyway but last night I went way past that) and ended up probably falling asleep quite late. I woke about an hour later than usual this morning, which always gets me off on the wrong foot because I feel behind. And I feel foggy.
And it made me realise that, although all this psychological work of changing your thoughts to change your life is really great and important and life-changing, sometimes you just need to do the practical stuff that supports your body and mind and helps you feel good. Eat right, meditate, move your body, write, read inspiring stuff, and DON’T WATCH 6 HOURS OF TV A DAY AND STAY UP TOO LATE AND NOT EVEN GIVE YOURSELF TIME TO WIND DOWN FROM TOO MUCH STIMULATION BEFORE TRYING TO SLEEP!
So I don’t want to make it too difficult for myself the way I did in June, trying to run before I could walk and banning all TV, YouTube and even audiobooks, cold turkey from one day to the next which just, well I just wasn’t ready for it and it made it too hard to stick to my other habits like running and working out and even just cooking, cleaning and eating. But I do find the turning off screens by a certain time really useful. 8pm would be ideal but I think 9pm is good for now, a good starting point.
So I suppose to sum up today’s post, take baby steps and focus on the most important habit(s) first, but also recognise that sometimes you do need to implement more than one habit together because they all support each other. It’s no good working really hard to move well and eat well if you’re neglecting your sleep as it’s a key part of being healthy. But at the same time there’s no need to go totally hardcore here. I’m not planning to ban all TV or even limit the amount I watch right now. I recognise that TV and YouTube can help me to take some time out from the seriousness of life and at the moment I still NEED that. Ideally in the future I won’t but right now I do and that’s ok.