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| The phoenix of the Northern Lights directly over my house! I have never seen it with my own eyes until now, and I'm treating it as a sign that I can finally see my life clearly. |
My priority in life is building peace, meaning reducing stress.
What motivates you to carry on in life? In my experience, people tend to answer status, wealth, skills, education, building an empire, or anything that gives people pride and a sense of accomplishment. These things are not my primary motivators in life. I'm not saying they're not important and that they don't motivate me at all, but I have learned that I don't wake up daily with motivation to keep advancing in these areas until I have my other basic need met. My basic need is peace in my personal life. What motivates me above all else is building a life of peace.
What peace means to me is having a consistent, stable, secure relationship with my loved ones. Peace means putting energy into building meaningful connections with people I love and care for and having it reciprocated. It also means not living with daily stress over things I have to accomplish, but instead flip it around so that the daily things I have to accomplish come from love and joy. I want my peace to come from a healthy marriage, because I'm built for marriage. I'm highly motivated to do work, chores, or tasks, or whatever for those I love. When it's for love, it's not stressful, it's purposeful. I'm quick to give my time, energy, and money for those I love. Because this is my nature, I need to be very careful about only choosing to love those who love me back without draining me. My perception of my marriage was that it was based on managing stress and avoiding conflict, not about building peace together. I did my part of the daily work to keep the peace, not out of love and joy. I need to build peace through deep connection without resistance, meeting each other's needs, and creating joy with each other. That's why living with my parents is working out brilliantly for me now. I love my parents, they love me, they are always consistent, and I feel very at peace here with them. Peace gives me security, and peace and security together are the foundation of what I need to be happy. Being happy because I have peace and security means I feel open and available to pursue my other goals in life without stress. I'm not unusual, especially for women, but I'm spelling it out like this because I think it needs to be said so plainly. So many people like me are trapped by looking for satisfaction through their work and status, not by looking for peace and security by loving relationships. My satisfaction in my work means nothing to me if I don't have peace at home with those I love.
My relationships have been in poor health for years due to my high stress level and lack of peace. My stress level was so high because my basic needs were not being met, and all the stress caused me to freeze up while waiting for my needs to be met. Years went by in which I felt frozen, in waiting, starving for love and connection, but feeling trapped and unable to build love and connection. My relationships with my friends and family all suffered because I felt too frozen up and unable to act. I also acted very defensive, dismissive, uncaring, rude, and distant because of it. My stress was so high that I couldn't give any of myself to anyone. I didn't like who I was or how I was acting, and I knew the stress was ruining me. I needed to end the stress and find peace again so that I could start to love again. I had to move home and live with my parents to end the stress. And over the past few months I've felt myself enjoying the company of people again. I've been able to be patient with people again, instead of defensive and dismissive. I really need peace in the foundation of my life, and I really needed to free myself from people and situations that drain my peace and caused me stress.
It's not just unresolved relationship stress that destroys my peace. I've been learning how everything artificial degrades my peace. I've known for years to avoid artificial fabrics in my clothes and artificial ingredients in my food, because they make me feel sick. I'm finding it's also the same with artificial relationships, artificial information, artificial intelligence, artificial art, and so on. All the fake information, half-truths, synthetic images and videos, and misguided propaganda on social media and news media is enough to make me sick. The trouble is, it's making everyone around me sick too, and it's poisoning my relationships with real people. It's difficult to hold conversations with people when they think they are educated because of everything they absorb from social media, but aren't interested in hearing other information or points of view. I really value the scientific process and critical thinking skills so we can find the truth on any matter. I want to live in truth. I really enjoy speculation, theory, and creative fictions when they're properly labeled as such. What I can't stand, however, are lies that are told as if they are the truth. Living in these times that are dominated by lies makes it difficult to safeguard my peace, but I can do it as long as I live an honest life at home with my loved ones. (I'm not leaving social media, because there's still so much good it does, but I learned to stop engaging with lies. I unfollow, and move on. I love to learn about the local community through facebook. I enjoy following my friends. I like to learn from trusted people. I like the private support groups. There is a lot of good on social media, but it's getting overrun with a lot of artificial and misinformation.)
So instead of wasting time scrolling through all the deception and energy-draining propaganda on TV and social media, I'm choosing to use my personal time on playing single-player video games, reading books, drawing, listening to music, stretching, going for walks, doing chores that keep my space organized and clean, cooking new things, reading scientific articles (I love National Geographic), and so on. I'm trying to choose peace over anything that amplifies my stress. I'm choosing activities that require focus, not contribute to my brain rot. I'm choosing to spend time with people who can hold a conversation without distraction or looking at their phones, talk honestly and from their hearts, and also want connection instead of just to use me.
I need PEACE. I don't need to live a life constantly on-guard against lies, manipulation, expectations that don't align with me, and indulging in junk entertainment and junk food.
So instead of wasting time scrolling through all the deception and energy-draining propaganda on TV and social media, I'm choosing to use my personal time on playing single-player video games, reading books, drawing, listening to music, stretching, going for walks, doing chores that keep my space organized and clean, cooking new things, reading scientific articles (I love National Geographic), and so on. I'm trying to choose peace over anything that amplifies my stress. I'm choosing activities that require focus, not contribute to my brain rot. I'm choosing to spend time with people who can hold a conversation without distraction or looking at their phones, talk honestly and from their hearts, and also want connection instead of just to use me.
I need PEACE. I don't need to live a life constantly on-guard against lies, manipulation, expectations that don't align with me, and indulging in junk entertainment and junk food.
So all that said...
Did I make the right choice to leave my stressful life behind so that I could work on my peace? Is it helping me manage my health issues? Is my health improving at all?
I wrote in my last post that yes, I'm seeing improvement in some areas with my health. I'm not profoundly better, but I'm not crashing as hard when I spend energy. I'm working harder at work than I have in years, and I do come home and have a crash, but they're not as serious as they used to be. I'm able to find the strength to get up and prepare a meal for myself and eat. My heart rate is still jumping up really high when I get up too fast, I'm still experiencing vertigo very easily, I'm still sweating like crazy at random times, my finger tips still go numb randomly, I'm still having adrenaline attacks at night that wake me up violently, and so on. I did really well for a couple of months when I first moved back here, but I think that was my body letting down and relaxing. Now that I'm working again and trying to keep up more of a routine, I'm having more symptoms. But I can see that I'm a lot more resilient because I'm not spending energy I don't have on stress or people.
Another factor is that my anxiety is gone. I'm calm. I'm not worried about anything. I'm rational, focused on each moment, and not drowning in thoughts. I'm feeling a lot more creative, curious, patient, and interested. I'm not on the defense anymore. I'm not trying to always prove myself. I'm just me, in this moment, calm and collected.
I wrote in my last post that yes, I'm seeing improvement in some areas with my health. I'm not profoundly better, but I'm not crashing as hard when I spend energy. I'm working harder at work than I have in years, and I do come home and have a crash, but they're not as serious as they used to be. I'm able to find the strength to get up and prepare a meal for myself and eat. My heart rate is still jumping up really high when I get up too fast, I'm still experiencing vertigo very easily, I'm still sweating like crazy at random times, my finger tips still go numb randomly, I'm still having adrenaline attacks at night that wake me up violently, and so on. I did really well for a couple of months when I first moved back here, but I think that was my body letting down and relaxing. Now that I'm working again and trying to keep up more of a routine, I'm having more symptoms. But I can see that I'm a lot more resilient because I'm not spending energy I don't have on stress or people.
Another factor is that my anxiety is gone. I'm calm. I'm not worried about anything. I'm rational, focused on each moment, and not drowning in thoughts. I'm feeling a lot more creative, curious, patient, and interested. I'm not on the defense anymore. I'm not trying to always prove myself. I'm just me, in this moment, calm and collected.
Something that concerns me very much, however, is the intense gut pain I keep having in the same area. Sometimes it's the pain of lasers cutting through me, sometimes it's sharp razor blades, and sometimes it's a giant sword through my entire gut. I don't know if it's endometriosis, actual gut problems, scar tissue, or something else. It's been intense enough and frequent enough to make me consider seeing a specialist. We'll see. My new Medicare plan begins in January.
On another note, I found a tea mug that I really love! As you might know, I drink tea all day long.
Amazon.com: DOPUDO Glass Tea Cup with Infuser and Lid, 17.6oz/520ml Large Borosilicate Teacup,Tea Glass, Clear Mug for Loose Leaf Tea, Blooming Tea, Microwave & Dishwasher Safe - Tea Maker Gift for Birthday : Home & Kitchen
I've been trying to avoid using metal in my loose leaf tea, because metal can deactivate some herbal properties. My acupuncturist taught me that, thankfully. I got a little frustrated with the Rishi paper bags for tea, so this pure glass solution is solving all of my tea problems.
(All ingredients listed below are organic and from Frontier Co-op unless otherwise stated. I buy them from my work place, where we have a huge wall of bulk herbs that I can buy by the weight. So I usually buy $2 or less of each at a time. I don't use exact measurements either, usually just a large pinch of each.)
My favorite winter-time tea has been:
On another note, I found a tea mug that I really love! As you might know, I drink tea all day long.
Amazon.com: DOPUDO Glass Tea Cup with Infuser and Lid, 17.6oz/520ml Large Borosilicate Teacup,Tea Glass, Clear Mug for Loose Leaf Tea, Blooming Tea, Microwave & Dishwasher Safe - Tea Maker Gift for Birthday : Home & Kitchen
I've been trying to avoid using metal in my loose leaf tea, because metal can deactivate some herbal properties. My acupuncturist taught me that, thankfully. I got a little frustrated with the Rishi paper bags for tea, so this pure glass solution is solving all of my tea problems.
(All ingredients listed below are organic and from Frontier Co-op unless otherwise stated. I buy them from my work place, where we have a huge wall of bulk herbs that I can buy by the weight. So I usually buy $2 or less of each at a time. I don't use exact measurements either, usually just a large pinch of each.)
My favorite winter-time tea has been:
Cut and sifted ginger
Cloves
Ceylon Cinnamon
Mt. Capra Mineral Whey Powder (I add this to the mug, not the strainer)
Blue lotus flower (Anima Mundi brand)
Butterfly Pea Flower
Lemon balm
Damiana
Mt. Capra Mineral Whey Powder (I add this to the mug, not the strainer)
But right now I need some caffeine and I'm cold, so I made:
Mt. Capra Mineral Whey Powder (I add this to the mug, not the strainer)
But right now I need some caffeine and I'm cold, so I made:
Indian green tea
Cut and sifted ginger
Cloves
Coconut flakes
Redmond Real Salt
Rhodes - Be The Bird
'Cause you can fly
Be the bird
Fly away
See the world
You'll be the news everybody heard
You'll never lose anything you've learnt
Just promise me you'll keep going
Just keep going and I'll keep telling you you're flying
(Radiohead Cover) Gin Blossoms - Fake Plastic Trees
Her green plastic watering can
For her fake Chinese rubber plant
In the fake plastic earth
That she bought from a rubber man
In a town full of rubber plans
To get rid of itself
It wears her out
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