As you may have read in my past blogs, Sheryl over at A Chronic Voice does these awesome blog linkup parties, writing prompts and all – especially helpful if you’ve been dealing with some minor writer’s block like I’ve been.  October’s prompts are:

 

Technically we have to only write on three of the five prompts, but I love each of them, and also, writing is a bit of an …. ahem… escape for me, so I’m going to do all five.

Budgeting:

I’m looking at budgeting literally here, because it’s a big stressor for me.  Let’s just say that earlier today, a financial wellness company sent me an (unsolicited) email entitled “Are you saving too much?” and I laughed out loud. It’s not that I’m a bad budgeter or big spender. It’s that you can’t get blood from a stone, as they say. Or in this case, you can’t get money from a bank account if it’s not in there in the first place. I’m in a bit of credit card debt – not the worst anyone’s been in, but I hate owing anyone anything, especially money, and it really stresses me out.  I’ve started taking a closer look at my bill and spending to see where I can cut things down slightly.

I’m also working on ways that I can begin to make more passive income, as well as paid patient advocate opportunities.  I’d love to make patient-advocacy my full time thing but…. bills.

 

Speeding:

I definitely have a bit of work to do in the “a little less talk, a lot more action” department. I am ideas person by nature. I’m great at the big picture, the brainstorming, coming up with the “Ooh maybe we could do this! And what about that?!” I’m a list-maker and a mind-mapper and every other ideas-related graphic one could create.  It’s the transition from idea to making it happen that trips me up. For instance, I finished writing a novel over a year ago. I still have made no efforts to get it published or even edited. Also: my dad is an editor, so I have literally zero excuses on the editing front. I did have the first chapter of it published online in Wordgathering, which my dad edits and publishes, so that was a big first step – even though it was my dad publishing it, putting it “out there” for general public consumption took a lot of courage on my end.  My goal for the “speeding” part of this is to stop getting stuck in the ideas phase, and to start moving into the action phase – not only with my novel, but with my advocacy as well.  The stagnancy definitely stems that internal voice that tells me it/I won’t ever be good enough, capable, successful. I just have to get better at telling that voice to sit down and be quiet more frequently.

 

Slowing:

My mind races a mile a minute. Anxiety, hypomania, and temporarily being off meds for these because we are family planning and my meds are contraindicated with pregnancy, all tend to wreck havoc on my brain. Things like yoga, meditation, going for a run, being out in nature help, but obviously, these aren’t always accessible and they don’t eliminate it all together. But in the past month, I started yoga teacher training, which means that I’m spending 2-3 weekends a month in yoga teacher “workshops”, for lack of a better word (i.e. we aren’t doing yoga all weekend, we’re studying it), plus taking at least two classes a week, per the teacher training requirements. I’ve spent a lot more time lately slowing down my breath and focusing on things outside of my day to day life, and it’s helping me refocus.  Of course yoga isn’t a cure for my anxiety or any mental illness, but the continual practice and study is helping to get me slow down my racing thoughts more.

 

Evaluating:

If it wasn’t apparent from the “slowing” section, I have a very evaluative brain. I can evaluate just about everything and anything. And I do. My latest struggle emotionally has been a bit of an identity crisis. I’m struggling with where I am (in life, not in Philadelphia), and who I am, and what it all means. I’ve also been turning over a lot of would’ve, could’ve, should’ve in my mind, and particularly, a lot of guilt over the past. To be honest, it almost feels like when I turned 39 last month, and my brain decided that I had reset and restart before the big 4-0, almost like some sort of emotional cleanse. It feels somewhere in between a break through and a break down, and I’m never quite sure which way it is going to go. It’s unsettling, but it also feels like I’m on the verge of something big, if that makes sense.

As I mentioned, I’ve been in-trenched in yoga teacher training, and I’ve also started to be more active in church. To clarify, by “more active”, I mean, I emerged from my 15 year hiatus, and began going to my husband’s church (different style/denomination), and actually paying attention. And interestingly, on Sundays as I go to church followed by yoga teacher training, the messages are eerily similar  – the idea of being part of something bigger, being connected to others, and not having to control it all.  Whether you’re religious or spiritual or not, the reminder of being connected to others in this world through… whatever it is you believe in, even if it’s simply being connected through humanity, and that I don’t have to control every minute of every day for things to turn out OK, is a bit of a comfort. This resonates with me as I’ve been feeling disconnected from everything and everyone, including myself, lately, trying to be so in control of everything.  So I’m trying to shift my focus more to working on connection, instead of working on control. This may sound counter-intuitive to the ‘more action’ statement above, but often, it’s this need for constant control that holds me back from going for things.

 

Escaping

I’d love to escape off to Europe somewhere this fall, but I’ve done that twice already this year, so it’s not really in the cards. So in terms of escaping, I’m actually working on a more personal escape – escaping my strongly held negative beliefs about myself, and some of the patterns of dismissing myself and self-sabotage that I get myself stuck in. Also, as mentioned above, I’m trying to escape some of that nonstop mental chatter, and focus on connecting – with myself at the core (not with the unhelpful stories I tell myself about who I am), with loved ones and friends, with the yogic/spiritual side of me, with nature, whatever serves me. I know this might not be the take on escaping that was intended, but for me, this is the focus right now. Unless I have the chance (read: spontaneous time off and money) to escape to Europe again soon. Then sign me up!

 

Thanks for reading! Make to check out the other participants’ October Linkup posts here!