Landing

I’m going to do a series of activities to keep myself from blowing away (or up) with the insanity and chaos that are 2020.

I’m going to call it recalibrating. The world has yanked me all over the place, mopped the floor with me, and I need to figure out how to return to where I belong.

When you I do activities like this, I settle into my deeper self, my real values, and notice my size, that is, I settle between narcissism and self hatred. Where sane people live.

I looked through a bunch of those lists of self-care things to compile my own assignments that run through November 17. If we make it to November 17 (unimaginable, right?), maybe I’ll set some more goals.

Perhaps you’d like to follow along, and also do the peace-making task, and comment on how it went.

This is what Week 1 assignments are:

Monday: yoga class

Tuesday: work out with a new toy

Wednesday: I will sing. Sing a song. Make it simple, to last my whole life long.

Thursday: I will make a list of things that are DONE, rather than list things that aren’t done.

Friday: I’ll listen to some kind of motivational or comforting talk.

Saturday: list things I like about myself (already dreading this one)

Sunday: do the gratitude list thing

What I’ve done so far (since I’m starting in the middle of the week):

Monday’s yoga class focused on a story of an eagle god who saved his mother with nectar of immortality. It wasn’t quite as strenuous as usual, which was good, because I was feeling not that strong. I was waiting on covid test results.

Before the class began, I was back in that place of, “I don’t want to live in this world anymore,” which is not to say suicidal, not wanting to do anything about living or the world, just feeling the weight of the president having a deadly disease and lying about it. Ya know. I was thisclose to skipping yoga, in favor of doomscrolling, but I have friends in the class, and I’d already said I would be there so… I showed up.

And I enjoyed connecting with my awesome teacher and my classmates, and my little lamb eye pillow during shavasana. I’m a real fan of the flax seeds resting peacefully on my eye, saying to the eyes, I’ve got this. Relax. (Note: these things are so easy to make. Buy flax seeds, they’re between $5 and $10. Sew a little pouch. Sew it up. Polyester or soft cotton are my preferred fabrics.)

Tuesday… why did I buy such a heavy medicine ball? Jesus. It’s eight pounds, and doing this around the world thing, I thought I would collapse. It’s cool to carry it in the house, but the lady on the TV was making me lift it over my head, between my legs, and back!

I kept reminding myself that I usually underestimate what I can do physically, rather than overestimate. I’ve heard most women underestimate the amount of weight they can lift/carry/haul/pull to safety from a burning building.

The youtube video I chose had an instructor with one of those crazy stomachs, that when your stomach sees it, your stomach goes, ahhhh! and pulls in because it’s terrified. “DON’T DO THAT TO ME!” I won’t, I reassure my tummy.

I got back my covid results that evening: negative. Whew.