I am posting this a few days late. This is because I biked almost 100 miles round-trip to visit one of my brothers and didn’t bring my Clicky Keyboard, so I passed on doing a lot of typing (regular keyboards make my wrists burn). Here are some snippets from the week.

DAY 8:

The cloud was still there, but there was light coming through. I found I was able to access some skills to navigate and even enjoy learning from the situation. Hopefully, this experience will be a reminder to me that although I cannot directly control my emotional state, I can indirectly alter it by choosing to smile or make other physical adaptations of willingness and acceptance.

DAY 9:

One new event I experienced today was a secular Buddhism zoom call, which was very wholesome and encouraging for the most part. The one small problem is that I experienced a minor ego hit when I shared some thoughts and got crickets for a response. It goes to how incredibly sensitive I am that this would actually somewhat significantly bother me. What I can say in hindsight is that I desperately crave validation from someone outside of myself pretty much all the time with few opportunities of getting it.

DAY 10:

It is a dreary day outside and I definitely can feel the effects now. Dreary days don’t generally start taking a toll on me until around mid-afternoon. To prepare for this, I may want to check weather forecasts for the week in advance and plan some special pick-me-upper for days when it will be gloomy outside.

DAY 11:

I have enjoyed putting some motivation reflection in my morning check-ins. This is also an uplifting time to do this, since my motivation at this point in the day is probably the highest. However, while this may skew my reflections in a more positive way than is the reality, I actually think I am able to reflect quite truthfully when in this state.

DAY 12:

In my motivation check-in time this morning, I reflected on the 3 things that made it difficult to maintain momentum at the end of the day yesterday. I realized these facets are true generally.  First, there is the importance of having regular energy pick-ups. Second, there is the importance of recognizing when it would be imprudent to test my motivation capability. Third, there is the importance of creating a sensorially pleasing environment within which to operate.

DAY 13:

My physical body definitely feels pretty great and I am wondering if the slight drop in starting motivation level is because of the extra work I am putting into my physical exercises which is just making me slightly more generally tired. Honestly, if my pain level is lower and controlled, I think that more than makes up for any slight to moderate drop in motivation.

DAY 14:

Today was difficult. I am not exactly sure why, but my pain just spiked. Was the shirt I put on over my athletic T too tight, did I overdo my hyperextension exercises, did I practice piano too much? I don’t know. It has calmed down a bit after laying on my acupressure pad for 15 minutes. Needless to say, this didn’t help out my motivation which was already flagging due to aggravations with getting my new phone set up.

I don’t want to end on a negative note, so I will say that I enjoyed and learned a lot about motivation during my extensive biking over the weekend. Stay tuned!

Namaste.