perpetualspiral

Including: The Stand (which I am going to re-read since it’s been so long), It, Lisey’s Story, Talisman, the Dark Half, Four Past Midnight, Needful Things and The Tommyknockers. Probably a few others that I can’t think of at the moment.

In addition to my process blog, I’ve now started a Health Updates Journal on CaringBridge: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/perpetualspiral So far I’ve been able to write more frequently in this blog since it is about one subject and that subject does crop up every day – my health fluctuates wildly, symptoms come and go… I’ve written a bit more frequently in my process blog, but not as much as I would like. However, I don’t really have much time to write in it more, or very much to say over the last few months. My psychological progress (i.e. my therapy) seems to have stalled in the spring, and it’s only in the last week or so that I’ve had anything going on inside me to write about. Now a lot of things are cropping up because I’m turning 35 tomorrow, finding white hair…feeling like something is ending, doors are closing. And somewhere in there I’m starting to finally deal with my feelings about my father. Just starting. I’ve a lot to talk to my therapist about this week!

Through therapy I have made progress on this goal. It’s about a lot of things, and I’ve written a lot about procrastination and motivation on my process blog http://perpetualspiral.blogspot.com

Surprisingly (to me anyway) a big issue is Faith. Faith in myself, or belief in myself. I’ve gotten a lot of great support from my new online friends who are constantly saying nice things about my abilities and competence. That goes a long way with me towards helping me believe in myself. And thus there is less fear in me when I start out to do a task. I’ve been more productive over the last few months than I have since I was in school.

Secondly is faith in little steps adding up to big things. Being consistent and doing just a little towards your goals on a regular basis gets you there just as reliably as doing it all in one shot. This kind of babystepping is new to me, since i’ve always been such an extreme person – all or nothing. But it has become necessary because of my health to take a different approach. The more I do it, the more I show myself it works, and the more often I take the small steps approach.

Being accountable to others, while being supported by them. This has also helped me, especially when dealing with my volunteer work. There are times when I am so overwhelmed by the responsibility and the amount of things that I need to do – this is paralyzing for me. But because I work with such understanding people, i can tell them when I’m freaking out and they always offer to help. Sometimes there’s nothing I can delegate, but at least I can get more time and encouraging words. Because I believe the organization and my participation is making a real difference in people’s lives and will continue to do bigger and better things, I am motivated most days to do work. So on 99% of the days when I am at home and have no plans that take me away from home (like social visits or errands that take all of my energy away), I do several hours of work. I start with the regular duties and that gets me in work mode so I can tackle the other things.

So while I am still very much in my own way when it comes to my artisan self, a lot of obstacles to other areas in my life have fallen away and I just DO things without grinding my teeth and torturing myself first!