Editor’s Note – I’ve written in my journal off and on first thing in the morning for several years. I’m now very much in an ‘on’ phase both with the activity itself and the material that’s coming out of the activity. It’s always been in the back of my mind that some of what I write should do something rather than sit in a place where only I read it – moving up from the ‘minor leagues’ to the ‘big show’. Today is the day that happens.
A couple of house keeping items: Brackets have been placed where I’ve altered the content of the post to give me a bit of privacy. While I’m getting closer to being openly vulnerable, I still want to remain behind the veil of confidentiality, hence the brackets. Where you see the ellipses, I have taken a bit of content out for one reason or another to make it more readable.
Permit me one more comment before I proceed. A review of the entries that are getting added seems to suggest that I’m in a negative headspace every morning when I wake up. The only thing that I can say about that is ‘guilty as charged’. My moment of positive affirmation (Me Becoming Me – Volume 4) comes about ten or fifteen minutes before this activity every day. I guess this means that I should practice what I preach, so to say. Hopefully Volume 2 yields a much more pleasant C.L.
July 6, 2022 – I was just outside ‘sniffing the air’ with [my dog]. The poor dog has been trained that if his belly makes noises he must go outside. His timing was okay as I had just finished my meditation, so I put him outside. I came back in to start the rest of my day when he took offense at a jogger who ran past. I went outside to handle the situation (the jogger and therefore the drama had already passed) and determined that I should ‘monitor’ the situation. The predawn air held warmth and moisture and promised a hot, sticky day was in store, but the breeze in the trees from a distant thunderstorm made the moment palatable and almost invited me to take a moment of visitation with it.
July 7, 2022 – I lost my p-card yesterday and it put me in a tailspin that I’ve not been in forever. It was just the last straw on a bad morning. I called [,y wife] to try and get me back to center and she was there for me in a detached way, which kind of sounds like a bad thing, but was what I needed for the situation. She provided clarity for me in a moment where I needed it. She provided sage advice in that there was likely a process for what was going on and she was right. In the end I made a mountain out of a molehill.
July 10, 2022 – Struggling this morning to come up with topics which has been rare for me lately. I guess I could talk about how I’m really starting to feel strong in my sun salutations now that I know that they have a life purpose. Tying everything I do to a life purpose is kind of my mission these days. If it doesn’t have a purpose, it shouldn’t stay.
July 13, 2022 – Life is just difficult. Damn difficult. I really don’t know what else to say about that. Things were pointing in the right direction until they weren’t.
July 14, 2022 – I’m struggling for things to write this morning, so I’ll just mention that [my dog] is currently snoring in his bed.
July 15, 2022 – Safe space, right? I got into a traffic altercation yesterday… I was finally able to get around him and he damn near hit another car in the process. I was wrong in carrying this on and in some ways I knew I was wrong when I did it. I didn’t feel that anger while I was doing it, not at all, in some ways I was calm. But I was going to let him know that I wasn’t in the wrong for making the lane change like I did. I could have gotten into a wreck, I could have gotten killed. Why in the [expletive] am I so angry?
July 16,2022 – Let me tell you, I’m being my utmost self over the networking project for the house. Two steps forward, one step back, step forward, one step back – you get the idea. I’m being the pinnacle of myself moving from step A to step B to step C and wishing I had done something different back at step A. I’m making progress, but it’s slow. One of the items on my agenda today is to hack my own network because I either set a password I don’t remember setting up the software controller or I didn’t set one at all.
July 18, 2022 – I’m addicted to food. Pure and simple. While I need it to live, I am living too much. I fell off the wagon with my diet last week and my glucose went up by an average of 20 points because of it. This week, I redouble my efforts to get off the sugar.
July 19, 2022 – When I was meditating today, I thought about the tine that I got assaulted walking down the street in [my hometown]. I also thought about the time that I almost got run over by the guy in [a town I lived in] when [my father-in-law] died and went after him. I’m not sure why they decided to visit me today. Perhaps I’m being shown how to sit with anger. It was an interesting moment. Maybe meditation has more to show me.
July 20, 2022 – he morning time keeps morphing into something other than the straight-forward path to work that I wanted and desired, but I will say that I’m more relaxed about my mornings and feel like I have a great start to my day when I get up early and take my time getting out the door.
July 21, 2022 – The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. I guess the keyboard works like it should.
July 27, 2022 – I sat down with myself and had an emotional morning this morning. I can’t exactly remember what the mantra was, but it was something like, “we’re going to hold him and we’re going to help him”. Over and over again as I wrapped my arms around myself. It was one of the more powerful moments I’ve ever had in meditation.
July 27, 2022 – First of all, my name is [C.L.] and I have an abnormal and detrimental relationship with food. I have channeled all my vices into this one ‘socially acceptable’ one that I can partake in without fear of being chastised and it has hurt me. It had hurt me bad.
August 1, 2022 – For about the third day in a row, I get to the writing portion of my day an I absolutely flame out. It sucks. All I want to do is climb back into bed… This is not me making the most of my twenty-four hours.
August 1, 2022 – I just looked up what the second step of twelve-step is. I have to believe that a higher authority is gong to help me. That one is going to be difficult. I’m going to have to surrender.