The Journey So Far...

The Journey So Far...

Monday, February 20, 2012

Day 34-36

So where have I been?

Falling off track. It was too easy not to blog when it got rough. I'm here though. I don't want tomorrow to be like the last 3 days so I'm fessing up to not eating on plan.

Why? Stress. I get stressed and I find I lose control over my will. I need to try harder, plain and simple. It's easy to give in to a lunch/dinner/treat/binge you know darn well you shouldn't have when you feel like you are giving yourself a break from the rough time/day/week you've just had. I am HUGELY guilty of that thought process. I still see food as a reward, coping mechanism and way to relax. I give myself permission based on emotional distress! Ridiculous!

So, the stress though? My house is in disrepair. We moved back in with my mom two years or so ago to help her because she couldn't pay her bills after my grandfather died. We didn't want her to lose the house. We talked so much before we moved in about how the bills would be shared and who would pay what etc. Shortly after we moved in though we realized that we would be paying everything except for my mothers car payment and insurance, and the homeowners insurance. My husband pays everything else, including the bills we have.

So recently we have been pretty broke. I coupon to buy the groceries for all of us, and we budget sometimes down to the dollar from week to week. We have recently been saving to pay the property taxes on BOTH houses (the one we own, and my mothers). This is not a small amount of money, but we did it. We have the money.

Well we ended up with a hole in our ceiling from a leaking drain in the bathroom. My cousin volunteered to fix it (he fixed similar issues for my grandparents in the past). The day the process started I expected to need to spend a small amount of money. Then there was more than one leak, then there was black mold. Now, there is a bathroom renovation going on that we have not budgeted for, that we knew we would have to do eventually, but we have been trying to get to a place that made it financially feasible.

It's happening, we can't really live in a place with black mold festering in the walls. Having a family member do it is keeping the price down, but it's still hard for me. My husband thinks we are still going to be fine, and honestly I guess I do too. I was so stressed on Saturday night though that when I was told what needed to be done I vomited (Not like immediately, but later when I was giving myself anxiety by over thinking it).

I sort of let this situation (along with some other stuff that those of you who have been here long enough already know about, if you don't you can read back, I'm not really ready to rehash that right now) destroy my progress before. I don't want to do that this time. So I guess this is a reminder to me to get my butt back in gear.

My husband made me leave the house tonight (with him, on a planned late Valentines day date that I was thinking about skipping), and reminded me gently that things aren't as bad as I fret about them being. I'm a worrier. I tend to get really caught up in what could go wrong and then I become less able to handle what is going on. We usually come out of everything okay.

Anyway, I will be here tomorrow night guys, after the gym kicks my butt some. ;)

2 comments:

Judy said...

I completely understand what stress will do to us. Hang in there... don't let it beat you.

Retta said...

Me, too. Understand completely.

We have this old programming embedded in our brains, and it's like our default setting we go to automatically when the stress mounts.

It's takes a huge amount of focus and awareness not to fall into that trap!

But over time, I'm learning to recognize that "oh, that's just that old faulty response message in my brain from the past", and instead of giving it MORE focus and energy from trying to fight it off, I am learning the best way to diffuse it is to:

1. Listen; acknowledge it, "oh, you again. Yep, must be that old stress response".
2. Observe; yep, it's a stress situation, this is what's going on...
3. Let it Go; I just shrug it off, as the "old" way I used to respond, and go on, and NOT give it more energy thereby causing it to be further entrenched. Instead, I am here and now, and the "new" healthy me chooses to respond this way...

Slowly, it's losing it's power. Yeah, it rises up, but I "L.O.L." to it again (the silly acronym I gave the process just so I could remember it, see the 1,2,3 steps above).

I read about this in a controversial book, in fact I'm still reading it, all about brain function. How if we fight and resist and fuss over the "old" way of responding, all we are doing is giving it more energy, and it stays "connected" into our thinking.

But if we basically deprive it of that focus, by recognizing then calming letting it go, it will slowly over time lose it's strong connection in the neural pathways, and be not so powerful. And we can actively learn new healthier ways of dealing. THEY will embed into our response program instead, and become the dominant first response.

Sorry this is so long... I'm still learning this, and it's working, but I'm not too good at explaining it yet! :-)

Anyway, you ARE aware, and taking responsibility, and I know you will do fine.