Mindfulness – Page 2 – Life According to TJ

Food and drink, Healthy living, reflection, Well-being

Going Cold Turkey

January 19, 2020January 17, 2020 Steph TJ

One month ago, on 16th December 2019, I went Cold Turkey on everything. By everything I mean:

Alcohol
Processed meat and red meat
Refined carbohydrates
Cake
Pastry
Cheese
Chocolate

Yes, I went Cold Turkey on anything ‘nice’ in the run up to Christmas, but with different degrees of success?

After 1 week I posted a picture of myself on Facebook. I plan to post weekly then monthly photos of myself over the coming weeks and months, as much as anything as a form of measurement for myself as you how I am doing. I don’t own a set of scales, so weight isn’t any indication of progress and anyway that’s not what the motivation for doing this is.

As I posted that first photo I had a range of responses including: giving up everything would be just too boring; why would you give up everything that is nice; why not just over indulge and diet in January. Here’s the thing, I had over indulged. We went back to Bristol for the first two weeks of December and by the 15th December I was bedridden, exhausted, in pain, discomfort, unable to function. Looking back I think I was also coming down with a bit of a bug, but even so, I was in no fit state to continue. This is not new and this is not unusual; it is something I have managed for as long as I can remember.

Why am I giving up ‘nice’ things?

So, this is how it goes. We get invited for an evening out. The day of the evening out I have to sleep in the afternoon in order to have the sheer oomph to get through the evening. Then I get ready, we go out and ‘sociable Steph’ arrives. I drink, normally Prosecco or white wine and normally, two or three glasses – I don’t drink vast amounts because of how poorly it makes me. I eat the food: a starter, a main course and a dessert. We may go on for a night cap after the meal. Then we go home and go to bed. Within the hour I am generally back up, feeling uncomfortable and ready to burst. The discomfort grows and grows over the next few hours until all the food and drink vacates my body by any means at it’s disposal. Then finally, I go to bed in the early hours of the morning and sleep. As a consequence I do not function the following day, as I am sleep deprived and sore, my body aches from head to toe. So, in fact, we have to set aside two days for me to go out for a meal with friends, one day to summon up the energy and one day to recover. Most people chortle that we have to be home for my husband to have his afternoon nap – in reality I’m the one that does the napping – I’m the one that places limits on what we can do in a day.

Why, might you ask, do I put myself through this? Because, by and large, this is what is expected. Because this is what is considered normal. Because I really don’t want to let people down. Because, just for that moment in time I can join in. Because sometimes it just becomes too hard to have to explain.

The problem is, when we went back to Bristol at the beginning of December we did this for 10 nights out of 19. There weren’t enough ‘off’ days for me to actually recover. So my body imploded, I was bedridden and I decided, enough was enough.

A life within limits

Generally, this has been the picture of my life, I went to work, I put all the energy I had into going to work which meant at home I had nothing. I do blame having mumps as a child for leaving me with some fatigue issues. Back in the 1970’s things like Chronic Fatigue didn’t exist, you just got on with life. I also tend to avoid labels as to my mind, once you have a label your brain starts to think you are ill, and I don’t want to be going down that rabbit hole! I have had pockets in my life when it wasn’t like this. As a student, during which time I was tea-total I was fine, and everybody’s mate as I was a non-drinker in possession of a car! I had another period of time between 2000 and 2007 when I lived in Stoke-on-Trent and socialised with many like minded people for whom alcohol was irrelevant. I also exercised regularly and made sure I didn’t allow myself to get stressed, luckily I worked in an environment which was well managed. I went to a nutritionist and ate a healthy, varied diet which excluded most ‘nice’ foods and I was happy – not 100% healthy but the closest I’ve ever been.

When I moved back to Bristol in 2009, I lost that all important support network, the job I went to was stressful and the school was badly run. Consequently, I started to make poor choices regarding diet and health, I stopped exercising as regularly and over the years have become less and less like myself. My social life also changed in Bristol and became more focussed around bars, eating and drinking – but my stressed self enjoyed it, it provided a welcome release from the grind of the day job. But I was back to sleeping for most of the weekend. Back to putting all my effort into other people, other things and being a transparent version of myself at home.

So, to December 2019. Finally I woke up. Four years ago I gave up work to spend time with my husband, to do our retirement thing, to travel and spend quality time together. But we haven’t been doing that. In many respects, and on bad days, my husband has essentially become my carer. He is the one that gathers me up after we have been out. The one who has had his sleep disturbed because I’ve been ill throughout the night. The one that makes all the meals and tries so very hard to make sure they are as healthy as they can be. The one that turns a blind eye to the messiness of our home because he understands that I just don’t have the energy to tidy up. The one who does the washing, the ironing, doing as much of the housework that he possibly can, just so that I don’t have to. The one that pushes me out of the door to exercise as he knows that although I am exhausted it will help me later on in the day. The one who sits quietly and reads while I sleep during the day, all so that I can go out in the evening and be sociable, to have a drink or two, share a meal and to behave ‘normally’.

What next?

I don’t want that life anymore. I want to have the energy to enjoy time with my husband. I’m tired of using all my energy on other people rather than my marriage. I want to be able to exercise when I’d like, not on the odd day when I actually feel well enough to bother. I want to go to bed safe in the knowledge that I won’t actually be ill throughout the night. I know this works, I’ve done it in the past. I know that eating healthily, and making the best choices I can will enable me to function on a day to day basis. I owe it to my husband and our retirement to give this my everything as I am tired of missing out on days and opportunities with him to appease others.

It took a good two weeks for me to recover any sense of equilibrium after going cold turkey. For some reason that I can’t explain on January 1st, 2020, I decided to have a glass of wine. Maybe because our New Year’s Eve didn’t happen as husband had proper flu. Maybe it was just because I wanted to see what might happen if I did have that one glass of wine with lunch out with my friend. It was tragic! I lost two days as a consequence of that one glass of wine.

I’ve not been perfect this month and I wasn’t successful in giving up sweet treats. There has been so much chocolate in the house and a friend of ours made us the most beautiful Christmas Cake that just had to be eaten. I am writing this last part of the blog on the plane from Faro to Bristol, exactly one month from the day I went cold turkey. My plan for this month is to tackle the sugary snacks and the desserts when we go out for meals. Quite often in Albufeira, restaurants offer an all in price for 3 courses and it seems a shame not to have the ‘free’ dessert. I am ready to stop eating them, ready to try cutting them out and see what the effect is. I think this is my alcohol, I know I am really going to struggle with this, but I have to try.

Mindfulness, Well-being

My Anxiety

June 9, 2019June 9, 2019 Steph TJ

If you’ve not watched Nadia Hussein, ‘Anxiety and Me’ on BBC iPlayer then I totally recommend that you do. Watch it if you suffer from anxiety yourself, if you have a partner, a child, a parent or a friend who suffers from anxiety. It provided the best explanation of anxiety I have ever seen or heard and put it into a real life context.

I spent the whole programme shouting at the TV, ‘That’s me, that’s what I do’. It clarified a lot of things for me and enabled me to discuss some of the issues that arose with my husband.

Apparently, it’s not normal to have a voice in your head all day, every day, replaying every minute detail of the day that went wrong and how you might otherwise have managed it. Apparently, it’s not normal to have a voice in your head anticipating every last event on the horizon, creating worst case scenarios and how you are going to manage them, in such intense detail. Apparently, it’s not normal to fill every moment of your time doing something, anything, just to try to keep that voice at bay – even for just a little while. Apparently, it’s not normal to miss amazing moments in your life as you create ways in which it might go wrong or why you shouldn’t even be there in the first place. Apparently, it’s not normal to go from a slight problem to impending death in one step!

It also helped me understand why some of the steps I’ve taken to manage my anxiety have not worked. At all. Take flying – those of you who have had the misfortune to be on a plane with me know that I hate every minute of it. I have a very swift reaction to turbulence. Turbulence = death, I am going to die and it will happen shortly. In a way, it was reassuring to learn that it’s not just me that has this instant stress reaction from a minor event to death in half a second!

However, what I have always done about it is one of two things. Firstly, I try to breath into it. Apparently, your body can only do one thing at a time and if it is breathing it can’t panic. What I didn’t realise is this can actually exacerbate the problem – especially as I was breathing into the exact part of the body where I feel anxiety – my stomach and my chest. So breathing into that space makes the situation worse creating a greater sense of panic – so death was a racing certainty!

I have also tried a mindful approach to turbulence. Close your eyes. Feel the contact between your bottom and your seat. Feel the contact between your feet and the ground – but there is no ground – the nearest ground is 37,000 below my feet which are currently shaking because the tin can I am travelling in is bouncing around through turbulence = death. I’ve learned to just cope, and I have got better over the years and I won’t let my anxiety stop me flying – but it’s not a pleasant experience – for me or the people who have the misfortune to be sitting with me!

This week we flew from Bristol to Faro and I tried the technique that I briefly saw Nadia using in her programme – which was to face the panic and not run away from it. Being realistic and logical about this – what actually was happening and what actually was likely to happen – and I guess, what is panicking going to achieve? We were flying through turbulence, the plane was bouncing a bit, the wings were doing their job (I won’t explain the 12 foot flap – just in case you’re a nervous flyer) and we were moving forward. What was likely to happen was that the plane would fly through it, bouncing through the pockets of air, just as a boat bounces over the waves, back into smoother air and then we were going to land. Death wasn’t realistic or logical. I reminded myself that the anxiety is a feeling – it’s not who I am, and to recognise it as the feeling that it is. Giving into the panic was only going to make how I felt worse, both physically and mentally. No the situation wasn’t nice, but I felt I was more able to manage it – only slightly, but a slight improvement is better than nothing at all.

It’s not just flying. OFSTED inspections were a fast track to being sacked, a bad observation = being sacked. Good inspections weren’t an option – under what possible circumstances could I possibly be judged good or outstanding. No, the only outcome from any OFSTED inspection was that I was going to get sacked before the week was out. There is no logic to how anxiety manifests itself in the head and it is always, always negative. Like Nadia I can find a reason to be anxious in pretty much every situation that presents itself. I’ve read several times in the past that if you really want to get a job you should apply the technique of imagining yourself there, what it will be like to work there. I did always wonder why that was a recommendation – I was there, I knew which cup I’d be taking in, everything – little did I realise that this isn’t normal!!!!

Flying aside, one thing that Nadia’s Anxiety did show me was the progress that I have made in the last 18 months. The CBT therapist on the programme goes to lengths to explain that there isn’t a quick fix that you need to work on managing your anxiety every day. It can improve, it can get better, but you have to put the work in yourself, every day to reap the benefits. I realised that I have become better at stopping the voice and bringing myself back to the present – although many times it does get very carried away. I also realised how fortunate I have been in my ability to stand up to it and still do things anyway – I went to live in America at the age of 21, I did an MA although I was too stupid to pass, I went into teaching even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to control a class, I learned to swim so I could do a triathlon (and yes, swimming in open water = death).

I have two things I’d like to work on.

Believing people when they compliment me and not let the negative voice in my head tell me all the reasons why that’s not true and how people are saying nice things because they have to and they don’t really mean it.
I’d like to finish a cup of tea. I don’t think I’ve ever finished a cup of tea – even as a child my mother despaired at how many half drunk cups of tea she threw away! Another aspect of anxiety that came out of the programme was that you can’t sit still, you always have to be doing something. I can’t sit still, I can’t just read a book, I can’t just watch a film, I have to be doing something all the time as that keeps my head slightly quieter. So I’m going to set myself the target of having one cup of tea a day – and doing nothing else other than have the cup of tea. Not read, not look at social media, not crochet, nor knitting, or cleaning – just the cup of tea! I might even try meditating again, now I understand a little bit more about the nature of the voice in my head.

peppermint tea on teacup — Photo by Mareefe on Pexels.com

Albufeira, Happiness, Mindfulness, Portugal

Stuck in a Rut

May 12, 2019 Steph TJ

I find myself in a rut. As you know, I retired a few years ago at the ripe of age of 44 and since then have been trying to find my place in the world.

Recently a number of things have happened, which have made me reassess the situation. Sadly, a upsettingly high proportion of our friends and acquaintances have been diagnosed with advanced cancer, some of whom have been working so incredibly hard for a retirement they may never get to take. That’s really sobering and is the one thing that really hit home for me. I gave up work so that husband and I could enjoy retired life together whilst we both had our full faculties. But I haven’t been doing that, I haven’t been enjoying retirement. I’d like to be able to tell you what I have been doing – but I think basically it amounts to moping. Moping and moaning.

The thing is, I really don’t have any reason to moan or mope. I have an amazing opportunity and, quite frankly, I am wasting it.

Recently, as I flew home to Bristol for a hen weekend, I listened to Fearne Cotton interview Russell Brand on her podcast ‘Happy Place’ and it really struck a chord. Brand has written a book ‘Freedom from our Addictions’ based on 12 step programme, of Alcoholics Anonymous fame, which, he argues, could be applied to any aspect of life. But the absolute first step to changing anything is to acknowledge there is a problem / area of concern / area of development and to own it.

So, I am stuck in a rut. And I am moping and moaning.

This was followed by a run for a bus! The bus stop is right outside the hairdressers, but, due to roadworks was suspended. As I stepped out of the hairdresser the bus was just stopping at the lights to the roadworks. This meant I had the time it took for the traffic going the other way to go through the lights and the time it took for the bus to get from its current position to the next stop to run for the bus. If I didn’t catch this bus I would have had to wait 20 minutes for the next one. So I ran to the next stop, probably about 500 metres further up the road. I made the stop in time to reach the back of the queue and then quietly died. I could barely breathe and it took a good 20 minutes of the 25 minute bus journey home. This really shocked me. Whilst I’ve never been thin, I’ve always regarded myself as being fit and have used exercise as a strategy for managing a range of health issues throughout my life.

Scrap cushions! — This week, rather than waste time, I made these two cushions from scrap fabric I had at home.

So the blocks have been building:

I’ve been wasting an opportunity
I have an area of concern I’d like to address
Evidence would suggest that I am currently the least fit I have been in a long time.

I could make excuses:

I only respond to deadlines
I don’t have enough time
I don’t have the money to do the things I’d like to
I split my time between two places
Husband would rather I spent the time with him

All of them are total rubbish.

There are no deadlines and I am naturally inclined to put off to tomorrow – but it’s not an excuse.
I have more than enough time – I can waste time with ease. I waste so much time it’s frightening.
The majority of things I’d like to do more of – like cycling, walking or running don’t actually require any money.
I can easily do the things I would like to in two places with minimal effort.
Husband would rather I did the things that made me happy and would be very upset to know I was using him as an excuse.

The key points of the day where I lose time are after lunch and dinner. I get sucked into games (they are designed to do that – but still an excuse) and before I know it the day has disappeared. I am going to try to be more mindful and when I spot the boredom or lethargy set in I am going to make a conscious decision to do something constructive. There are a million and one things I could do in that time – sewing, knitting, crochet, swimming, cleaning, ironing, baking, reading, learning, even writing blog posts.

So, I owe it to myself, my husband and my friends to fully embrace this opportunity that I find myself in and throw myself wholeheartedly into retirement.

Lunch with a view — This week, husband and I went to have lunch at Porto do Abrigo, an amazingly tranquil restaurant overlooking the fishermans marina

City Breaks, Happiness, Mindfulness, Well-being

Getting there!

May 3, 2019 Steph TJ

It’s hard work, this sorting out your shit malarky. But slowly I am getting there. Husband has, on more than one occassion, wondered if it is making any difference. But he can’t see inside my head.

If he could he would see that on the whole I no longer stress about every little thing and manifest it into a huge disaster in the space of three seconds.

Take, for example, my recent trip to a hen party in Bath. The facts of the situation, I had been invited to a Hen Party in Bath by good and exceptionally lovely friends that I realised I have known for over 15 years now. I was due to stay in a house with 10 other ladies and had only met one before. Queue meltdown – or so I thought – but it didn’t happen that way.

Not long ago I would have had the meltdown:

What if they didn’t like me
What if I had nothing in common
I certainly wouldn’t have had any sleep – I don’t sleep well at the best of times, so I certainly wouldn’t sleep in a house of 9 other ladies I barely knew.
What was I going to to do when they kept me awake all night in the hot tub.

Sadly, I can also see now, that I would have behaved in such a way – quite subtly – to ensure they didn’t like me and I achieved my objective. Very similar to the children I have taught who behave badly, they know they are going to get thrown out of the class at some point, so they fast forward the whole process to ensure that happens sooner rather than later. That’s what I did. I projected my anxieties about situations and achieved the end result.

This time was very different.

I knew I was going to spend the weekend with lovely people who make me laugh, a lot.
I explained my concerns about my sleeping in advance, rather than have a tantrum at the time, and was earmarked with a single room, so I could potter about to my hearts content. As it happens I barely spent any time there – due primarily to shocking sleeping habits!
I took advantage of the fact that I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep until the house was quiet by making sure I was the last to bed! In this one step alone I felt myself turn from miserable party pooper to really enjoying every moment of the weekend.
I threw myself with abandon into each of the activities that had been arranged – wore the tiara with pride and had a thoroughly good time!

This wasn’t easy for me. I would be the first to admit that I find the meditation bit hard and have not been doing it for a while now, however, I have maintained one aspect of it. Returning my brain to the present. What’s happening now. Don’t create a future that isn’t real, don’t create stories around what might happen, how people might behave, respond to what is here now. Generally, nothing has ever been as bad as the scenario my head has created, so I have had to start trusting what’s happening now.

The worst part was actually the train from Bristol to Bath on a Friday afternoon – the world’s biggest queue waiting to get on the world’s smallest train. I had to remind myself that this service runs every 15 minutes or so – so it really wasn’t a disaster if I didn’t get on the first train. I met up in Bath with two lovely ladies that I’d never met before and that was it – I had arrived at the Hen weekend and from that moment on I had a ball.

I do, however, still have my down moments. We had some visitors staying with us last weekend and I really struggled with having someone in my home whose basic ideas of housekeeping vary so much to my own. Someone who manages to press all of my buttons without even realising they are doing it – and so a consequence the negative monsters reappeared back in my head. I’ll admit that I very much lost the ability to remain in the present, or to see the positives in the situation and so I realise that there is still much to be done. But on the whole I would say that I am making progress, that the down days are much less frequent than they used to be.

Things that I do find are really helping me are yoga and exercise. I am a bit of a nightmare if I don’t do at least a bit of exercise in every day. In addition to this I am slowing starting to realise that I don’t have to like everyone and everyone doesn’t have to like me. Nor do I have to take part in what everyone else is doing. One aspect that I loved about the Hen weekend was I was with likeminded ladies – and I had an absolute ball – it really confirmed for me that I do have a place in the world. It may not be mainstream – but who wants to be mainstream – but I do have a lot to offer other people and if they don’t get what I’m about, or are dismissive, then that’s just the way it is. Move on!

But slowly – day by day – I am getting there and am starting to spot the positives in the situation before the negatives.

Mindfulness, Well-being

OCD and Me

August 16, 2018 Steph TJ

It would appear that I have OCD characteristics, which has been a revelation to me. It would appear, however, that it was obvious to most people other than me! I’d always thought that OCD was about lists, obsessively cleaning, washing your hands, and spreadsheets. It appears it’s more than that. It can also be obsessive thoughts, more often than not based on health, that just go around and around and around in your head with no let up. It is possible to have just the obsessive bit, and not necessarily the compulsive bit.

It would be very easy to write a blog about all the fabulous things that happen in life, but I’m not sure that necessarily helps other people, a perpetual stream of fabulous pictures of fabulous lives. Life isn’t always fabulous and oftentimes is just plain messy. Earlier last week I had a bit of a meltdown, not quite a panic attack, but equally as ugly. I’d been worrying for a few weeks now about a discomfort I had in my left side. Obviously I’d obsessively trawled the internet to find out what this might be. I’d obsessively read aromatherapy books to see what I could use to aid my digestive system. I’d eaten enough liquorice to put me off for life to see if that would help. I’d started taking a pro-biotic to see if that would fix it, but nothing seemed to be working. I was writing down everything I ate, everything I did, to see if I could spot any connections, causes or triggers. I was trying to meditate and see if I could improve it that way.

But worst of all, by far the worst of all was I was starting to obsess about everything I ate. I couldn’t have white carbs because they were bad, I couldn’t eat or drink anything with sugar in, because that’s bad. I’d signed up to an Alcohol Free group, because drinking is bad. All that was good to eat was pretty much fruit and vegetables. I’d even started worrying about what to do when I visited my sister. She usually makes a pudding with lunch and often there’s a bit of cake knocking about (very nice cake, too) and we usually go for afternoon tea somewhere. I’d started worrying about how I was going to get around eating the cake. This isn’t me – I’m normally the one running to get the first slice! I’d also started to become a bit agitated about cleaning – and anyone who knows me will know that this is just hilarious as I generally seem to have bypassed any cleaning gene!

You’d like to think that from this summary I might have worked out before now that I have obsessive traits – but no!

I’m pretty certain I do know what caused this recent episode. I had started an online course based around understanding triggers around food and diet and how to start accepting your body how it is. It would appear that rather than understanding triggers, it layered day upon day a different potential trigger. Do you eat dairy? Do you eat sugar? Do you eat meat? Do you exercise enough? Where did your thoughts and ideas towards food and body image come from? I personally believe, that this daily drip feed of things to think about built up and I had no outlet, no way to safely handle the issues that were coming up and instead they were just building up in my brain where I started to play them on a permanent loop, and the stress of that created the tension stomach ache.

I’m not sure what triggered my latest meltdown, but then I don’t really remember much about the past few weeks other than food, and fixing my digestive system, but the impact was quite shocking. I wonder if it has just become too difficult to keep the thoughts going, or that I had reached a point where I knew it had to stop and this was the only solution. Whatever, within an hour of it happening, the discomfort in my stomach had started to subside and although I didn’t have a perfect night’s sleep, I did much better. I had the shivers and really had to wrap up to go to bed as I felt so cold. I woke the next morning feeling like I had been hit by a bus, but the discomfort was gone. It was almost like I’d had a permanent tension headache, but it had been a tension stomach ache. I don’t know if such a thing exists and I’m not about to google and find out.

As ever, husband has had to stand on the sidelines and watch this build up, knowing that the explosion was inevitable. We have discussed the mindfulness. His theory is that it clearly isn’t working because I wasn’t able to stop these obsessive thoughts. My theory is that it has worked as this is another layer of the onion that I have peeled back. I initially started mindfulness because I got so angry, so quickly over things that didn’t warrant such a response. My mindfulness helped me understand that this was a reaction to anxiety. Now I can see that the anxiety is a consequence of obsessive thoughts. What was so frustrating throughout all of this is I knew I wasn’t quite myself, I knew I was having obsessive thoughts and I was trying so hard to employ the methods I had learned but they just weren’t working. I had gone too far into my head to be able to find a way out. I went to watch Ruby Wax do a talk recently and she re-iterated something she’d written in her book ‘Frazzled’. Her depression hasn’t gone away, in fact, she took a break in writing that book because she was hit by a bought of depression. What mindfulness helps her to understand is that the depression isn’t permanent, it isn’t what defines her and that it will pass. Just to let it be.

It appears my main obsession is my health. I find this incredibly frustrating as I have watched my dad obsess over his health and it drives me up the wall. I thought I was learning and just enjoying my learning. Since my most recent episode, it has been pointed out to me that this isn’t really the case. I only ever want to learn about health related things. It may be complementary health, but it’s always ways to improve my health. And I don’t just have a bit of a google, I buy books, borrow books, read research articles, anything to try and understand how I might use that therapy to improve my health. I haven’t just taken up yoga, I’ve been going to unto 5 classes a week. I looked at myself as a bystander might, and I saw so very clearly how it looked, this crazy lady obsessively looking for a magic cure to an imagined problem.

So I now have another character to add to my growing list. This is another mindfulness technique, give the emotion a name and a character – so that you can watch them as an outsider and not get quite so drawn in. Clearly I still have a long way to go. I try to base my emotions on fictional characters and so far have:

Bellatrix Lestrange – for when I am getting bit angry and a bit mad!
Piglet – for when the anxiety creeps in
Monica – for when I start to obsess over things.

So, in discussion with husband, I have identified steps that I can take to help me manage this more effectively in the future.

Don’t do online courses relating to health. Doing them with a health care professional is one thing, doing an online course because you fancy the look of it, isn’t really a good idea for me. In fact, just don’t do any courses related to health!
I can pick one complementary medicine and practice what I’ve learned. I pick Bach flower remedies.
I am banned from looking at anything health related on the internet – so I actually haven’t googled OCD or how to manage it. Nor have I googled if a tension stomach ache is an actual thing. I have also removed myself from any Facebook groups that may trigger obsessive thoughts related to diet or health.
Just see where each day takes me, don’t plan for it, don’t make expectations of it, just see where it goes and enjoy it.
Carry on with the mindfulness, especially the meditation. I enjoy it and it makes me feel calmer even when my mind is like a hurricane. But I don’t need to read every book that was written about it!
Eat what feels right at the time. And if that’s a bag of jelly babies, then so be it!
Don’t journal anything! I’m not a fan, I find it difficult – so this won’t be hard to manage!