“Balance is a dynamic process; it changes with the days, the seasons, the years.”
-- Sherrill Sellman
How rigid are your routines? Do you exercise for 30 minutes, three times each week no matter how you feel?
Routines and structure can provide a valuable framework to bring discipline to our lives. At the same time, we are always changing and it’s wise to be sensitive to our physical, emotional and mental states so we can ensure that our activities truly meet our needs. We need to be willing to change our patterns when our practices no longer serve us.
“Only in growth, reform, and change, paradoxically enough, is true security to be found.”
-- Anne Morrow Lindbergh
“The smallest change in perspective can transform a life. What tiny attitude adjustment might turn your world around?” -- Oprah
Higher Awareness, 11/17
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"Never argue with an idiot... They'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience..."
...How rigid are your routines? Do you exercise for 30 minutes, three times each week no matter how you feel? ...
I was planning to just read posts for a few days before replying to any (since I'm still shiny and new here), but I had to comment on this.
One of the reasons I drank so much I think was precisely because my routines are so rigid (including drinking, of course, at least it used to be). I exercise for an hour at the same time every day; I eat at the same times and eat largely the same foods; I go to bed and wake at roughly the same times (weekend or not); I work every day. Sometimes, I catch myself and say, "I know! Let's be crazy and NOT wake up at 5:00 AM to write today!" or "Hey! Skip the gym and run outside!" But it's always a struggle.
My "days off" or "vacations" are even more comical. I flit from meaningless activity to meaningless activity, bored and restless. Sometimes I get more work done on vacation than in everyday life. Drinking was a way to force myself out of the game, to make myself sick so I couldn't work, at least in part. I always felt guilty for deviating from my all-important schedule, no matter how ridiculous that sounds. That sets up a dangerous internal conflict: I want to drink to take myself out of the game, but that makes me feel guilty so I feel like drinking.
This is definitely something I work on every day: to be more accepting of change (both for the better and for the worse) because change is a part of life in both big and small ways.
ZB
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"You can't always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream." Frank Zappa
