Autumn #braindetox halfwaythrough Week Two

I have a highly toxic brain.  I have to accept this I think, and to appreciate that this #braindetox will take a lot more than I thought.

Week one started last Sunday, and after four days I was in total meltdown. The overheated reactor was sinking into the surrounding brain, and I was really not doing well. Three Mile Island*  was happening again in my head. I needed capping off and isolating for a few days..

The problem is that I don't have a gradual release valve. I am an all or nothing person, and have always been. If I think I can do something well, nothing will stop me. If however, I am not sure, or find it harder than I thought it would be, I will panic, abandon hope and stop. Bang. Just like that. Put down my gun, turn round and walk away. But I don't want to walk away from this, I want to persevere. It is time to stop being a giver-upper and to gently take myself in hand. **

So this is week two, and I have taken days 5,6,7 and 8 as reactor cooling off time. I feel a lot better now.

I am coming back on line in a gentle way. Even gentler than Betty's original way. I am starting this week with just two of the basics, and none of the monthlies. I am :

a) looking at the sky (even when it is grey like today. I am looking at it and thinking it is grey but will be blue again. )

b) reading. Lots of reading. I love reading. Life without reading is life without breathing. Even toxic brains can cope with reading. I have reduced my number of books on the go at once ( I can have up to four at any one time) as I feel that this may be adding to my confusion and fug. So one at a time.

That is this week. Next week we will add in breathing.  When we are a little cooler in the head. 

* Not Chernobyl. Even I am not that toxic. People can still approach me and hug me without falling down dead. 

**please forgive the mixed metaphors, my reading has been Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series, and I am metaphored and similed and analogied to the top of my milkshake mixer. The one they used to have in Wimpy with the big metal cup thing. My metaphors have been whisked and shaken and I am happily burping words***.

*** Words don't fit through a straw. Sadly. I would love to blow metaphorical bubbles. .

Autumn #braindetox Day Four Wednesday. I can't remember...

I have just started to write my thoughts on yesterday. But I can't remember. Apart from kvetching all day long and wringing my hands, the day is a loss.

Deep sigh.

Thursday must be better. 

Autumn #braindetox day three.... scuppering myself

There is no getting away from it. I am a self-sabotager deep at heart.   So deep it is unto my bones.

If I say I will do something, I immediately clam up inside and look for ways to make doing that thing difficult.  Even if it is something that I want to do. Such as Betty's #braindetox.

I really, honestly want to give this a go. To clear the heaviness and negativity from my mind, and open myself up to enjoyment of simple things. To find glory in the small, good things in my life. The things I sweep by usually in the grind of everyday minutiae.

It is NOT HARD. It is simple.  Four things each day.

Breathe
Read
Look at the sky
Move your body

What is hard about that?  Nothing surely.... but I have an endless capacity to make things complicated.  So my head decided that in order to do these simple things, I had to stop doing the things that I love but that I know blinker me from seeing my Small Good Things.

Things like the time I spend on the computer. Twitter. Facebook. Reading endlessly about food, to the point where I have no time to cook it.   Worrying about what I will write to the point where I can't put pen to paper.  

Oh. I have changed Betty's List of Four to my List of Four

So what does my List of Four look like then? 

Cut down on Computer
Read fewer recipes and blogs
Don't spend all your time worrying
Don't put off working so you can worry about it

Do you notice I've moved from Do to Don't Do?   And do you know what? I can't even do the negative things on this one right. I am now worrying that I am worrying about worrying about...

Spiral.

I spoke briefly to Betty on Twitter today. She advised:

try thinking of it the other way round though - if you do the positive things, you'll automatically push out the others

*meditation teacher hat on* it's because you're trying to force change rather than let it happen. Let yourself enjoy it. Breathe!

Must be right.  I am fretting too much. I am having anxiety dreams, and my left eye is starting to twitch slightly. 

This is ridiculous. Even seeing it in print here makes it sound ridiculous. 

I whined to a friend that I was stuck behind a computer and wasn't getting out and about and loosening up my mind. Now it is true that I have work to do behind the computer, but a lot of the reason I am stuck here is that I am wasting time on stuff so the work doesn't get done until late in the day, instead of shooting through it. I tried a Twitter/FB nogo zone, but I have the Twitter equivalent of Nomophobia I think. So I work at a computer, the computer is on, ergo I nip onto Twitter, waste time that I should have been working, lose impetus, feel guilty, brain fogs even more.

Linda suggested

maybe a daily potter in the garden for 15 minutes would be good ?

Well it has to be worth a try doesn't it? 

 I sound like an emotional teenager not a sensible adult. Yes, I have been like this all my life. Yes, I have tried before to get out of this rut and failed. Yes, I am navel gazing and hating what I find again. Yes, I am now flagellating and blaming myself. 

I may leave this blog post up for a day or two then take it down as just too negative and self-[pitying, or I am decide to leave it up.  We will see. 

Autumn #braindetox day two... Monday

Really hard to do the apparently simple daily ideas of the #braindetox yesterday. A lot of work, and a lot of irritation with annoying customers.

Or were they annoying? maybe it was just me in need of my detox.  .

So:

Read something:  I read most of my info stuff online. That doesn't count for this purpose.  So I made sure to read part of John Whaite's fab cookbook (got from the library).

Meditate: Nope. I should have done as I nearly blew a fuse when my camera was found to be out of battery just when I needed it. A small thing and blown out of all proportion in my mind.

Look at the sky: yes I did. It was all grey and cloudy and unskylike. :(

Get out of breath: I did get out of the house in the morning, wandering around Ikea looking at the room sets. Something I don't do with my OH as he gets bored and wants to be in and straight out again. So that was close to getting out of breath, which I am currently translating as get out of my chair.

But then back to work, and time seeming to fly under my fingers. Too much computer not enough daily life is a lot of my problem. I am addicted though. I mean to move away, but I don't. I will announce on Twitter and Facebook that I am leaving and in an hour's time, I am still there.

So one of my major detox jobs will be to limit my Twitter and FB time. To actually MOVE AWAY and mean it.

I don't think it will happen overnight. But I have to believe I can do it. I can, can't I?

Autumn #braindetox : day one... Sunday

It was the first day of Autumn. I was hoping for a bright sunny day to herald the start of #BrainDetox month, but no, it is an English muggy, fuggy, grey day. But it isn't raining, so I must be English and mustn't grumble..


Betty's suggestions for daily detoxing are:

Every day:

• Read something
• Meditate, write morning pages or make time for a good think
• Look at the sky
• Get out of breath

How did I do? 

• I went to the library and found they had lots of the latest cookery books that I have been wanting to look at, so took out a bundle and sat at the table (ignoring the fact it needs clearing away after the Speciality Food Fair and the Cake and Bake Show, that will be a meditation for another day...) reading and drooling and generally enjoying myself.
• I went to the Farmer's Market, and walked about a lot. Not sure I actually got out of breath (this is not a normal happening in my personal world) but I DID get away from the computer. And my feet ached afterwards. Which is A Good Thing and An Improvement.  Baby steps here..
• I looked at the sky. I raised my fist to the sky and shook it. I could not see the sky for grey clouds. Drat.
• I took the afternoon off to cook a loaf of bread and potter and think. Not really proper thinking just mind warbling really, though I am treating this blog post as a kind of morning pages. I need some discipline here. I shall go and check out The Minder (Betty's other job..) as my meditation task for Monday.

So Monday's job (as well as doing the aforesaid again today in some form or another) is to decide which of Betty's Things For The Month are things I would like to do, and which are not likely to fit in with my life.  And see if there is anything I should add in.

I'm back from outer space... with an Autumn Brain Detox

Do you remember Gloria Gaynor's song I will survive? 

Whenever I hear the words "I'm back" I find myself singing ..

At first, I was afraid, I was petrified
Kept thinking, I could never live without you by my side
But then I spent so many nights thinking, how you did me wrong
And I grew strong and I learned how to get along

Which is how I feel about my life, my loves, my innermost thoughts  And this blog. Which is, I guess, why I haven't added anything to it since 2011. Coming up for two years.  

But Gloria goes on to say...

And so you're back from outer space. 

Well you may not be, but I am.  And I have decided to start my new life in this blog with a challenge from the great and gorgeous Betty Herbert (yes, she of the fabulous book, The 52 Seductions, though I am not about to start that challenge (yet)....).

On Betty's blog, she is talking about an Autumn Brain Detox, which sounds a very good idea and a great way to start this stream of consciousness again. 

Are you in? Have a look at Betty's idea, and add some of your own. If you do, tell me about them, I might want to try them myself.

What do you think..... we have from tomorrow until October 20th to detox our brains, and to bring some autumn sunshine and life into our lives.

And I'll leave you with Gloria and the great anthem. We WILL survive...