2020-08-02 — Beautiful Sunday

Hiya, peeps 🙂

Happy Sunday! I hope it’s been a lovely one and that you’ve been able to get a little bit of rest from the cares of the rest of the week. It’s been a really pretty day over here. And mostly upbeat and good the entire day. Even the weather has been nice today, relatively cool for an August day, maybe 79/80 degrees or so as the high. We didn’t get the thunderstorm I was hoping for, but it’s Arkansas, so there’ll be another. 😁

I’m still trying to get this whole sleep schedule thing figured out. I’m used to being so tired that it doesn’t matter if I eat or use my computer right before bed, I just pass out from shear exhaustion (I just now set up the red-light filter, so that should help the blue-light-before-bed problems). But now that I’m not working myself to death, I’m not so crazy exhausted like that, so if I live the way I was before, it’s gonna mess my sleeping up.

For example, I ate right before bed, and then I tossed and turned for a long time because of it. I guess with my changing the way I work, I’m gonna have to change the way I eat, too, which is actually already part of my daily “schedule” that I’m trying to follow at least somewhat, but it might be a little while before I’m able to follow that schedule like I’d like. We’ll see how my self discipline does.

So… yeah… the tossing and turning and not getting a lot of sleep is making it hard to get up at the right hour. That said, I did make more progress again today at least in moving the right direction with my wake-up time. Today I got up at… 6:34, I think it was. ⭐

I was able to get my prayer/study/meditation on, and it was great! I found a meditation app that I downloaded today and used for the first time. It’s called “Insight Timer,” and so far, it’s been great. I really love meditation time, just slowing down, pausing, and being.

So nice.

And it’s sooooo good for your mental and physical health as well. It’s amazing what meditation can do the more I learn about it. From helping to deal with chronic pain, to increasing happiness, to improving anxiety and depression and all sorts of things. I guess studies have shown that you can actually change your neural pathways, or whatever it said (actually physically change your brain, basically) through meditation. And that’s in addition to the way it helps me get grounded, helps me relax, helps bring peace, etc.

Soooo nice.

I was all smiles during my first attempt this morning. It was lovely. And I’ve been upbeat and positive pretty much the whole day.

I had “Church” again with my sister’s family up the hill, though she’s out of town in Minnesota with her son and the new baby. I took a couple of naps (hopefully that doesn’t kill me with my sleep tonight. 🙃) I had a great conversation with my friend Cory in Utah about life and working on our personal growth stuff.

Oh, incidentally, after I mentioned that my readership was going down, he (Cory) suggested that if I decided to face the last fear I had on my list (at the time it was “afraid to be seen naked”), that perhaps my readership might go back up. 🙃

Cory, this one’s for you… 😁

 

Sorry, if it’s a disappointment to any of y’all out there, but I don’t have any plans to be on the evening news nor to change careers. Well, at least not a change in that direction. 🤭

Let’s see, what else? Oh, I added another post, hopefully one of the last of the “administrative” type for a little while? I mean, it’s still action oriented, but it’s not actually getting in the trenches: It’s the preparation for the trenches. This one is statements I can make for the other peace-reducing thoughts and emotions that come flying my way through the course of my days.

So far, I’ve been blessed to be really successful, and life has been really good. My peace and happiness has been higher than it’s been in a long time, and I’m making progress in areas that I don’t think I’ve ever made this kind of progress in before.

It’s exciting. 😊

I did notice an underlying feeling in my chest not too long ago, though. It’s interesting. I think it’s maybe… anxiety? But I can’t place it 100%. One thing I’ve learned, is that I can’t let these negative feelings stay there for more than a moment without doing something about them. If I truly want them gone, as soon as I notice them, I’ve got to pause what I’m doing and cast them to the wind. If I don’t, they have this way of hooking themselves in deeper, even if the feeling doesn’t seem to get stronger. Once in deeper, they’re harder to remove, I think.

If I had to guess, I think the feeling is one of fearing for my future. That would be the most likely at this point, fear that something I’m hoping for isn’t going to come to pass or is going to look differently than I want it to. That’s probably the easiest way to get me to fear right now, though I’ve been blessed to keep that one at bay for pretty much the whole week, and honestly, I don’t now what’s causing this feeling. That’s just my logical guess based on what I know of myself. This one’s a bit mysterious. I can’t place when or how it came in, despite my being super plugged in to how I’m feeling and what I’m thinking.

Before I go to bed tonight, I’m going to spend some time applying my fear statements a little bit and going through some guided meditation. Hopefully, I’ll get back to my baseline of peace.

I really should just stop my journal writing right now and do that… (sigh). Yes, I should, so I will. I’ve gotta address these negative feelings as soon as they come up. I can’t risk letting them get entrenched. I’ll be back…

…

Okay, I’m back. I’m feeling better than I was, but that feeling still hasn’t gone. It’s that same one that I started feeling a week ago this last Friday when I wrote a journal entry about an unexpected twist. That feeling is here again. I’m at peace and I’m still, except for that. I just spent 15 or 20 minutes in prayer and with a couple guided meditations, and I’m relaxed, but the feeling is still there. It’s right there in my chest. Almost like a pressure or a heartburn, but not quite either. Nothing I’ve done has gotten rid of it, though I think everything I’ve done has helped at least to some degree.

I’ll keep you posted. Know I’ve got a long journey ahead of me in the battle to completely overcome fear and all negative sentiments. Fear seems to be the most insidious for me. The others are far more fleeting. Anger, frustration, annoyance, selfishness, impatience… all those raise their head and are rather quickly banished. And even if I choose to dwell on them, seldom do they last more than minutes, possibly hours. But fear… it seems to be able to plant roots, set up shop, just… move in and stay.

So insidious.

I’ll beat it, though. I’ll beat it. I won’t give up. I’ll let go of the things I hold to so tightly that make it possible for the fears to move in.

Anyway, one of my Arkansas buddies came over tonight, and we did a little Bible study and talked about life and God and gospel things. He’s a Baptist, and we just had such a great conversation. Soooo good.

Life really is soooo good right now. Sure there are things I want with my whole heart that I can’t have right now, that I have to wait I don’t know how long for, but… life is still good. I’m growing. I’m making good progress. I’m finding my way. My life is a little on its head right now with such a dramatic shift that started four months ago and then kicked into an even higher gear just a few weeks ago.

I’m trying to figure out my path and what I do going forward–what I want. That’s been one of the hardest things for me in my life, figuring out what I want to do. All I really know is I want to help people. My favorite way is one on one. I love to encourage, uplift, teach, motivate, etc.

But I also feel like I’ve been given capacity to make a difference on a larger scale, and I don’t want to waste that. I want to make as big a difference for good as I can in this world. I don’t know. I’m still feeling my way.

I think I’m missing my friend a lot more today than I realized. One week. It’s been just one week. In some ways it’s been only a moment. In others, last Sunday feels so long ago. It’s also a month to the day that she called. That’s… just… crazy. Time is such a weird thing. It grinds to a near halt in times of pain and suffering, and it flies by during times of happiness…

Well, folks…

#1. I’m grateful that despite the heavy/weird/tightness feeling that I’m feeling in my chest right now, I’m grateful that the absolute vast majority of the day today was just straight up smilingly happy. That’s such a difference from where I’ve been for nearly two years now. It feels so good. I’ll be glad when I figure out this feeling and am able to follow up with y’all on what it took to kick this one out. It seems to have a deeper root or stronger hooks than any of the others I’ve been able to handle relatively easily to this point.

#2. I’m grateful for the great Bible study/gospel conversation with my friend here. Funny to think… just a month ago, I wouldn’t have been able to have that conversation. My buddy mentioned how much I’ve changed recently. I’m smiling all the time. Happy. It’s… sooooo nice to be back.

#3. I’m grateful to have found that little meditation app. I don’t know if it’s one of the better or worse ones out there, but so far, it’s been helpful. I’m liking this whole meditation thing.

#4. I’m grateful that I was able to make more progress in getting up earlier, that I was able to have that quiet time this morning. It was Sunday, so it was easier anyway, but still, it’s nice to be making that progress.

#5. I’m grateful to have been reminded today that it’s not all cake and ice cream. I may have had some really great days where I was successful in pretty much every effort to face and overcome the negative that entered, but today is a good reminder that there are likely going to be days, weeks, months, maybe years, where I can’t overcome it as easily. If I can just hold on and remember what it’s been like these last handful of days, then perhaps it’ll help me make it through the harder times that are surely to come.

To do/be better…

#1. I think I said something at some point today in one of my conversations that was motivated by pride, a kind of “look at me” type of thing. I can’t remember what it was, but I think I remember realizing it. I’ll be working to kick all of those things out of my heart. You can count on that. 😊

#2. I was slower today at facing this feeling. I think I probably let it fester for an hour or so before I finally paused while writing this entry to try and let it float away on the wind. But it’s not floating away. I might have been more successful had I kicked it out immediately upon noticing it instead of being preoccupied with whatever I was doing and thinking, “I’ll deal with that later.” Whatever this is, it’s not something that’s easily recognizable. It’s just this…. physical sensation in my chest, tightness (no, not a heart attack 😁), this sort of embedded low-grade anxiety, I think, but without any actual fear or thought process I can rewind to that brought it on for sure. So… for the future, don’t let it get root. At all.

All right, my lovelies. Thanks, for taking the time in your life to share in mine. I know time is precious and there’s so little of it. Loves and hugs.

Lift the World.

~ stephen