Hiya, folks.
Hit a bump in the road today. I was doing so well with my porn stuff. I was reaching out with the slightest triggers. I was doing pushups, or sprinting around, or taking a cold shower when I was triggered, so that I could get by body to send its energy elsewhere.
I got up at 4:25 this morning. I did my servicise, but then I just couldn’t get going. I couldn’t focus. My brain just wasn’t… there. I was distracted by everything. And I ended up wasting my study time on Facebook, looking for someone I knew once upon a time to see what they were up to. I was tempted to look at sports scores, and I managed to avoid that, but then I gave in and pulled up CNN to see the headlines.
I’m not supposed to go to news sites. Pops told me not to. I did it anyway. And what happens? Boom, story about nudity in film and the re-release of a classic film with an XXX version.
Triggered.
And I’m triggered again just thinking about it. Pardon me while drop and give y’all 20…
Okay, I’m back.
And instead of dropping and doing 20 like I just did and hightailing it away from the story and away from the news I never should have been on, I continued and slid and careened and crashed.
There go my 18 days.
But I’m back up. I’m back determined. I hit a bump in the road, and I veered off and when into the ditch, but I’m out of the ditch, the car still works, and I’m going forward again. And… I’ve thought of some new things I can do.
$100.
I’m gonna give $100 to…. someone or some organization or…. something every time I relapse from now on. I’m not sure how well that will work. Money is important to me to help me prepare for the future of being able to give myself full time to lifting others. But I also like helping now, so maybe it won’t be the deterrent I want it to be. Any suggestions as to where relapse money should go?
And if $100 doesn’t work, maybe I’ll up the ante and make it $1000. Maybe that’ll help? I don’t know. We’ll see. I’m just gonna keep plugging away and doing what I can until I beat this crap.
So… that was the morning. Felt pretty crappy. Tried to go back to sleep. Got a little sleep. Got up. Felt crappy for a good while. Went to work, was both pleasantly surprised that the job went better than I expected wit the car, but frustrated that the tool I normally use for jobs like that was not working. Pain in the but. I need to get another one to have on standby, so I always have two of those (fluid transfer pumps). The just… don’t last and I lost probably an hour or more of my time because of a busted $12 tool.
So… don’t want to have that happen again.
But the job went decently well aside from that, and I was grateful that I diagnosed it properly and was able to fix it today, and the owner was grateful. It was good stuff. The other job postponed until tomorrow, so I went over to Miguel’s and hung out with him and got some money that he owed me, so that was nice.
Then I went home, and I spent a couple hours or so mowing the lawn and the trails. I actually mowed all sorts of trails. Nearly all of them. So…. there might actually be walkable trails again. There are parts I couldn’t mow well because of the obstacles in the way, but I got a ton done, and I’m pretty happy about that. The weeds had actually grown up so much in some places that you could barely tell I’d made trails at all. But if I make it mowable. (get all the blogs and big rocks out of the way), then… it’s gonna make taking care of the trails a lot easier…. I think. We’ll see how it goes.
#1. I’m grateful for showers to wash off all the potential bugs that might have been on me while I was bushwhacking (with the lawn mower) through some pretty crazy stuff.
#2. I’m grateful I’m strong enough and that my body is still capable enough that I can lift up the riding lawn mower and move it when I get it stuck in… less-than-normal places.
#3. I’m grateful I didn’t run out of gas in the middle of the woods on the other side of the ravine. I think I probably pushed it pretty good.
#4. I’m grateful for my branch president. I reached out with my relapse, and he’s gonna work with the Elder’s Quorum presidency to help support me through this. Gonna figure this out. Gonna beat this.
#5. I’m grateful to be getting into the habit of getting up at 4:25. I’m still struggling mightily to get to bed on time, but I’m getting up. Wahoo!
Daily Accountability…
The positive
- I’m not down in the dumps still after my morning relapse.
- I took the time to make a walking path for my mother through the field, so she can walk the trails and then the field over to Liz’s place. I followed promptings and felt peaceful and happy today.
- I’m continuing to slow down work, turning away 90% of the people who call.
- I got frustrated with my tool, but I didn’t swear.
The “Needs Improvement”
- Bed time. Still… just… terrible at getting to bed on time.
- Obedience. I can’t expect to stay clean when pops says don’t look at the news, but I’m wanting some sort of mindless escape, so I choose news. I *know* I’m not supposed to do that right now. What am I thinking? No news, Stephen. No news. It’s likely not a permanent thing, but you can’t do news right now and be safe. No news.
Well, my lovelies, onward we go.
Lift the World.
~ stephen
Lift the World 