Morning Gratitude. 😊
One of the last things that I mentioned the Man Upstairs last night was that I’d love it if somehow I was able to get a decent night’s sleep despite having gotten to bed later than was my goal. I mentioned that it would be awesome if I didn’t have to wake up to pee and could just sleep through the night.
It took a lot longer to fall asleep than I was hoping, having lots on my mind that I couldn’t turn off even though I was tired, but once I finally did fall asleep, I didn’t really wake up at all! I mean just the normal couple times, I think, whenever I move, but I didn’t have to wake up to pee at all.
🥳
So I’m grateful for that. 😊
And I’m grateful that though my spine issues were bothering me pretty significantly last night when I went to bed, I woke up feeling no discomfort, so hopefully, my back was able to get a little bit of rest from the things that plague it during the day.
I’m grateful for that as well. 😊
…
Today was another good day. Though I’ve enjoyed a much lighter and brighter daily experience than what my usual used to be, I can still feel an undercurrent of anxiety, a heaviness.
I know that it’s the same old fears that cycle over and over and over again.
What if there really isn’t a God? What if I’m wrong about all this?
I know I’ll never be able to live a life as an unbeliever, so to speak. It’s just not… me.
But I’m still one heck of a doubter. 😅
So. Hard. To. Trust. When. So. Much. Rides. On. It. For. Me.
I know I’m repeating myself again and again. I guess that gives a little window into this little mind of mine. 🙃
Still, these days have been so much better. Happiness returning, joy returning, excitement and passion returning, hope actually alive and kicking and not just hanging by its last thread.
Today didn’t feel anywhere near as productive as yesterday. Some of my new routines require a good bit of adjustment. As I’m going along following the routine, a few times it’s been like, “That’s not gonna work very well!”
So I adjust the plan.
There have been several areas that I can tell need adjustment (it takes so freaking long just to chew up a 12 oz bag of California veggie mix! Can we say blender. Yep, veggie bowls are gonna be smoothies from now on, thank you very much. 🙃)
It’s also crazy just how much I have to eat to get enough calories just to maintain my weight when completely cutting out sugar, dairy, meat, and processed foods, and trying to get a well-rounded, balanced diet. 😶
Good gravy.
I felt like I was eating all day long. I might as well have been a cow in a pasture munching away all day long. 😅
Food issues were one of the reasons why I felt like I wasn’t as productive today, being quite unprepared for the latest adjustment to my diet. I’m excited for it. I feel really good about it; but historically, I generally tend to be unable to hang on to these changes for very long.
Well, I guess that’s not true… I’ve been vegan for quite a long time now. Mostly vegan, at least. And I kicked sugar to the curb for several years in a row before going back to it. So I guess it’s not just a broken New Year’s resolution kind of thing.
But I do know I’ve got to do a lot more work than I have been. That’s probably one of the reasons why my health is struggled in some ways. I doubt I ever get enough protein. And I’m positive I don’t eat a sufficient number of vegetables, so I’m probably nutritionally deficient in plenty of areas.
That’s what this latest adjustment is hoping to address. Get enough protein. Eat a healthy balanced diet. Cut out the junk.
And keep it cut out. 😅
Anyway, my brain has been in so many places today! I’ve been studying and learning about 80 bajillion different things.
Oh! I was grateful to have a little aha moment today as my various alarms were going off to remind me that it was time to do this or to do that. It dawned on me that I could choose whatever I wanted for the alarm notification, including recording my own notification sounds.
My alarm goes off 27 times a day. 🙃
So what popped into my brain? Well, instead of having just a little chiming noise, I’m recording myself reading scriptures. So instead of hearing ding ding ding ding ding ding ding, it might be a scripture about gratitude or humility or patience or something like that.
I was super excited to have that little aha moment. 🥳
I can do the same thing for ringtones when people call me. I can set a different ringtone for each person, and I can have a scripture be the ringtone. 🙂
Having those set up will be a great boon to helping me remember all the things that I’m trying to remember, as well as helping memorize scriptures that will be valuable for myself and hopefully for others as well.
What else, oh! I’m grateful for digital cameras today. As I was working on my little meal plans and spreadsheets and all that other stuff to help me in my efforts to have a healthy, balance diet, it was nice to be able to just take pictures of some of the nutrition labels from down in the food storage room and in the kitchen, and then to just be able to look at those pictures sitting on my recliner in my room filling out the information on my little Google sheet.
Blessings.
Gratitude.
😊
I’m really grateful that I’m seeing immediate fruits in my efforts to apply the principles I’ve been learning about expectations. I’ve caught myself on many occasions feeling the very beginning pangs of frustration creeping in, and I’ve been blessed to remember immediately and think to myself “expectations.”
And almost immediately, the frustration dissipates. 🥳
I’m grateful for the power of recognizing small successes. I think if I don’t recognize those, then it will be very easy to slide back into overwhelm and discouragement because there’s so much that I see that I want to improve with my self. But seeing the progress, and acknowledging it directly to myself might well be a saving grace for me.
In other news, I’ve been feeling like it would be good for me to go back and finally write that book on education that I started writing so many years ago now.
Accordingly, I went to my computer files where I keep everything, and guess what wasn’t there?!?!
😶
The only thing I can find anywhere is a brief, quite incomplete beginnings of an outline for the book.
No real outline. No manuscript. Gone.
And this is where I’m grateful for this little rebirth of mine. Instead of freaking out, I’m looking at the silver linings. I’m actually… quite unconcerned. I spent massive time working on that book, and to have it all gone…
I’m really grateful right now that I can smile and be unconcerned.
I guess I’ll just start over. 😊
The silver lining is that I get to start fresh, not having to try and get myself back into whatever my brain was thinking then and to start from there and try and rework.
So I’m going to look at it all is just a big blessing. 😊
Eek! Witching hour just struck!
Oh! Speaking of holidays, somehow, little Mr Stephen who never really thinks about Christmas until the day before, has had Christmas invade my heart. ❄️🌟👪👼🫂🧑🎄
Makes me smile just thinking about it right now. 😊 I had Christmas songs playing in the background for a bit today. Loved it. 😁
There’s probably a lot more to tell from the day, but… time’s up, folks.
Loves and hugs!
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 