Goals: what does Feeling Better look like?

 

Goals: what does feeling better look like?

A thing I’ll be doing on this blog is thinking aloud.  A lot.  I’ll be doing this with the help of lots of prompts, from lots of different places.  Today we’re starting with Curative Magic by Rachel Patterson.  I love Rachel’s books: she’s a kind, good person, spreading lots of knowledge and laughter, whenever I find her on Facebook or YouTube.  Her Kitchen Witch online School and coven are one of the friendliest places for witchy minded souls out there.  I’m hoping to work through lots of the exercises in this book and report back here.

Background: Since I last posted here, I’ve had an even larger downer than usual.  I can’t even really explain how useless and pointless I’ve been feeling; how anxious.  I’ve had a reaction to my Covid booster (unexpected, but no reason to not have one; shows it’s engaging with my system, which is good) - this gave me a panic attack as I freaked out about it.  Better now. I read a book that scared me (why in hell did I do that, with my current fragile state of mind, you may well ask?!), and I brooded about what I read, and realised it had played on a deep-seated fear I have; so I’m going to be more careful with my reading matter for a while.  I really need to get back to work, my finances are in full tank mode, I have no back up whatsoever – and my Carers Allowance has not come through yet.  This week or next, hopefully.  I was levelled with anxiety when I rang to ask what the problem was (weeks ago now), why it was taking so long as I applied the minute I left my last job in September (it’s a benefit I am totally entitled to with a child on high level DLA).  I was told that instead of the 6 weeks it used to take (and did last time I claimed, before I was back at work in 2016), it now takes 12 weeks.  The DWP has not updated the website with this doubling in assessment period.  All my financial projections are now moot; I am in freefall without this money.  Most money goes toward servicing credit card debt, got into through not having enough money to live on for a long long time, working various minimum wage jobs since the move from London; and buying books to cheer myself up in addition.  I can barely afford bread and milk this week – this is where I have gotten to. This is my starting point here, for this list, this first exercise of Rachel’s.

She suggests, before starting self-care, magickal and otherwise, that to know where you want to get to may help.  Not simply ‘to feel better’, but to have some goals, major or minor. She suggests making 2 lists – the first with  what I would like to achieve, where I’d like to get to.  Then a second, with what I want to change in my life.  Then, a crucial bit, she suggests looking at the 2 lists and seeing if there are linkages – like poor sleep hygiene causing a lack of energy for replenishing hobbies for example.  Sometimes there are obvious changes and linkages visible between the first list and the second.  Easy fixes to help along the way. Or things never noticed before.

So here I go, thinking aloud.

What do I want to achieve

·         A feeling of consistent mental calm – not even happiness or contentment (both feel far away) – just CALM.  I’d like to be immoveable and Data-like, or Teal’C like (I like my TV sci-fi, very aspirational).  I’d like to be able to choose what emotions to indulge, and what to stand back from and observe.  I’d like to not be swept away in the immediacy of feelings of very low self-worth.

·         A new job I feel competent at, that provides enough money to start to pay off my many debts. This feels so simple but so complicated.  My level of stress at the idea even of an interview at the moment, is massive.  I can’t actually imagine sitting in an interview and trying to convince someone I want their job because I’d simply be excellent at it.  I cannot imagine coming out with all that annoying AF jargon about being a ‘team player’ (I work way better alone after explanations of tasks), and ‘hitting the ground running’ (no – I have a solid learning period, where I’ll be slow and ask you LOTS of questions, and will seem very anxious because I am; then, magically, 2 months later, I’ll realise I now know what I’m doing, and I’ll be fine – do you have the patience for this, without making me feel crap in the interim, by making me sit right next to you and micromanaging me in the learning period [actual example] or ending up wanting to ‘do a review of the comms’ and demanding to be cc-ed into every single email I send and constantly picking at everything I do [also actual example]?).

There’s the interview terror.  Then there’s the worry that I need a full-time wage, but barely feel competent for a part-time job. I need a lot of time alone to recharge, I always have.  Being around a lot of people all day is draining as hell.  Work politics is mystifying and I always end up on the wrong side of a boss or two. I feel like offices are a bad place for me, but they are where the necessary money is.  My two experiments outside of offices, with the lack of office jobs in this coastal area since my move, have been minimum wage.  One was in a restaurant where I cleaned.  I loved the working alone aspect; there were 2 bosses, one of whom was hilarious and an utter breath of fresh air as a boss. The other wasn’t around too much, good; I annoyed him just being me. But that job died with the pandemic. I was made redundant after furlough, replaced when the restaurant reopened (made me feel like even my cleaning was substandard!). Then the working from home at a job that had writing in it – I was so excited about that – and about working from home. It swiftly descended into a pit of micromanagement and being told my writing wasn’t good enough.  Good things for my confidence there abounded!

I feel like retraining to a whole different job would be great.  But retraining is for people who can afford to pay for courses and not take a wage for some time.  Not a position I am in.  So I may be straight back to a minimum wage job soon. They have the nicest people, often, which is a big plus. But I am so scared, feel currently incompetent and out of all energy. Not sure how to proceed.  I can’t meet a prospective new boss and be all high energy and positive, which is utterly fake, then they hire me and see I am actually quiet, scared and slow to learn…Inauthenticity would be my problem; mis-selling myself would be their result. Feel stuck.

·         I want to be a writer, a novelist.  I have always wanted this from pre-teen years.  Since my early 20’s I have written little (other than blogging on my other blog), because my inner critic is a loud bastard, and has a lot of unhelpful things to say. I need a writing routine – and to feel it’s important enough to spend time on.  To acknowledge it as a vital part of who I am.  I have always filtered, processed and understood the world and my experiences in it by writing. I need to get back to that.  It’s cheaper than therapy would be, and I used to love the way characters just appeared in my head and I transcribed them, watching them grow and develop as people.  It was awesome.  And MINE. I was in control in a world where I thus far do not flourish; but there…I contributed.  Sometimes, people liked my writing.  I have a dream that if I ended up with even just ONE fan, someone to whom my writing spoke and helped, made them feel less lonely or misunderstood, cheered or distracted them a little from their troubles: then there was my life – WORTH SOMETHING.  REAL. Connection would have been made. People communicate most clearly, I think, through the things they make.  I used to call this Communication Via[1] when I was a child, that was my name for it. Direct communication and conversation can be so fraught.  But art – of whatever kind: it surpasses and leaps over boundaries and misunderstandings, and helps people understand others and other ways of thinking.  I can’t think of anything worthier for me to do, and I never have.

·         I want a spiritual practice that grounds me and keeps me close to what I value: art, the health of the planet, love and laughter.  It’s why I’m such a multi-strained person when it comes to religious matters: I used to regularly attend Quaker meetings (they don’t talk much – you can hear people so much better when they deliberately DON’T talk much); same for Buddhist sangha Saturday mornings for a while (oh the quiet you can get mentally from sitting with other people also being quiet – wow). I read widely over most of paganism as I love the joy in the planet, nature and physical things, the celebratory tone of so much of the practice – magic was never a large part (as I’ve never had the confidence to pull off spells well: yet, I have hope), but I suspect it can be vital for self-care and grounding.

·         I’d like to be out of debt.  That’s a big ask; I’m in a lot of debt.  (I can’t just make arrangements with creditors, as this dumps your credit rating.  We are renters – you can’t dump your credit rating and hope to successfully move house in the next 6 years or so [that’s the time of the average credit blacklisting over here; experiential knowledge there], which we may need to do as our landlord raises the rent by £100 a year without fail. We may soon be priced out of this house. ) But it’s a goal worth saying.

·         I’d like to live in a healthier body. That’s an umbrella way of saying I am 6 stone overweight – a mound of stress eating of comforting crap for 5 years or so has caused me to no longer recognise this rotund woman in the mirror.  I want to LOSE THESE BLACK YOGA PANTS! I want to wear jeans again.  I want to actually crave salad and vegetables! I want to want to do the best for myself.  I want to not have asthma this bad and to have arthritis begin to cripple me (I need a knee and hip replacement I am told by my doctor – I am only 50). I want to like what I see in the mirror.

What do I want to change (specifics from list 1 and an extra)

·         My negative, So Sad, ever anxious habitual mindset. See all the posts for evidence of this.

·         My debt level. As above laid out.

·         My bad health. Ditto.

·         My energy level. Related to last; and to self-belief.  Depression is squashing me flat (but not flat enough; these are big yoga pants).

·         The way I moan and criticise at and about my partner to him – he sees the worst of me.  I do find him outrageously half arsed in a lot of things he does; but FFS, do I always have to tell him?! He rarely complains about me, and I think I am a total pill to live with (*I* find me hard to take on a daily basis…) We have been together 15 years and part of me worries we are very slowly drifting apart, in that we share no mutual hobbies really, and apart from politics, we agree on very little anymore[2].  He looks backward a lot.  I feel you have to see the world for now, for as it is, and not hide in a previous preferred decade; except as rest, sometimes.  I don’t think it’s a place to live for long periods as a preference.  It’s an impossibility.  I feel my choosing to sleep in another room because of the snoring he does has made him feel rejected, though I have explained many times it’s a vital mental health thing – if I don’t sleep enough, my whole day is fecked before it starts.  Because he’s never been that way and can survive on very little sleep, he doesn’t understand.  I have to protect my sleeping and sleep routine, I am militant on that.  It’s so necessary.

I need to really stop and think before I talk when I talk to him.  I need to treat him as more precious – as he is.  He’s loyal, and very clever, and very funny.  You see the best of people when you don’t constantly tell them what they’ve done to annoy you.  It’s not like I’m not very irritable.  I need to stop expressing it constantly to the one person who has stood by me for 15 years.  Imperfectly; but hell – that was quite funny to write down; since when does anyone do anything perfectly, consistently?  I am one unrealistic MFer, right?!  Say some nice stuff to the rate of the discontented stuff I say.  Or at least – say less, and hug more. He likes the language of hugs.

Things that make me happy

·         Looking at the sky – when it’s blue I smile.  It’s so expansive and amazing.

·         Trees.  They are so green and clever to do the things they do – they breathe for the planet, WOW.

·         Reading all over the place; being in the middle of 37 books (current) all for different moods and interests; having so many worlds to visit, so easily and quickly and absorbingly.

·         Writing. This is a toughie – sometimes it makes me happy (now is feeling useful), and sometimes the inner critic smothers me and then it’s not a happy experience at all.

·         Working in places where there aren’t too many people and they don’t want to talk to me all the time; being left alone to get on with things – trusted; where my skills can be recognised and needed.

·         Laughing and hanging out with my children.

·         Hanging out with my partner when we aren’t worrying about money.

·         Walking – I like seeing all the things outside, and knowing I have a safe place to come to inside[3].

·         Listening to music – I don’t do anywhere near enough of that. I find it so absorbing and mind altering that I can’t have music on in the background all the time, the way others do, it would be too distracting!  I have to make time to listen to it, which I rarely do.

·         Watching films and TV series I love – old and new.  I love to see other people’s interpretations of the world – and the colour palettes they bring to do so.  Lighting and colour are so massively important for mood.  There is so much beauty in film and TV.

·         Going to museums and art galleries – I used to do this all the time when I lived in London, not at all since.  Nothing beats that wandering about slowly learning things and looking at paintings or artefacts from all angles…experience.  Priceless and wonderful learning about the way we used to live (and not just as Trollope would have it).

How does list 1 affect list 2

Hmmmm.  I could have gone on, with both lists, but I have other tasks I need to do today.

Ummmm, ok. Er….

Well, if I had a (right kind of) job I would feel more useful, which would help my self-esteem.

If my self-esteem were improved, I’d be nicer to my partner, because there’d be more niceness in the well closer to the surface of me, to reach in and be nice from.

Hanging with my children helps the niceness well.  (Except when they have problems, when I worry and get all I’m a Bad Mother because I can’t fix my children’s problems – there’s a repetitive thinking  loop I’d love to see the back of.)

A good self-care and spiritual practice would aid my niceness well too; though financial practicalities really need sorting very soon, or mental fumes is what I’d be running on. A good self-care practice would stop me getting so funked in downeriness as I am now, that’s for sure. I'd be calmer in interviews...

I can choose to read helpful uplifting books right now.

I can choose right now to listen to more music.

Those two things help happiness levels.

A job is unlikely to help the debt problem anytime quickly – I would have to pay back family loans, and my partner would want to stop the extra housekeeping he gives me (he’s bad at remembering to pay bills, I’m good, so we started housekeeping for mutual bills like electricity, years ago – I pay some household bills, him others, but I administrate that money and do the actual paying) to ease his own finances.  At most it would help the weekly food money, and stop the debt getting bigger.  The debt problem is a very long term issue unless I get a massive windfall from…who knows where.

Presumably, writing would help me feel better in that it would mean choosing to respect and give time to a vital part of myself.  And one that understands the world better than immediate daily me. Even just a daily practice is a start to becoming a novelist.  And I can worry about the trap of just doing daily exercises and not actually starting a novel later, once I actually have a daily practice to worry about!!

I can exercise more.  I currently have time to walk every day.  My level of energy would improve, so I’m told. (I have never experienced this in the past – exercising makes me tired and achey, and despite consistency, I have never felt better for it as such, even the next day…but increasing lung function can’t be argued with and I really need to do that.) If I walk outside – shocker – I’ll see trees and the sky! 

Daily yoga would also be good, because it’s like moving meditation, as is Qi Gong – with both, I am too busy trying to do it right as I’m very uncoordinated physically, I have a huge left and right problem – that I concentrate on it fully, no time to worry about things. 

Meditation, moving or still, fits into spiritual practice and the much vaunted increasing of mental calm, through creating gaps where I can actually get in between a thought,  feeling and a habitual reaction.  Is the hope.

Some preliminary goals then:

·         Make more time to listen to music – for calm and happiness and energy, depending

·         Try and institute daily writing practice – for integrity to self

·         Try and meditate every day for even a few tiny minutes (like 2 or 5) – still or moving – for calm and for mental and physical fitness

·         Read books that uplift – for increasing positivity

·         Catch myself before criticising and moaning, to partner and in general – what can I say that’s more for understanding or solutions than against whatever we’re talking about; do some spin on my habits when talking – maybe just shut up sometimes, pick the battles with everyone, don’t just…battle, endlessly, what is the point of that?

·         Go out once a day at least and see the sky and the trees – walk

Okkkkk.  That might be enough to start off with.  I haven’t added a work goal, as I’m not sure where to start with that yet.  But it’s a needful, so it’s in my mind.  But these other things: how can they not help, in the interim?

* * *

If you’ve found this useful – see Rachel’s book, here and at bookshops everywhere.  And all her other books, I’ll get to those!

 

 

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[1] Matt Haig expresses something very similar in both Reasons to Stay Alive (2015) and Notes On a Nervous Planet (2018).

[2] Isn’t that amazing, some people who agree on politics!

[3] I say things like this and feel a terrible worry about refugees, and then climate refugees that many of us at some point will be…that’s not a thing that makes me happy.