Achieving the Basics

Time just slips through my fingers so fast if I log in the computer to blog, but get sucked in by Facebook.  Argh!  I woke up not long after six, and now it is nearly half past seven, and I haven't done anything sensible yet .... I haven't checked the "4 basic housekeeping routines" site that I found yesterday (in my desperation for direction), or looked at the DBT lessons that's sitting on another tab .... grrr - I really need to be more self disciplined about the Facebook thing.

However - I did chat online with an old school friend, and the upshot of that is we are going to meet up for coffee, on Thursday.  She's going to be in town, from interstate ... just for 2 days.  I haven't seen her in over 20 years.  I guess it will be nice.  At the least, a distraction.  But a distraction from what?  What am I doing - with my life?  Do I need distractions at the moment, or do I need to really knuckle down and do some serious hard work ... on myself?  And - how are we going to afford to live, with only my partner working?  I can feel my gut start to churn and my temples start to squeeze as I ask myself these questions.

I try to say to myself: just breathe, go with it, we agreed on this, you need it - this is the lifesaving time ... now is about surviving, and then learning to thrive .... relax.  But I can feel the potential to freak out just lurking, under the surface.  I guess that's part of the work I need to do - just learning to be in the moment, to trust that solutions will present themselves, and to NOT FREAK OUT.

There's soooo many things I would like to do, the hard bit for me, often, is just grounding and focusing and choosing one or two things to just gently get on with, and make some significant progress ... rather than just spinning in circles and pressing "like" to everything on Facebook .... sharing all the interesting links and quoting all the inspiring quotes ... but never actually digging in and getting something truly done in a practical, one step in front of the other fashion.  My through has gone all tight from fear, just typing about it.  I can feel my chest starting to hurt.  Crazy.

OK - back to basics.  What are my simple steps for the day?  I should look at the list of suggestions given to me by the naturopath I saw yesterday, and choose just one.  And I should take my minerals, because the morning dose, which I haven't had yet, has a stress support herb in it, apparently.  I wish she'd given me a list of the names of the flower essences she put in the blend she gave me, I thought she would - but when I looked this morning I couldn't see one.  Perhaps I will email her an ask, at some stage.

In the meantime - I need to take the simple advice such as what was given here:

http://christianwomenonline.net/2009/03/01/4-basic-housekeeping-routines/

So simple in fact that the first steps really were the 'what to do after you get out of bed' stuff.  I really needed that yesterday morning.  I was so grateful to find it .... and I should follow that advice again today.    A nice safe and sensible set of morning instructions:

• have some quiet time
• get up, make the bed
• shower and dress
• put on a load of washing

I like that.  If I did that each and every day, I would consider myself to have made progress, just at the moment!  And there's probably just a couple of things I should add to that list:

• take supplements
• quietly plan the next step/task for the day & commit to it
• breathe & smile
• be grateful

Getting through those 8 points would be a huge win, for me.  Well - we shall see how I go!

One of my 'tasks' for later, will be to have a closer look at some DBT lessons, and also to phone the DBT program coordinator at a Hospital down in the city, that runs one.  They don't seem that common.

Later, when I get a chance, I will be reading up on 'Core Mindfulness', here:

http://www.dbtselfhelp.com/html/core_mindfulness.html

Until then, there's showering, and bed making to do!