Eden from Edenland says that "life is triggering" and the last few days I've been inclined to agree.
I've been tired and cranky (more on that later), what should have been a simple train trip into the city yesterday turned into a two and a half hour crawl in the car (thanks crazy Melbourne weather!!), I had some some disappointing personal news and I tried on a heap of clothes in the shops and didn't like any of them.
As a result of all of this I've had urges to eat eat eat!!! I've also been caving into those urges more than I would like. The positive out of this is that I'm becoming super aware of how this overeating and eating of foods with little nutritional value makes me feel and I don't like it!!
All of this got me thinking about the importance of self care in helping us to avoid being sucked into old destructive behaviours when faced with triggering circumstances and the balance of both actively doing things that are good for you and/or make you feel good but also actively trying to avoid doing things that have the opposite effect.
Sure, we are always going to have situations that are difficult - but if we have been taking care of ourselves then hopefully we give ourselves the best chance of being able to navigate them without affecting our progress too much.
This brings me back to the tired/cranky bit I mentioned earlier. On Saturday we had friends over for a games night. Everyone had a great time, but it was a late night and I had quite a bit to drink. So I spent Sunday feeling pretty ordinary, but I've also started to piece together a bit of a longer term picture of what happens when I drink too much
- In the morning I usually wake up with the thought "oh god, I really hope I didn't make too much of an idiot of myself or do or say something I shouldn't" I'm a pretty uninhibited person anyway so alcohol tends to mean I can get pretty rowdy and/or will pour my heart and soul out to anyone with ears.
- If the details of the night are a bit fuzzy or I know things got pretty rowdy this can turn into pretty crippling anxiety for a period of days
- If things were lower key I still notce a change in my mood and energy levels for a few days to a week - tired, cranky, unmotivated and mildly depressed and anxious
I've really started wondering if it's worth it - sure it's not something I do all the time, but the consequences even if infrequent affect my wellbeing and progress. I wonder, if I had only had a couple of drinks would these other things have affected me so much? What if I'd taken a nap on Sunday afternoon instead of eating ice cream? What if I'd done some meditation on Monday night instead of demolishing m&m's. Of course there is no point beating myself up over those choices now but there is a opportunity to learn.
As part of my ongoing journey to be happier and healthier I'm going to try implementing a more moderate approach when it comes to alcohol - This moderation thing, it just keeps coming up!!!
The other thing I'm going to try and do is to do something else when I'm having the urge to binge - the last few days I've just been trying to ignore it which in my current frame of mind hasn't been working!! So a goal is to actively try to do something else - meditation, go for a walk, read, blog, anything that fits in the realm of self-care.
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