Happy New Year! I’m calling this week zero because we’ve only had a few days in 2022 so far. This is not really my New Year’s planning but since I haven’t updated those pages yet, I’ll introduce the idea here. This will be a personal weekly review post released on Tuesdays.
There are many objectives I have that are essentially uneventful for writing about. In fact, on bad weeks I may not be able to recall anything. This is a new post that I plan to release on Tuesday mornings reviewing my week. The headings will stay the same so feel free to jump around.
This review is intended to help keep me focused on my intentions and moving forward. After all, life is about the small changes we make daily not the big shiny moments.
Where my focus was this week:
I had the week off for the holidays and spent until Tuesday afternoon in my hometown, a full 2.5 hours away. The first half of the week was focused on celebrating and building relationships and the second half was focused on getting appointments out of the way and trying to release stress from the environment.
I didn’t set a weekly intention except for celebrating with family. I have determined that to help my mother’s stress load (currently supporting her out-of-town parents) that I could load and wash the dishwasher and unload as possible. I would get the clean dishes out and buss dishes into the dishwasher every chance I could as well. Since I haven’t lived in that house for over a decade there isn’t much I’m familiar with anymore.
I was thanked several times for washing dishes by hand or helping to keep the counters clean so I would say this was successful. My 12 year younger brother and I also bonded over the time home and made a goal to play games online for regular interaction. He goes to school about 5 hours away from me so we don’t see each other very often 2-3 times per year. I intended not to get much private bonding with my sister as she’s married with a toddler and this time of year puts a lot of pressure on her time, but we both went out to visit with a childhood friend that I haven’t seen in many years.
Then I came home and was able to have dinner with a local friend who’s also been struggling with family stresses that aren’t going to end. As an only child with aging parents, she has a lot of pressure on her as well. We had a lovely dinner. Both of my friends seemed to genuinely enjoy their gifts.
What stressors I encountered:
Traveling is stressful and packing days full of events is stressful for me. I discussed that a bit in my post a few years ago. Everyone else is more at home or gets to go to their homes and I don’t have a space to myself to unhook from the noise and lack of control. This year my phone was constantly dead but I had a new phone to set up. Additionally, due to everyone’s stress loads, we cut our specific family Christmas parties shorter from full-day events.
This genuinely seemed to work. Additionally, I paid attention to when the noise was getting to me and I went into the easy chair in my parent’s bedroom and worked on my computer for a bit. I would also ask if the television could be turned off and it seemed to help. Additionally, I tried not to let myself get overtired. I had no migraines during this time and only started to have some kinks in my neck on the last night.
How my relationship goal to not be critical (not make the other person feel under scrutiny or judged) went:
So this week is really what set in stone my desire to change this habit. I’m an engineer and critical thinking is my primary mode. However, especially in writing, I recognize that my comments that were not moral judgments were taken as personal attacks. Not often but a few times. Others would ignore the comments. Strangers on the internet are pretty difficult to read, but there are several times that people vent to me in real life.
I think it pushes my buttons a bit because they will vent about things that are occasional side-effects to a benefit or mild annoyances. I have learned that nothing I say is helpful at that moment and it’s venting. They don’t want to change anything and honestly, the emotions may not even be about the topic they are venting on. It’s difficult for me to routinely listen to venting and it does rub off on me. I find myself thinking “My body is killing itself, and you’re mad because your kid has too many toys?”.
I know this is common and that comparing people’s struggles is not productive. In fact, it’s very detrimental. We invalidate one person’s emotional response to adversity simply because we perceive it as being less serious. In reality, we may be in a better situation because we’ve already developed that coping mechanism for overcoming and adapting to things beyond our control.
There are many health problems amongst my family members, and I don’t want to air their business. What is noteworthy is that there are more “yeah, but…” responses than helpful or support responses. As if to say “mine is worse than yours”. Does that give us more credibility somehow? It certainly isn’t supportive of others’ struggles.
I’ve also looked at support groups. I can only find groups on Facebook so far. I can honestly say that the TBI one had me taking a step back. Additionally, I didn’t like that it was mostly family members. I get it, many of their loved ones are in comas or non-communicative. Their story just doesn’t help me with where I’m at. The tiny little inconsistencies in thought processes. The lag when recalling words and having to pick the seventh-best word. The look you get back when you’re fellow engineers almost roll their eyes because the woman, of course, doesn’t know the technical name for that specific type of tool.
At 30+, I was supposed to be past these stereotypes, but now I’m on another. And another. The migraine support group is arguing about how people complaining about their headaches or comparing migraines to headaches invalidates the severity of their experience. It’s just mind-boggling how quickly conversations devolve into “Nobody gets me, screw them” type responses. I don’t want to invite this type of negativity in. I don’t want to dwell on my injury or compare myself to the person I was. I want to move on. I still need advice on how to do that. I’m still struggling.
All of this to say, that I’m in so many environments that I need to take a moment to mentally block the energy of the space. And sometimes, I have to take another at the end to fully let it all go.
I am not the keeper of other people’s memories. I am not the keeper of other people’s stresses, and I am not the keeper of other people’s state of mind. I am here to help, but what is yours is not mine.
What were my wins for the week?
What are my wins you ask? Well, I don’t have cavities. I don’t know why I had so many as a kid and now don’t…who am I kidding, I had braces and never flossed. Now I floss and brush every day.
I hung up with my therapist who I was just telling about how I hadn’t had a big allergic reaction in months, just to have a big allergic reaction while driving….on the interstate. If I’m lucky it only felt like it was messing with my heart but I did manage to take a Benadryl and not wreck. I was heading to the neurologist’s office so I was supervised. It was primarily a digestive system reaction but I felt like my blood pressure was plummeting as well. Was this a win? I’m calling it that. Crisis averted, no idea what caused it, moving on.
Additionally, the neck pains and overexertion that seemed like they could trigger migraines were averted by good responses to symptoms. I hope.
Great social experiences. My brother and I successfully found that we could play a computer-based game via Skype. I was able to find a new type of underwear that I like. Supply has been dwindling. Big fan of these new ones so far.
My house has been under control. I received a wonderful variety of thoughtful gifts from my family. In fact, I should write thank-you e-mails to them. Last year I took photos of all of them in place. I had more small gifts so I may be mixing up who they are from already but add this note to the next section.
My Christmas ornaments fit into two boxes, one clear for the odd ones, and the other enclosed for the orange and gold and silver bulbs. I ditched the Hallmark boxes as everyone from Dawn’s Christmas playlist advised so I’ll be more inclined to put them out instead of the bulbs.
I also focused on just what tasks were essential on Sunday so that I could spend time simply enjoying practicing watercolor, apparently I can’t do a basic light color wash, and not feel guilty about not being productive. I think this is my first real step toward reducing my stress baseline.
I reached out to many friends I haven’t talked to on New Year’s Day and posted a new profile photo so many people reached out at least to say Happy New Year and to wish me a great 2022.
Set intentions for next week’s improvements
- Write Thank-you e-mails and try to attach photos of items in use. Good thing no one bought me underwear, right? 😛
- Keep physical activity to 10-30 minutes depending on the difficulty. Monday will be snow blowing max 15 minutes. Technically my Fitbit tells me my heart rate was elevated for 37 minutes today but I’m sure some of that was prep.
- Keep using Cefaly daily, do watercolor daily. Even if just to practice the same lesson again or draw something to use. I can do these at the same time.
- Set mood/feeling intention and spend several moments within the workplace to sluff off the negativity around me. Smaller sessions many times a day is fine. Do before and after all group meetings. I use Brendon Burchard’s daily planner for this. Which I need to buy more of as this is my last one.
- Get groceries and prep some marinades, recommended by my sister, to use for lunches in the future. I’ll try to link the marinades in my Meal Planning series posts, though there is a delay in posting them. They release Friday morning.
- Prepare the plan for the month’s posts:
- Meal Planning s4: Cleanout – use up
- Meal Planning s4: Meal Plan (still haven’t done for next week :S)
- Meal Planning s4: Prepare ingredients
- Meal Planning s4: Cook
- Organize Christmas decorations (might post first)
I hope my memory holds up well enough to do this much review in the future. I start back to work tomorrow and have to figure out how to fit it all in so we’ll see how next week goes. Happy 2022 everyone!