I feel like just rambling. Rambling as self care!
I danced for 17 minutes today. I'm learning a clever choreography with mesmerizing illusions and a song that I don't mind listening to on repeat. It gives me a goal to work toward and makes me exercise a little each day, which is the best way for me to avoid depression. It's magic to practice and see yourself improve little by little and eventually master things that looked impossible. It's good for the brain to communicate with the body and memorize things. You can't be anything but present and mindful while learning a choreography. Hooray for dancing like no one's watching, because they literally aren't, I'm alone all the fucking time, lol.
I'm super tired now and am ready for my ritual evening dissociation coma hours until I pass out. Actually, maybe tonight I'll get into bed early to meditate while stretching my back over a yoga block. I only use yoga blocks for this purpose now. It feels good to rest into it while a soothing voice says soothing things and breathes with me.
I've been meditating most nights since late 2019, and I'm amazed the habit stuck. I'm a little impressed by myself for that, and that I radically changed my sleep schedule too, because neither of these are ways I used to be, at all. If I can shift habits like these, then I am hopeful I can change harder things. Like, wow maybe I'm not irreparably damaged and doomed to replay traumas forever! I have more motivation to have or maintain a healthy mind than anything else in life I could possibly want, so I think it's doable.
One cool A.C.T. trick I have been practicing doing with negative feelings is to reframe them by thinking to myself:
"I am noticing that I am having the thought that... _______ ."
The more I get in the habit of it, the more helpful it seems. I've also been doing calming breathwork (long inhale, short inhale, looong exhale) whenever I feel a tickle of anxiety or tension. So far it works.
This concludes tonight's self care rambles.
Buenas noches.
10:10 p.m. - 2022-02-02