Thoughts

2 days in a row, something must be up. 

I have a lot of thoughts today. In SCI we focus each week on something that is not good for us. Social comparison - that never helps or is true. Perfectionism - that can paralyze me if I'm not careful. Discomfort - this can be good if you are aware and deal with it. Stress - need I say more? General mindfulness - so important to mental health. Things like that. So each week we focus on one topic and try to find it as much as possible. Which is great initially but I've reached the point where things are starting to overlap and become much more complicated. Let me explain

One thing I've learned that I do is that I develop apathy. Apathy can come when things are okay and I'm just not inspired or motivated to make them better. I now realize that apathy can lead me into a depressive state, so I'm extremely thankful I can spot apathy before it grows into depression. Well, when I am in the apathetic state, I fall into all kinds of old habits. Social comparison - I start looking at other bodies and my own body far too often. When I'm not apathetic I don't do that. Perfectionism - this comes up when I'm apathetic because I don't want to do something if I don't think I can do it well. Stress? Oh yes!! I have stress when apathetic because of the things I'm not doing because I'm dealing with perfectionism. OMG!!! As you can see they all tie together and I believe that the further you get into this journey of self-awareness the greater the tangle becomes. So I find that I have to pry the pieces apart to get to the problem. The real problem. So that is what I was doing this morning on my walk with Mavy. I know I'm in an apathetic state and I was trying to get to the bottom of why. I reality the apathy isn't caused by the other things I am doing. The other things are caused by the apathy. But I struggle with how to break the apathy. 

Just went off and listened to some stuff on apathy and the general opinion is that you need to be excited about the things you do. How do I get that excitement? How do I get fired up to do the work and be excited about improving myself? I was in a battle with myself and I've worked on that and stopped the battle. Now how do I move forward and make myself the best I can be? How do I get excited about being the best? What do I need to do to reach that state of non-apathy? Is acceptance the same as apathy? Is happiness equivalent to apathy? Because I am happy. I love my life and I love the way things are right now. So does that equate to apathy? 

Maybe I'm looking at this wrong way. I am happy. Could I be happier? Of course. How? Working on making myself better would make me happy. Better in what way? Define better. Maybe improving myself would be a better way to put it. Better is nebulous. I am currently better at Spanish than I was 5 weeks ago because I've started working with Duolingo. So I am better at it. I'm better at writing because I've been practicing. But am I good? No. Not at either of them. Could I be good at them? Of course I could. So what would success in Spanish and in writing look like for me? To be able to hold a rudimentary conversation in Spanish would be a success. To be able to letter something in the way I want to would be a success. So instead of saying I want to get better, I need to quantify what would be a success for me and then go after it. So thinking this through and writing it all out has made my mind feel a little clearer. I think I may be on to something here. I think I need goals as far as my self care goes too. I need to know what I'm working towards, why it's important, and how I will measure success. Definitely some things to think on.