Hippy Shake

I'm gently pleased with myself for starting to get a handle on a habit of mine I didn't know I had. Funny thing, self awareness, or insight or whatever you like to call it. I had no idea that I had developed something resembling a furrow in my brain which led me to do something I now find kind of inexplicable. The tendency to internally cycle things, never resolving them because actually some things really are not a) problems or b) resolvable by logic and reason inside just one head. So things tended to cycle. I think it's a result of having spent a lot of time on my own in recent years. I'm fairly certain this deep groove of behaviour hadn't carved its way into my head until late 30s. It's funny because it reminds me in a paler kind of fashion of the way my friend's autistic & asbergers child is when she gets stuck in a loop.

The early days of really locking myself into mindfulness reading has shown me what it is I do. It is actually something which I can offer myself an explanation for. It's the truly excellent problem solver I am attempting to apply that to all and everything, including emotions. Combine that with my attempts to avoid painful feelings and yes, I attempt to use logic and reason on emotion.

Just recognising what I do is good. At the time it starts to happen, recognising it and managing it is also good. This morning I was agitating over something daft. Actually an anonymous text from someone asking why I wasn't going to be at an event over Christmas. I told them I was in New Zealand and asked who it was. Whoever it was threw their toys out of the pram and said they would delete me to avoid making the mistake of contacting me again. I advised that due to phone drowning earlier this year my contacts had disappeared, and it wasn't that I'd deleted them out of malice. And that's the end of the conversation. My temptation is to somehow cycle and agitate internally over who it could be, and how I can fix it. But it's not something I can resolve, and I'm not responsible for their feelings. It's their drama, not mine.

Oh. Afterthought. Not dwelling, just came into my conscious thinking. The mystery texter is more likely to be male than female, and possibly with a non platonic interest. I don't think a girl would have reacted like that, she'd have just said you daft nana, not been in touch for a while, it's me, idiot.

In the midst of the agitation the possibility of settling to the morning meditation suggested itself to me. No, I thought, there's no way I'll settle to it while my brain is like this. And realised that's exactly the reason I had to do it. And it was hard to do, hard to settle, to break the brain cycle and remember I'm at the start of a journey.

I also recognise I'm a little bit more prone perhaps to introspection today because I'm kind of grounded. Did a big fat bike ride yesterday. It makes me smile looking at how I've changed, and 3 or 4 hours is not enough. I could have ridden for much longer than the 5 hours yesterday but actually what I did was about right, and better value than the hop on hop off tourist bus rates in honesty. But I elected the bike ride because I mashed my feet on my first day here. Properly mashed, big fat blood filled blister on one heel and on the other a blister close to 2 inches long. I am mostly wearing compeed. So I am looking after myself. I have developed a tendency to almost walk on tiptoes avoiding pressure on my heels but this is affecting my calves. Today I aim to gently bimble into town and attempt to keep off my feet in the art gallery and museum. I need these feet to work for the New Year so treating them and me kindly. And I know that the brain is more likely to agitate because my body is grounded, but also, both brain and body are interlinked and of course an issue with one will impact on the other. But it's OK, I have internal resources to cope.

The blisters I suspect are caused by massively swollen feet from flights and heat (I have bought thinner cooler socks), as well as the additional weight I was carrying in the rucksack, which could also have affected my posture potentially. As with most things, it'll be a combination of events, and patience and care are the way forward.

Love and peace.