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Those who have been following along will recall that I recently realized that attention deficit disorder (ADD) runs in my family and that there are many indications that I also struggle with ADD-typical behaviors, such as unreliable memory and concentration, impulse control, and difficulty managing emotions. I have decided not to pursue a formal diagnosis at this time, as I am not wanting to take medications. However, I do want to try some more holistic approaches to supporting my brain health and function. Interestingly, most of the demonstrably effective holistic approaches follow along the same lines of the general health prescription: exercise, get outside in green spaces, be mindful, reduce sugar, increase Omega-3 (and possibly other key minerals like iron, zinc, and magnesium). So why haven't these things worked in the past? I think I try to add too much all at once and it becomes too overwhelming (remember the emotional regulation issue?). Plus, I flit from solution to solution, but don't really build one cohesive plan out of all of it. Each challenge I try new things, and the previous challenge habits sort of evaporate. So this year, I am going to go slow. No, slower than that. I will start with only adding good habits -- not deleting bad ones -- for at least 5-6 months. I will have an actual plan for accumulating and integrating all the habits so I don't lose momentum. And most importantly, I am going to focus on nourishing my physical and mental health, rather than losing weight. If nourishment leads to weight loss, that's lovely, but it isn't the measure by which I will be judging success. Let's get started: Reflection The Bullet Journal has been wonderfully supportive, functioning as my external hard drive, keeping me focused and aiding my memory. This is a maintenance goal, but I am keeping it here so it doesn't wander off. Elemental Magic Spending time in the elements -- see what I did there? -- has been shown to increase concentration, memory, and impulse control. The goal is to smell the earth and feel the sun (fire)/rain (water) on my face and the wind in my hair. Every. Single. Day. The quantity of time doesn't matter right now; the biggest barrier is just putting my shoes on and going out. The only exceptions are violent weather --thunderstorms, flash floods, hurricanes -- or violent illness. Every day or violence. 😂 Mindfulness and Movement I find moving meditation the most palatable form of mindfulness, and I find it easiest to achieve in the water. The goal is to swim at least once a week, barring violence. More would be nice, but I need to start small in consideration of the obstacle of driving distance to the pool, which creates time availability issues. I can add yoga or maybe taekwondo forms practice in later challenges to have more accessible at-home mindfulness, but I don't want to add too much right now. Nourishment The goal is to start the day right by nourishing my body and brain. So the day begins with adequate protein for my weight, some complex carbs in any quantity, and an Omega-3 supplement. I am going to say it here so I remember: it's okay for food to go to crap after breakfast. It's okay to not create a caloric deficit. I don't have to have a whole salad or a giant bowl of oatmeal, just a little bit of fiber for practice. If I really need pancakes, I can have them at lunch. Just use my start-of-the-day energy to get breakfast right. The rest will come later. Thank you for checking in on me! 2024 is going to be our year of revolution!

Wolverine has been sent to the wrong timeline! Apparently, Wolverine has been sent back in time, more exactly to the year 2015. She knows now that 2015 is not such a fun place, since it’s been confirmed that there were no auto-drying or self-adjusting clothes nor flying skates, and instead, here is what there is: Floating anxiety Anticipating events anxiety Self-defeating thoughts Lack of energy Lack of activity, laziness Despondency Mental dizziness and confusion Low blood pressure Heavy nose bleeding Hair loss Refusing to eat Refusing to practice This doesn't look like adamantium anymore... However, Wolverine is far more clever than 3 years ago, and knows how to face these troubles: with ACTION! Behold the weekly ACTION plan! WH BYS/ICE MP BB+G VG+S 123 15 PULL PUSH/SQ/BBS ABS MUS ÍSK Y2 R R/W/DNA/AN FLOW GR SHOP It includes basic restoring activities, like WH stuff or before bed yoga; anxiety reducing activities, like varied exercice and spending time outdoors; rest moments, like reading; and nutrition, as in, keeping enough food at home and eating things that nourish. At the end of each week, a check-in will be done to see if things need to be readjusted. I’ll take Wolverine back where she belongs

A new challenge begins and I start it by confusing people! What I mean is that I call this challenge "build strength" and I'm actually not starting any new fitness routines this time around. I'm using the word strength in a broad meaning. (Isn't this an awesome gif. Random awesome find.) Strength does include one fitness objective and two nutrition objectives, but the most important objective is to continue with Nourish Yourself and everything around that. Nourish Yourself is a course from Kate Marolt. I might also re-start her meditation course (easy to find through her shop)—Choose Freedom, mostly because I want to increase the amount of time I spend on nourishment every day. After strength, my second priority is whittling down my to do list for Becoming Nomadic. I want to sell my house and go traveling. I don't know if I'll be staying long in different places or if I'll flit from place to place. I'll see when I get there. First I need to shed belongings and my house. Third priority—FINALLY—is writing. I feel like I haven't had the space in my life to make this such a focus, but I finally do. Is it because I put most things under strength? Or am I just ready to give this the time it deserves? But it is still only my third priority. However, I don't plan a heavy load of nomadic tasks so hopefully I won't have to let this slip of the caring for myself tasks. Oh, wait I guess I should explain that. For one thing, I call my goals objectives because it feels better. Although you'll often see me call them goals for common language on the forum stuff. But for some reason I like calling them objectives in my head, perhaps because it feels more ok to fail an objective than a goal? Or maybe because an objective is an aim more than a goal, and even if you miss, you tried to aim so you succeeded? The mind games we play. Another mindset shift I'm doing is that I'm seeing my goals/objectives as acts that I do because I love myself. I'm very focused on self-care at the moment. Of bringing nourishment, joy, and happiness into my every day life. So every day I ask myself what would be loving to do. When I feel good, it is loving to do my objectives. On other days (even some good days) it is more loving to put them aside and do what will really nourish me in that moment. You'll probably find me exploring different activities and how they make me feel. My recovery activities and whether they actually help me recover is vitally important to me. I'm also looking at what I'd call filler activities—not the best of names. Those activities are the stuff you do while you wait for water to boil, when you're waiting for an important phone call and can't really start anything, when you need to clear your mind between tasks, when you just need a mental break. These activities doesn't necessarily have to be recovery activities. I'm just looking at them and seeing how they affect me and I've noticed how small shifts in what I do in those moments really changes the way I feel for the rest of my day. I suppose I have a little more to explain, mainly my journey into spirituality that I'm on right now. For the past 27 years of my life, I've basically ignored my spirituality, or only explored it in flashes without success. Since last fall I have however started to dig deeper into it. I've looked (and plan to get back to) shinto and secular buddhism. Currently, I'm doing the Nourish Yourself course which includes invocations and meditation and intentions and mantras. And from that I went to acquiring a tarot deck—I also have an oracle deck and lenormand deck winging from the UK to me. I bought a mala from Kate and I'm working out how to add that into my life and make it help me. Basically, I'm exploring a lot of things that I would have called hooey only a few months ago and I'm finding joy in the seeking. I know that it might seem strange and unusual to some of you, so I hope you just enjoy the ride even if it doesn't fit with your beliefs. I think that covers most of it. But before I state my goals objectives for this challenge, I wanted to pull your attention to my yearly goals which I'm quoting from my dormant battle log (convenient place to track them): I just added another one today, or rather I found a way I could "formally" track it. Basically most of these goals are monthly. One is quarterly and the first one is an overall yearly one (I need 8'333 words per month to hit the goal). Hmm... I'd actually call these ones goals. I guess what I do day to day is objectives to achieve the goals. You'll notice those goals doesn't cover everything. For example, my main goal for 2017 is to create a fitness habit. With that I mean I want to grow my daily movement and perhaps establish a 3x per week workout habit, but I say perhaps because daily movement is much more important to me and it is easier to create for me since it is every day consistency rather than weekly consistency. These goals above are more "lofty" things that I want to accomplish and I'm sure as I improve and find other such goals that makes me feel expansive, I will add them. Oh right. Something Kate says multiple times about setting goals is to ask yourself if they make you feel expansive and joyous and happy, or if they make you feel restricted and tight and unhappy. And to choose the goals that makes you feel expansive, joyous and/or happy. So that is what I aim for. Some goals I want to achieve made me feel restricted first, and I stopped and asked myself why, and when I figured that out and fixed it, the goal felt expansive instead. So just because it makes you feel restricted today, doesn't mean you'll never feel expansive from it. I'm slightly ahead with some goals above as you can see. I know which ones I definitely aim to work on here in February and it is alright to not perfectly hit the monthly goals in the right month; the point is to keep them in mind and try to work them in when they fit my life. Okay. Lets do a gif cleanse. Wild Animal does yoga: Happy baby pose. Oh, shit! I forgot the second part of the title of this challenge. TRAVEL. The thing is that I will travel to the US early in Week 2 of the challenge and then stay there until early Week 4. The first few days will be spent being a tourist and meeting up with a fellow NF nerd (not on the forum though). Then from Saturday to Saturday I will be at an Anthology workshop. In this case it means I might sell four stories I've written and submitted, but considering only about a quarter of 240 stories are sold, I will go with the expectation of not selling (or I will try). This workshop usually means about 16 hour days of socializing and sessions (sessions are about 6 hours, the rest is socializing). I also have a load of reading to do before the workshop if I want to enjoy it throughly, however my mental health kinda demands I don't take it too serious and basically there is a big clash there. The reading is those 240 short stories that have been submitted. And I'll aim to read 10 a day on good days, but give myself leeway to both read more or less depending on how I feel. I'll do my best to not attach guilt to not reading enough and spend as much time as needed on nourishment to keep myself from feeling overwhelm. I see an epic failure to do most of the reading in my future, but I suppose having such a defeatist attitude isn't helpful. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Anyway, now we'll really get to the objectives... Strength Nourish Yourself Finish the 40 day practice. Week 1 starts on Day 33. Do all 9 modules. 3 were done last challenge, and two will most likely be done during Zero Week. Add in additional nourishment in my day, not necessarily every day: ritual, mantra, intentions, reading/drawing tarot, meditation, working with my mala, or other activity I'm not listing right now either because I don't know it or because the list is long enough already. Nourish Yourself Q&A call, Feb 18. Figure out what I will do when the practice reach 40 days. Will I continue as I have done? Will I adjust? Change it? Maybe do Choose Freedom every morning? I'm guessing Kate will have either a worksheet or something about it or we'll discuss it at least. Continue to reflect on foundations in the eight nourishment areas: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, environmental, creativity, financial, and relationship. (Very loose objective, might be considered an additional nourishment thing.) Read about each tarot card so I can get an initial impression about what they mean. Finish by the end of the challenge if possible. Figure out plan to stay sane and energetic through the whole workshop. The goal is to keep my temper in check (I can get snappish if I am tired/overwhelmed), and to not have everyone tell me how tired I look on the last day. Yes, that is a goal. I'm sick of people telling me I look tired on the last day of those kinds of challenges, EVERYONE does it. I guess I can look really tired when I am tired... thanks for the info, guys. *sarcasm* Fitness Intentional daily movement. I put no restriction on what this means. It can mean a 3-song dance party. It can mean taking an hour walk. It can be taking a 10-15 minute walk. It can be dragging myself to the mailbox when I'm exhausted/sick. I just want to intentionally choose to move. Keep my buying no soda streak. At the end of the previous challenge it was 35 days. When this challenge starts it will be 42 if I keep it up during Zero Week. Keep my only buying one sweet per grocery store visit streak. At the end of the previous challenge this was 31 (didn't start it until five days into the challenge). At the start of this challenge it will hopefully be 38 days from a complying Zero Week. I would have loved to add in a little more movement this challenge, but due to my travels there just isn't space, energy and time to do that, so I'll save it for the next challenge. Becoming Nomadic List of tasks I want to do during this challenge: Book 5 appointments: vaccines, alternative contraceptives to what I have, real estate agent, tattoo, and cutting and maybe dyeing my hair. Clear one computer I plan to sell. 4 reflection tasks: Overconfidence, Pre-mortem, Pre-parade, and Trip wires. (These come from Decisive by Dan and Chip Heath) Move information from 2 travel books I've read to my list document for travel: Conquering Mountains and Wandering Earl's book. If I don't quite hit them all it is alright. I've put them in order of importance to get done this challenge. Writing This is what I aim for: 8'333 words or more if I can in Feb (that means trying to hit that before February ends). But no pressure. It is for joy and fun. Some words in March after I get home from trip. It is for joy and fun. Submit a reprint to an anthology (I has story that fits an anthology call (different from the workshop)). Deadline is Feb 28. Read 10 stories per day of the 240. I hit 27 during the previous challenge, and I don't know how much will happen during Zero Week and I am determined to not care or worry about it. I have a feeling I can't quite let it go though. ~*~*~*~*~*~ I always start my challenges on Mondays. So my first day is Feb 13 and it goes to March 12. I also plan to not track Zero Week this time around. Shocking, isn't it? I usually track Zero Week because I am raring to go and ready to get started. And while I feel that this time too, I also remember that I ended the last challenge with an empty well and I can't refill that in one day. So I'm taking Zero Week off from official tracking and official objective-kick-assing. However, I'm pretty sure some things will happen. Nourish Yourself stuff will happen, because they are the whole point of taking this Zero Week off. And... I'M GOING TO A FRIGGING AWESOME SPA OVER THE WEEKEND BECAUSE I DECIDED TO TREAT MYSELF!!! I'm going on Friday and coming home Sunday afternoon. So I can start the challenge completely fresh and relaxed. Also, I am planing a computer/internet free zone while I am there. I will only have my kindle with me (and my phone because I need it for tickets and stuff, but it will be in airplane mode while there) and a notebook and pens. Planing, self-reflection, and that stuff will just have to happen on paper. Aw yeah... (I have this cool head movement going on, but I can't find a stupid gif with it and I know they exist. It is from some movie or TV-show...) This is the spa: I've been there twice before and it is great. And such good food.