Jumun heals herself [b00024228]

[Asuka]

Hello fellow Druids!

 

This is my first challenge here, so let me know and please forgive me if I commit any faux pas. After I finished my first challenge I went to the Assassins, but given my current needs and the absolute explosion of failing of my last challenge, I need to reorient my goals: they now align harmoniously with the Druid Guild, so I hope I will learn a lot from everyone and find my place here.

 

The short story is that I was being emotionally blackmailed by my boss everyday and did not react well to his behavior. I let my emotions take the best of me and he preyed on it, which led to me gaining weight, losing my temper, and in the end being so sick I couldn't leave my bed for three days. I feel better now that I've taken vacations and medications, but I still have to face him everyday, so I need to find a better way to cope.

 

The ultimate goal of this challenge: Calm my emotions. I know I cannot control them, but I should learn not to let them control me either.

This goal will be supported by four sub-goals: listen consciously, relax mindfully, restore fully and live for me.

 

While I cannot make my main goal SMART, I can use exercises for each of the sub-goals:

- Listen consciously: will be an exercise in meditation and in understanding my body and emotions better. Every day for 5 minutes, I need to listen to my emotions, let them run through me, without judging them, only recognizing them. this can also be achieved through meditation, if I am able to empty my mind and be at peace.

- Relax mindfully: The second will be to stop the noise. I listen to a lot of music just to stop thinking, and I now need to learn to enjoy the silence. So I will cut the music everyday at 10pm at the latest and will do whatever I want - just no background noise. This will also be the occasion to read more, especially books about controlling my emotions.

- Restore fully: This will be a double goal, centered around more sleep and better food control, so I never let my emotions make the best of me because I'm sleep-deprived or haven't eaten. I will go to bed every day before 11:15pm and will eat balanced meals. The food will be graded subjectively depending on the day, but the goal is 80% Paleo and 2 snacks max a day, with fruits and yogurt (no cereals), excluded.

- Live for me: Will be a mantra-based goal. Because I often do things for others, I tend to forget about me. I need to remind myself when it is NOT time to work, when I need NOT to worry about something which is not my responsibility. I also need to express these boundaries better to people. For now, the goal is to remind myself, as often as needed "This is not your responsibility, so you should not engage your feelings". I will also focus on visualizing my bubble being separated from other people's.

 

There are so many more things I want to do! I really want to try yoga and exercise everyday and stretch better and learn to do the splits. But for now, I'll subordinate my fitness goals to my mental ones - my body will feel better once my mind does too. I will continue exercising everyday (30-45 minutes in the morning), centered around more stretching and strength training, but no guilt if I cannot complete them. Goals is 4 times a week and dance class twice a week from next month on (since it's too late for this month).

 

Grading:

- Listen: A for 6 times or more per week, B for 5, C for 4 and failed if below. No comp. At stake is 4 CHA.

- Relax: A for 5 times or more per week, B for 4, and failed if below, comp over the duration of the challenge. At stake is 4 WIS.

- Restore: A for 5 times or more per week, B for 4, and failed if below, comp over the same week, in going earlier to bed (same amount of time); for the food 6/5/4 for A/B/C and comp through fasting. At stake is 5 CON, my weakest point.

- Live: No grading yet as I don't know if his is right. I will see if it helps and how much. Also it should be done on an as-needed basis.

 

Because I am so new to all this, I will need adjustment, so I will carefully keep on reading and may change these goals / grades accordingly.

 

Deep breath and let's start out journey. I feel anxious to start, but excited to embark on the road to more serenity.

 

Thank you.

[MiscKlaire]

I'm starting a regular meditation practice this challenge as well. I like that plan you have of relaxing in the silence. So often I find myself distracting myself with anything, in order to not be in quiet. Not super helpful for getting in touch with myself!

 

Good luck

[Asuka]

Week 1 recap!

 

 

I was happy overall with my progress this week. I was a lot less stressed and a lot happier, so overall success!!! i did gain some weight again, but I feel it was from too much leftover stress and it was much more from early in the week than later in the week, so I'm hoping this week translated into weight loss. And if not, it's ok - weight loss is not one of my goals for this 6WC - much more important now is peace of mind. 

 

Grading

Listen: I put a lot of efforts in trying to listen to my body, recognizing when it is hurt and needs to stop, and to practice yoga to center myself and understand my energies better. It's been really great. I've also started journaling. It's been good. I need to write down what I think more, but I think about what I want to write, so it's a great first step. Grade: A

Relax: I've realized I'm afraid of silence. Like something bad will happen. So I'm trying to tame things and slowly phasing out the music. But it's scary... Grade: A

Restore: I slept a lot more this week so that's good! On the food side, I've eaten A LOT MORE than I thought, but also cooked more and shared more food with friends, so overall a positive week. Grade: C (average of A for workouts, C for bedtime and F for food!)

Live: I've focused on what is my responsibility, what is under MY control and it's been really good. I realized more what I could do with my time and what doesn't (or shouldn't) matter and I'm prioritizing ME. It's been great. Now I need to redefine my priorities to make sure they align with what I do!

 

Overall Week: B+

[Phoenix Rising]

Glad to see things seem to be going well with your challenge.

[Asuka]

SO !

 

This is Friday, and I'm HAPPY!!!

 

Mid-week update!

 

This challenge is going very well! I set low goals because I did not know if meditation and emotional control would take out a lot from me, and I'm happy to report that it's improving !

 

For instance, the silence used to scare me. Now I'm happy to be in silence at night - yesterday I was like "I don't care I WANT music!" and weirdly... I did not. So I listened for a while and then turned it off. It was a true discovery!

 

I also think I've been too soft on myself. I gained A LOT OF WEIGHT (in fact I gained back everything I had lost in the past few months *sigh*), so I need to kick--start my weight loss again!! 

 

To do so I'm holding myself more to the diet goals and adding intermittent fasting (not graded but good per se!) into the challenge. Twice a week would be ideal. Willpower - I will gain you back!!!!!!!! 

I also re-started strength training and WAS SO SORE!!! WAAAAA!!!!

My body really adapts well to the couch-potato mode hahaha!!! 

 

But no more - From this day, New Jumun, Happier, In charge of her destiny AND of her Body. 

No more looking down, but no more softness about "it's just a slice". It's NO to carbs and NO to sugar. Healthy diet (80% of the time) is the KEY.

 

I can do it!!!

 

And If I can maintain a yoga practice twice a week on top of workouts it would be great!! I don't count yoga as workouts yet, because I'm such a beginner, it's really easy and I don't feel like it's a workout. 

 

DRUIDIC POWER!!!!!

[Asuka]

SPECIAL POST - Accepting yourself is half the battle.

 

Hi, I'm Jumun and I'm 76.7kg for 1m63. That is being very fat as defined by the BMI scale. I haven't checked my % of fat lately because I have to buy batteries (the STUPIDEST reason in history), but I was around 30% before and I gained weight and did not exercise so I think my % now should be ~32%,

 

GOAL: Perfect me. Jk.

- From a fitness perspective, I think 60kg would be good. I would be in the healthy range and having a weight below my the centimeter part in my height is my dream!!!!!! Haha. SO: 16.7kg to lose !!!!! (Status bar: updated!)

- I would LOVE to have a fat % around 25% (or below!), and I think it's doable with this weight objective. 

- Overall, I also want to make peace with food and eating. I know I'm an emotional eater, and right now it's difficult because I'm getting over being in love with a guy who turned out to prefer dating a lesbian. So there has been a lot of chocolate - I'm trying now to make it more chicken breast. Ah, if only we could get over unhappiness in relationships with broccoli!! But I think thinking about it, journaling about it and meditating, being more in touch with my emotions (rather than just reject them) helped me tremendously so I want to continue on the path of mindfulness.

 

I can be back to below 72kg by the end of this challenge! This would be GREAT. Let's work at it!!!!!

[Asuka]

Week 2 (late) update!!

 

Week 2 was good! I managed to reach all of my objectives AND to eat more healthily! I'm not yet restricting enough because I've been cooking a lot, but I've fasted on Friday morning and it was good. I think 1 or 2 fasting days a week would be good. 

 

No new weight update until Friday (once a week is the new everyday!) so all is well in the meantime.

 

Yesterday I stopped eating early (after having brownie for dinner urgh) and I am still fasting this morning despite light exercise yesterday and vigorous one this morning. So yay for willpower!!

 

More later!

[Asuka]

Final challenge evaluation!

 

The past few weeks have been difficult, but have taught me a lot and I am happy and proud of myself and how much I grew in that period of time. 

 

 

The overall goal was to calm my emotions and I succeeded on that point. Recap, goal by goal:

- Listen consciously: I learnt to listen to my emotions, even when I don't want to. Goal A! +4CHA

- Relax mindfully: Silence. I went from being afraid of it, of letting my thoughts run wild, to craving it. I also started meditating everyday, which has now become a habit. Sometimes I do it for just 2 minutes sometimes for longer, but it always helps. A+! +4WIS

- Restore fully: I did pretty good on the sleeping habits, helped by a new sleeping app, which I use to measure my sleep cycles. The food part on the other hand... got out of control. I should probably have seen it coming, since I'm an emotional eater and one of the goals of this challenge was to be more in touch with my emotions. So A- for the sleep and D for the eating, averaging lower than B, so no points for that goal! 

- Live for myself: This was strangely something that came to me naturally, as I learnt to see people as human beings rather than as mini robots. I was able to detach myself and be a better person. Not graded, but A on that one too!

 

Overall pretty good challenge, A- due to the food issue, which shall soon be corrected through renewed Paleo diet and strength training / HIIT !

 

Thank you druids for welcoming me in your midst. I shall go back to the Assassins, but will remember your teachings.