Severine Follows Some Good Advice For Once

[Severine]

Commence challenge the fourth! Challenge the third did not go very well. In fact, I had probably the worst month I have had in years, with highlights like our house's water pipes being ruptured, my partner L recovering from surgery, chronic insomnia, working 65+ hour weeks, my TMJ pain flaring up, and oh yes, also my area is in the middle of a historically severe drought and I happen to manage a farm. We're seeing unprecedented crop losses and it's incredibly stressful.

 

With all of that going on, I abandoned any pretense of meeting my challenge goals and essentially just tread water for the entire month. I handled all the various crises, but I was eating like crap, getting just enough sleep to avoid collapsing, and doing a terrible job at managing my stress. And I disappeared from the forums because of a combination of being busy and being incredibly sheepish about how spectacularly I had crashed and burned. But I managed to drag myself back in repentant sackcloth and found myself welcomed and supported by my awesome NF friends and it was a great reminder that we're all in this together through all the ups and downs, and that what we're striving for isn't perfection, but rather to never stop trying.

 

So I'm back for another challenge!

 

 

I am so tempted to devise a complicated and ambitious challenge full of all of the stuff I want to do. I want to train for a 5K, I want to get back to regular strength training, I want to get lead belay certified (rock climbing). I want to get back to eating really healthy food and read more books and fix my sleep schedule. I'm also preparing for a big life change, because I want to go back to uni and get another degree so that I can shift my career to more research-intensive aspects of botany and horticulture.

 

But everyone who loves me has been saying the same thing to me lately, over and over: that I need to slow down and stop trying to do everything at once. That I need to take better care of myself and stop skipping meals and going without sleep because I think I don't have time. That I need to take days off when I get injured even if it means stuff doesn't get done at the farm. That I need to stop saying yes to everything that people ask or expect me to do, and then sacrificing my sleep and peace of mind to somehow get it all done. And I grudgingly admit that is all pretty good advice. The sort of advice I would probably give to someone I loved who was in my position.

 

So this challenge is about stepping back and solidifying some simple and fundamental habits of self-care. It's about finding a way to stop skipping meals, to stop resenting sleep as wasted time, and to stop getting so stressed out about everything that my jaw aches constantly. The idea is that if I actually meet my basic biological needs for sleep and food and such, I'll be in a much better position to accomplish literally everything else.

 

Goals:

 

1. FOOD IS LITERALLY ESSENTIAL TO THE SUCCESSFUL OPERATION OF MY BRAIN AND BODY

• STOP SKIPPING MEALS! Yes Severine, you have time to eat breakfast and lunch. Yes, you do. And if you don't, make time. Eating is more important than crossing another thing off the to-do list at the farm.
• Track your food, Severine, because you know it's the only thing that makes you think about it analytically instead of making rushed foolish choices. Don't worry about macros or calories. Just try to eat real food as often as you can, and eat for hunger and not for stress.

 

2. SLEEP! OH HEY ANOTHER ESSENTIAL HUMAN FUNCTION THAT YOU NEED TO MAKE A CHALLENGE ITEM TO ACTUALLY DO

• NO MORE CAFFEINATED DRINKS. Remember, Severine, when you gave up caffeine because it was aggravating your insomnia? Remember how it helped a lot? Welp, time to do that again. Decaf tea only, and keep chocolate intake sensible.
• GO TO BED! You can't sleep if you don't try. Go to bed at least 6 hours before you have to get up. Preferably more, but hey, baby steps.
• Sleep hygiene: no screens for a half hour before bed, including your phone. Seriously. I'll be watching you.

 

3. STRESS RELIEF

• Go rock climbing every week. It makes you happy and it's a chance to see your friends.
• Get a professional massage twice during the challenge. You always feel more relaxed for days afterward.
• Keep making notes in your Hobonichi every day. Microjournaling is a good creative outlet and it helps you unpack the day.
• Work on being better at coming up with ideas for stress relief because, quite frankly, you need to get better at it. Maybe look into options for this?

 

And that's it. I want to add more stuff. Ugh, so badly. But frankly the last thing I need right now is more obligations or ambitions. Right now I need to focus on transforming survival mode into a healthier version of treading water. By the end of this challenge, things should be a little slower at the farm. So in future challenges, I'll be able to turn my attention to my other grand goals, and worry about losing more weight and increasing my strength and reviewing organic chemistry and all that stuff. Right now is about making my day-to-day about self-care rather than self-destruction and self-sacrifice.

 

Wish me luck.

[fleaball]

Here for this! Very sensible goals. That will probably kept you alive.  I approve. <3

[Bookish Badger]

2 hours ago, Severine said:

Right now is about making my day-to-day about self-care rather than self-destruction and self-sacrifice.

 

Yes! And you didn't "crash and burn," life up and kicked you in the 'nads, repeatedly, this summer! And somehow you're still standing and even care about this silly game we're all playing here on these forums (not that I'm knocking silly, silly often works when serious doesn't). So my hat is off to you. Oh, and following.

[Casbin]

Gulp, that sounds like a big heap of everything.

Get your footage back, leverage can help a lot.

You can do it, so make it happen, I will try to keep rooting for you! 

[NeverThatBored]

Good job holding yourself back! Keeping it to a few simple goals really is better in the long run, even though it's really hard when you want to do everything. You've got this! 

[deathbyshiny]

Life tried to push you down, but you're pushing back. That's not crashing and burning at all.  

[Dagger]

4 hours ago, Severine said:

So this challenge is about stepping back and solidifying some simple and fundamental habits of self-care.

Sounds like a great idea and your goals fit it well.

 

4 hours ago, Severine said:

Work on being better at coming up with ideas for stress relief because, quite frankly, you need to get better at it. Maybe look into options for this?

I think stress relief can be pretty individual albeit with common themes. Here are some things that work for me: reading (fiction), long walks, being in nature, listening to rain, walking on the beach (see a common theme... ), and listening certain types of music (sometimes really loud heavy metal, sometimes very gentle music). This isn't an exhaustive list, but might give some ideas. There are also more involved things such as a spa weekend (hot springs variety) or similar things.

 

Hope that helps!

[Countess D'If]

Life was all like BAM! And you were like - HELLS NO!

 

Rock on! (waahwaah, unintentional climbing pun)

[durfette]

Happy to see you here friend! I'm glad you're making self-care a goal because I don't know anybody who needs it more than you. 

 

[Vibrantella]

Wow, that was quite a challenge, indeed!  Your new one sounds positive and achievable, good luck!  

[PollyannaAgain]

Yay, massages!!!! You can do it!  

[Severine]

August really, really hates me. We got woken up at 3 am by the shrieking emergency warning tones of our cell phones. Why? Tornado warning. In fucking Boston. So okay, it's 3 am and we're in the basement watching television to try to figure out which way the storm is heading. We know we're not in any real danger - mostly I just want to know when I can go back to bed. 

 

Turns out it's a good news/bad news situation.

 

Good news: tornado turned north and didn't come anywhere near our house.

Bad news: tornado went right through the middle of Concord, which is where my farms are. Trees and power lines down all over the place. I'm preparing to head over for harvest and really hoping the crops are still, you know, there. And alive, and shit.

 

 

On the bright side, I ate breakfast! It was just a bagel, so not anywhere approaching nutritious, but hey it was food. And I haven't had caffeine since the challenge started yesterday.

 

I did fail to meet my no screens before bed goal last night because I ended up needing to send a few last minute work emails. Need to plan better and get myself to bed a half hour before I want to be sleeping, with a book. And without my phone.

[Dagger]

Glad you and your home are good. I hope your crops are fine!

[Countess D'If]

Oh no! I hope your farm is ok. Update us when you can 

[Butternut]

Found you  

 

that at sucks about your crops.  

 

Your goals sound awesome and very meaningful though!!

 

Sleep routine is on my challenge too.

[PollyannaAgain]

Yikes! I hope everything is okay!

[fleaball]

Yiiiikes. When was the last tornado in the area? Revere like 2-3 years ago right? Crazinesss. Glad you're okay. <3 I hope the farms aren't as bad as you think. 

[NeverThatBored]

That's terrible! I hope everything's in ok shape. Hang in there!

[Vibrantella]

Hope everything's OK with your crops!

[durfette]

Boooo!!! That's so dumb! This is getting ridiculous! What crazy witch doctor did you tick off to have all these mishaps and effing frustrations come at the same time?! Sorry you have to deal with even more crap... =/ Kudos to you for looking on the bright side though!

[Severine]

Finally some good luck! There was some damage but we didn't have any complete crop losses and none of our supplies were damaged/blown away. It could have been so so much worse. We got off lightly.

 

A small bit of the flower harvest today:

 

[fleaball]

Hooray pretty flowers and lack of damage!

[NeverThatBored]

Hooray! That's wonderful news. 

[Dagger]

Very pretty flowers! Glad it was so minimal for you guys!

[Vibrantella]

Enchanting blooms!