Why I Hide It.

Interesting. Can't upload a screen shot of facebook. It goes blurry.

Anyway. I am a rampant hider of posts on facebook. But none of the reasons they ask me really apply. Annoying is the closest, but it's not really annoying, it's just annoying me. It's not spam. I want to tick boxes that say:

• I've seen it already, I'm bored, and I want to see the other posts fb filters out.
   
• It's ugly or stupid. Seeing it once was too much.
   
• It makes me feel bad or jealous, when I should be feeling happy for someone. Easier to hide it.
   
• It's political.

Old diary.

I just went through my old diary, saving a few important things like addresses before I chucked it away. One of the things I found in the diary relates to throwing away old diaries: a list of thoughts from the book Unstuff Your Life.

- I am not my stuff.
- We build stories into stuff, so interacting with the stuff becomes interacting with a powerful story.
- Don't value stuff over relationships. Lend.
- It all ends up in landfill eventually, after you die if not before.
- Yes throwing out is hard, because I feel responsible for wastage and the environmental impact. Learn from that feeling not to bring things into the house in the first place.

Everyone is different, and different systems and thoughts work for different people. I personally need to acknowledge the "stories" of my stuff, but not let them control everything. Throwing away an item means throwing away the memories. Throwing away last year's diary means throwing away lots of reminders of events, random lists, even the way I organised my work in 2013 on paper. I got it for free from Elsie, it's from some French business. I glued a map of the CBD inside the front cover. The elastic broke and I repaired it and it broke again. So much history in one item! But I'm learning, I am not my stuff, life needs constant pruning, and I threw it away.

How I'll be single.

I had a revelation today. I'm single, and yes that is a bummer cos if I had the choice I would want to be married, but:

I'm going to be single in such a way that people don't feel sorry for me, and I don't feel sorry for myself. I'm going to be self-reliant, loved by a lot of people, live life to the fullest and make the most of every opportunity. I'm going to try and not moan about the disadvantages, not blame all my problems on being single, not be jealous of people who are getting married (esp young cute people), and generally avoid thinking and speaking negatively. I want people to look at me and see someone living a valid and fulfilled life. I've lived almost 30 years as a single, and I'm used to it, and it's fine.

Some catalysts:

• Bec's blog on Crazy Cat Ladies that made me angry at the disdain our culture has for single people.
• Single people I know who really hate being single. I want to love being single, and I want others to love it.
• One line from the speaker at Engage this year: "marriage isn't singleness plus some better married stuff, you lose singleness when you get married", I forget the exact words but it was about not idealising marriage.

I just wanted to sort of declare it somewhere. Neither marriage nor singleness is without difficulties, but neither is without blessings either, and I'm going to focus on really thriving in singleness and blasting away that corrosive pity, or whatever it is, with the rest of my awesome single life, God-willing.

Healthy ad.

I love this ad. It's my favourite ad since the Kangaroo Island one with the Eddie Vedder song. I'm a little bit disappointed that it has a corporate voiceover and it's for private health cover and not just some kind of "Life: Be in it" campaign, but it's still 45 seconds of happiness in the ad breaks of my life. I think it's nice that it doesn't feature fit, tanned, shiny-toothed beautiful people being "healthy" by doing cartwheels on the beach in bikinis, but instead it's normal-looking people. That resonates. Lovely footage, perfect song, I go along with it.

On a related note, I'm really enjoying oranges at the moment. They've always been the least of the fruits, the only fruit more boring to me is pears, but I'm really into them now, they are up there with nectarines.

Why I like my rules.

Rules make life easier. If I have rules, I don't have to spend as much brainpower evaluating every situation. Cos decisions are hard. Having a rule for a situation doesn't mean that I can never vary my behaviour, but I have a default I stick to.

So I have a rule that I never buy lunch at work. I sometimes buy lunch, when I eat with my colleagues, or there is something new to try, but it's pretty rare. My default is to bring lunch.

And I have a "bedtime". And when it's about that time I go to bed. I don't go to bed when I've finished watching TV, or when I feel tired, or any other arbitrary thing, a different time each night and a specific decision each night. My default is, bedtime. No discipline or thought required.

So that's how I see rules. I'm free to do what I want, eat what I want, go to bed what I want, but all that choice is exhausting. A good habit is a huge relief. And rules help me prop my behaviour until good habits are set.

Subject: Dishwasher announcement!

(This is an email I sent to some of my colleagues today. I feel so much better after making this decision. So many annoyances are now outside of my area of responsibility!)


Hello! Relax, this is not a rant, you can all go on using the dishwasher as you were before.

I am no longer going to use the dishwasher. I will not

1) put things in the dishwasher,
2) turn the dishwasher on,
3) empty the dishwasher, or
4) handwash everything the dishwasher didn't clean (which is now happening every day).

I am going to go back to the pre-dishwasher days and I will wash and dry my own cup and plate and put them away.

Just letting you all know. Dishwasher Club no longer includes me. As you were.

Jess


(I really don't like the dishwasher. I don't like any part of it. Grovelling inside it amongst the stinky old coffee cups, unpacking it, trying to solve the mystery of why things come out completely dirty. It constantly undermines my tranquility and godliness. And then I realised that I don't HAVE to use it. Why is the obvious solution sometimes the hardest to see?)

The last self help article.

http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/10-resolutions-for-mental-health

John Piper's resolutions for mental health, or at least for thankfulness and appreciation. I enjoyed reading it. We'd do well to open our eyes and actually see what's around us "declaring the glories of God". Tip 7 I have doubts about, I don't remember being a "child of the pure unclouded brow, and dreaming eyes of wonder" aka Lewis Carroll; I was a child of the wooden spoon on the bottom. But maybe I should let myself be naughty more often. An inspiring example from Andrew: http://www.dailyvowelmovements.com/2013/05/the-definition-of-dropout.html

I find #5 more difficult to apply I think. "I shall not demean my own uniqueness by envy of others. I shall stop boring into myself to discover what psychological or social categories I might belong to. Mostly I shall simply forget about myself and do my work." Happy to stare at the sky, not so easy to stop reading articles online.

May challenge.

I thought of it this morning. I've got a couple of days to get used to the idea.

No chocolate in May.

I've tried no chocolate challenges before and it's hard to cut out all chocolate because chocolate is everywhere and in a variety of forms, but I basically mean no cadbury etc blocks or bars. I enjoy chocolate a lot, it's a good part of life, but it's just a habit now, so I want to break it.

Exercise, wellbeing and weather.

Elsie and I have been discussing exercise, and trying to shift our thinking from a discipline-based or goal-oriented thing, like "yay I did Jillian 4 times this week I'm so proud of myself", towards a sort of wellbeing thing. So it's more about "just moving", as they say, and enjoying it for its own sake. I'm doing less Jillian but more swimming and walking. I still plan out my swims, walks, and Jillians for the week and it takes discipline to get up early or leave work on time. But I'm trying not to reduce it to forcing myself, to getting it over with and only enjoying being satisfied and tired afterwards; I'm trying to make it more about enjoying moving, enjoying fresh air, enjoying water.

The weather has been abysmal this summer. Swims and walks were cancelled. But, it's worth trying despite the weather, and not just so that you can tick off exercise for the day. Weather can actually enhance the experience. You are more aware of the world when it is blowing you or wetting you—it's a richer experience. It gets you out of your head a bit more, and it can be surprisingly beautiful as well, if you pause and appreciate it. A few weeks ago I swam in the morning with a friend and it was spitting and dark, but we went down to the sea anyway. Got in the water and it started pouring. It was amazing being surrounded by raindrops splashing into the ocean. The surface of the water was very pretty. So it's almost MORE worthwhile in bad weather. I may be over-romanticising rain, but it's worth trying.

No-treats-vember.

One of my sisters is a woman after my own heart. Not that the other one isn't too. She is instigating her own month of a challenge, with a cool name. I don't do cool names other than putting "challenge" on the end of something, so this is a good one. If you have been wanting to do a challenge, this might be just the wit to convince you. No-credi-tcard-vember or No-cheese-vember or No-tv-vember. I'm thinking of doing No-tv-vember, but I probably can't.

Information.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/10/david-allen-on-how-to-fix-your-life/263883/#.UIns-Apttro.mailto


I like "your psyche is not your system". And I like how he prefers paper—I use my phone or iCal for automatic reminders, but day to day stuff goes on paper or in my diary, because I am more likely to see it. Hooray for lists!

Dressing for it.

I always find it interesting to learn how the outside of us affects the inside and then goes back to the outside. Like how apparently smiling, even fake smiling, improves your mood for real. I have a reminder at my desk to smile so sometimes I sit there at work grinning scarily at nothing. Can't hurt. Also, if you dress fancy, you feel fancy, and you act fancy. This is why I have proper exercise clothes, because I want to feel like exercising when I put them on. Some more interesting bits in this article today. Maybe all school and uni students should do exams in those black robes like at Oxford or Hogwarts.

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/fashion/clothes-make-the-woman--smarter-20120828-24xst.html

Simplifying.

I've come back from holidays with the realisation that there is a lot going on in my life in Sydney that I don't need. Too many clothes, too many TV shows, that sort of thing. I did not hear any news from Australia while away, and I seem to have missed nothing, for example. Therefore, I am going to black out the news from now on.

Today I culled my Facebook friends. I got rid of a hundred people who were either inactive, had nothing to do with me, or I don't really like them, etc. I know I could just hide them and keep them all without being annoyed or reminded, but why do I need a fake high number of friends I completely ignore? Just get rid of them and have a true number of people I want to be friends with or remember in any kind of active online way.

I also had a big inbox when I got back, but basically none of it was actually work. That was an hour of deleting. So I unsubscribed from all the stuff I like but don't really need to get news about several times a week.

This is like decluttering but of time and mental space, not mess and physical space!

Progressive Muscle Relaxation.

I've been uncomfortable tight across the back of my shoulders for the last few weeks. I'm stiff even when I get up in the morning. I can't get rid of it while at work obviously, and it doesn't relax in the evening, and no amount of stretching helps much. Yesterday I was so irritated, I'd just decided to get a massage soon, when I had an idea that would be cheaper, and worth trying first. There's some sort of yoga thing for relaxing.

I did a quick search of audible and itunes, listening to samples of tracks that talk you through relaxing your muscles group by group. It's sort of like you concentrate a "yawn" on a part of your body: clench, hold, then relax, then move on. I found one I liked the voice, Ken Goodman, Progressive Muscle Relaxation, and spent $1.69.

I did it while dinner was cooking, but I wasn't sure if you lie down or stand or sit, so I was jumping around and swapping (sitting in my high-backed armchair was the best way way), but in the end it was definitely relaxing. So I did it again around 9pm, it goes for 10 minutes. I went to bed and fell asleep pretty much straight after. And this morning, my shoulders and breathing felt looser. I can gradually feel myself getting a little tense again as the day goes on, frowning at the computer and so on.

I think if you drive, a car would be a brilliant place to do this, when you get home at night. Put the seat back a little and you've got good support for your head and everything. There are some free podcasts of this stuff on itunes so you can try it for free. I'd be interested in hearing if it works for anyone else.

Steam mop review.

I have written this within only hours of purchasing and using the highly anticipated steam mop. I know there is a lot of interest in this subject, people who have been wondering for a long time about getting one but don't know if it'll be any good. Here is the jelssie scoop. I don't have my camera connecter. Unless this laptop has a thing to put a memory card in! Looks like this is it. Never done this before. Photo will be included below if I'm clever.

I bought the Optim, $36 on special at Godfreys, and got talked into buying 2 extra fluffy heads which I wish I hadn't; my hesitation saved me $5 so silent haggling works, but I don't need them yet and wont for a while, so that was not frugal of me. Total spend $50.

It needs to be constructed, but it's not hard to click together. I thought it would only work in a straight upright position but fortunately once I used it it bent to the normal angle for floor cleaning things.

You sweep or vacuum first. Personally I can't see much benefit in vacuuming hard floors, but some people like it. Then you fill it up, wait a minute for it to boil, and then use it like a vac. Each time you push it forward the handle pumps some steam out. Therefore, it actually takes a while for the steam to moisten the floor cloth sufficiently. Next time I would damp the cloth first to get started quicker.

I think it worked quite well. The floor looks clean and the cloth is dirty. It's very manual though. I'd say this cheap one is good enought for my light cleaning. I suppose the expensive ones do more of the work for you, work better on heavy mess and maybe are easier to push. But not a bad investment.

I'm not really sure where to store it. 

Cultivating self-love

I've been thinking about how to cultivate self-love. Mind you, I don't mean narcissism. Rather, I mean a healthy respect and love for one's self that is part of good mental health.

I realised that I had been thinking about it the wrong way. I was thinking, "How can I increase feelings of love towards myself? How can I feel better? How can I like myself more?"

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) says you can't control your feelings. When you try to control your feelings, it can cause a lot of internal struggles and distress. Instead, you can control your actions. This reminded me of how the Bible describes love; that it is action-based.

My theory is: to cultivate self-love, you need to take actions of love towards yourself. It is essentially self-care. Filling up your well. So you might go to bed early every night this week. Meditate. Sing. Pray. Confess. Enjoy your family and friends. Get your body moving. Watch a clip of early 90s HK pop music (I would like to point out that this song was revolutionary when it first came out).

Self-love also involves being compassionate, patient and kind towards yourself. It means turning down the volume on the harsh, inner critic. Accepting your imperfections and limitations.

Your thoughts on self-love?

Write it out.

Tests have been done: worry takes up brain space. Writing about what you are worrying clears the brain before the worrying event, e.g. speech, exam, swim race or whatever. Then with a clear brain you perform better. It only works if you write about your worry, apparently.

This is proof, in my opinion, for the helpfulness of lists. Lists take things out of your brain and put them on paper, so you don't have to remember them anymore.

New body, new mind?

I've talked about having to mentally adjust to a healthier body before. The thing is, you are grateful for your healthier body, but at the same time, it is still really weird.

I feel mentally disconnected from my body. It's the little things, such as not recognising my shadows. I sometimes like to sleep with my hand on my stomach, but now even my stomach doesn't feel the same anymore. When I stretch my legs, I can feel fibre or muscle, which I never felt before. I can feel my hip bones when I put my hands in my coat pockets. All this is new. I look at pictures of me, and I've never looked that healthy before. How can that be me? Who is that person in the photos? I don't know how to view my body anymore.

There's not much literature on the internet (that I could find) on this topic. The closest I came to was Coping With Emotional Changes After Bariatric Surgery. It talks about the mental disconnect I feel. This is what it has to say about it:

Get to Know Yourself After Surgery

It is common for overweight people to disconnect from their bodies. Some avoid looking at their bodies and many withdraw from life. Once thinner, some people still view themselves as obese. Adjusting to your new body size can be difficult, especially if you have spent years thinking of yourself as a fat person. Give yourself time. In a sense, it is like getting to know a “new body.”

Exercising more may help you develop a healthier body image. Support groups may also help as you struggle to accept the new, thinner and healthier you.

It almost sounds laughable doesn't it? That you need a support group to help you as you accept the new, thinner and healthier you. But it's true. It is a struggle for me that I didn't expect. My mind is so used to thinking of myself as an unhealthy, fat person and now that I've left that lifestyle, it doesn't know how to adjust. I guess time will help me to adjust. The new physical me still unsettles the mental me.

It's also made me realise how much we look affects the way we view ourselves.

Bony changes

When you're about the start the healthy life/weight loss journey, you can be pretty excited at the beginning. Impatient even. When you have 10+ kg to lose and you've lost 3kg so far, you're just ITCHING to get there.

I knew my body would change, but I wasn't mentally prepared for it. I've been overweight for the vast majority of my life, so an overweight body is what I know. I don't know what my body as a healthy weight body should look or feel like. When it changes, and you're not mentally prepared, it can be quite unsettling.

Firstly, if you're exercising regularly and continually upping the intensity, you'll get fitter. This one didn't take me much mental adjustment. When I run for the bus, or back to class, I love that I don't get out of breath. I love that running is natural movement for me now.

The really mentally unsettling changes for me were the bony ones. All of a sudden I could see and feel BONE, instead of the fat padding I was used to.

When you lose a significant amount of weight in a relatively short period of time, your mind needs to catch up to the bodily changes. I wasn't mentally prepared to see my face become angular or see my ribs stick out when I'm doing my hair. I was shocked to feel bone when I had put my hands on my hips.

Those changes really freaked me out because I didn't know how to process them. I've never recalled seeing my ribs. I've always known myself with a round face. I didn't know what to make of these changes. They really unsettled me.

So how to prepare for the changes?

• Before the change occurs, be aware that you will look differently, and it may surprise you.
  
  
• If you do get freaked out when the changes occur, acknowledge that it freaks you out.
  
  
• Accept these changes because this is what a healthy body looks and feels like.
  
  
• Accept that it's foreign to you.
  
  
• If it really freaks you out, go see a doctor to make sure you aren't losing too much weight or to get peace of mind.


• If it helps, share the freak out with a friend
  

(You can read more about the bony changes I've experienced here)

Two new series on jelssie

For those of you who haven't seen me in a while or don't read my personal blog, I joined Jenny Craig right before Christmas last year because I knew I had to lose weight. And I have. And I've got a few kgs to go.

When I first started, it was all about losing the weight. But now, I've realised it's more than just that. It is committing to a healthy lifestyle and all that it entails. So even though much of what I want to say relates to weight loss, I am careful in how I use that phrase because:

1. In my case, it's not just weight loss, but fat loss that I'm really after.


2. I want to remind myself it's not just about the weight, but about being healthy in mind and body, and how that makes you feel.

I've learnt a lot during the whole process and I'd like to share with you some of those things. I was most surprised by how much mental stuff and mental change goes on when you're committing to a healthier lifestyle change. I introduce to you, the two new series:

Fight the binge!

The first series I am calling Fight the binge! As I examined why I was living an unhealthy life, I learnt that I have a tendency to compulsively overeat or binge eat. Here I want to share the mental changes I'm making in this area.

Healthy Life/Mental Changes

In this series, I want to talk about the mental changes I needed to make to reach my goal of being healthy.

These two may overlap at times. I hope the things I share will be helpful!