Here's what I've noticed:
You can get a lot of dopamine hits from telling people you are going to do something, without ever doing the something.
This is one of the flaws in the machine.
When I was set free from my toxic workplace, I was also experiencing several other serious life changing events; I found and subsequently met my biological father, my daughter found her bio dad, but has not contacted him, and the search for my daughter's bio dad brought up some seriously traumatic memories for me that I had repressed for 35 years.
The plan in the beginning was to take this time to sit with my feelings and emotions regarding all of this new information, process my feelings and emotions, and use this time to transition into my next iteration. This is not the first time in my life I have had to go thru this process. I have had to reinvent myself several times and each time I came out better than before.
So I jumped in with both feet and had all this excitement around refocusing my energy. I was going to focus on improving my diet, my exercise regimen, my nutrition. I set up my office to be my writing station and I cleaned and organized my art room so I could easily get in there and work on my crafty skills. In the beginning it was pretty great. I was writing every day. I was learning new art skills. I was listening to the masters lectures and reading the spiritual writings. My meditation game took on a whole new level of meaning. I was eating well. I had all kinds of energy for exercising. I was set to succeed at failing once again!
And then what had happened was...
Insomnia is so devastating. It begins with waking up to a hot flash, but then the hot flash never stops. I just flush and sweat for 3 to 5 hours at a time, during which I CANNOT sleep. I CANNOT focus. I CANNOT do a DANG thing, until the flush passes. Which then results in an extreme chill that rattles my teeth so hard I'm afraid some of them will crack from the exertion.
Sleeplessness causes all of its own dysfunctions, not the least of which is poor eating choices, which lead to indigestion, which leads to more sleeplessness which leads to more poor eating choices, etc. and so forth.
I have been in the throws of extreme menopause for 6 and a half years now. I had my first hot flash on Nov 1, 2015. I distinctly remember waking up exactly 2 hours after I went to bed. The process is thus: I have an aura, which feels kind of like that prickly feeling you get right before you break out in a nervous sweat, and then my temperature spikes and my whole body is quickly covered in sweat. Once the flash is over, I usually fall back to sleep.
In the beginning, the nightly flushes occured every 2 hours. After a while, they started happening during the day as well. The daytime flushes don't adhere to any schedule. They can come on several times in an hour, or not for several hours. I've tried journaling them to see if anything was influencing the onset, such as dietary or environmental influences, and the results were inconclusive.
Add in to this disruptive process the constant changing weather we've been experiencing in Michigan this spring and the effect is intensified. I am solar powered. While I enjoy an occasional rainy day and/or thunder storm, I do not do well in the inclement weather. My mother suffered terribly from S.A.D. and I'm guessing that I do as well, though I've never had a doctor address it as such. I don't like to be outside when it is too windy, too cold, or too wet. Yucky weather is just a NOPE for me.
On top of all of this, April has just been a very odd month for most of the people in my circle. Most of my yoga students have been going through their own stuff so I haven't had many students in my actual studio. This always takes a toll on my when I'm not at my finest. I have to constantly talk to my inner voice and tell her that this is not a commentary on how they feel about me or the yoga I offer, it just means I need to develop my services to be available in a more accessible format.
This leads me to my latest decision: I'm going to have to learn how to use the interwebs right and properly. I am going to build my website, learn how to use digital formats and get my act out there. This is somehow terrifying for me, as a gen Xer, I am more comfortable with analog processes, even though I have been using the internet for more than 30 years!
So, dear readers, please keep me to my word. Don't let me live on the dopamine high of SAYING I'm going to do this. I am sitting down today to write out a plan for how I am going to get a website together and how to get my products up there for any and all to access. Wish me luck!
namaste!
