Weeks 2-5 Managing Stress & controlling diabetes

I apologize that it has taken me so long to resume blogging although I have been doing my best to work on managing stress and self-care – I sure do need it. But I have been keeping notes and so the following entries are from them. Thank you so much for your patience.

The end of Week 2 was unfortunately a bust. I thought I would be able to practice while traveling but after flying long haul with a baby alone and five days of social gatherings (funerals are like parties in the UK) I was beyond exhausted. When I arrived home, my son had caught a cold and I brought him to a doctor for antibiotics. The day after, my husband’s aunt and uncle arrived and would stay for 10days but I resumed my practice midway through Week 3:

I found it a little discouraging getting back into it for the first few days. I felt like I was starting from scratch and I’d forgotten how to do it without studying the chart.
Also I found it difficult to focus and be there in the moment. And with visitors, I had to prepare proper meals or I was being treated to one, whereas on a daily basis I just enjoy simple food and no big cleanup or fanfare. And then of course one needs to take people shopping and sightseeing and staying up late and so forth, and with a baby it’s tiring. Particularly since we sent away most of our doors for paint stripping over the weekend, we could hear each other moving at night and so could the baby, who would wake up 4 or 5 times, and so I had very little sleep. I don’t even want to get into how stressed out I was over the lead paint dust left by 15 doors being removed and the lengthy cleanup of carpets. Ugh.

Week 4: Managing Stress & controlling diabetes

We still had our visitors but I was settling into my practice and relaxing a bit. The meditation room still had a door, so I practiced there. After reading the blog, I also decided to try a pen instead of my knuckles. Actually, I prefer the eraser end of a pencil. I worked on my posture as well and tried meditative journeying by imagining the Japanese cedar outside. I missed being able to practice in the bath since there was only an airplane blanket for a door! At night after the baby woke and I put him back to sleep, I practiced in bed in the dark and found it very effective for getting me in a good frame of mind for going back to sleep. I picked up my friend from Belgium from the airport on Thursday night and my husband’s aunt and uncle left on Friday morning. We all shared a nice meal of Brazilian soup followed by fruit and chocolate fondue. For the weekend, I was only able to practice once a day since my friend was visiting.

Week 5: Managing Stress & controlling diabetes

Heaven is an empty house. And simple pleasures like occasionally watching television. I had a lot of catching up to do, cleaning and getting various paperwork for five years of back taxes because we’re being audited, doctors appointments, interviewing contractors for interior renovations (I think I found a reasonable one) but failed at finding someone reasonably priced to cleanup the leaves. My husband spent most of the week in Nebraska on business. My son was up at night a lot because of teething so I was tired but I wasn’t being pulled fifteen ways so to speak. I did have time to think about self-care and how it might be affecting me: I have no way of knowing if the diabetes exercises are working. However, I did have a blood test for my life insurance policy and it came out perfectly normal. In the past, I’ve had high cholesterol, high blood pressure and thyroid issues but this time I was fine and haven’t been watching my diet at all. As far as the self-care for stress goes, I do believe that it helps. It’s unfortunate that I haven’t been able to settle into a routine as such since my life is busy and it pulls me constantly in different directions, therefore, I can’t say that my days are consistent enough to measure my stress alongside the exercises, but I do know that I feel better afterwards. And I know from prior stressful experiences that stress can spiral and I’ve come back and found calm each week, so perhaps that’s meaningful. I meant to blog before the weekend and I apologize that I didn’t – my babysitter canceled for Saturday and we had a 1920s fancy dress party and I went through hell on Friday finding one in a pinch. I was in rough shape on Sunday and Monday and wish I had the wherewithal to lookup the detox exercise. I finished raking a mountain of leaves at 10pm tonight (my neighbors must think I’m crazy but that was the only time I could do it with the baby). Tomorrow I drive 6 hours to my family’s house for Thanksgiving and on Friday I have my 20-year high school reunion. I’ll bring Muller’s book with me since I’ll need exercises for a dozen ailments and the phone number for a good psychotherapist. Happy turkey day everyone!