Recovery

I'm taking a recovery day off! I've been sick with a cold, and today I woke up with no voice, a message from my body to chill out a bit.

Agenda:

1. Read "5 Resets"

2. My Gratitude List

3. Care for the Studio

1. Read "5 Resets":

I started this book for Lent: "The 5 Resets: Rewire Your Brain and Body for Less Stress and More Resilience" (2024), by Aditi Nerurkar. I'm into the 5th and final reset: 

Bring Your Best Self Forward, about silencing my inner critic.

Right now I'm not experiencing a great deal of self-doubt or stress, and She is pretty 

quiet, but on days when things go wrong, She has a lot to say, and I over-react to the tiniest mistake.

During stress, negative experiences are like velcro, a built-in protective mechanism to keep me alert to danger. A simple in-the-moment reset is to Stop, Breathe, and Be (synching brain and body), but a longer term fix is to reset my underlying doomsday mode with gratitude, by actively cultivating positive thoughts.

Gratitude is not an easy subject for me, but I think it might be important right now, and I want to work at this carefully. I'm going to continue this a little each day. For now, I'll begin a list and add to it each day.

2. My gratitude list:

1. I'm thankful that I had my grandsons with me at Meeting yesterday - they fill me with joy.
2. I'm grateful for a very long nap.
3. I'm grateful for my core group of Moon Friends, and the vulnerability they show and allow me to show. 

3. Care for the Studio:

My house care theme for the coming month is Basic Care and Zen Order. This means do the basics each week (sweeping, dusting, etc.) and find a zen balance of order that feels good.

I've been using this 2-step process for organizing stuff, from KC Davis' book:

1. Go systematically around a room and in each space, first put away everything that has a home, and gather everything with no home in one spot. 
2. Decide what to do with each of the unhoused items: Trash or find them a permanent home.  

This week I plan to:

• Clear the painting table and set up for map making.
• Choose one junk box to sort and empty out.
• Take a trip to MECCA with a box of giveaways.