Tough with myself

A week of two steps forward, one step back.

My daimon is more a flickering presence in my life than it was a few days back.  Maybe because I've been disregarding his advice and peeking at television.  Ah, The Good Wife.  Such sweet trangression.

But seriously. I don't want to keep drifting back into bad patterns. I want to really cultivate this daimon and achieve my dreams of happiness.  I have a son and he needs to know that happiness is possible.

My first psychotherapist once brought my attention to the difference of being tough on ourself and tough with ourself.  When I think of what tough with myself means, it means that I need to be truly willing to see reality. And then once I've achieved that willingness, I need to want to see it. And I need to prepare myself for the inevitability of some pain and change along the way as I see that reality.

For instance.  I need to get more sleep.  I'm in a bad cycle that impacts my creativity, energy, happiness hugely.  But for some reason I don't want to look at that.  For one thing, because to get a good sleep I need to probably go to sleep before Ben. That's going to mean a change of routine. Probably some arguing.  And then I may end up giving in.

That routine needs to change. There's no point beating myself up about it.  But to really make that change, there's going to be some difficulty. There's going to be some nights where I'm not actually able to get to sleep that early. There are going to be some nights where I have to sit with my financial anxieties. But they are made worse by lack of sleep.

So, how do I start to change this routine in a way that is tough with myself, but not tough on myself?  I need a nurturing voice that is also able to tell me what I need to hear.  Compassionate, but also tough.  Something that says, yes you have natural intelligence, openness and spirit, but you can't let television and poor sleeping patterns muck with that.  You can't because the consequences are incremental and really serious over time.

Tonight is Daylight savings time, a return of the clock back an hour. It's a good night to start this because Ben will actually be more primed for an earlier bedtime. And maybe I can sneak a half hour of meditation in in the morning.  

my hypothesis

So I've had a hypothesis ever since I started this blog that Zhan Zhuang would lead me towards a good life. And not just a good life, but an amazing life. Because that's what an adventure should be, an experience of things that are amazing.

I still believe that, even though I keep letting go of my practice every time my life starts getting exciting. This is my challenge to maintain my practice through the exciting times. It's easy to take up my practice when my life has sunk into despair and I'm depleted of energy. The magnetic force that renews me is always there. But can I keep it up when I start to experience the high of success?

Maybe that's the wrong question. Will it still be there? Of course it is. This energy is always there. It never goes away. It is the essence of love. There.

But maybe that's why it's so important to take it slow. Even when all I want to do is stand. I need to take it slow and see how it slowly influences my decisions so that they lead to the kind of incremental success that doesn't blow itself up.