Episode Summary
The theme of last week seemed to be one of resistance and lack of progress. I felt as though I had plateaued and that I was in a holding pattern – no longer suffering, but still not healed.
In today’s episode I look at what I need to do next, though as you will hear, the direction is not clear and I don’t really know what to do.
Episode Transcript (edited)
Hi and welcome to today’s episode of Hope, Help, Happiness.
In today’s episode, I’m in a bit of a quandary because the question I’m asking myself is “What now?”
Where do I turn now? What do I do now? As we’ve seen over the last week, my progress has stalled. I don’t seem to be moving forward at all. I’m almost ignoring or avoiding dealing with the issues that need to be dealt with.
This is probably because I’m at that level now where things are okay. I’m in a good state physically and mentally, and things are progressing in the right direction in those areas.
I don’t feel low anymore. I had a couple of blips a week or so ago, but I’m now pretty much on an even keel.
So the question I have is, okay, well, what do I do next, because I know I can’t stay here? This is really a temporary place to be because I’m still susceptible to reverting back to where I was.
I’ve been reflecting on this state of mind. I wonder whether my expectations are too high – that this desire to move along swiftly is just too high an expectation. Perhaps it needs to be more organic than that.
I’m not quite sure. but I know I am impatient to move this forward to deal with it and manage it and at least do something about it. This is because I can’t go back to where I was.
The trouble is I’ve got so many options in terms of sources of information. Primarily that’s books. I read a lot and that has fuelled my self awareness. Unfortunately rather than helping, that just gives me too many options on things that I could do to move forward.
Over the last seven weeks or so, I’ve referenced the Choose Yourself book by James Altucher and the Learned Optimism book by Martin Seligman.
A new one has to come to light, which I saw referenced on the impact theory videos yesterday, which is the Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene. I bought it, I scanned it, and there’s a lot of powerful stuff in it.
So I have lots of information and I still don’t know what to do.
I certainly need an insurance policy to stop any reoccurrence of what’s happened before. And I also probably need to develop more skills to deal with it should it happen again.
But I don’t really know what I’m working towards. I don’t know what the end goal is, or indeed if there is an end goal.
I don’t have a guide. I’m having therapy through counselling, but that’s just about them listening to me talk about stuff. They don’t direct it. Whatever comes up comes up.
I’m not sure about trusting my intuition because there’s so much stuff in the background that has driven my behaviours that I doubt its motives. I doubt its ability to guide me in the right direction. Maybe I’m being harsh on it. I don’t know.
Across all my thinking, there’s a sense that I don’t want to do the wrong thing so I won’t do anything. And that’s where I’m at, which I suppose is an element of learned helplessness.
Maybe that’s what I should go towards – Learned Helplessness?
On a positive note, I’m making practical progress. I am meditating; my diet is good; I am exercising again; I’m doing the Wim Hoff method with the breathing and the cold showers.
But on the emotional, psychological and thinking front, I’m not sure what to do.
When I thought about what I was going to say in this episode, I decided I would revisit, Choose Yourself by James Altucher because that’s where it all started.
His daily practice is what got me out of my funk earlier on this year. In fact by just starting his simple daily practice, which is just doing one thing, that was enough to kick start me into more positive and supportive behaviours. And that was the lever that opened up the rest of the progress that I’ve made.
So I think I’m going to go back to that book. I’m going to revisit the daily practice and see if there’s anything else I can do that covers the full range of physical, emotional, mental and spiritual bodies.
I think that’s probably a good place to start because even if it’s not going to send me in the right direction, at least the activities are positive.
But I’m already doing the physical stuff. The emotional stuff – that’s what I’m avoiding at the moment. The mental stuff – yes I am using my brain in putting together this podcast and working on activities to get me back into the workplace.
On the spiritual front, I’ve played around a little bit with meditation and gratitude, but I could probably do more.
So it’s a good place to start. Then maybe the next thing after that is to look at Learned Optimism and see where that takes me.
This is self directed healing and I have to do this because the NHS won’t get involved for another five months. I’ve got to wait for that to kick in to get some advice to actually move forward.
With me doing this, it’s like the blind leading the blind. I’m scrambling around in the dark, looking for something that will at least maintain my emotional status quo. Hopefully it’ll maintain how I am at the moment. But I know that it’s not going to be enough, but it’s at least a start.
Instead of just becoming a victim and saying, “Oh, I don’t know what to do”, I’m going to do something.
I’ve got to do something. I’ve got to get some form of momentum, even if it is in the wrong direction. Because I can always pivot and apply that energy to something else.
I’ve got to get started, I’ve got to move forward or at least I’ve got to take some steps forward even if that might be in the wrong direction. Even if only to feel like I have a semblance of control over my emotional state.
It’s a bit of a confusing episode, but it’s something I felt I needed to express to myself.
It demonstrates the frame of mind I’m in at the moment – uncertain where to go.
So I’m picking a direction I’ve looked at before, but probably need to go a little bit deeper and a bit richer. Previously I didn’t fully implement what was there. And I think that’s part of my problem. I dabble with these things, but don’t take them to its full conclusion.
I’ll see how this goes.
Until tomorrow.
