Alex's Journal

So while I know most of you read my FB at this point, I'm going to put this here, also (think of it as extra, extra insurance on doing them:)

So elsewhere I wrote what my goals for this year are, and I figured, well, let's post them to FB as well.
1. Be gentler with myself overall. (I have a tendency to be a bit of a perfectionist, and not in a good way [is there a good way?]. So this one is the most important one.)
2. Write at least three sentences a day.
3. Read at least one book a month.
4. Meditate at least five minutes every morning.
5. Find something fun that feels more like 'play' than 'exercise'.

No, they aren't lofty aspirations (and I know a bunch of people are going *one book a month???* and dying a little on the inside), but... if I do better than this then that's good. If I do only this, I can be satisfied. And if I don't manage all of these, then that's okay too. Trying to make that my mindset for 2016.

2015 was an... interesting year. I did a number of things, even though it felt for much of it like I was wading through the molasses of my low energy and a fuckton of self-loathing. (See also Item #1.) Therapy has been going... well? I think? Like at least I'm able to identify the fact that I have a lot of self-loathing, haha? >.> (And also nervous laughter when I'm actually upset about something/self-conscious? ;))

I dunno. It's really hard to tell as it goes if progress is being made, but I think things are going well. So I'm going to trust that it is, in fact, doing what it says on the tin, even if at this point I think I've been going about three times as long as what it's "supposed" to run. (CBT and IPT, the two therapies my therapist is using, are both intended to be fairly short-term, and we're now at 16 months, rather than weeks.) I dunno if that's just me, or what. (I do know I have been fairly resistant to the idea of being okay with small victories.)

But, let's see how 2016 plays out. (Yosh'!)