Possible Ponderings: Trust
Feb. 17th, 2020 02:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingMy congregation does a monthly "theme" called Possible Ponderings, to sort of create the opportunity for people to think about shared topics during that month.
February's theme is trust.
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The theme for February is Trust. Possible Ponderings is an offering of ways you might consider engaging more deeply with the theme or reflecting on the ways the idea of Trust show up in your life. These will also be printed in the order of service each week.
February 2-8: How does "showing up" for others and yourself help to build trust?
February 9-15: Pay attention this week to how you spend your time. What does it say about what you value? How could you better align your time and your values?
February 16-22: What do you say to yourself when you're struggling? How is that going for you?
February 23-29: Who are the people in your life that you trust most? Why do you think that is the case?
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Personally, I feel like week 1 is kind of self-explanatory? And I want to do the week 2 exercise at various points during the year, because I am fairly sure the way I spend my time mostly says I value... hmm... consuming other people's creative works? Also responsibility, in the sense of showing up to work on time and fulfilling my job duties, and community participation inasmuch as I do church committee stuff, and creativity of my own. But I feel like I would probably do better both on a mental health front and on a living-my-values front if I got involved in some groups outside my church, which are centered around Doing Things either for enjoyment or for charitable purposes. Like a hiking group, maybe? Or soup kitchen stuff.
The problem is that A) I straight up do not have the time during tax season, B) transportation can be an issue, and C) the ever-present shadow of my intent to move to Minnesota.
Anyway. Moving on!
What do I say to myself when I'm struggling? Generally some mix of, "Yeah, this is complicated and/or requires a lot of spoons, but it needs to get done and you will feel SO MUCH BETTER once it's done. Otherwise you're just going to keep carrying all the weight of the unfinished task around for ages and that's a lot more complicated and stressful than just doing the thing," and "Okay, let's pretend I'm a functional adult for half an hour. I can pretend anything for half an hour!" and sometimes even, "Okay, you can take today off so long as you promise to get up early and do the thing tomorrow."
Also sometimes I enlist other people to poke me until I do the thing, because internal motivation is hard and sometimes externalizing it makes a huge difference, even if there isn't actually any deadline or practical consequence for not doing the thing in question. (My brother and I occasionally outsource motivation to each other this way -- "Hey, tell me to do Thing X?" "Sure! Do Thing X. Can you tell me to do Thing Y?" "Sure! Do Thing Y." -- because anxiety and depression share enough symptoms that we both understand.)
I guess this might also be interpreted as struggling emotionally rather than struggling with tasks/feeling overwhelmed? In which case it's usually related to a task I'm buried under, or, you know, faulty brain chemistry. In the former case, handling the task will generally fix my emotional woes. In the latter case, I have SSRIs. :) Because faulty body chemistry is faulty body chemistry, whether the chemicals in question control thyroid function, insulin uptake, or the ability to feel any emotions other than bleak exhaustion. So in that case, it was basically "No seriously, schedule an appointment and get back on meds, because this is clearly no longer periodic depression but has swung back into chronic depression and you cannot function like this," and repeating that and enlisting external reminders until I got that process started.
I mean, and sometimes you just say, "Yeah, this sucks," and do some nice things for yourself and talk to people/hug people/spend time with people until time sort of wears down the rough edges of whatever the emotion was? Because that's about the only thing you can do for grief, really.
(I am unsure what to do in situations of chronic anger except get the fuck out, but that's mostly because I have spent the entirety of my adult life arranging things to stay out of situations like that, because I know chronic anger would destroy me.)
...
That got more personal than I was expecting. Oops?
Anyway, I should get back to work.
February's theme is trust.
-----
The theme for February is Trust. Possible Ponderings is an offering of ways you might consider engaging more deeply with the theme or reflecting on the ways the idea of Trust show up in your life. These will also be printed in the order of service each week.
February 2-8: How does "showing up" for others and yourself help to build trust?
February 9-15: Pay attention this week to how you spend your time. What does it say about what you value? How could you better align your time and your values?
February 16-22: What do you say to yourself when you're struggling? How is that going for you?
February 23-29: Who are the people in your life that you trust most? Why do you think that is the case?
-----
Personally, I feel like week 1 is kind of self-explanatory? And I want to do the week 2 exercise at various points during the year, because I am fairly sure the way I spend my time mostly says I value... hmm... consuming other people's creative works? Also responsibility, in the sense of showing up to work on time and fulfilling my job duties, and community participation inasmuch as I do church committee stuff, and creativity of my own. But I feel like I would probably do better both on a mental health front and on a living-my-values front if I got involved in some groups outside my church, which are centered around Doing Things either for enjoyment or for charitable purposes. Like a hiking group, maybe? Or soup kitchen stuff.
The problem is that A) I straight up do not have the time during tax season, B) transportation can be an issue, and C) the ever-present shadow of my intent to move to Minnesota.
Anyway. Moving on!
What do I say to myself when I'm struggling? Generally some mix of, "Yeah, this is complicated and/or requires a lot of spoons, but it needs to get done and you will feel SO MUCH BETTER once it's done. Otherwise you're just going to keep carrying all the weight of the unfinished task around for ages and that's a lot more complicated and stressful than just doing the thing," and "Okay, let's pretend I'm a functional adult for half an hour. I can pretend anything for half an hour!" and sometimes even, "Okay, you can take today off so long as you promise to get up early and do the thing tomorrow."
Also sometimes I enlist other people to poke me until I do the thing, because internal motivation is hard and sometimes externalizing it makes a huge difference, even if there isn't actually any deadline or practical consequence for not doing the thing in question. (My brother and I occasionally outsource motivation to each other this way -- "Hey, tell me to do Thing X?" "Sure! Do Thing X. Can you tell me to do Thing Y?" "Sure! Do Thing Y." -- because anxiety and depression share enough symptoms that we both understand.)
I guess this might also be interpreted as struggling emotionally rather than struggling with tasks/feeling overwhelmed? In which case it's usually related to a task I'm buried under, or, you know, faulty brain chemistry. In the former case, handling the task will generally fix my emotional woes. In the latter case, I have SSRIs. :) Because faulty body chemistry is faulty body chemistry, whether the chemicals in question control thyroid function, insulin uptake, or the ability to feel any emotions other than bleak exhaustion. So in that case, it was basically "No seriously, schedule an appointment and get back on meds, because this is clearly no longer periodic depression but has swung back into chronic depression and you cannot function like this," and repeating that and enlisting external reminders until I got that process started.
I mean, and sometimes you just say, "Yeah, this sucks," and do some nice things for yourself and talk to people/hug people/spend time with people until time sort of wears down the rough edges of whatever the emotion was? Because that's about the only thing you can do for grief, really.
(I am unsure what to do in situations of chronic anger except get the fuck out, but that's mostly because I have spent the entirety of my adult life arranging things to stay out of situations like that, because I know chronic anger would destroy me.)
...
That got more personal than I was expecting. Oops?
Anyway, I should get back to work.
