3rd Week in Therapy

So I have been in therapy for two and a half weeks now. So far so good!! Last week didn't go very well for me. I kept up with my food journal, and worked on some of the self care items, including getting a pedicure and looking up church services where I could go and sing (although I haven't tried going yet. I am really hoping to find a weeknight service instead of Sunday, but no luck yet.)
However, when it came to exercise, I didn't get any. Since I sprained my ankle Monday, the next few days it was too sore for me to work out. By the time it got better, my therapy week was over.
Also, when it came to school work and recreation time - the whole "organizing my time" assignment, I really didn't do well.

My appointment was changed back to Friday and I requested that it be a phone appointment... see, I was ready to get back on track and I needed to do a marathon homework day on Friday to help me catch up. I needed to do SIX school lessons, which is a week and a half of work, in one day. I knew if I spent 3 hours going to therapy, the odds would be I couldn't get that accomplished. She agreed so we did my one hour appointment over the phone which left me the rest of the day.

I'm happy to say I DID get my six lessons done on Friday!!! It basically took me the entire day other than meals and my phone appointment. Which unfortunately - again - left no workout time and I was exhausted after. But I felt great because I accomplished my goal, plus quite a few things around the house that I needed to do like dishes, laundry, and making dinner!

THE APPOINTMENT:

So here is what we discussed on Friday. I basically had to tell her that I didn't accomplish any of the assignments she had given me... other than getting a pedicure. I felt pretty bad... I felt like I "wasted" my week. She was so great though... she assured me that a resistance to change is normal, and I shouldn't feel guilty about it.... and that I had already taken a big step to get back on track by making the most of Friday.

She strikes a great balance because while she did ease my guilt over last week, she was also very firm in telling me that I need to take responsibility for my actions this week and truly commit to trying the things we have talked about.

She said I am stuck in a cycle, much like a mouse on a wheel. I go through feeling lazy and unaccomplished and wanting to get better at how I use my time and accomplishing my goals... and then I go to the extreme and sort of wear myself out, then I get back to being lazy and over and over again I go through this same cycle. I need to have a schedule and learn to stick to it. Much like almost everything else "intuitive" (eating, self-care, etc) I need to start out by paying a lot of attention to this and commiting to stick with it, but in the future I can be much more flexible with it and I won't have to think about it nearly as much.

She wants me to commit to our time schedule plan for three weeks without straying from it, because that is supposedly the length of time it takes to create a habit. Three weeks seems like suuuuch a long time to me right now, but hey, I have two very successful days under my belt so I guess I am on my way.

The basic schedule I am following right now is spending my first hour awake doing the things I enjoy and like to start my day with... this is writing snail mail to my friends back home, checking emails, checking in on facebook, and looking at photos on Flickr. I am to limit this to 30-60 minutes.

Then I grab my breakfast, bring it up to my desk and start working on school work. Once I am caught up this will only be 1-2 hours per day, but right now it is much more since I'm behind. My current classes end this coming Friday, so after that I am starting fresh and won't be behind anymore as long as I stay on schedule.

After my classwork is complete I can choose to either have some recreation time (tv,internet,etc) while I eat lunch and for a couple hours after.... then do my workout. Or, reverse that... do my workout, then eat lunch and have recreation time.

This recreation time is my "unstructured" recreation time... tv/internet mindlessness stuff. The other thing I need to work in is spending time with 'productive' recreation time - working on my hobbies like digital scrapbooking and photography... and of course, blogging! I have a tendency to just stick with the mindlessness activities because I just get lazy. Laziness is my BIGGEST problem and it affects everything... so this is something I am working on. I need to spend more time on my hobbies. I enjoy them, so why don't I spend time on them??? No reason except for laziness.

I am also working on dedicating time each day to regular chores like dishes, laundry, cleaning and straightening, etc... as well as crossing miscellaneous items off my to do list.

Right now the only part we have "scheduled" is the hour of recreation time in the morning, followed by school work, followed by a workout. The rest I am just doing my best to start incorporating also, as part of working on my self-care.

THIS WEEK SO FAR:
The weekend is less structured since I do school during the week like a regular work week. But this weekend I managed to do several productive things like laundry, grocery shopping, and cooking meals, so I feel really good about that.

Yesterday (Monday) was my first "scheduled" day and I think I did really well.

After my hour of 'fun' in the morning, I got straight to work and stayed focused. I managed to have three school lessons completed by lunch time.
I had my lunch and watched my shows from sunday night, trying to let my food settle. Unfortunately by the time my food settled I felt really tired so I took a nap, and when I got up I had no desire to work out. But I managed to make several phone calls I'd been putting off, and get most of the work done on our calendars for Christmas, so it was definitely a successful day.

Today (Tuesday) was even better - even though I woke up with a MIGRAINE! UGH! I felt so so so crappy. So I got up slowly, took a long hot shower, and had breakfast with a big dose of Excedrin. Then I spent my recreational hour, and by the time I was done with that my head felt much better. It took me longer than usual, but I managed to still get all three school lessons completed! I took a break in the middle for lunch with Ian (he works from home on Tuesdays.)
I wasn't finished with school until about 3pm... but I did it. My stomach didn't feel settled yet, so I finished up our calendars... and at 4pm I did my 30 minute workout! I am stunned I managed to do a workout on a day I woke up with a migraine.

And now I'm blogging... and when I'm done, I'm going to catch up on my photos. All in all a 100% successful day. I have also had a great eating day :)

I may have lost some time but I feel like I am making a lot of progress right now. All in all great feelings. I'm going to keep working on making each day a great on-schedule day and my next appointment is this Friday at 12 :) Hopefully this weekend I will be able to blog again... and next week I will be feeling free because I will have finished the two classes that I got so behind on, and I will be in two new classes. They actually start tomorrow but I won't be starting them til Monday since I am already behind. But next week's workload will be quite a bit lighter. :)

I just love Dr. Kate. She is really supportive and I feel like she REALLY understands me and addresses my problems the right way. She knows I need constructive criticism instead of tough love... she frees me from guilt yet is firm about my taking responsibility for my actions. She is treating me as a whole, instead of just trying ti 'fix' one part of me. This may take a while, but I have NEVER felt so positive about improving my life!