New Ways of Thinking

Good morning!  I slept in this morning - I did not get up until 6:30.  It's funny, but when I get up around 4:15, I easily could stay up.  I just don't want to start my day that early, so I ususally crank the heat back up (I like to sleep under warm blankets on a cold night), return to bed, and go back to sleep.  The next time I wake up, getting up is a slower process.  It takes a while longer to brush away the cobwebs and get up.

Yesterday, I wrote about the allure of the fantasy world.  A short while later, I found myself right in the middle of a fantasy.  When I realized what I was doing, I was able to put the fantasy aside and stay in the real world the rest of the day.  Here's what happened.  As I was taking a shower, I was thinking of ways to increase my social life and to stay connected with other people, and I thought about joining St. Theodore's choir.  Now, I know I can't sing, but they've always assured me that it doesn't matter.  See - they are a very welcoming bunch.  It would be a good group to join.  So, I imagined  myself joining the choir, and before long, I was picturing myself at mass next Christmas, stepping out of the choir to play my guitar.  I would move everyone in the congregation with my delicate and beautifully haunting renditions of "Silent Night" and "What Child Is This?"

Yes, I know that it's okay to have a vision of yourself doing something that you would like to do.  Success coaches urge people to see themselves as already doing/being whatever it is they want to do/be. (do be do)  [Okay, Carla.  I know you won't get that.  It's Frank Sinatra.  He sang a song called "Strangers in the Night" with "do be do be do" in the lyrics.]   But this was more than just seeing myself doing something that I would like to do.  Although I knew this wasn't the real world, it had all of my attention and focus.  It was as though I had stepped into that world, in a sense.  I had gone from a feeling of well-being to feeling overly excited and tense. 

It took a few attempts to get my attention refocused on the here and now, but I did it, and I didn't go back into that fantasy world again yesterday.  The balancing act for me is to be able to feel hopeful, even excited, about me, my life, the future, without getting carried away to a fantasy world. 

I'm still learning how to make a to-do list.  What works best for me is to break down jobs into smaller tasks.  For example, I originally had written "organize closet" on my list.  I've now broken this down into six steps.  As I complete each step, I cross that off my list and know that I have completed a task that gets me closer to having my closet organized.  That beats thinking that I still haven't finished my closet.

It is a small thing, perhaps, but it has a big psychological effect.  It is so satisfying to see that I have made real progress toward achieving my goals.  And it is very discouraging to me if I see something on my list that I have begun, but haven't completed.  That has a kind of demoralizing effect on me and makes me less likely to continue. 

Well, everybody, stay warm and safe.