Spoons

I’ve found myself at one of my current fav restaurants, Roost KL, after first having to skip Pulp due to the lack of parking. Coffee here is not bad, having a long black, but the ambience here is killer and the music this afternoon has been great. I could spend a whole afternoon here writing/reading/chilling in comfort followed by dinner haha.

So anyway… Spoons….

I now finally know what spoons are. After noticing many instragram and other #ChronicIllness related posts mentioning spoons I finally decided to do a little digging, and after taking the time to “painstakingly” typing out ‘spoons’ + ‘fibromyalgia’ into my good friend Google, I found what I wanted. A post on butyoudontlooksick.com by Christine Miserandino, a.k.a. @butyoudontlooksick, talking about how she spontaneously used spoons to illustrate to her best friend the extent to which lupus had changed her daily life. She explained that she had a limited number of spoons a day, I think she used 12 in the illustration, and that even the simplest acts such as waking up & driving cost ‘spoons’. I’m not doing justice to her post so please read it, I’ll post the link here but for now the passage below should suffice.

I rarely see her emotional, so when I saw her upset I knew maybe I was getting through to her. I didn’t want my friend to be upset, but at the same time I was happy to think finally maybe someone understood me a little bit. She had tears in her eyes and asked quietly “Christine, How do you do it? Do you really do this everyday?” I explained that some days were worse then others; some days I have more spoons then most. But I can never make it go away and I can’t forget about it, I always have to think about it. I handed her a spoon I had been holding in reserve. I said simply, “I have learned to live life with an extra spoon in my pocket, in reserve. You need to always be prepared.” Its hard, the hardest thing I ever had to learn is to slow down, and not do everything. I fight this to this day. I hate feeling left out, having to choose to stay home, or to not get things done that I want to. I wanted her to feel that frustration. I wanted her to understand, that everything everyone else does comes so easy, but for me it is one hundred little jobs in one. I need to think about the weather, my temperature that day, and the whole day’s plans before I can attack any one given thing. When other people can simply do things, I have to attack it and make a plan like I am strategizing a war. It is in that lifestyle, the difference between being sick and healthy. It is the beautiful ability to not think and just do. I miss that freedom. I miss never having to count “spoons”.

And thereafter the term Spoon/Spoonie/Spoonies was born and utilized by the chronically ill to explain the effort needed for activities that we used to take for granted, to people around us and over social media.

So now I know, and beyond knowing what it means now I also know what it is like to spend spoons on even the most basic of things, things that I didn’t even need to take a second to think about a few years back.

I know it all to well.

I don’t like to think about it and in the past have completely ignore this concept (to my great detriment) because I don’t like being reminded about my limits. I don’t like having to “say no” when someone asks me to help out or wants to hangout or subsequently missing out on things (because if I did I would be taking an advance on my spoons for the next few days) because I’m running out spoons for the day. The first one (saying no) makes me feel like I’m disappointing the asker (though I have gotten better at it in certain areas), especially if it’s family, and the latter pushes me to feel distant, out of the loop or even alienated (not sure if that’s the right word).

I’m grateful that over the last few years I’ve managed to expand my daily number of spoons (however the numbers” do fluctuate going up and down but if a line of best for was graphed, it would be upward sloping) but it’s still quite a challenge. I once had such dreams & ambitions, actually I still have them but it seems either too farfetched to be able to keep up with them without having a flare up kick my ass because I pushed too hard, as I learnt last month, or at least not just yet… I haven’t grown my daily number of spoons to a point that is needed. Hence I will have to be patient and play the long game, try not to get impatient and go into a headlong rush (like last month or during exam season) and burn out.

This is not me waving a white flag in defeat but explaining my situation as it is, yes I have gotten better and yes I will continue to do so, but that should not be confused with me being in optimal health. Of course I’m going to try my best to ”not look sick’ and do my best to live life but that doesn’t write off the fact that I have limits and I need to always keep that in mind, and so do the people around me.

When I say no to or seem hesitant (probably because I want to say no without actually saying no) please do me a favor and give me the benefit of the doubt, please don’t assume I’m being lazy or something like that, please don’t guilt trip me because emotional blackmail is really quite a cruel thing especially when is already fogged, fatigued and in pain and please don’t hold it against me.

As it is I already spend so much energy (or so many spoons) daily just trying to do normal things let alone trying to push my limits so as to expand them, so please don’t make me ‘borrow’ against tomorrow’s spoons. I really do need support, not for more ‘weight’ to be added to the daily burden that we all call living, especially now after I stupidly tried to expand my limits to hard & fast towards the end of 2014 writing off a lot of the progress I made over the year.

I was having doubts as to whether I should publish this or just keep it amongst other thoughts I’ve stored away for fear that I will be looked at as weak or a whiner, complainer, victim or the worse one, an exaggerator; but the people around me, you guys, need to know because it’s unfair to you and me if I don’t at least attempt to explain this to you and hopefully I have done a decent job, if not Christine’s post should solve the problem.

Wow I didn’t think it would cost me this much to write today…. Just thinking and writing this post has taken quite a bit out of me, when I got into Roost I was feeling quite good but right now I’m getting foggy & tired, so I apologize if my writing and thoughts got messy and hard to understand towards the end of this post.

Anyway it’s time to close shop for now,

Straight From The Heart & Keep Moving Forward,
I know I will always keep trying.

Roshan

QOTD 29/7/14 – Tough Times – #RekindleSS2

#ArkaysQOTD #RekindleSS2

“Tough times don’t last,
Tough people do.”
-Robert H. Schuller-

The last few days have been really tough, just so tired, foggy & in more pain than normal… Just generally feeling beaten down but still trying my best to keep up appearances & a smile, so instead of physically representing how I am & feel, I find it easier to write. A loophole of sorts.

Maybe it’s because it’s something that I can go back to and read, maybe because I’m able to share it (with the people around me & people who can relate and have their own similar fights & struggles) without having to repeat my long convoluted story or maybe it’s just because I’m more comfortable writing about this than I am speaking about this. Whatever it is, it helps… I think.

Anyway, tough times have arrived and like before I’ll just do what I can to weather it, take it a step at a time and hopefully I’ll come out of this sooner rather than later.
Classes have started and I would really like to avoid going behind so early in the semester, but then again, maybe with this happening now, it won’t happen during a more crucial period in the semester? Haha, yea that’s just speculation.

Anyway, as per usual this has been Straight From The Heart.
I will always try to Keep Moving Forward, even if the pace is much slower than I would like it to be, I hope you guys are too.
#KMF guys

————————————————-
Pic taken & edited by @_emilyec because I just couldn’t take it right haha and the perfect latte art by our dear barista @aegou from #RekindleSS2.

#arkay2014 #arkaysthoughts #fibrolog #Fibrofighter #fibromyalgia #FibroFighting #CoffeeCultureMY #CoffeeCulturePJ #ArkayVsFibro

Failure

Yes, I am back at Artisan Roast HQ for a 10th day running 😬✌️❤️

“The only people who never fail are those who never try.” #IlkaChase

#KMF

Another quote that i relate to greatly. A lack of failure is not success, yes we want to minimize our falls but making #mistakes and suffering #failures are inevitable in our journey. They help define who we are; whether we let the fall break us or learn from it and grow stronger, faster, better. I’m on a pretty good run for now, healthy wise, #fibrofighting, but I didn’t get here overnight. I failed time and time again, saw my systems fail me, felt my mind fog out and my body shut down, so I rested up but didn’t stay down, I rebuilt the system, improved it, adapted and kept moving forward. Every fall has provided me invaluable insight; how much I can take now, how much further I should push next time & what I need to change.

Keep Moving Forward
Arkay

#livestrong #fibroVme #fibrofighter #arkaysqotd #arkaysyhoughts #artisanroasthq #artisanhq #coffeecultureMY

#KMF

Got my piccolo, taking a moment to reflect & appreciate how far I’ve come; since March last year & this year, especially with my health over the last 12 weeks. I’m feeling fitter, stronger, lighter, down to 84kg (6 months ago I was like 93), fresher, less fatigued, less foggy & I’m not done yet. #kmf.

Live is a line of best fit, there are going to be ups & downs, just got to make sure that we make most of the ups & minimize the downs so that the line of best fit is positive 🙂

Don’t Be Strong, Live strong.

Keep Moving Forward

Coffee For One Part 2

Coffee For One please 😉

Saturday 14/9/13

What’s crack-a-lacking guys?

I’m back here at #ArtisanHQ having a great Piccolo having some #QuietTime. I realize that i’ve been spending a lot more time alone this year, and i actually like it. I like being alone because more than just learning more about myself, during these times life is quiet.There’s no noise, no complications, no mess.

In isolation things are clean and simple.

I don’t feel like my mind is being suffocated.

I don’t feel distracted.

I don’t feel like my thoughts are being drowned out by the mess that surrounds me.

I don’t feel like people are demanding too much out of me.

This is quite the 180 degree change because I used to be the type of person that always needed to have people around me. A person whose happiness depended on the availability of other people. A person who wasn’t comfortable being alone with himself. Well, not as much anymore. This year i’ve learnt to appreciate the brilliance and incredible benefit that comes with spending time alone on the regular.

It’s in this Quiet that I feel at Peace.

Peace from Life,
and the it’s complications and mess.

Peace from Society,
and the noise of too many voices.

Peace from Fibro,
and the daily struggle to live.

It’s during these times spent alone that life seems to be in… Harmony, even if just for an hour, it makes such a big difference to me. Having my quiet time at Artisan or Flat White provides me the incredibly vital time to stabilise and ground myself. A time of “maintenance”, a time which helps me clarify and process the hundreds of stimuli and factors that surround me daily.

I guess i just want people to understand that coming to Artisan or Flat White (or Coffea) isn’t just about the coffee, the coffee is great, but more importantly, it’s a place in which i’m protected and sheltered from the outside world

The world is a messy place, and even more of a mess when you have Fibromyalgia. Constant pain, sensitive nerves (to stimuli like lights and sounds too) and almost always so tired… combined that with a brain that doesn’t work as efficiently as it should and i’ve got a situation in which i’m unable to process all these details appropriately so it all just ends up as a mess in my mind.

So it gets very very difficult to have to deal with the normal suff in life…. the regular things like academic pressures, getting stuff done traffic and especially dealing with people… i.e. family and friends. (I love them to bits but sometimes it gets very hard for me to deal with the mess that comes naturally)

Think of it as a highly popular airport where the Tower isn’t responding well (probably because of bad maintenance hence major system failures) to the demands of the hundreds of inbound & outbound flights. What would happen then?
Things would be messed up as ****.

Planes wouldn’t be able to take off causing inbound planes to keep circling over head because they can’t land, leading an incredible mess of planes on the runway and in the skies = problem… Someone’s got to come in and cancel all outbound flights, instruct planes that can, to fly to other airports and then manage what’s left. This scenario would probably describe a Level 6/7 day for me. So what is a Level 9/10? The same situation but this time at near 0 visibility with a major storm. #fun

So, back to my point, coming to my favourite coffee place to enjoy a good coffee with appropriate music in solitude is when i run maintenance on myself and clear out some of the mess within so that i don’t reach a Level 10 meltdown. I’ve realized that my major Meltdowns come during periods where i don’t do any writing = i haven’t been spending time alone. I find that with my regular QuietTimes, i’m doing less frantic running around to put out fires and get more things done because my head is much clearer in comparison to other times without “maintenance”.

I would just like to say that i’m not saying i want to be a Nomad and live on my own and not deal with people, but i’ll probably be spending more time alone just to protect myself, i find it one of the best ways to deal with fibro and keep myself sane in all this mess that i deal with on a daily basis.

Powered by Artisan’s Piccolo (sponsored by my dear mother <3)
Tech Support by my 3rd Gen iPad, Bluetooth Logitech keyboard & my iPhone 5.
Tunes provided by Spotify Premium.

Keep Moving Forward
Roshan Kanesan

Of #FibroFighting & Life Notes (arkaysthoughts.com)
The Theory of Success Relativity. (arkaysthoughts.com)
iClouded Part 2 (arkaysthoughts.com)

Light v Dark (2013)

So, i haven’t written in a while… actually that’s a little of an understatement, it’s been just under 2 months. How on earth did i go 2 months without writing? Could that have been a contributory factor to the messiness and disorder of the last 7/8 week? I think yes.

Good Afternoon dear readers,

This is my 3rd Flat White at the PJ Artisan, and i’m really liking this place. Close to home, quiet, great coffee… so Artisan on the weekdays and Coffea on the weekends?

Anyway, i’ve finally reemerged from a 7 week period of Fibro-Infused Disordered Mess, with 3 exams in between. I’m actually not sure what’s being going on over the last 7 weeks, i know i’ve been busy, but it’s all quite a blur. After my last piece i started waking up late again, thanks Fibro, and that just threw everything out of sync and then began the mess & disorder, followed by Exam Month, and now i’m here… 2 weeks post-exam, finally getting to the keyboard. Yesterday i tried to get some writing done, but the only writing i did was yesterdays Little Yellow Note with the quote from Robin Sharma, “This day is your life in miniature. Make it Brilliant.”

Talk about timing. I was in no way living my ideal days, not by a long shot.

There was no balance, no sense of purpose, no clarity.

There was nothing really to wake up to in the mornings.

The days were a blur, living life like a leaf in the wind.

Yes I had exams, and yes i’ve also been having fun and socialising, but a vital component to my life was missing, that very important part of me that helped me keep my balance.

My writing, My thoughts…

My clarity.

Finally, I’m feeling clear again, maybe it’s the coffee, maybe the fibro is easing off, but whatever it is, I have enough of it back.

Just thinking about it, in my life there are two sides.

The Light Side of the Force – my Clarity.
With this comes hope & belief based upon seemingly realisable goals and potential solutions that have come around simply because I can think without it being a struggle and fight. I’m able to look at a wider and larger picture, able to live life keeping in mind more than one step ahead.

The Dark Side of the Force – my Fibro.
With this comes fear, anger, hate & doubt (George Lucas was a genius, seriously). The Fibro brings about the Fog that clouds my mind, bring about pain and sensitivity that leads to anger, hate and bitterness and of course fatigue which bring about Fear, fear of being trapped indefinitely and at random by Body and/or Mind.

My life now is all about keeping the Dark Side in check, which i failed to do adequately (duh) over the last 7 weeks. These are the cards i’ve been dealt and i have to keep that in mind and all times, something that can be very depressing at times, to always remind yourself of your limitations, this is when it is so important for my Clarity to kick-in and remind me of the things that i have going for me and to focus on those. To focus on my great family that keeps me going, on my talents that supply me with a sense of clarity and purpose and my material life that allows to live a comfortable life and enjoy some material pleasures, like my coffee and my gadgets. It takes all three of these to offset the incredibly bankrupt state of my health.

These are the cards i’ve been dealt, and until i have access to the dealer and the pack, i’m just going to have to do what i can and make sure that the average progression is upward (line of best fit with regards to progress of life).

So my main prerogative in life, for now at least, is about keeping Fibro at bay by primarily safeguarding my Clarity.

That’s all for now. I’d say not too bad of a reboot, certainly not a Man Of Steel reboot, but it’ll do.

Here’s to my next instalment of my Notes On Life Series, coming soon, hopefully :/.

Straight From The Heart

Roshan “Arkay” Kanesan

Light

Dark

Notes on Q1 & Q2, Goals & Guidelines

Good Afternoon readers,

It’s feeling like quite the zoned out and blur day for me today, quite tired and all that jazz. Head’s feeling really fogged up. Hoping that my Costa Rica Tarrazu at Coffea will help clear things up 🙂 i’m having black coffee today, which is a first, and i have to say, it’s pretty good actually.

Anyway, it’s now the 4th of April, which means that we’re 4 days into the 2nd quarter of 2013.
It’s time to look back over the last 3 months and see how things stand.

Over the last 3 months i’ve done quite a bit of travelling (Macau, Kuala Terengganu, Penang, Perth), watched SHM, had quite an awesome Birthday week, got back to classes and made better friends at Monash, read quite a bit (Clash of Kings, Storm of Swords), got back to writing, started journaling again, got the ball rolling on waking up early & exercise and of course dealing with Round 1 2013.

Essentially it’s been a quarter of small daily improvements, a quarter of repairing the foundation and of moving forward and learning. I’m fairing much better with Round 1 2013 as compared to Round 1 2012, which is good. I’ve gained a better understanding of Fibromyalgia and am making a point to spread that awareness. So that other people understand and so that i don’t forget.

As for goals, i can say that i’ve missed quite. I made my goals not accounting for setbacks and well, life in general haha.

But that doesn’t mean i’m not going to set goals for Q2, however this time i’ll take what i’ve learnt from Q1 and use that to calibrate Q2 goals; Health, Academic, Personal Development, Social & Finances.

Q2 Goals & Guidelines include:
1) a book a week
2) 3 posts a week
3) wake up at 6am 4 times a week
4) morning exercise 5 times a week
5) Study lecture content before hand.
6) not going out after 7pm & sleep by 10pm – Sunday to Wednesday.
7) 1 vegetarian meal a day
8) journal during Holy Hour (which means daily)
9) 2 road trips
10) Cut monthly expenses (includes: transport, food, coffee, phone bills, etc) to 700.

Going to work on the Q2 Goals & Guidelines a little more, but the 10 above are the core elements.

Have you thoughts about how your last quarter has gone? Have you thought about how you want the next quarter to go?

Get cracking on your goals.

Start small and simple and build on that. Set some goals for the week and simple daily goals that will help you achieve the weekly goals. Always break things down into smaller manageable steps.

They all feed into each other.

Daily Goals build up to Weekly goals that build up to Monthly goals -> Quarterly goals -> Yearly goals -> 5 years -> 10 years

With goals and guidelines you build an awareness on what’s important, and that will be the difference.

By getting clear on what you want out of life, you heighten your awareness around what’s most important. With better awareness comes better choices. And with better choices you’ll see better results. Clarity breeds success.
Robin Sharma

I leave you with that to think about,

Straight From The Heart

Work In Progress, I Am.

Good Evening dear readers,

I can hear the heavy rain outside as i sit here at Artisan, enjoying my Flat White. I haven’t got back into the full swing of things, having really got back to business, not for the lack of trying, I just need to try harder. The examination month really messed up my system and the holidays haven’t helped me get back to business either. One month has already passed, it’s December and I still haven’t got to blogging regularly. It’s been harder than I thought it would be, waking up early has been more difficult than I remember it and it doesn’t help they memories of last December come back to haunt me (last December, after my finals, was the time my fibromyalgia got really bad and got the best of me) so when I wake up really tired and/or foggy, it scares me and I go back to sleep to hide away from it. The fibro fog has indeed been making cameo appearance recently, now infact. Then there are other nights when I sleep late because of social reasons, which I have indeed cut down on this week and will continue to try to make social events happen earlier. Every time I think about how I haven’t been able to get back to waking up early and blogging regularly it upsets me, and then I start to think that maybe it’s the Fibromyalgia that’s coming back but that maybe jumping to old conclusions,I’ve had the Fibromyalgia at bay for a while now, so I really hope it isn’t that. I think, maybe, I’ve figured it out. I went through a major shift in my daily routine during my examination period and I can’t just expect to get back to what was before. I’ve been doing it wrong, aiming for big steps daily so that I can quickly recover, and that’s what’s been messing me up. I forgot all about small daily improvements to build up the momentum, now, i have very little momentum and I can’t just conjure it out of thin air, I need to rebuild it, I need to reset my foundation. Thankfully because it’s already in me somewhere, it won’t take as long to build it back up. This is quite a human thing I feel, we are all works in progress.

We are All Works in Progress. Don’t expect to get to your goal easily or without friction. There will be good times and bad. Times when you will fall a sleep at the wheel and times when you feel like an MVP, remember that it’s all part of the journey. We aren’t robots and we will make mistakes. I look back to all the times that I went of course over the year, and every time I persisted and got back on track. As Tobias Wolff out it

We are made to persist. That’s how we find out who we are.

That is why we keep trying. That’s why I Keep Moving Forward. Always trying to make today better than yesterday.

There are always going to be curve balls and hurdles in the journey we are each on, it’s not going to be a perfect journey, there will be times we might take our eyes of the road and run face-first into a hurdle or lose focus and get hit by a curve ball, we aren’t perfect, as I have mentioned before many a time, we’ve just got to get back up, learn, recalibrate and get back on the road. Sometimes, we may spend some time on the sidelines, such as what I recently went through. Distracting myself with other things, not thinking about where I wanted to go, afraid of getting back on the road, convinced that I would slip up again, a story that sounds all too familiar, especially over this year. What I’ve got to always remember is that I will slip up and make mistakes and get distracted, I’m never going to be able to erased that completely but I will be able to minimise it, and the last year has been a testament to that. Every time you feel that you can Keep Moving Forward, think about how far you’ve come and how a while back you thought that maybe you couldn’t make it to where you are now. Maybe all you need, is a little breather, we all need them regularly. The problem with these little breathers, as I also know too well, is that we sometimes don’t define how long they should be and we prolong them. On the other hand there is the mistake where we don’t take breathers and keep pushing ourselves till we burn out and then face being out-of-it for a longer term.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t beat yourself up too hard when you mess up, yes beat yourself up a little, remember that we are works in progress and that every time you or I mess up, it’s an opportunity to study and learn why it happened so that we can adjust for it and Keep Moving Forward.

Straight From The Heart

Journaling @Starbucks – Of Loss & Redemption

Good Afternoon readers,

It’s been a while since I blogged, my last one was in memory of great man who made an impact on my life, who sadly, is no longer with us. Today i sit down at this very tastefully designed Starbucks in TTDI, sipping on Soy Café Mocha as I mull over the week and reflect.

Over the last two weeks I have had to deal with the loss of a friend, teacher and mentor. Someone I looked up to and someone I admired. It was not easy but I am dealing with it. Loss is something that will eat you up and chuck you in a corner if you don’t deal with it, you may end up living life in Coma Mode and wasting years because the loss wasn’t dealt with and it created a numbness about life. If you need help, go get it, but don’t let the loss sit and stagnate, don’t procrastinate with regards to dealing with it. Dealing with it doesn’t mean ignoring or forgetting it, it just means accepting the fact that someone you loved or admired or cared for, is no longer around. Take your time dealing with it, but just make it certain that you are in fact trying to deal with it. Take it one step at a time, don’t let it consume you because I’m sure for most of the loved ones who have passed, they would want us to live our life’s and not trap ourselves in the past, or maybe that’s just what I tell myself. I tell myself Mr.D would tell me to keep pushing forward and enjoying life, to appreciate the people you do have and to live life. And I will keep telling myself that.

On a more recent note, during the middle of this week i discovered that I was letting down certain loved ones around me, that I wasn’t acting to the best I could in respect to my relationship with them, that I could be better and that they in fact deserved better. It was quite a slap in the face, a moment of clarity where I saw all the missteps, mistakes and ill actions I was making towards them. They were victims of my lack of patience, my ill-temperament and by extension, of my Fibromyalgia. I spent some time away, alone and in solitude just thinking and became aware of how I had dropped the ball, of how I had neglected certain people and of how I can do better, I can be better & I will be better. They may have forgiven me, but to be honest, I haven’t forgiven myself, every time I think of it it makes me sick, how could I have neglected them and treated the most important people in my life so badly? I’ll tell you why, because I didn’t think about it, I didn’t think about my actions and I didn’t think about them. I took the whole selfishness thing to far, yes it’s good to be selfish but it has to be in moderation, and I forgot about that very important word, moderation.

So hopefully I have dealt with the loss of Mr. D and that, in time, I will redeem myself in my eyes. The people around me deserve better from me and I owe it to myself to be better, simply because it would be such a waste of my abilities if I I didn’t, and I so hate waste.

Here’s to more posts this week, and this is the end of this weeks Journal entry.

Straight From The Heart

Sunday Reflections – Going In One More Round

It’s been a great Sunday so far, ventured into Bukit Gasing and pushed myself harder than I have in years and I feel incredibly proud of myself.

Achievement Unlocked.

Over the past week the first thing that I see when I wake up is a poster, and on that poster is a line that does like this:

“Going in one more round when you don’t think you can – that’s what makes all the difference in your life.” Rocky

I’ve been pushing myself over the last week, I’ve been trying new things, I’ve been focusing and most importantly I’ve been exercising. From basic 1.5km walks I pushed on to 3.33km, and then 4.5 km the day after followed by 4.8km and then today 5.6km through Bukit Gasing, which was incredible difficult. I found myself scared many times during the trail, it wasn’t easy and there were times I wanted to give up, but every time I would refocus myself and calm down, take a breather and push forward. I didn’t plan to go into Bukit Gasing, it was a spur of the moment thing during what was intended to be a chilled 5km walk.

I’m glad I did it, I really am. I keep surprising myself and most importantly, I’m showing the Fibromyalgia who’s in charge. I’ve been walking consistently at 8ish, getting myself 8 hours of sleep, I’ve been practicing better sleep hygiene (is it even called that?), I’ve been making it a daily goal to do something new, whether it’s trying a new cafe or going on a new trail, just anything new, and I’ve been feeling good. It hasn’t been all perfect but I’m working on it, and it’s been a good good week.

The greatest thing to happen over the last week is my exercising. It has filled me with energy, confidence and endorphins. It’s come to a point where I look forward to my workouts. I’ve been trying twice a day, and it’s been doing wonders. Of course there are the body aches, and they come with Fibromyalgia fuelled vengeance in the mornings, and the only reason I managed to fight them and get up out of bed is the fact that I wake up to that Rocky quote and also some other reading I’ve been doing, but the main motivation has been the quote. And truly, every time I’ve gone in that extra round when I didn’t think I could make it at first, I think of the quote and I push myself harder, I focus on being positive and I consciously change my thinking from “I don’t think I can” to “just do it”.

Yes I know this sounds cheesy and all that, but it’s truly been an enlightening week, and I’m going to follow through on that this week. I’m going to take a break tomorrow by just doing a 3km run, I’m not going to have a compete rest day because I don’t want to disrupt this momentum, and honestly I don’t want to rest, I actually want to do 6km at least tomorrow, but I’ve got to think and refuel.

Over the next week i’ll push further by focusing on being more responsible at home, focusing on academics and reading, following on from the great week.

Keywords: will power and discipline.

It’s been a great week of moving forward.

Straight From The Heart

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