my focus for today is to listen

We'll see how this thrives.

So I had the "brilliant" idea of doing more regular posts. But short ones. Almost like tweets but not quite.

Why?

Because I feel like I am not appreciating enough of what I have. And the issues that I face. Challenges, whatever you may call it.

I have a lot of things going on. And I do not feel that I am fully there, giving enough care and attention to the present.

What has been helping is taking a mental circuit break and stopping my need to come up with solutions. Or beating myself when I'm down.

If an idea would pop up then, it will pop up when I need it to. It is my brain afterall. Right?

So I woke up this morning to that very familiar feeling in my stomach. I could almost feel my heartbeat accelerating as it rose up through my chest. The level of discomfort is confronting and I used to just lie there and panic. Letting my nervousness take control of my thoughts.

Most times, it will help with thinking up of ideas and actions. But it wasn't good for my mental health overall. Not when it continued for months on end.

And so I focused on my breath. I find that taking deep breaths really help with changing the makeup in my stomach and chest. Almost like the breaths are rewiring the brain to be in the present.

Took me about half an hour or more before I could take myself off auto mode - when you're doing things but if you think back, you really do not recall your doing so because you're running off a mechanical memory.

Automode.