Wellness Wednesday, February 20

 

UPDATE:  Apparently that Lortab works even better than I thought.  I hit publish on this piece about 24 hours ago, but never realized it got an error and didn’t go through; I just went to bed anyway.  Now, I pull up Live Writer to put together today’s post and find it sitting here, like a big, neon STUPID sign.  Oh, well.  I guess there’ll be two posts today . . .

Well, it’s become clear to me that until I can get whatever this pain is I’m dealing with taken care of, there is not going to be any huge movement in the weight loss arena.  I have, at least, managed to control my eating to the extent that I am not gaining weight, but not enough to drop pounds without some activity.  And, unfortunately, I am getting even less activity than normal just in an effort to not be miserable.  In fact, even last week’s experiment with the bike riding didn’t work.  Next week, I might try some very low speed walking on a treadmill.  We’ll see.

I did have my doctor’s appointment a few days ago, but had to wait to be scheduled for the test that will hopefully give us the answers about what’s going on.  That won’t take place until next Friday, so the waiting continues.  As an aside, that was actually a little annoying, because I’d been bragging about how great the office always is about getting patients in for lab/diagnostic work really quickly, usually even same day.  That’s what I get for making assumptions, I suppose.

But, since the weight loss program is on temporary hold, I thought I might use this space to talk about other aspects of wellness in the meantime; Wellness Wednesday works just fine for me.  I’m not sure exactly what that looks like yet, since I’m the furthest thing from a “health nut”, but that can be another one of those things we’ll wait and see about.

For today, let’s chat about mental health a bit.  I’m a big believer in the benefit of positive thinking and focusing on the good things in life.  The mystical people like to talk about the law of attraction and all.  I don’t really consider myself quite in their category, but I do believe in a pretty big helping of you reap what you sow, so maybe they’re not so far off.

Anyway, during the holidays, one of the craft projects that was making the rounds on Pinterest was decorative jar to be used to gather notes about the good things that happened in your day.  The idea is that you fill it up all year, and then on December 31st, you can read through your notes and think back on the blessings the past year held for you.  I really liked that idea, so I wanted to make one for myself. (And my sister, though I think she’s probably even less mystical than I.)  Anyway, while I’m not particularly crafty, I figured even I could slap some ribbon on a Mason jar to spruce it up a bit, and handy Brian could cut a hole in the lid for me.  The problem that I discovered was that you can only buy actual Mason jars by the dozen, which I really didn’t want.  I probably could’ve gone to a craft store and found some expensive version of a jar, but there were two problems with that.  1) I was shopping with Brian, and he hates going to multiple stores, especially for things he considers whimsical, and, 2) I mentioned they’d be expensive, right?  So, I settled for some little plastic canisters.  It really isn’t the container that’s important, right?

So, mine looks like this, and several times a week I drop a note down in the bucket about something that made me smile.  And, as you might imagine from the quote, they usually are not particularly important things.  For instance, today I saw two new kinds of birds at my feeder; it’s in the bucket.  (For the record: black-eyed junco, and what I believe may have been a mourning dove.)  It isn’t about being a major event; it’s about recognizing that life holds joy even in the every day mundanity of it all.

Incidentally, I realized when I took this picture, that I should’ve put an attribution on that quotation, so here’s another little something for the record: it’s by a guy named Robert Brault, who is one of those most amazing of creatures, a writer.  If you’re so inclined, you can even drop by his blog.  I don’t think I put an attribution on the one I put on Tanya’s bucket, either, now that I think about it, but I’m hoping Ferris Bueller won’t mind.

But, to get mostly back on topic, whether you subscribe to the theory of attraction or not, I don’t think many people would argue that you’ll put yourself in a better mood if you think about good things than if you think about bad.  And if you’re in a better mood, you’ll have a better day.  And if you have enough better days, pretty soon you’re just having a better life.  And what better way to improve your mental health than to have a better life?  Pretty simple, right?  Sometimes the little things really are the big things.

It’s not too late for your own bucket.  What small moments of joy would you like to remember ten months from now?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image courtesy of africa at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

hmm.  I might need a new picture.  Add that to the “we’ll see” list, would you?