I stole your chart.

Thank you to the fabulous creator of this really helpful chart. If it’s yours, please let me know. I would love to ask you questions about it!

What else…. it’s hard to think the day after Halloween. I know I ate sugar yesterday. I don’t recall feeling considerably different after all the sugar. I guess I eat enough sugar on a regular basis to support the occasional candy-fest. There were Snickers, Mounds, Butterfingers and Peppermint Patties.  There were a bunch left and now they’re in the freezer since all chocolate and pound cake is better frozen.

The nice thing about getting older and remembering less is that you forget there are Peppermint Patties and Peanut Butter Cups in the freezer. And then, one day, when you’re looking for that last bag of Edamame, you find a frozen well-sealed collection of Hershey’s minis.  And you think, thank you God for making me forget those were there. That was a nice surprise. Kind of like when you start wearing your winter jackets and you find cash in the pockets.

And gum.

And doggy poop bags.

There are tiny collections of cash, gum and doggy poop bags in all of my jackets.

At least I’m consistent.

Oh, by the way, Outlook Immersive Reader? OMG. That took me by surprise and totally messed with me for more than a few days. Not funny. Although it actually was kind of funny. I kept asking my colleague if the emails looked weird. Fortunately for her, she already knows to expect such questions from me, so she did not appear to be too disrupted.

Immersive Reader. Jeez. I do not need unexpected format changes. That’s all I’m saying.

Here’s a really good podcast from Mel Robbins. I am on my third listen of this particular episode. I may listen to it in the mornings for a while as a meditation. It’s really full of good instructions. I’ll list them below later.  She is just so easy to listen to and understand.  She talks about friends for a reason, friends for a season and friends for a lifetime.  It’s helpful.

P.S. I like her six-month rule. This was helpful for learning boundaries.

BOUNDARIES

Oy.

Not so easy, right?

Here are some things that worked in October:

(1) Engaging more in responding to and reposting other peoples’ social media posts and focusing less on my own posts.

(2) Watching one hour of a funny movie every night around 10:00

(3) Tweaking times of the day and the dosages. NOTE: Tweaking rocks.

(4) Packing boxes even though I didn’t know the goal when I started packing. NOTE: I figured out the goal while I was packing the boxes

(5) Giving it away if I wasn’t sure.  Giving it away if I was inclined to keep it.

(6) Remembering the foods I used to eat when I was the happiest and most energetic. Eating them.

(7) Not allowing any bullying. Period. I stopped my brain from bullying me. I stopped me from bullying myself.

(8) Finding an even softer blanket if that was even possible.

(9) Retinol. Seriously.

(10) Writing with other people. Reading with other people. Talking about reading and writing with other people. Reading other people’s writing. Letting other writers read my writing.

Happy Candy Week. Enjoy it if you’re enjoying it. Enjoy the success of skipping it if that’s the way you’re going. Either way, GOOD JOB.

Good job. You made it past Halloween.  Maybe you even thrived.

Thank you #science #snickers #retinol #writing #writers #YouTube #podcasts

Thank you #SandraBullock #ScottAdams #kidsdressedasalligators

Learn to engage. It’s not easier than it sounds. But it works.

xoxo, d and bella

P.S.  Just because you are focused on accepting who you are, doesn’t mean you have to accept where you are.