Hanging with the psychologist

Last week was a good week (alleluia they cry!) Despite working 50 hours I had my energy back, I felt normal. I managed five sessions in the gym and enjoyed my time off at the weekend, with only a little anxiety returning on Sunday.

As of yesterday I am into week three of my Mindfulness meditation course. Last week focused on the body and tuning into the sensations the body produced, what I could feel. This week is aimed at looking after the body still and working on that mind body connection. I have an 8 minute stretch meditation, followed by an 8 minute breathing version. I do that once a day and then twice a day do a 3 minute "breathing space" meditation, which is designed to calm your mind when you might get worried or stressed through the day. The whole thing is simple to do and I feel a lot calmer already. I'm proud of myself for making time to do this and be consistent with it. a The biggest change for me is looking after myself first and that requires that I balance my life in all aspects, so that I don't end up down the rabbit hole again.

The other superb thing I've achieved recently is consistency at the gym. I'm happy to be back lifting weights again and have not missed running over the last few weeks. The testosterone boost I get from lifting is huge, it makes me feel strong, which in turn is a good thing for the mind. Like meditation lifting weights doesn't allow you space to think about other things. Actually that makes it better than meditation because lord knows my mind wanders like a mofo when I am practicing! But with weight lifting you can't be worrying about shit when you are pressing 60 kilos above your face! It also gets you to tune into each muscle group that you are working, whilst breathing in a controlled manner. If you didn't want to meditate then weight lifting would be a close second for any man.

Aside from the afore mentioned successes I've also started eating more each day, which keeps me from descending into low energy depressive episodes, also know as being "hangry". This is especially important when getting in a training session after a long day, something I haven't had a problem with since eating more at breakfast and through the day. I've not eaten like this since I was in my early twenties. Perhaps I'll get back to my glory days of eating two pizzas and a dessert in one sitting ;)

With all this success I had my first psychologist appointment this morning. It was much like when you take your broken car to the garage with a funny noise. You know something is broken, but when the mechanics look at it they can't find anything wrong. As I sat talking to the lady I realised how much better I felt, that I had already come a long way in changing who I am. She told me that I couldn't have done anything more in the two weeks prior to seeing her. But as she put it there is always more tools to learn to help in the future when the darkness threatens to prevail. So from next week I start Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. I think it is something to do with acting like a Terminator.

Are you ok?

Tom