Encouragement

So, I have continued to be grumpy about the whole not having a good routine thing, and trying to add too much at once. But I have seen improvement! So yesterday I was just feeling like, "ok, I guess now I'll do this" This being whatever chore I saw at the moment, or activity I could come up with, but I just felt like I was killing time until Cory got home, which is just no way to spend every day. Plus it makes time go SO slowly and makes any productivity seem I dunno... minimized. Plus it sounds really lame to just be waiting for my boyfriend to get home from work and not have anything of my own going on. At the same time, I don't really have much going on right now- most people I know work, and I don't have a lot of disposable income, being unemployed and all. When I was in NC, I always had people around, and there was a lot on my plate with the program so I didn't have time enough to get bored. Before that, I was so exhausted and depressed all the time that I literally only counted TV and sleeping as hobbies. So it's been from one extreme to the other. And now I'm trying to find a balance while I wait for a job to pan out. 

Yesterday I narrowed it down to my routine foundation: shower early and don't lay around in pjs for half the day, make the bed, and take care of the dishes/ clean the kitchen sink. Both the bed and the sink are things that drive me crazy if they aren't done, but also I dread doing for some reason. By setting those as the routine, anything else I do I can feel productive about because the "I should"s no longer hold me back. For example, if I think I should exercise every day, get all the laundry done, have a spotless apartment, cook, budget, read, etc, then when I do any of those things, I'll still feel behind and like I haven't accomplished anything. So now when I get my list done, I can say, oh good, Check! And the other things I can give myself a pat on the back for and not stress that I'm not on the perfect schedule yet. I made a checkbox grid for the week for it, with a spot to write in extras I do that I want to add in the routine at some point, but for now just give myself credit for them. I think two weeks is a good amount of time between each add-on. I am rambling, so for that I apologize.

My success for today! : I did some stretching of the tendons that give me trouble, and then figured I'd look through my yoga book. I realized I hate down dog. I am so inflexible and it makes feel like a failure, plus it is really uncomfortable, I look mangled, and it hurts my wrists. But I found a routine that doesn't require it! Another bonus, it is for anxiety (allegedly) and I can use all the help with that I can get. I was able to do all the poses enough to feel like I did the routine, but also that I still need a lot of work to do it well and like as I get better it will improve my abilities overall! I don't think I phrased that well, but whatever. It stretched my muscles and challenged me without hurting quite as badly as some poses. Here is a picture from the book:

Now that I don't feel like I should have to exercise every day, and now that I found yoga I can work on, I actually WANT to do it again tomorrow! :)