Song: “Waterloo” by ABBA
Mood: 6.5
I didn’t sleep all that well last night – one nightmare but I woke up many times – and it took me quite a while to get going this morning. I did my exercises in a haze and fell back asleep during my worry time. That doesn’t happen too often.
I spent some time wandering around the house again but finally sat down and did some more reading from the biology book that J picked up for me. It’s been a pretty good read so far. After that I went into the kitchen and did a little bit of tidying and then watched some more YouTube videos. I didn’t accomplish all that much.
My session with Dr P today went well. He’s been keeping track of what I’ve been doing and saying and he thinks it’s a good idea to move away from the EMDR for a while and concentrate on something called Cognitive Defusion. The idea behind CD (I think) is to treat thoughts almost like items instead of thoughts. Instead of thinking, “I feel bad,” I’m supposed to think, “I’m having thoughts that make me feel bad”. That way, I can deal with the thoughts themselves and distance myself from the emotions that they invoke. It’s an interesting idea and I’m going to spend a lot of time practicing it over the next week. I hope it works – I have a lot of thoughts that I wish I could treat like a mouldy apple and just throw away.
The other day I brought my electric razor upstairs and charged it for the first time in probably a couple of years. Usually I just use a trimmer and call it good enough, but I tend to let my beard go for a while between trimmings. That leads to a more Grizzly Adams-like look than I’d like. I’ve set a goal for myself – every time I shower, I’ll use the razor to keep the stubble on my neck in check. That way, even if I let my beard go crazy, it’ll still look “clean”. Hopefully I’ll stick with it. I have given some thought to getting rid of my beard entirely but for whatever reason, it feels like a part of me.
I’m still trying to decide what to put in my aquarium. I’m still really leaning toward cleaner shrimp but was thinking of getting a couple of neon tetras or maybe even a single betta. I’m also thinking of putting in a couple of different aquarium plants – even though they don’t do much, I still find them interesting, particularly under the microscope.
Heard a lot of geese on their way south today. It was almost 20C cooler than it was on Tuesday, too.
Stay safe.