October brought with it changes of plan in terms of moving, which influenced my Happiness Project both positively and negatively. These check-ins with myself have turned out to be surprisingly welcome, so let’s have a look at both October and November thoughts! This post is part of my blog series The Happiness Project.
October Checking In With Myself Month
I was supposed to move out on the last day of October, but earlier in the month I got news that the new home was going to be accessible sooner.
Despite having packed only a portion of my stuff, I decided to push hard by moving on a week’s notice, eleven days earlier than expected in other words.
There were things I didn’t have enough time to prepare, so for over a week after moving day with the removals guys, I still moved smaller batches myself in addition to cleaning up step by step.
Through all this I was grateful for having had the foresight to spend October in great awareness of my energy levels and emotions.
There were moments when I had to take multiple small breaks to manage packing as much as possible. There were other times when I definitely didn’t want to keep pushing, but realised it would exhaust me unreasonably or be impossible to move something myself, such as the largest pieces of furniture.
Did I regret having to push beyond my preferred limits a few times? Yes, absolutely.
Did I regret closing up the old home sooner than anticipated? No, for numerous reasons, some of which included the landlord throwing me under the bus in a few different ways. I don’t mind renting apartments, but I do mind paying to people with lacking morals. As it wasn’t the first time experiencing it, it was time to look for something else sooner rather than later.
Reflecting on October and its lessons learned I find it valuable to having spent moments of discomfort in such heightened awareness. Checking in with myself under pressure of temporarily increased magnitude made me realise there are still things about my own capacity that are unknown even to me.
And I find it useful to learn how to handle better bad situations, which I may have no control over whatsoever, apart from my capacity to stay 100 % present with myself, in discussion about for example how stressful it feels or how utterly exhausted I may be. This allows me to deal with some of the emotions in real time as I go, which in turn makes it less negative impactwise.
We do break down eventually from these types of circumstances, but short-term I prefer knowing how to take better care of myself.
November Novel Reading Month
Reading novels is one form of relaxation for me, but I lost some steam a couple of months ago and haven’t read anything since. There are still some weeks left of the year and I have watched plenty of Netflix instead, so maybe now is a good time to pick up a book again? Finish the year strong and all that… :)
Wrapping Up
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Photo credit: Alex Lvrs.
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