I'm really tired. I'm really tired of being personally attacked for my opinion. I'm really tired of feeling like this country is becoming less and less safe. I'm really tired of all the "American Dream" ideals I was taught as a child being shattered before my eyes as other people are mistreated. I'm just tired.
Watching a strong woman like Dr. Christine Blasey Ford fight against her abuser in a public hearing for the WHOLE COUNTRY to see, and hearing the horrible, demeaning comments from some of the senators involved makes me feel hopeless.
As a queer woman, I'm terrified of what the future might be. I've worked so hard to reduce my anxiety and to learn coping strategies. This isn't helping. If women can be treated as a man's sexual plaything and do NOTHING to fight back, what happens when a queer person has something happen and needs to fight back? How can I trust a broken system to protect me? How can I trust a broken system with my femaleness OR my queerness?
If you haven't read and/or seen the Handmaid's Tale, I think you should. I feel like the hearing today is yet another step toward to reality of Gilead. I am scared of that kind of future. I'm afraid for my safety, but more than that for my mental health.
I know this post has a lot of negative stuff in it. I want those who have read it to know I'm safe. I'm not in danger, and I have no plans or thoughts of self harm. I'm just incredibly exhausted. I'm scared. I'm frustrated. I want to fight the patriarchy and replace the broken systems.
I want so badly to participate in activism, but my anxiety prevents me. I get overwhelmed with the backlash from a Facebook post. I have spent the last 6 hours in an anxious mess because I posted something on Facebook in support of Dr. Ford. I don't think Judge Kavanaugh should be appointed to the Supreme Court. Whether he's guilty or innocent of the allegations, he proved himself to be a man who avoids the truth, blames others, and in an attempt to avoid a question about his drinking, asks the senator who posed the question about her drinking habits. I don't think that's someone who should be part of SCOTUS.
I'm just tired, friends. I'm anxious about things, and I know I'll feel *a little* better in the morning after a good night's sleep. Let's just hope I can actually get a good night's sleep.
I believe survivors. I stand with victims.
Thursday, September 27, 2018
Thursday, September 20, 2018
A Bit of Gratitude
First, I want to say thank you for all the support for my last blog post. I am thankful to have friends and family who were able to acknowledge my bisexuality in a respectful manner. I cannot say, "Thank you!" enough for the respect given to my request to not argue or debate. I have always felt anxious about posting any sort of "controversial" topic on all my social media accounts because I don't enjoy engaging in debate about these sorts of things. The issue isn't that I'm afraid of the conversations or the disagreement in general. It's truly just a lack of personal connection surrounding the conversation when it is text based over the internet. SO MUCH gets lost in translation that way, and I get way more worked up than necessary when I disagree with people on the internet. (I'm working on this.)
Second, I want to explain why I haven't responded to each of you personally. You may have noticed (or maybe not) that I responded to each and every comment on Facebook with the "love" reaction, and to each and every comment on my "Coming Out" blog post with a heart. I'm pretty sure I only responded with a comment/reply to ONE Facebook comment. It's NOT that I don't want to respond to you. I am just a bit overwhelmed. There have been so many responses, and I like to give each one my full attention and place value on my response. That said, I will likely never respond to each person individually. I generally want to, but I don't have the emotional energy to engage in a response of that nature at this time. I also don't want people to feel left out if they see my response to someone else, but not to them. It's NOT personal. I love you all. I appreciate your love and support. I want you to know that, but I just can't provide the personal response to each and every person. There are currently 59 comments on my Facebook post, as well as 89 "reactions" (likes and other responses). I value the reactions as well as the comments, because I know that those reactions are just as meaningful as the words typed out by comment. I cannot respond to all 148 of those (though I'm positive that many of the reactions are the same people who also commented). It's just not a wise use of my time and energy. That doesn't mean I don't love or appreciate you! <3 p="">
Finally, I want to thank those people I came out to BEFORE I posted my "Coming Out" blog entry. Your support and love helped me feel accepted and safe, which helped me feel comfortable coming out to the world. I know there are people who aren't accepting and supportive of my sexuality, and that's ok. I don't need EVERYONE's acceptance and support as long as I have the support of people who truly love me and accept me. So thank you for that! <3 p="">
Another thing I want to address - I've had VERY FEW people ask me questions about my sexuality. I am not opposed to questions, and I'm willing to answer most questions I'm asked. I do ask, though, that you are respectful in your questions and that you contact me personally, not publicly. I may choose to answer it publicly (likely another blog post), but I'd rather not have the question out there for the whole world to see unless I choose to do so. I also want you to know that I may not answer every question you ask. If it makes me uncomfortable, I'm not answering it. BUT I do want to encourage questions, because I believe that bisexuality is all too often erased and misunderstood. I want people to understand bisexuality better and I want people to understand me better. So, feel free to contact me if you have questions, providing you're aware that I may not answer it.
Love to you all!
Second, I want to explain why I haven't responded to each of you personally. You may have noticed (or maybe not) that I responded to each and every comment on Facebook with the "love" reaction, and to each and every comment on my "Coming Out" blog post with a heart. I'm pretty sure I only responded with a comment/reply to ONE Facebook comment. It's NOT that I don't want to respond to you. I am just a bit overwhelmed. There have been so many responses, and I like to give each one my full attention and place value on my response. That said, I will likely never respond to each person individually. I generally want to, but I don't have the emotional energy to engage in a response of that nature at this time. I also don't want people to feel left out if they see my response to someone else, but not to them. It's NOT personal. I love you all. I appreciate your love and support. I want you to know that, but I just can't provide the personal response to each and every person. There are currently 59 comments on my Facebook post, as well as 89 "reactions" (likes and other responses). I value the reactions as well as the comments, because I know that those reactions are just as meaningful as the words typed out by comment. I cannot respond to all 148 of those (though I'm positive that many of the reactions are the same people who also commented). It's just not a wise use of my time and energy. That doesn't mean I don't love or appreciate you! <3 p="">
Finally, I want to thank those people I came out to BEFORE I posted my "Coming Out" blog entry. Your support and love helped me feel accepted and safe, which helped me feel comfortable coming out to the world. I know there are people who aren't accepting and supportive of my sexuality, and that's ok. I don't need EVERYONE's acceptance and support as long as I have the support of people who truly love me and accept me. So thank you for that! <3 p="">
Another thing I want to address - I've had VERY FEW people ask me questions about my sexuality. I am not opposed to questions, and I'm willing to answer most questions I'm asked. I do ask, though, that you are respectful in your questions and that you contact me personally, not publicly. I may choose to answer it publicly (likely another blog post), but I'd rather not have the question out there for the whole world to see unless I choose to do so. I also want you to know that I may not answer every question you ask. If it makes me uncomfortable, I'm not answering it. BUT I do want to encourage questions, because I believe that bisexuality is all too often erased and misunderstood. I want people to understand bisexuality better and I want people to understand me better. So, feel free to contact me if you have questions, providing you're aware that I may not answer it.
Love to you all!
Monday, September 10, 2018
Coming Out
Here goes nothin'. There are some of you I would have LOVED to tell this in person, but I felt I needed to be 100% authentically myself sooner than allowed for those face-to-face conversations with everyone.
I'm bisexual.
Let me tell you a little about my story and what that means to me. (Be prepared for a lack of organized thought. I was nervous when I wrote this, and I decided not to spend a long time editing it before I posted because I just wanted to get it "out there".)
I grew up in a very conservative, heteronormative community. I wasn't around many LGBTQ+ individuals, and those I knew that were LGBTQ+ were gay males. I never felt that they should be treated differently, but I know that they were absolutely treated differently by the community I lived in.
I also grew up going to church. My family and I regularly attended church, and we were involved in just about every way we could be which meant we were at church several times a week. I also attended private, Christian school from Kindergarten through 8th grade. My parents wanted me to go to private, Christian high school but I convinced them to send me to the public high school (not because I didn't want to attend a Christian high school...because my friends were going to public). The church community I grew up in was very Evangelical. Many of you probably automatically have an understanding of what that means when I say that, but others may have no clue. The best way I can put it is this: very Scripture/Bible focused, pushing their faith onto others, and generally part of what I call "Ameri-Christianity". Another facet of Evangelicalism often is the belief that homosexuality or any same sex attraction is a sin. Evangelicals also tend to be unaccepting of trans people or people who don't identify as male or female "traditionally".
Now, I played the part well at the time. I quickly "latched onto" my parents beliefs as a child. I felt strongly about politics and that Republicans were more correct on the "issues", I loved reading and studying the Bible, and I believed that God created humans as distinctly male and female and straight.
I never questioned my sexuality as a child or adolescent. I knew I liked boys, so I must be straight. That was what I thought.
Since going off to college, I have been around many more LGBTQ+ people. I never actively sought out information about the LGBTQ+ community, but when exposed to different sexualities I tried not treat them any differently than any of the straight people I knew.
The last few years, the greater church organization I've been a part of has been dealing with how to embrace the LGBTQ+ community in our churches. Some churches want to fully embrace LGBTQ+ folks into membership and participation, while others are adamantly opposed - and various churches are somewhere in between. The conversation was always difficult for me, and I thought it was just because I've always had a strong "justice" streak in me. I don't like to see people mistreated, and I believe that God created every person equally and loves everyone just as much as anyone else no matter their differences.
As the conversation became more and more intense, the organization decided to split. They didn't (and likely still don't) call it a "split", but that's really what it was. My church had avoided the conversation, but because of the split it became necessary to have a discussion about what our church would embrace. During these discussions, I found myself feeling personally offended or defensive when people would make negative comments about the LGBTQ+ community and bisexuals specifically. At the time, I didn't know what that was about. (This was September 2017.) I had already been questioning my sexuality a bit, only talking to my mom and one friend about it. I didn't have any concrete understanding of my sexuality anymore, and I had no labels for myself. I knew I was attracted to men, but I felt like I was potentially also attracted to women. It was still very unknown.
After those conversations (and my church's decision to work toward being welcoming/affirming/open/inclusive to the LGBTQ+ community which meant we had to leave the organization), I spent some time processing. I researched topics related to the LGBTQ+ community. I found myself increasingly interested in articles and videos about women who were attracted to both men and women. I learned about a variety of different "identities", such as pansexual, queer, non-binary, genderfluid, etc. I read about how people could be attracted to both cis men and cis women (or people whose gender identities matched their gender assigned at birth), as well as trans men and trans women. I also read about people who were attracted to people who didn't identify as male or female, or people whose gender identity was fluid between male and female. I found myself identifying with all of these things. When I finally came out to myself, I chose the label "bisexual" because it felt right. My definition of bisexuality is the capacity to be attracted to people whose gender is the same as and different from my own. Other people define it differently, which is why there are so many different terms for similar sexualities.
Looking back, I definitely was interested in girls as a child/adolescent. I didn't recognize it at the time, because I was "straight". I didn't notice that my thoughts and feelings about girls were very similar to my thoughts and feelings about boys. All I knew was that God had created me female, which meant I was supposed to like boys. I never doubted that at the time. I also don't know that I knew anyone who was openly bisexual until college...maybe not even until after. I can't remember the first bisexual person I met. I don't think I ever knew or thought it was an option.
I can look back now and remember girls I definitely had crushes on without realizing it. I also remember playing games like "The Sims" and making two girl sims fall in love. I thought that was exciting. I'm not sure I had a clue why at the time.
I can keep expanding on this, but I think this is plenty for now.
Here's what I want you to know:
My bisexuality and my Christian faith are NOT mutually exclusive. For some of you, it may be. That's ok. Some of you may think that same sex attraction is a sin. I disagree. I have spent time digging into the Bible, praying, talking with queer people of faith, seeking personal discernment from God, and engaging in conversation with friends about this. I don't believe anything to do with identifying as LGBTQ+ is a sin. I believe God made humans to be diverse in many ways, including our sexualities and gender identities. I know this may be hard for some of my more conservative, Evangelical friends. I'm sorry if it's hard for you, but I'm not sorry for being authentically me. I'm ready to embrace who I am and live the life that God has called me to live, even if you disagree with it and don't like it.
Also, I'm not here to debate this with you. I know who I am and have recognized how God has created me. We can disagree, but I don't want to argue about it. If you cannot accept me and love me for who I am, then maybe we need to part ways. If that's you, know I love you despite our differences of opinion.
Thanks for reading. I love you all!
I'm bisexual.
Let me tell you a little about my story and what that means to me. (Be prepared for a lack of organized thought. I was nervous when I wrote this, and I decided not to spend a long time editing it before I posted because I just wanted to get it "out there".)
I grew up in a very conservative, heteronormative community. I wasn't around many LGBTQ+ individuals, and those I knew that were LGBTQ+ were gay males. I never felt that they should be treated differently, but I know that they were absolutely treated differently by the community I lived in.
I also grew up going to church. My family and I regularly attended church, and we were involved in just about every way we could be which meant we were at church several times a week. I also attended private, Christian school from Kindergarten through 8th grade. My parents wanted me to go to private, Christian high school but I convinced them to send me to the public high school (not because I didn't want to attend a Christian high school...because my friends were going to public). The church community I grew up in was very Evangelical. Many of you probably automatically have an understanding of what that means when I say that, but others may have no clue. The best way I can put it is this: very Scripture/Bible focused, pushing their faith onto others, and generally part of what I call "Ameri-Christianity". Another facet of Evangelicalism often is the belief that homosexuality or any same sex attraction is a sin. Evangelicals also tend to be unaccepting of trans people or people who don't identify as male or female "traditionally".
Now, I played the part well at the time. I quickly "latched onto" my parents beliefs as a child. I felt strongly about politics and that Republicans were more correct on the "issues", I loved reading and studying the Bible, and I believed that God created humans as distinctly male and female and straight.
I never questioned my sexuality as a child or adolescent. I knew I liked boys, so I must be straight. That was what I thought.
Since going off to college, I have been around many more LGBTQ+ people. I never actively sought out information about the LGBTQ+ community, but when exposed to different sexualities I tried not treat them any differently than any of the straight people I knew.
The last few years, the greater church organization I've been a part of has been dealing with how to embrace the LGBTQ+ community in our churches. Some churches want to fully embrace LGBTQ+ folks into membership and participation, while others are adamantly opposed - and various churches are somewhere in between. The conversation was always difficult for me, and I thought it was just because I've always had a strong "justice" streak in me. I don't like to see people mistreated, and I believe that God created every person equally and loves everyone just as much as anyone else no matter their differences.
As the conversation became more and more intense, the organization decided to split. They didn't (and likely still don't) call it a "split", but that's really what it was. My church had avoided the conversation, but because of the split it became necessary to have a discussion about what our church would embrace. During these discussions, I found myself feeling personally offended or defensive when people would make negative comments about the LGBTQ+ community and bisexuals specifically. At the time, I didn't know what that was about. (This was September 2017.) I had already been questioning my sexuality a bit, only talking to my mom and one friend about it. I didn't have any concrete understanding of my sexuality anymore, and I had no labels for myself. I knew I was attracted to men, but I felt like I was potentially also attracted to women. It was still very unknown.
After those conversations (and my church's decision to work toward being welcoming/affirming/open/inclusive to the LGBTQ+ community which meant we had to leave the organization), I spent some time processing. I researched topics related to the LGBTQ+ community. I found myself increasingly interested in articles and videos about women who were attracted to both men and women. I learned about a variety of different "identities", such as pansexual, queer, non-binary, genderfluid, etc. I read about how people could be attracted to both cis men and cis women (or people whose gender identities matched their gender assigned at birth), as well as trans men and trans women. I also read about people who were attracted to people who didn't identify as male or female, or people whose gender identity was fluid between male and female. I found myself identifying with all of these things. When I finally came out to myself, I chose the label "bisexual" because it felt right. My definition of bisexuality is the capacity to be attracted to people whose gender is the same as and different from my own. Other people define it differently, which is why there are so many different terms for similar sexualities.
Looking back, I definitely was interested in girls as a child/adolescent. I didn't recognize it at the time, because I was "straight". I didn't notice that my thoughts and feelings about girls were very similar to my thoughts and feelings about boys. All I knew was that God had created me female, which meant I was supposed to like boys. I never doubted that at the time. I also don't know that I knew anyone who was openly bisexual until college...maybe not even until after. I can't remember the first bisexual person I met. I don't think I ever knew or thought it was an option.
I can look back now and remember girls I definitely had crushes on without realizing it. I also remember playing games like "The Sims" and making two girl sims fall in love. I thought that was exciting. I'm not sure I had a clue why at the time.
I can keep expanding on this, but I think this is plenty for now.
Here's what I want you to know:
My bisexuality and my Christian faith are NOT mutually exclusive. For some of you, it may be. That's ok. Some of you may think that same sex attraction is a sin. I disagree. I have spent time digging into the Bible, praying, talking with queer people of faith, seeking personal discernment from God, and engaging in conversation with friends about this. I don't believe anything to do with identifying as LGBTQ+ is a sin. I believe God made humans to be diverse in many ways, including our sexualities and gender identities. I know this may be hard for some of my more conservative, Evangelical friends. I'm sorry if it's hard for you, but I'm not sorry for being authentically me. I'm ready to embrace who I am and live the life that God has called me to live, even if you disagree with it and don't like it.
Also, I'm not here to debate this with you. I know who I am and have recognized how God has created me. We can disagree, but I don't want to argue about it. If you cannot accept me and love me for who I am, then maybe we need to part ways. If that's you, know I love you despite our differences of opinion.
Thanks for reading. I love you all!
Tuesday, September 4, 2018
Forming New Habits
In this season of transition, I've been working on my habits. I think I mentioned that in my last blog, but even if I did this one will have much more detail on the kinds of habits I'm working on.
First, I was trying to build habits without any sort of tracking or accountability. I found myself struggling to stay motivated and frustrated when I "skipped days". I mean, life happens and we skip doing the things we want to do, but when it keeps happening it's frustrating and disappointing. So I decided I needed to find a way to improve my tracking and accountability.
My sister recently started (restarted?) using a bullet journal. Her reasons and habits are a bit different than mine, but watching her work on her bullet journal last week reminded me of when I used to bullet journal over a year ago. I wasn't good at the habit then, and I'd created a LOT of work for myself every day in the way I was using it. I felt frustrated with the process and knew I needed to change HOW I used the bullet journal if I wanted it to work.
I took myself on an "idea shopping trip" on Pinterest. I searched for bullet journal ideas, and pinned a few. I even created a new board to make my bullet journal ideas easier to find. I also found a few pins I'd saved last year and moved them to the new board. Pretty quickly, I found a few ideas I really loved. I decided to jump in with those and adapt my bullet journal as I go.
So, I started with a calendar and a habit tracker. I wanted to have the calendar in my bullet journal mostly for extra reference when I'm using my bullet journal. (I REALLY want to use an abbreviation, but we all know that "BJ" doesn't mean bullet journal...am I right? 😂) I also wanted a habit tracker so I can "check off" the days I accomplish the things I want as regular habits. It's a variety of things, such as how I eat, taking care of myself, taking care of my dog, cleanliness, and a few hobbies I want to incorporate more often.
Below are a couple pictures of the calendar and habit tracker.
You may notice that one of the habits I'm tracking is this blog. I really want to be a more active blogger, I just haven't done well at it. I'm working on it. Hopefully my content isn't too boring. I'm really doing it for me, though...so you can deal or stop reading. 😂
After I created those two pages, I realized that one of the habits I included (affirmations) was something I REALLY needed to have some more accountability with as well. I also realized that writing things down is a really good way to help yourself learn or remember, so I decided it would be good to write down my affirmations. Another thing I knew was that by posting the affirmations around my house, I would be reminded of them throughout the day. So my first thought was to write them on post its and then stick 'em places I'd see. I realized, though, that I wouldn't be able to remember which affirmations were from which day without another tracking system.
So, my daily affirmations portion of the bullet journal was "born". See photos below.
The biggest reason I'm doing these affirmations is because they are part of my therapy "homework". That said, I think it's a really good practice to recognize things within myself and call them out. I also think that by reminding myself of my positive qualities and strengths throughout the day, I can more easily "summon" up those qualities when I need them.
Yesterday (photo on the left), I was feeling unsure of how this practice would go, and a little hesitant to use affirmations that didn't feel quite like they "fit". I think I played it a little cautious, but the affirmations I chose were good ones. Today (photo on the right), I've already done some things that are responsible and good things for myself, so those were obvious ones. Another one I needed to remember today is that I'm safe. I can't really explain why (not because I'm unwilling, I just don't know how to put it in words), but I just needed that reminder today.
I plan to add new "sections" to my bullet journal as I go. I have a few ideas I'm toying with, but I am not yet ready to commit. We'll see how this morphs over time.
As for the habits, I have some good things going already and some areas I really need to "step up". You may have noticed a few habits that are blank. Some of those aren't truly intended to be daily habits, but I want to track how often I do them. Others really should be daily, and I'm just dropping the ball on them at this point. I think, though, that tracking them will help me be more honest with myself and allow me to analyze why I have/haven't been doing certain things.
One of the other habits I'm working to build is meditation. I called it meditation because it's the general concept of what I'm going for. I know some Christians don't like that word, but "quiet time" isn't exactly what I want this time to be. I'm working on centering myself and calming myself, as well as bring more in tune with my body. I DO also want to use this as prayer time or just sitting in silence...but that's not the sole focus of my meditation time. I DON'T want to use this as a time to read devotionals or scripture. That seems counter to the point of meditation. That can be something I do in addition to meditation at a separate (possibly adjacent) time.
I don't want to hash out each individual habit. I am, however, curious what you think. Are there habits I should add? Are there habits you're working to incorporate into your life? Do you have ideas for how I can improve my bullet journal? Do you use a bullet journal or another method of tracking/accountability? Tell me what you're up to in these areas! I love new ideas and I love to hear from friends what's working for them.
Oh, by the way...I've been posting my affirmations to my instagram account as a means of accountability. I probably won't do this every time I do affirmations, but if you want to follow and see updates on that feel free to check my account out. It's @gracezsuficient. ;)
First, I was trying to build habits without any sort of tracking or accountability. I found myself struggling to stay motivated and frustrated when I "skipped days". I mean, life happens and we skip doing the things we want to do, but when it keeps happening it's frustrating and disappointing. So I decided I needed to find a way to improve my tracking and accountability.
My sister recently started (restarted?) using a bullet journal. Her reasons and habits are a bit different than mine, but watching her work on her bullet journal last week reminded me of when I used to bullet journal over a year ago. I wasn't good at the habit then, and I'd created a LOT of work for myself every day in the way I was using it. I felt frustrated with the process and knew I needed to change HOW I used the bullet journal if I wanted it to work.
I took myself on an "idea shopping trip" on Pinterest. I searched for bullet journal ideas, and pinned a few. I even created a new board to make my bullet journal ideas easier to find. I also found a few pins I'd saved last year and moved them to the new board. Pretty quickly, I found a few ideas I really loved. I decided to jump in with those and adapt my bullet journal as I go.
So, I started with a calendar and a habit tracker. I wanted to have the calendar in my bullet journal mostly for extra reference when I'm using my bullet journal. (I REALLY want to use an abbreviation, but we all know that "BJ" doesn't mean bullet journal...am I right? 😂) I also wanted a habit tracker so I can "check off" the days I accomplish the things I want as regular habits. It's a variety of things, such as how I eat, taking care of myself, taking care of my dog, cleanliness, and a few hobbies I want to incorporate more often.
Below are a couple pictures of the calendar and habit tracker.
You may notice that one of the habits I'm tracking is this blog. I really want to be a more active blogger, I just haven't done well at it. I'm working on it. Hopefully my content isn't too boring. I'm really doing it for me, though...so you can deal or stop reading. 😂
After I created those two pages, I realized that one of the habits I included (affirmations) was something I REALLY needed to have some more accountability with as well. I also realized that writing things down is a really good way to help yourself learn or remember, so I decided it would be good to write down my affirmations. Another thing I knew was that by posting the affirmations around my house, I would be reminded of them throughout the day. So my first thought was to write them on post its and then stick 'em places I'd see. I realized, though, that I wouldn't be able to remember which affirmations were from which day without another tracking system.
So, my daily affirmations portion of the bullet journal was "born". See photos below.
The biggest reason I'm doing these affirmations is because they are part of my therapy "homework". That said, I think it's a really good practice to recognize things within myself and call them out. I also think that by reminding myself of my positive qualities and strengths throughout the day, I can more easily "summon" up those qualities when I need them.
Yesterday (photo on the left), I was feeling unsure of how this practice would go, and a little hesitant to use affirmations that didn't feel quite like they "fit". I think I played it a little cautious, but the affirmations I chose were good ones. Today (photo on the right), I've already done some things that are responsible and good things for myself, so those were obvious ones. Another one I needed to remember today is that I'm safe. I can't really explain why (not because I'm unwilling, I just don't know how to put it in words), but I just needed that reminder today.
I plan to add new "sections" to my bullet journal as I go. I have a few ideas I'm toying with, but I am not yet ready to commit. We'll see how this morphs over time.
As for the habits, I have some good things going already and some areas I really need to "step up". You may have noticed a few habits that are blank. Some of those aren't truly intended to be daily habits, but I want to track how often I do them. Others really should be daily, and I'm just dropping the ball on them at this point. I think, though, that tracking them will help me be more honest with myself and allow me to analyze why I have/haven't been doing certain things.
One of the other habits I'm working to build is meditation. I called it meditation because it's the general concept of what I'm going for. I know some Christians don't like that word, but "quiet time" isn't exactly what I want this time to be. I'm working on centering myself and calming myself, as well as bring more in tune with my body. I DO also want to use this as prayer time or just sitting in silence...but that's not the sole focus of my meditation time. I DON'T want to use this as a time to read devotionals or scripture. That seems counter to the point of meditation. That can be something I do in addition to meditation at a separate (possibly adjacent) time.
I don't want to hash out each individual habit. I am, however, curious what you think. Are there habits I should add? Are there habits you're working to incorporate into your life? Do you have ideas for how I can improve my bullet journal? Do you use a bullet journal or another method of tracking/accountability? Tell me what you're up to in these areas! I love new ideas and I love to hear from friends what's working for them.
Oh, by the way...I've been posting my affirmations to my instagram account as a means of accountability. I probably won't do this every time I do affirmations, but if you want to follow and see updates on that feel free to check my account out. It's @gracezsuficient. ;)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)