Resolutions For Health In 2017

I quit smoking again just as it turned into the new year of 2017.  Four and a half days later I went to my doctor's appointment to hear the results of my recent blood test.  My blood sugar level was quite high and he said I would have to start taking a medication twice daily at meals for the next 3 months till I saw him again.  One reason why I readily agreed is that I've been having toe pain for the last 2-3 weeks.  Problems with feet and eyes are common especially in untreated diabetes and can lead to dire consequences such as amputations and blindness.  The doctor said the pain in my toes would probably clear up within 2 weeks.  I have been faithfully taking the medication twice a day for the last four days.  I still have pain in my toes and some tension in my fingers and a restlessness at night when I try to sleep.

My condition is a wake up call to take better care of myself.  I would like to follow more closely Dr. Joel Fuhrman's books on fighting or even eliminating diabetes.  He suggests a mostly vegan diet and I have been moving towards that.  I have been relying in part on a line of frozen foods called AMY'S but it is still processed and I think I'm going to stop buying it.  I have been including more salads and more green smoothies, but I need to branch out into cooking, particularly hearty soups.  All this requires shopping at least once a week for fresh fruits and vegetables.  It also requires food preparation and a clean kitchen.  I have a very dirty kitchen and I have to change that.

Despite the stress of finding out my blood sugar is too high, (which has led me to thoughts of affliction and mortality) I do not have the desire to smoke cigarettes.  That in itself is a miracle that makes me grateful.  I turn instead to my vape mods and to drinking water and to talking into my audio recorder or listening to audio programs.  I am consciously trying to turn to vaping when I feel the least touch of a desire to smoke.  I'm trying to transfer my tendency to be compulsive from the toxic cigarettes to the mostly non toxic (no nicotine) vaping.  It's working for me.  It is obviously breath oriented, even more so than cigarettes, and it soothes me.

It's been very cold here this past week and I have stayed indoors.  There is peace and quiet and safety in my home, the ever present company of my cats and moments of meditation and appreciation for my life.  I do shift into anxiety and depression, but I've been sitting with them knowing that they too will shift into something better.  I'm also learning that once I become aware of whatever negative thought pattern I'm in, I can go to work to re-direct myself towards basic bottom line acceptance of where I am at in the present moment.

I have struggled with voices that say that I should be doing more, helping people, implying that my small life is a selfish one.  Not harming others has been very important to me and I don't.  In some instances I help.  What I'm really trying to learn is how not to hurt myself.  Having quit smoking cigarettes is a huge step forward in this.  And now, so is diet and exercise.  What I've learned over the years of living with psychosis is that individuals placing top priority on taking care of themselves body, mind and spirit is the key to living in peace and the key to finding deep happiness.

Assessing My Creative Work

I've had a change in my sleeping and eating patterns for the last two weeks.  I've been sleeping several hours during the day, maybe because it has been quite hot and I use only fans.  So I've been staying up till around three in the morning.  And then, I stopped cooking and have been relying on Amy's frozen meals which are vegan and vegetarian, but I've lost some appetite.  As a result I have been losing weight more quickly, which is good, but I'm concerned about myself.  My strong tendency is still to stay home and see very few people outside of my home.  I do go in and out of depression, but that seems like something I just have to accept like many other people.  And yet, I have been quite creative, writing blogs, poems, a few songs and drawing.

My emphasis in quite a few of my blogs these last two years has been away from the study of Buddhism and towards the study of addiction and addiction recovery, especially the Twelve Steps.  The big shift seems to be me coming forward as a serious believer in some kind of Higher Power.  I wonder if this is off putting to whomever reads this blog.  Truth is, it puts me off somewhat too when I re-read some of my blogs.  I really do want to be all inclusive.  I grew up around atheists and agnostics and a chunk of the people I know in my town are just that.  Their points of view are just as valid as mine and they have a great deal to offer.  I believe, but I do not know.  We each have to find our way through life following whatever feels true to us.  So my advice to you is to think for yourself, take what works for you and forget the rest.  My advice to myself is to be a bit less impulsive and more open minded.

I also feel uncomfortable with the poems I write.  They come to me very quickly and I do not rewrite, which is true of my blog too.  I think that I write boldly about difficult subjects and, though my intentions are good, I wonder if it's okay to share them.  Probably I am being too hard on myself.  I am just a small voice amongst many voices.  It does feel good to write the poems and to record myself speaking them aloud.  The main thing is that I get something out of it - a clearer understanding.  I think it was Joan Didion who wrote that she writes to find out what she's thinking.  It is like that for me in the act of reaching out to express how I feel about any given subject.

Songs have been coming out of me at a slower pace this year.  I've recorded only a few and haven't uploaded any to the SoundCloud site.  I gave CDs of my music to around four people, but there's been no great response to them.  I continue to pursue it because it provides me with an emotional outlet that I really need.  It's a valued artifact of the changes and stages of my life as well as a way to feel my feelings.  It's too bad that I have no experience with performing and know only a few chords on the guitar which I tend to play haphazardly.  I have thought of taking guitar lessons.  It's funny how scared I am to even try.  So many simple things that a lot of people take for granted I have trouble approaching and doing.

And then there's drawing and painting which you can see I've been doing a lot lately.  I know I have talent that goes in different directions.  I have a versatility of approach and can work with different mediums.  I've gotten some good responses to my portraits on Facebook and again I'm thinking of making more of a commitment to doing them.  One online friend said that he thought I could earn some income doing portraits.  That would be ideal.  I tentatively tried doing that seven years ago, but failed to promote myself.  Once again, I had good ideas, but didn't follow through with them.  But I do need to make some money and I would love to do it through my talent and hard work.  And so I've been thinking the last couple of nights that I need an artist website of my own where I can offer to do portraits either for payment or for a donation.  I think I am also going to put a donation's button on this blog and again offer to do portraits.  All I need are a few good photographs.

Right now I don't have the confidence.  I'm going to have to do the work to get it.  And I'm going to have to cross that line into self promotion.  I'm not sure why I feel it is wrong to promote myself and my art work.  Lots of good and talented people do just that.  Why can't I be one of them?  I am blessed that I have the time, the money and few responsibilities.  How many people have families and  full time work who want to earn money through their various talents?  Portrait drawing and painting could be the focus that I need to actually become a practicing artist.  I tend to go in all different directions, skimming the surface of many projects.  That's not going to work well if I want to earn income.  I wonder if I'm afraid to succeed.