It’s happened before. The major service resulted in a car with a lovely smooth running engine…
…but then we took it for a longer spin and it became clear something else wasn’t right!
Cover image relates to binaural beats mentioned below (CC BY-SA DPic), but could just as easily illustrate the sound my car’s been making.
- Low mood. Irritable. Not helped by the car, because for some reason I hate taking my car to the garage (and dealing with booking, quotes, etc). However, I’ve not been feeling good since late January, continuing into February, now it’s March…
- Admitted as much to some people I know, which resulted in a luckily much lower than american sitcom level of “intervention”!
- Made some observations during and after the chat with my friend:
- Don’t want more talking therapy or medication yet.
- Meditation helps, but likely only if you do it every day.
- Exercise helps, but motivation vaporises easily (in particular when it’s hot).
- Being outside is great, in particular when you’re playing positive golf.
- For now I’m going to avoid academia as much as possible, but at some point I need to address how I (still) feel about it.
- Then some action:
- Went straight to the garage, had a chat about the noise Snowy’s been making and booked in (probably wheel bearings, but diagnosis first then fixing as necessary).
- No physio this week and I’ve not been good at doing anything since the end of last week. Did weights. Just a short two set session, but heavy (although taking care) and it was good.
- Read about the benefits of listening to binaural beats (section on page explains pretty well). Went looking and found some decent research indicating they might be useful in improving mood, focus and positive thinking.
- Started a tiny experiment: binaural background for meditations, every day for 10 days, track effects (because what’s really important is whether they do anything for me).
- Why don’t I ask for help?
- Talking is difficult and makes it all feel worse in the moment.
- Fear other people will judge me the same way I judge myself (ie I have it easy, and just shouldn’t feel low/moody/sad). I know that’s unhelpful, but I was brought up to be hard on myself.
- Knowing what to do is easy, doing it is not.
- Nine holes at The Springs on Monday with D and a friend which was good. Very pretty course with great (interesting/difficult) greens. Well-placed bunkers and trees in fairways made it challenging to drive, but really good fun.
- Wednesday golf - opening of the season - played ok. Weird Irish fourball format.
- Friday golf - very good round for 36 points. Importantly, I beat the second nine into submission for once (including a par on 18). It can be done.
- Binaural meditation has already promoted thinking about things I want to do in more positive ways:
- Sorting clothes, turned into identifying things to alter rather than throw out. Those alterations have begun already.
- Re-located the piano improvisation teacher on YouTube (but not actioned further yet).
- Bird of the week: raven going on and on (and on) in the tree.
Maybe life is a bit like golf. Make a decision. Play the shot (ie do the thing). Deal with the result.
