I’ve just now, at 3:40 pm this Sunday, decided that I’m going to do a weekly recap blog post and video. I wanted to create the Cycle 18 Dream+Flow blog post and video first, but that isn’t happening. I should be able to get it done this week though.

This week has honestly been the best week I’ve had in the 7-year history of doing 108s. It’s an outstanding way to get started. One of the things that makes this week stick out so much is that I’m in the worst shape I’ve ever been in my life, but I’ve started a fitness routine to match where I am and I’ve stuck with it all week. In the past, the best 108s I’ve had have been built around the “keystone habit” of running every day. I haven’t replaced running as a keystone ever since I injured my hip going on 4 years ago. There was a moment when I pivoted to swimming, but COVID closed the pools.

Since I don’t have running as my keystone habit I’ve replaced it with journaling. Journaling is an awesome keystone habit for me because it also provides a window into how I’m doing. I can add and change habits and then talk to myself about how things are going.

Along with journaling and exercising, I’m on top of my daily chores. I struggle with this when I don’t have a good flow of habits throughout the day. Chores are the first thing I do when I get back from exercising. I’m also not just doing chores, I’m making progress daily with “house projects”. The house project I’m tackling next is a pile of bags that need to be gone through to throw out, give away, or sell the things in them. At some point, I’ll be done with all of the house projects. That will allow me to dump more time and energy into personal projects.

Energy Monitoring

Each week I’ll be reviewing my energy levels. I have an app designed for people with bipolar where I can record different data points around my mood. I didn’t think about it until today, but something else I’ll be doing is making a note in my journal about why I recorded something. For example, I have two days this week that I labeled “mildly elevated”. Knowing how and why I got elevated will provide insight into how things can cascade into a full-blown manic episode. Perhaps more importantly, I can make adjustments to bring myself back to a more neutral level if I’m aware of how and why I got elevated. This segues perfectly into the last thing I wanted to talk about…

Emotional “Hard-Soft”

This is a high-level concept to put into a weekly update, but I’m doing it anyway.

Hard-soft is a word I came up with to describe the quality you want to develop in taichi (and really all martial arts). The idea is that you never want to be “hard” or “soft”. Instead, you want to have the perfect level of hard and soft for a given situation and it’s constantly dynamically changing.

I realized that this is also true for emotional states. I want to develop the ability to match my emotions to the situation. I don’t mean this in a Spock kind of way. I naturally move through different emotional states and energy levels throughout the day. It’s healthy to let emotions express themselves. That said, I need to develop an awareness about whether the emotional state that naturally rises is a good match for the situation and, if possible, regulate it.

A simple example is sometimes I can be excited about something when it’s time for me to be sleeping. That excitement isn’t “bad” but I should be able to recognize that now isn’t a good time for it and I should instead engage in an activity that will help relax me (read a book, listen to music, meditate, etc.)

Paying attention to and tracking these emotional states is important for me because what happens with bipolar 1 is a high-energy emotional state can persist too long and interfere with sleep, habits, relationships, etc. to the point where my emotions will get regulated with a trip to the mental hospital and lots of drugs.

Wouldn’t it be 1,000 times better if I could catch these energy levels and emotions early and stop the dominos from falling?

Conclusion

This was a surprisingly long update because I wasn’t planning for it. I thought about including my weight (105.2 kg/231.9 lbs) and other stats but… maybe next time. I’m going to let these evolve organically.

See you next week!

Bonus:

Media This Week

I sat down to shoot the video and had the thought of including the media for the week.

Video games: Animal Well and Helldivers 2

TV: Kaos

Maybe I’ll include so YouTube videos, articles, and other media if I get organized about collecting it.