Europe

Charging the Creative Mind Back Up

Posted on by Lady CAS

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What do you see in the picture above? Is it an alien life form? A strange light or substance out in space? Some new life form found in the vast depths of our oceans? Or a child’s drawing perhaps?

You would be wrong on all counts!

It’s the neural synapses within the brain magnified greatly to show the activity within the brain. So let’s literally charge the brain!

So I consider myself very creative and imaginative. I have always found myself to be a big dreamer and over the years I have let that become a bit muted. I think sometimes that adulthood and corporate life can do that to you. The dull humdrums can do that to anyone, but it is our duty as dreamers and creative believers to find ways to break from that reality and shake things up. To keep ourselves from feeling chained down and ready to burst.

I get overly anxious and feel as if I am stuck too often and think why is this happening and I know it is not because I have a disorder that is ‘holding me back’ but because I have allowed excuses to form on why I cannot enjoy new and alternate forms of things in my spare time that my disorder has nothing to do with. I let people and thoughts hold me back.

This is not who I am, but what I have become because I started ‘caring’ what others thought of me. Thinking, ‘what will he/she think if I go and do this?” or “wear that?” or “if I just what if I went to this event?” But I just do not care anymore! I am who I am and here to enhance my learning, love, excitement about life and love for myself, family, and live. Just because people do not think it is “Christian enough” for them tough cookies because I that is between me and God and honestly people twist the Bible so much that most of the things they say I shouldn’t do over the years I learned was a crock! I was just missing out for no reason at all.

I must do what makes me happy, I have a pretty good moral compass and if I feel bad, guilty about it chances are that it is wrong and I should stop it or will repent for it. I know when too much is too much. Until then I have got to begin anew. For me the ‘new’ started with all my great news Monday at my doctor’s visit and will continue with my Trip to Europe in 2 weeks. As well as the much needed days off I hope to have sprinkled in here and there since I have vacation accrued that I must take before the end of the year since we are moving to a new PTO structure next year within my organization. Again, change is good, I refuse to think of it any other way. As I eat with my 4 prong for that just became a 3 prong one, LOL. At least I didn’t suck it down my throat!

Silent Fears and Frustrations…Part 1

Posted on by Lady CAS

So I have grown to learn that we all have something that we are afraid of. I use to think I was so fearless and I think that comes with this things called our teenage years and 20’s. Then we get a bit older and realize with our responsibilities and threat of death that we are indeed afraid of things that we may never have been afraid of before…But the fear mya have always been there.

For example, you may have told your friends when you were younger that you were not afraid of frogs but then you relaize as an adult that you do have a strange fear of them. You wonder how this was possible that you never had the strange irrational fear they your friend did when they were younger running and screaming as children. Then you realize it was because you never really encountered any or that you did not have that traumatic encounter until you were an adult (stepping on the frog and almost slipping and falling on it). The latter would be me. I stepped on a frog and since then when I see one I can watch it, and stare at in an enclosure, but I give them an unnaturally wide girth when I see them in the ‘wild’. I have no desire for that to happen again. For some reason that experience freaked me out and I just can’t deal with frogs the same again.

Next came my fixation with needing to not only do my job but do it the best I could. It wasn’t about sucking up as some people may have seen it, but about trying to figure out the best way to do my job the most efficiently without having to do twice the work. I wanted to create my own best practices for myself in a sense. So it was a frustration for myself when I failed or got behind on my work…When I say behind the deadline usually had not come yet it would still be a ways off but it was past my personal deadline of when I wanted it done. I prefer to get things done 1-2 weeks ahead of schedule s that if something is a team effort or someone else relies on me to get my information done so that they can glean information from me for their reports they will have it in time. Moreover, If it is a project they can because I get them done so early so they can look at them and tell me what modifications they would like so they can still be done in the original time frame.

So for me it’s part of the organization fun but it also helps take some of the stress off my mind to know it is done in advance. It has nothing to do with sucking up. But the problem comes in when I care too much about what others think, or care about when it comes to when I need a break. I care so much that I let others take time off, or worry about what they will do when I am not there and how it will affect them. My friends and some family say you should not because they do not do that for you but some do. They change their schedules for my treatment and work around me when I feel ill when and do not create a hostile environment for me because of it. However, I get what they are saying and I have to start remembering what psychologists and governing bodies of some of our other countries have been saying for years; vacation is not a luxury it is a necessity. You need it to recharge. Some countries offer up 30 days of vacation per year and that has nothing to do with a graduated service to the employer that is just standard…I mean seriously and that doesn’t even include the paid holidays. I feel like I truly need to become European people. If they take me…A visit is one thing, staying is a different matter altogether, LOL.

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Stay tuned for part 2 of my fears and frustrations…yea there’s more, LOL

 

Getting Ready for PLAYTIME

Posted on by Lady CAS

So if you have been following me for some time you know that I am going to Europe soon. It has been pushed back to the fall but we have now set a date in September. I am excited because, well the date has been set. However, that also means that I must physically get ready. Being that I have MG I have to do some special things. Though it is not all that different from things that normal people do before the summer or other seasonal things; I have to get my body in shape.

I have not been able to exercise in months due to several huge setbacks last years and I now that I can I have to do it so slow that it ANNOYS me with every grain of my being. I am just not one for the SLOW beginnings thing when it comes to something I know how to do. SO I bought a spin bike for my house last week and it arrived yesterday. It weighs over a 100 lbs and I put it together all by myself. I am quite proud of that fact because I have always been quite handy but with MG my fine motor movement has been greatly diminished due to the fatigued f my muscular ability over time. SO with many breaks I did finish it. Though had this been 3 years ago I probably would have done it probably 3 times faster.

Also with the sheer weight of it, I had not lifted that much for so long repeatedly in a very long time and I was quite proud of myself. I was quite sure I was going to drop it at some point and was glad that I did not. Again I took many breaks and I got it together.

Now, I enjoy teaching spin class but I have to get myself revved back up to that point by re-gaining my cardiovascular ability. I started the whole process by walking more and that has helped. But maybe not as much as I should, my app does not accurately show steps as much as it shows forward motion in steps like a gps. So if you are standing still stepping or stepping less than 26 inches or whatever the step gait is, it won’t count it. So I know I am getting shafted on my steps per day, especially when I am working out, vacuuming, and so on. However, right now my main goal is just trying to get moving so I will take it. However, I will have to give in and by a fitbit so that I am getting more accurate measurements because that is quite annoying when I know I am getting those steps and it is not being shown and my cardio is getting better (though I know that should be the only thing that matters, lol).

The bike was bought for many reasons though, I cannot always make it to a pool, or pay for one which is my favorite method of exercise. Moreover, it is quite tiresome and I cannot use all my energy in one shot. So I got the bike. I can sit and ride and it’s my second favorite form of exercise. I love spin. I take it to the max. I love the varied intensities and sweat you can work up.  I wear my heart monitor too. I also like that I can watch t.v. if I want, lol. When I swam I could only listen to my music (as I had an underwater pouch for my ipod). I have to get my cardio up so I can walk for hours and in Europe, most everything is walking, biking, and hiking. Though you can take taxis, it can get pretty pricey. I also don’t walk to slow my family down taking breaks ALL the time. Though they understand and are prepared to take a break here and there for food and so on. Who wants to break every 1-2 hours because I cannot keep up. And if you are walking with my Aunt or Dad it may be less than that because they are speed walkers so I have to get my stamina back up to walk like them again. I am/use to be quite a fast walker naturally because of my dad. So I have to make sure I do not pass out trying to do it again especially accounting or altitude, weather, hills, and just plain on exercise. I just want to be ready to PLAY.

Being a health professional I know it only takes 10 days to ‘lose’ your cardio stamina that you build up however, it can take a bit of time to build it up. It does not take all the time that I am giving myself; however, having MG I do not want to take chances on how long I will need. Slow and steady wins this race and at 10 weeks with no treatment and going for 16 weeks. I will not allow anyone to get in my way!