Judy2

if i have a 19m^2 room with furniture in it, 1m^2 is a lot😅 but i get your point and these things do look fun:) maybe at a different stage in life i'll reconsider getting one.

@Ramasta9 do you experience bloating when eating lots of raw fruit and veg?:)

doesn't a re-bounder use up a lot of space? they look fun though.

i dreamed of my late grandmother again. and again, in my version of events, she was given one day, fully alive, awake, and well, before she died. i wonder why this keeps coming up for me, and what it's meant to symbolise. guess it would have felt "just", it would have felt appropriate, though nothing short of a miracle considering her coma. i also saw the bill for her funeral on dad's desk last night, which might have contributed to this.

@Ramasta9there's a whole Mega-Thread on spiritual memes:) ...thanks for starting this one though! made me giggle a few times.

oh my God that's cute lol:)

@Carl-Richard that's suppose to mean: yes you are right but i'm still struggling to implement the advice...

yeah.......:)

yes that's kind of why i thought maybe running is a practice that's easier for me to start than meditation as it's more dynamic.

@bazera okay so it just takes some getting used to:)

yes, i remember:) i know they shouldn't bother me, but they do. which, i think, is not solved by telling me i should not feel that way. so i wonder why i feel that way, and how i can manage that. yes. bad excuse, but sometimes i feel too agitated or anxious to stick to the meditation routine that would stop me feeling agitated or anxious. is that a bad character trait of mine? are there ways to make meditation feel more accessible to me? you don't have to answer if you do not know. i am judging myself for being like that.

rough day. i've been debating whether to share this, but i finally got in touch with a systemic therapist this week - one i'd already spoken with twice last summer - and he, rather surprisingly, agreed to take me as a patient. the session got rather amusing when he brought up that he'd like to invite in my dad so that we can all talk together. not sure if i see that happening, realistically speaking. other than that, he said to assemble an "emergency kit" for myself and start painting my emotions with colours - because pressure requires ex-press-ion, he says. the emergency kit, i am hesitant about. i rarely use my dbt skills, mostly because i believe my dysregulation isn't bad enough for me to require it, and my emotions are real and objective.... but i suppose it is true that i could benefit...i've never tried for long enough to actually see if they work, though, and it is just a weird shift in perspective to consider myself as the one who's allowed to consciously down-regulate herself when needed. but i guess it is needed, if i am being honest, although that doesn't make this any easier to admit.

i don't.....i probably should. okay, interesting. sometimes when i play the piano i look up at the ceiling...maybe that's a similar effect. okay:)

when the anxiety hits, sometimes it's as though there simply is no future - like it's all grey, all lost, endless suffering. it helps to remember that there is, in fact, a future, and there always will be, and i'll be here, i'll stay with me. and there'll be good moments throughout this, too - again and again.

do i relax my eyes by closing them, or is there a different technique you recommend?

i do listen to music:) some time ago i also tried doing maths with my speed, time, distance - but my maths brain stops working when i'm running (which i guess is the whole point). yes, walking is fine - but with running the need for fast-paced distractions seems more urgent. hence why the same podcast i enjoy during a walk won't cut it when i'm running. i remember having a discussion with you about noises at the gym, and what you said implied they shouldn't bother me. fact is, though, they do, and i feel especially vulnerable when i'm trying to exercise....not just running, but this seems to be a related issue. it's mentally tougher to push my muscles till failure, for example, when certain triggers in my mind and environment are on, causing me to feel like i'd much rather recoil and lay on the ground than put stress on my muscles while staying nonresponsive to triggers in that environment.

@LastThursday yes, i generally enjoy it. i just notice my mind getting in the way at times... for example, when i'm thinking about some stressul events, personally i'm more prone to enter freeze-mode. but when my mood and the music are good, i enjoy it. it would help if somebody could observe me while running and give feedback on my posture, though.

@bazera i don't remember, maybe 30 or 40 min. my brother mapped out a 5km route for me to practice on, and at the gym i usually go on the treadmill after strength training, so i usually only do 10-15 min, 30 min on special occasions. the 13 km this summer will be a first, but i think that should be manageable. the organisers said i should aim to run relaxed for 60 min before the race, and i can work my way up to that in the months to come. 13 km sounds like exactly the right distance for it to push my limit but still be fun, so i'm excited:) maybe i'll do more the year after, who knows.

yes...i'd like to get a fitness watch at some point. i wonder if professional athletes know some sort of mental techniques for this...maybe they start labelling the colours they see while running and get into some kind of Zen state, who knows.

okay i can't keep up anymore:)

... maybe sometimes i'm a little too honest. i'm trying to be kind to myself today, though. every now and then, when i'm relaxed, i manage to remember to love myself. i'm trying to do more of that. trust, relax, have faith. and it can't hurt to be a little more aware of my body, my thoughts, emotions, sensations, whenever i have a minute. maybe it's as simple as strengthening this muscle whenever i can. i'll be okay.

... earlier today, i felt good when i ran my last few minutes on the treadmill and then Lana Del Rey came on... thought i should write that down to balance things out a little. i also felt good reading my book, and talking to a friend.

who i am now isn't bad enough ending a life over, but who i am now is definitely not living up to the hype of "surviving anorexia", as though that'd be a guarantee of being good enough. like, that was pretty tough to let go of, if not an impossibility in many ways....and yet i did it, did the impossible.....and i shouldn't have, because look at me! nowhere near as genius as what this should have led up to.

again, i also wonder if i'm the only anorexia survivor thinking every now and then that i wish i hadn't. not even because my life is that miserable now, but because it can't quite live up to the grandiosity of having survived something so deep, having experienced such peak goodness when i was at my lowest. i'll never be as beautiful as i was when i was dying. just for purely selfish reasons, i would have maintained more personal integrity if i had died skinny. mission accomplished. i would have missed out on a lot, but people would have come to my grave, fantasising about all the good, beautiful things i could have been, had i lived on. - but now, as a "survivor", my life is everything but pretty, i lack perspective, none of it is really worth it, it's a struggle most of all - and it would have been the better option, to die young and beautiful, with all that glimmering potential everybody would project right into my deathbed. that's everything i would have been - endless, beautiful, gentle potential. - not this miserable, ugly pile of a mess that i am these days..... (apparently the dichotomous thinking is coming through again, there we have it.) i simply shouldn't have survived. that would have been better for me, better for my soul, overall.

irrespective of the communication with my parents....i feel a bit of sadness, regret, just circumstantially speaking, that my choice was taken away from me. no one took it, but when i was 18 years old and decided on my undergraduate degree, i was barely able to make an informed, future-oriented choice. i was 60-sth lbs and barely able to think clearly, and just thought E lit sounded good, basically, with every fibre of my being focussed on how to survive the now....without a single thought spent thinking about my future self, and then the years after that i felt quite unwell, too. (maybe i should have died [when i knew i was good, looked good, in that moment....should have died young and beautiful...if i'd died when i was starving, there would have been no time left for me to become corrupted in any way....i would have died pure and beautiful and innocent]....now i'm stuck with the burden of a life to live, decisions to make that will shape me and my lived experience...a pile of mistakes to sort through...) i'm trying to be smart now. people say i'm still young - i'm also quite old, but i also like to think i'm worth a second chance, my life is worth a second chance, for me to still re-think my choices and opt for something that may end up being fulfilling. i don't know...the situation is far from ideal.