The Sleep Is the Life

Hello and Good Morning!

I feel like things are starting to come together a little bit with me. I feel like all the "stuff" I do to try and kickstart this health journey are beginning to show signs of working.

I have not been a big fan of collagen drinks, I've tried several with none of the results they tout. But I got this mushroom coffee that actually tastes good and it's a powder, you add it to water, which you can warm up or drink cold. I don't drink hot coffee anymore, or at least it's rare and so I just whip it up with a frother, add a bit of cream and it's good.

Well, I got it because of the mushrooms. It just happens to have collagen in it. I've been drinking it once a day in the AM for a month now and my aches and pains? They are greatly diminished. It's almost weird, expecting aches and having none.

My back still continues to go back and forth but all the hip stuff, the stiffness in various parts of my body...gone.

I believe it was about a week ago I realized this so I didn't say anything, just kept drinking my coffee and here we are a week later and it still holds.

So...I don't know. That one seems to be a hit as opposed to a miss.

I also have been taking a cream with estriol in it, it's plant based and while that has made certain changes, they also have a progesterone cream and that one? That one is a miracle worker. I've had energy. Oddly enough, I've taken naps the last two days in a row, slept hard through them but woke up refreshed.

At work, my brain fog has improved. Not amazingly, but in small ways that are making things so much easier to assimilate and follow through on.

So it would seem that there is something to this whole consistency thing. Just have to push myself.

I take all of my supplements in the morning because I don't want anything fucking with my sleep. 

You know how in the movie Dracula, Renfield keeps saying, "the blood is the life" yeah well for me blood is just great but it's more like, "the sleep is the life".

I was going over bills and stuff yesterday and I thought back to the 5 and a half months prior to me starting work and I'm kind of amazed that we made it through that standing, a lot of debt but all of it in good standing, rent paid.

I am so fucking blessed and looking back on it, that's a miracle. That's a huge ass miracle.

That whole thing was a lesson in so much; not just the impulsive choices thing but also in faith and belief and in "learning the lesson."

It makes me so happy. 

My relationships are so different now and you know...this whole protecting my peace thing?  Big time. 

You all know by now how I feel about 12 step programs...but the program itself, without involving people it, lol, is a good program.

It's people who fuck it up and bastardize it. Just like the Bible or the Koran. 

But there's so many quotes in it that have helped me and I'm going to put one of them up here.

 Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate, seemingly without provocation.

 I do not take the protecting my peace thing lightly anymore. And I actually pay attention and listen in conversations I have with others and I would just throw out there, that the whole retaliation thing above in the quote, nothing I do is without provocation and no one thing causes me to act but after some things occur multiple times or someone's actions have been hurtful multiple times, then yes, I'm out. And I don't like the word retaliation, because it's not that, it's letting go of what feels toxic. I choose inner peace and I don't make decisions rashly anymore. There is always a lead up to my decisions and when something or someone's actions reach that boiling point, I can't fix that for them. We all have a final straw and it's only about me in the sense that again, personal peace man. 

And I don't blow up anymore, I don't have the energy, nor do I want that kind of energy. Poison.

No thank you. 

That whole saying, when someone shows you who they are, believe them...

I can't ignore things anymore. And if they hurt me, then you know, you start to evaluate and think about things and if you're me, you meditate on them too and you ask whatever "force, nature, god, whatever" to give you clarity.

It's not about comparison, it's not about judgement...it's about I am feeling very hurt, repeatedly.

So, that's changed too. I care enough about myself not to retaliate or "hit back", I just let things that feel toxic to me...go.

With love.

I mean that.

I let them go and I don't worry about reactions because that's not mine either.

My life has not been peaceful; my life has been full of bad choices, impulsivity, struggles, anger, judgement, so many things and at the end of the day now, in order to honor the changes I've made and the changes to come...I protect my peace.

Non-negotiable.

While I continue to go up and down with the depression, I am experiencing happiness and it's new to me. I've been happy in moments before, I've been almost maniacally joyful but this kind of happiness is calm and peaceful, it's all mixed in with gratitude, faith, belief in the journey as opposed to desiring outcomes of my design.

It's peaceful.

And what I'm hoping, is that these moments, sometimes hours now, of happiness, will just become a mainstay of my life.

At my age, peace - both inner and outer - is huge.

I'm not who I used to be and I wouldn't want to be.

We all change, hopefully we all grow.

I wish you a blessed day.

Love & Light,

Neecie