Taking A Chance

Been a while since I wrote anything on here...
A month or so? I can't remember. 

Not been a lot to update about.
I've got a pigeon nest on my balcony. 
The babies in there are the second batch of babies.
The first batch grew up and flew away. 
I keep cleaning the nest and giving them fresh stuff.
I put food out for the parents.

Apart from that been kind of laying low, I guess. 

Going to go back into studying to keep my mind busy. 
Also, it's about time I do some things like learning about some stuff. 
Then I can put it in another format and maybe help somebody with it.

I've got website plans in my head. For a few things.
Setting up some things for myself in that regard. 
Sorting out my hosting issue on Monday, I guess. 

I opened a ticket with the support team. 

Anyway, been thinking about how to be on my own team.
Because that is what people need to do, 
but few are taught how to do it.

It's something amongst things that aren't widely talked about. 
I can't really talk about these things with the people I know.

I think that's mostly because it's hard for me to get my thoughts together
when I'm verbally communicating.
Writing's always been better and easier for me. 

Someone was telling me that he doesn't know who he is, yet.
I've been there, emotionally.
I've been many places, emotionally, but I'd like to think
that I'm in a better place, now.

Don't get me wrong, I still regress, often.
It's hard to break certain patterns, but we can kind of design 
some things and put them into practice.

We've practiced the patterns we've gotten stuck in. 
Whether we have done it consciously or not.

Since we can do things without thinking about them,
we can do things WITH thinking about them.

As long as we practice doing it.
And that is how we develop habits.

Of course I have bad habits, still.
Habits are patterns. 

Just been thinking about recovery... 
When I quit drinking I used to blog a lot more often.
Mostly to process all the emotions that came up. 
It got pretty overwhelming.

What we repress, grows and grows. 
And all the stuff we've pushed down for years can come right back up. 
When we aren't expecting it to.
And when that happens, what do you do with it?

How do we process emotions?
That's not something I was taught. I'm still learning this.

What I WAS taught was "Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about!"
I wasn't taught to express myself, let alone my emotions.

And if it wasn't for this, would I have an outlet?
I mean... My outlet has always been writing, but blogging has helped a lot. 
It kind of helps me explore my thoughts. 

When I was newly sober, I was on such a self-improvement kick. 
It actually felt pretty good. Hard to explain why. 
Just a bunch of good changes that feel pretty good.

There were times I felt like huge weights got lifted from me.
Carrying around a lot of stuff that I don't need to carry around. 
Doing a lot of stuff that I didn't actually have to do. 
That I just did out of habit. 

I found out that you can pick up other people's habits. 
Doing things my mother would do, that I picked up from her.
Doing things others who used to be around me would do. 
Stuff like that.

BUT it goes to show that you can pick up OTHER things from people. 
And you don't even have to know them personally.

It's like being under the influence....
Whether it is the influence of substances OR
the people around us influencing us.

Obviously being under the influence of substances can mess with our heads.
I know this from my experiences. 

But when we are under several influences... 
Not just substances or other people....
But we can be influenced by our own thoughts...

We can literally influence ourselves. 
And mostly, when we aren't in touch with ourselves...
It's because we don't have a very good relationship with ourselves.

So I thought about inner dialogue
and what we say to ourselves... On a regular basis.

Then I thought about NLP
and how we can use language to program ourselves.
And there are certain techniques etc.

What if I were to develop my own techniques that work for me?
That would require some thought experiments. 

There were some I did to see what kind of results I could get.
But that's what we have to do to discover things.
Experiment a little bit.

How do you think things were invented?
Had to do experiments and research...
Had to do tests... Testing different things.

So why can't we experiment with our own thoughts?
Why can't we get into our own heads
apart from living and existing in there?

Do we question ourselves?
Do we question what we think about or what we think?
If we do, how often do we do it?
How often do we think about doing it?
How many times have we done it?
If not many, how can we expect to be good at doing it?

As a kid, I used to get really mad at myself
because I couldn't do something I wanted to do.
And I really just wanted to do it.

When a friend used to take me cross country skiing, 
I used to get angry when I fell.
Because it was like "you're not good at this."
And I'd get so angry with and at myself. 

I see a lot of that in my son, from a very early age. 
When he would get frustrated doing something, he'd get angry.

And it was my responsibility to talk to him about that. 
And about other things, but he did not want to listen to me.
To this day, he and I aren't talking.
We haven't spoken in 3 years now.

I keep hoping he'll come around. He might.
But I'll keep the hope up because I don't think
that reaching out to him, or trying to reach out to him
would go over well...

Considering there are trust issues and pain.
And it's been pretty messy.

I always thought that when he got older, 
that it would be easier to talk with him, 
but I guess I am the one who severed the connection we had. 
There was a lot I wasn't thinking about back then.
A lot I wish I could redo.

A lot I wish I had done and hadn't done.
Hindsight is 50/50.

The thing about learning is that we need to learn some things
that come before other things.