Week 32. Getting Back

When it seems that life finally flows in a neater manner something always happens and we fall off track, and it’s not always a bad thing. Be it a later bedtime due to tiredness and stress, anxious eating patterns that come back when we’re stressed out, a much needed holiday break that changes our daily routines. Sometimes we just need a reset. To look through our smallest of daily habits and patterns to track what is helping us and what is setting us back. Mostly, a review of activities and the level of mindfulness we do these activities with during the day might do the trick and fine comb those reappearing unhealthy habits out of our days. In some cases even with knowing what is hurting us in our behavior we keep doing it. Then it’s time to look into what is hiding behind the behavior or action we can’t seem to shake off. Sometimes it’s a means to escape what else is not pleasant in our lives, other times it’s a coping mechanism we learned sometime ago and didn’t review later in life. No matter which is it, the important part is to understand that even if it hurts us in some ways, we chose it because it helps us in other ways so first and foremost, let’s thank that behavior / pattern / activity for helping us to get through the roughest of times, and when we’re ready, let’s find a healthier choice for us. This path is less liked because it’s not the easy one but if we want to stop hurting, we need to do something differently.

From the musical part, two songs have been living with me this week. One is “Free If We Want It” by Nothing But Thieves, which has an attention grabbing chord progression in the chorus but also, as always with this band, it stands strong lyrically, offering a thing or two to ponder on. Maybe that is one of the reasons this band keeps coming back to my Reads as a spice of the week which gives a unique flavor. Another one is an older song that was ringing around me on and off for a few years but only this week I was completely taken by it and found some interesting things on the way. The song is “Up” by James Morrison and Jessie J - I know, quite popsy but bare with me. The usage of strings for added drama and the tension-building melodic elements were already impressive choices and they intrigued me to examine the lyric side of the song. While looking up the lyrics I also found the origin story of this song which gave me a different context than I have given to it while listening on my own. In a nutshell, this song was a journey for me this week but still rings true as the days go by.

While trying to get back into my routines I hope you’re doing the best you can to be nice to yourself this week and make better choices.

Have a rebalancing week.