What's in my cup?

 A great analogy - Completely borrowed from elsewhere 🙏

You're holding a cup of coffee and someone accidentally bumps into you, causing it to spill everywhere.

Why did you spill the coffee?

"Because someone bumped into me."

Wrong answer.

You spilled the coffee because there was coffee in your cup. If there had been tea in the cup, you would have spilled tea.

Whatever is inside the cup is what will spill out.

So, when life shakes you up, whatever is inside you will come out.

It's easy to pretend everything's fine until you're shaken.

So, we have to ask ourselves, "What's in my cup?"

When life gets tough, what spills over? Joy? Gratitude? Peace? Humility? Anger? Bitterness? A victim mentality? A tendency to quit?

Remember LIFE gives you the cup; YOU choose what to fill it with!

And what is spilled is spilled for your benefit. When your life falls apart, don't pick up the pieces, they fell off for a reason. 

The quiet little mouse...

 All social interactions have caused massive anxiety in me.  I'm not sure where it comes from but I know that I have held on to an inferiority complex all my life.  We moved around a lot when I was a child and therefore had many new beginnings/starts in new places, new countries with new languages...  Starting kindergarten school in France as a Dutch speaker (I remember my parents giving teachers a French Dutch dictionary...), then starting 4th grade in Florida US as a French/Dutch speaker age 9 not knowing a word of English (this time teachers were given a French/English dictionary to be able to converse with me)....then moving back to Europe, Belgium,  and finally going to a multi-lingual school to continue my education in the English language...  Growing up and being the different one that can't understand and can't express herself adequately was tough and made me feel small and irrelevant, last, unheard, a last resort...  I have carried this with me always and enjoyed numbing it with alcohol.  My social anxiety came from my childhood, remained unaddressed during my adulthood due to using alcohol which further inhibited me from making meaningful connections with others.  It hurts to realise all this at the mature age of 49, yet very helpful and grateful that I have been able to work this out now thanks to TNM PATH.  I am already able to connect with people when I am shopping, or asserting myself if someone jumps the queue in front of me. No longer allowing myself to be pushed aside, not heard.  I'm part of everything again, and I count and I matter.

A tough week wrap up - but how amazing is it to handle tough situations whilst being alcohol free!!!!

 I want to share how much easier and better it is handling difficult situations whilst being AF. BTW AF is Alcohol Free.

I've been a bit quiet as shit was hitting the fan for me last week and I'm still getting into the routine of journaling...  Looking back I still can't believe last week, but I'm fine, I'm truly doing OK, I'm calm and kinda grounded too.  These are amazing new feelings and states of mind I have not experienced for a very long time.

[My alcohol history: happy daily drinker all my adult life, everyone around me drinks, never saw any issues with it, and was pretty good at holding my drink too.  Happy drinking till drinking was the only happy thing in my life.  So my alcohol free days were at 0% up to November last year.  Then I tried to cut down, which was horrible.  Alcohol was on my mind all the time and not drinking it was very hard.  My alcohol free percentage probably reached 20% between December 2023 to March 2024.  I started This Naked Mind 365 day PATH program on 1st February.  Since mid April 2024 to mid June 2024 my AF % has increased to a whopping brilliant 98.3%]🙌

Last week my husband and I had the kids with us (50:50 custody with our exs), so we're in 'parent' mode for a week.  There was a bit of trouble in paradise, as I would call it with my husband and I increasing are annoyances towards each other and as a result not being each other's favorite for a few days....[On Fridays when the kids go back to their other parents, we tend to hit the road (5hrs) from Sydney to Cooma where we are doing up our little bush block in the mountains.] This time husband is not coming with me to Cooma, and I decide that what's best for me is to go through with my plan and drive to Cooma with my dogs. It rained and rained buckets on Friday during most of my drive, but I get to my bush block all safe and sound by mid afternoon.  My husband's phone is switched off when I tried to call him. I'm unloading the car, the dogs are running around all happy stretching their legs and the phone rings.  It's my breast specialist. (Background, I've had annual check ups in the last 10 years due to having really dense breast tissue that freak out sonographers because there's lots going on in the images so they have me on close watch but everything has been totally fine to date confirmed by biopsies.) My breast specialist tells me that I have triple negative breast cancer and need to start chemo asap for 6 months, then surgery and possibly radiotherapy after that. And when I asked her whether I could still fly home to Europe for the first two weeks of July to visit my parents and brother who I haven't seen for 18 months, she said that was not an option and to cancel my flights. Alone with my two dogs in the Australian bush land, unable to reach my husband, after a tough shitty week and with this sudden blow to my health and immediate future was massive.  Yet, I'm ok.  And the reason that I'm ok is that I'm mainly AF, I can handle crappy situations again, I see clearly, I'm calm, I'm more present, I have learnt so much about mindfulness, grace and especially self-compassion.  OMG, self-compassion is HUGE!!! Not arguing with reality is also HUGE!  I have a pretty good prognosis so there is no real need to worry about me. Yet it is a shitty situation which I believe I'm handling very well in my book because of everything I have learnt from the Coaches, the community and the PATH content.  Previously, before the 365 day PATH, I would not have been able to handle a week like last week, I would have been a complete mess today.  Because of everyone here, I'm good today.  THANK YOU.🙏

I called my husband the next day, we chatted, told him the crappy health news, and my darling jumped into his car and drove down to be with me and comfort me.  💓

I'm doing ok. 😊💪🙏

Establishing new routines and sticking to them.....it's really hard!

So my intention was to journal most days in the week right?  Well there has been about 3 weeks of inactivity here so far.  Whilst, so much has happened in this very lifey life. (I'll update on that soon) I'm not going to beat myself up about not journaling, I'm here now and that is a gain. Yay!

So I will develop this further but essentially establishing a solid morning routine that does not require any thinking in the first 2-3 hours every morning is vital.

Mine would (ideally) look something like:

• Wake at dawn - set smart alarm clock to wake me each morning at dawn
• no snooze permitted
• count 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and get up out of bed 
• brush teeth /get dressed into walking/running gear - garments laid out the night before
• leave the house with both dogs / and dog treats (also prepared the night before) / and phone
• exercise for at least 1 hour in the early morning light that is meant to be so good for us
• synchronize breakfast time with kids [around 7:30]
• drive kids to school [8:00 am]
• return home [9:00]
• spend 30 minutes reflecting in journal
• do daily This Naked Mind video and reflective writing - 30 - 60 minutes approx
• plus 1 hr on project time / or bills / household admin or chores

Order of events can shift - Dawn currently occurs around 6:40 as we're nearly in the depth of winter here in Oz although in summer time I may be able to shift some of my post breakfast tasks to a prebreakfast slot 😀

Information and inspiration from: Education and Personal Development podcaster Mell Robbins Mell Robbins has several educational, informative and motivational podcasts on how to develop sound morning routines that benefit us the most and strategies to help us stick to them.  

Welcome

 A real-time personal development diary - blog why? 'cause success is individual and greatness is collective, it's shared success.  What is success?  Success is when you measure backwards and see progress, it's the gain! 😘

Who is G?  Well, her name is Germaine.  No middle name. Who is she?  Well, her intro on LinkedIn says:

“Germaine Langendijk won University of Queensland’s excellence in public health research prize and has earned a UK primary healthcare organization their first performance rating star. She is published in reputable scientific journals, and effectively communicates evidence in various other formats. She is a public health professional and graduate of the NSW Public Health Officer Training Program, with solid informatics and performance management backgrounds. She is the go-to person for project management and evaluation. She currently provides solutions to health organizations as an independent contractor. She has worked with NSW Health for over 16 years and 7 years for the UK National Health Service. Her clients report 100% satisfaction, her being enjoyable to work with, trusted, having resolved ongoing challenges and only delivering high quality effective outputs.”

Ok, but who is G? Who is she really? I’m not sure... Her recent profile description on Blogger says:

“A public health professional, mother, wife again, step-mom, forever foreigner, daughter, middle aged, pet parent, blogger, addict, ex-runner, rambler, amateur in several sports and arts, and lifelong student.”

Hmmm, is that everything? Is that true? Is this truly G?  Maybe, maybe not.

On an October day, in 2023, my son (14 at the time) and stepson (15 years old) pulled me aside one evening and courageously sat me down to have a ‘conversation’. ‘Ok’, I thought.  (They’re probably going to ask me to treat both of them equally (me being more comfortable correcting my son than my stepson, I’m perhaps unfairly on top of him…).) Nope, I was wrong.  The boys asked me to stop yelling when I get into an argument with my son, AND they asked me to stop drinking alcohol.  They told me that alcohol affects my ability to make decisions... – OMG!!! Wow! What?? Seriously? No way? WTF?? Where did that come from? Seriously?  I had all those statements zooming around in my head.  I said thank you to the boys. I thanked them for their courage to talk to me about this and that it’s noted.  I listened and told them I would reflect on it.

There we go. This request to stop yelling and stop drinking alcohol has started my personal development journey.

I rather quickly stamped out the habit of yelling. Quitting alcohol is surprisingly more difficult.  (I have been a daily drinker all my adult life, it’s simply part of my routine, my social entourage, my family, celebrations, commiserations, dinners and a legal entitlement.)  I didn’t know alcohol was bad for me, nor that it was an issue in my life until I tried to stop drinking it.  It was on my mind all the time. Every morning, I would set out to not drink and by 6pm I would be drinking till bedtime. I ended up in a downward spiral of blame and shame, beating myself up, as well as not being convinced that I wanted to let go of it yet.  Trapped.  Stuck.  This is when I knew that I needed some additional help. Scrolling through my Facebook feed one day in late 2023, a post, from an old high school friend sharing that she’s 5 years alcohol free due to a book called This Naked Mind by Annie Grace, got my attention.

This is my gap year.  I’m on a 365 day coaching program about finding freedom from alcohol and building a life I don’t want to escape from [Annie’s great words!].  I’m 118 days in and blown away by the evidence-based content, the coaching, and the early transformation in me! Moi! Thank you, Annie Grace!

Part of my homework in this program is journaling [recommended by one of my wonderful coaches (I have six top coaches!)], daily or between 5-7 days/week. Thanks to This Naked Mind community I have been pointed towards so many other great resources containing tools I will aim to implement.

In this journal I will describe my experiments implementing the personal development tools, tackling issues, annoyances, sticking points.  I will also go back and reflect on the past in order to grow forward, and of course I will reference the lot.

So, who is G?  Not sure yet.  G is hopeful that she will find out. G is looking to become her most authentic self, who is at peace and knows what she really wants.  Equipping herself with better tools, plans and knowledge she is determined to achieve her dreams [once she’s worked out what those truly are] and overcome life’s challenges.   💗