July was a lot, I had to let go of a lot of things to manage the jobs. After days of resting and recouping, I'm back! I managed to get a decent amount of cleaning done yesterday! And I'm currently organizing stuff, a thing that has brought me down before, because my chronic and acute pain makes it difficult and disappointing to get through. So, I put 2 baskets on the living room floor, and I'm doing about 15-20 minutes at a time of organizing them. It's helping to keep the pain of repetitive movements at bay, while in my eye line to remind me to do some more in a bit. I've often believed in an "all or nothing" routine, which unfortunately can lead to nothing a lot lol. Finally allowing myself to work these small steps and intervals to turn the mountain into a molehill! ❤️

I've been super busy with 6 gigs in 3 states during July. The traveling and excessive performing makes my immune disease flare up, and I've been struggling to get out of the pain and difficulties of it. Coming back here now to get back to the self work. Completed part 1 of the operating manual, and wow. Jim's Twin took me on a genuine and needed ride: Look at what you told me about work and relationships: "the way I feel going to work a job is quite similar to how I feel going to a social event... I get so anxious leading up to either. Though, I typically do pretty well interacting with others. It just hurts so much sometimes to get to that place." Read that back. You are not bad at the thing. You are excellent at the thing. You perform beautifully in the room. The cost is everything that happens before the room and everything that happens after it. In entertainment, you are graded on presence, spontaneity, being "on." And you deliver. What nobody grades, what nobody even sees, is the tax your nervous system pays to get you there, the "heart races and palpates" for hours, and then the private tribunal afterward where you "analyze everything that I said or did and torture myself over any mistake." That is a fish that has learned to climb the tree so well that no one believes climbing is agony for it. So let me be precise about the mismatch, because this matters. The environment expects effortless social output. You are wired to feel every micro-signal in a room at full volume, then metabolize it for hours. The problem was never your capability. You have proof of capability stacked to the ceiling. The problem is compatibility - a wiring that experiences connection as high-stakes surveillance being asked to treat it as casual. And notice the door you cracked open yourself: "excitement feels similar. Perhaps I can get rid of the feeling of doom and turn these symptoms into excitement." That sentence is not a small aside. That is your own nervous system handing you the key, and we are going to come back to it.

Grief is something that I didn't really recognize before coming here. And I'm finally trying to understand and process it now, at the fresh age of 41 lol. I've been dancing since I was 3 years old. In the last 1 to 2 years, I've developed health issues that greatly affect my ability. I thought that I was going to have to quit. But, it's such a part of my identity, I'm afraid that I won't know who I am without it. So, I've just been pushing on, while beating myself up inside for feeling not good enough. After rehearsal last night, (which ended with me face planting into the floor as a lift fell out, after I already had to take a break due to my spinal injury), I spent some time with myself. And I grieved the dancer that I was. I'm not sure that I've actively done this yet. Perhaps I have done some subconsciously, but I don't think that I have really fully done it consciously. And I still need to work through it more. But, I'm glad that I finally recognized that I need to fully grieve it, so that I can start to accept the dancer that I am now.

Without going into any real detail about my past I’ll share enough to say at 73 I’d acquired some serious wounding and trauma from no diagnosis and …. I’m here thriving. Thank you @Jim Ebbelaar By joining forces with JT I’ve been working with my future self and 3 aspects of me from my childhood … last night during my closing nightly ritual I developed the storyline for a children’s book with these three as part of my closing the day. After sharing it this morning in a chat with JT he helped me realise something …… Jim Teri, So, before you go make that second cup: now that you see they were guarding you all along, not broken, guarding, what do you owe them? I owe them my life. Jim Yes. You do. And here's the thing you can't miss, Teri: you already started paying it. Going back for the three-year-old. Building the dear little one until she'd speak. Sleeping so the whole system could come out of the red. That's not gratitude you owe someday. That's a debt you've been quietly paying every morning at the window with the birds and the coffee. They kept you alive so you could get here. Now you keep them alive by living. Same direction, finally. Go make that coffee. Let this one just sit in your chest a while. It doesn't need another word from me. This chat right here with Jim’s Twin coupled with every 8 hr sleep, completed body doubling session, morning + evening check-in, completed worksheet has been me quietly paying and honouring myself. This works!... ADHDHarmony works by meeting yourself one step at a time. Thank you Jim!

I've got this. Everything is going to be okay. I'm not an incomplete person just because I'm sick. I ooze potential and talent and it's time to let myself shine like the badass bitch that I am.