Questionnaire

I am having a naturopathic consultation next week and part of this involves filling out a questionnaire ahead of time. It is surprising how being held accountable suddenly changes things. I haven't walked for a while, but knowing my exercise over the next couple of days will be recorded, is motivating.

I don't know why I hadn't thought of writing down my exercise patterns myself but maybe that wouldn't have motivated me in the same way as someone else viewing these.

The whole idea of the consultation is to see where I am at and suggest tweaks to help with my desired outcomes. There is no judgement and I certainly don’t want to give a false impression, but exercising more is one of the goals I have set myself this year. The hard of doing regular exercise is offset against the hard of being unfit and feeling much older than I am. That was my motto this year - to choose my hards (see New-Year's-day blog). So, I am thankful for the questionnaire because it got me walking again and even though I erred on my eating plan with Stephen's birthday, I am back with this too - another part I need to record.

One of the questions was about what motivates me for the changes I desire. I was surprised when I thought about this, to find the answer was mainly negative. I am not motivated by something positive coming up, but by the negative way I feel about myself when I gain too much weight or become too unfit, for example. Although in saying that, the thought of getting my body back to its optimum size is the motivation behind changing the negative, so maybe it's not so bad after all.

I can feel the energies of today's full moon. It is a bit like a hook, pulling bits and pieces of the past up, but I have experienced enough full moons in my life to know that tomorrow I will be back to my normal self. As the moon loses it strength, so too do these feelings. As a nurse, we saw so many more admissions to the hospital around the time of the full moon, falling after this.

My mental health and wellbeing were another part of the questionnaire. I feel so fortunate in that I feel calm and peaceful within, although I have done a tremendous amount of work on myself over the years to achieve this. As I tell people, if something pushes one's buttons, there is work to do. And I am lucky I am retired and don’t have to experience negative people in my daily interactions as one would if one worked in the public domain.

One of the questions asked about temperament in traffic. There, I had to admit to frequent impatience. I am not always calm in situations where drivers around me are doing stupid things....pushing my buttons? Hmm I hadn't thought about that. Perhaps I need to do some work around this.