Yesterday's Review - I Give It Two Music Notes (Out of 7300??)

You know how we therapists are often our own worst critics? Yep. That's me. I am the loudest when it comes to my failings and things that I "NEED TO/SHOULD" do better in all areas of my life. No one is harder on me than I am, and I carry lots of shame when others correct me or criticize how I do things.

Yesterday was not a particularly bad day, but it was not my most efficient day. I filmed two videos for my YouTube channel, uploaded them both, took about three hours for a worker's compensation doctor visit, and got very little done for the rest of the day. I did do a bit of goal brainstorming (I bought 13 books from the Barcelona $10 textbook sale) for my professional development for the next year. I cleared off the loveseat (one of my decluttering foci for this week), and then started to get my reading routine off the ground. I intend to spend some of my work days in reading this year. Yesterday's reading was not done during work hours, but I had to keep myself out of bed until my senior intern's special project presentation, so it was a good thing to start reading.

(By the way, part of my accountability to myself is to write blog posts over the texts that I am reading, so get ready for some more synthesis posts in the very near future!)

I did get to check off almost all the tasks that I set out for myself, but I still ended the day feeling like I didn't get much done.

Enter my goblins.

This is my "shoulda" goblin...

I get so bogged down in thoughts of what I "shoulda" done during yesterday that I often skip over the things that I actually accomplished. When these types of thoughts come over me, I find that I have to actively combat them or the thoughts take over. I tend to have these types of thoughts when I am getting sick or have insomnia or am overly tired. I am currently living in a state of constant worry about my Dad who has deteriorated in all areas of daily living in the last two weeks. He has gone from being a vibrant, loud, teasing man to sleeping all the time, slumped over in his chair, struggling with hygiene, and not leaving his room at all. My mother has been trying to care for him but he is now pretty belligerent towards her almost all the time. He qualified for hospice care on Monday, and the services are starting, but my brain is full of anticipatory grief and concern for everyone in California. My sister is not doing well. She expects to direct everything and cannot. She hung up on me when I told her that calling her insurance company for setting up services for Dad would not work since he is not insured by her company. Mom has no one to talk to and my sister needs comforting rather than being able to offer comfort to Mom. That job is now falling to me.

So, my thoughts are often occupied with concern for my family members, and sitting at home to work on projects is not as distracting as working with clients face to face. It just plain old isn't the same!

So there's that going on.

I am still focusing on making content for my clients, even though most of them will not ever see my efforts. I am acting on faith that someone will appreciate the work that goes into all of this. 

This post has taken me much longer to write than usual because I've been flitting from task to task a bit more than I did yesterday or even last week. I spent 90 minutes putting together a powerpoint recording for my new channel - probably spent WAY too much time on one piece of content, but the end results are pretty good. Time to move into the world of organizing my space a bit more, and then I am going to read some more of my textbook to help my brain rest a bit. After that, who knows what this day will bring!