On Tuesday night I normally go to a depression support group at my church. Last night it was cancelled and I quickly made a list of things to do that filled the evening. When I got home my kitchen was covered in ants. (This is an ongoing problem for about a week now.) I also got a text that a church member needed help moving last minute and a phone call that another church member needed a ride home from the hospital that is a bit of a drive on Wednesday mid-day. Needless to stay I was overwhelmed with what to do. Add to all this that Eric is stuck in traffic and has already agreed to go help with the emergency move.
I had a few options. One, I could sit down and cry and do nothing. I will admit that was very tempting and almost followed through with this. Two, I could say "good luck, you are on your own" to the people who needed help and do my own thing. Things which I always promise myself I will do and never follow through with. Three, get up and go to work. In the end I went and got dinner (no way was I cooking in a kitchen with more insects than rice), picked up a map that Eric needed and then went to help the move while working out the ride situation. Eric got home (after the traffic "magically" cleared; prayers are answered) and cleaned up the ants and we went off to the move.
I am glad I went and helped with the move and was able to figure out the ride situation but I am still frustrated with the fact that once again I didn't follow through with what I promised myself I was going to do.
Showing posts with label commitment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label commitment. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Monday, April 8, 2013
General Conference
This past weekend my church had it's annual General Conference. Instead of attending church there is a broadcast from Salt Lake City with sermons given by the Prophet, 12 Apostles and members from the Quorum of the Seventy. If you are curious, the entire conference can be viewed at www.lds.org.
Conference brings out some warring emotions in me. Half of me feels spiritually fed and uplifted; the other half feels guilty for all that I am not doing. Eric and I were talking about this last night and he reminded me that there is no reason to feel guilty and that God and Christ care more about progression than getting it perfect the first time.
On Sunday Eric was gone all day so I felt a little lonely but I was quite proud of myself because I made a lot of good choices through out the day. However, at dinner time I was still feeling a bit down and overwhelmed. My mind kept battling between "You are enough" and "You will never be enough". It is exhausting.
One of the areas I really want to work on is self-motivation. If I have made a commitment to someone else I am really good about following through. If I make a commitment to myself there is about a 15% chance that I will follow through. With the depression I feel like overcoming personal shortcomings is twice has hard. When trying to describe this to Eric I decided to use an analogy he would know: X-Men. In "X-Men First Class" Mystique works to keep her appearance "normal". At one point Magneto tells her if half of her attention is on her appearance she is only half paying attention to whatever else she is doing. That is what it is like with depression sometimes. Half of my mental energy is going towards keeping the depression at bay leaving me with only half of my mental energy to do everything else.
Conference brings out some warring emotions in me. Half of me feels spiritually fed and uplifted; the other half feels guilty for all that I am not doing. Eric and I were talking about this last night and he reminded me that there is no reason to feel guilty and that God and Christ care more about progression than getting it perfect the first time.
On Sunday Eric was gone all day so I felt a little lonely but I was quite proud of myself because I made a lot of good choices through out the day. However, at dinner time I was still feeling a bit down and overwhelmed. My mind kept battling between "You are enough" and "You will never be enough". It is exhausting.
One of the areas I really want to work on is self-motivation. If I have made a commitment to someone else I am really good about following through. If I make a commitment to myself there is about a 15% chance that I will follow through. With the depression I feel like overcoming personal shortcomings is twice has hard. When trying to describe this to Eric I decided to use an analogy he would know: X-Men. In "X-Men First Class" Mystique works to keep her appearance "normal". At one point Magneto tells her if half of her attention is on her appearance she is only half paying attention to whatever else she is doing. That is what it is like with depression sometimes. Half of my mental energy is going towards keeping the depression at bay leaving me with only half of my mental energy to do everything else.
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