ARTISTS WAY WEEK TWO

And again, I find myself back at Friday, ready to do some Artist's Way assignments. It's a little serendipitous, this week's assignments and my state of mind today. I left work early on Wednesday and called out of work on Thursday because of either a GI bug I picked up or possibly something I ate on Wednesday. I basically spent late Wednesday and all of Thursday shuffling back and forth between the bed and the bathroom. I briefly considered asking the scheduler to re-schedule all of my patients for today, but I couldn't be sure I'd feel well enough to work. And since I had already called my late patients for Wed and re-scheduled them for Thur, I didn't want to have people feel like I was stringing them along.

Well, this morning dawned and I awoke feeling great! And I was immediately racked with guilt for missing work yesterday and not going in to work today. I felt guilty for missing 3 workouts this week (Tue, Wed, Thur) even though I was clearly in no shape to be at the gym. And most disturbing of all, I found myself looking forward to stepping on a scale to see how 2 days of nothing but tea and one serving of rice affected my weight. What the hell is wrong with me?

Thank goodness for ol' Julia Cameron and her insightful exercises.

WHERE DOES YOUR TIME GO? LIST YOUR 5 MAJOR ACTIVITIES FOR THE WEEK AND HOW MUCH TIME YOU GIVE TO EACH ONE. How much of your time was what you wanted to do and how much of it was what you felt you SHOULD be doing?

Factoring out SLEEP, I'm left with: (1) Work --45 hours
(2) Working out -- 8-9 hours
(3) Blogging -- 6-7 hours
(4) Cleaning -- 7-8 hours
(5) TV -- 8-9 hours

It appears to me that all of these activities are things that I both want to do and also feel like I should be doing. But with the 5 or more extra hours per week I work (that I do not get paid for) should I really be feeling guilty for taking a sick day? And I love working out, I am trying to actually do WELL in triathlons next year, not just finish. But could it be that I am ignoring when I start to feel too tired and push myself to the point where I'm more vulnerable to getting sick? I'm loving the blogging, of course, and the TV watching is generally a simultaneous activity (cleaning and watching TV, checking email and watching TV, eating dinner and watching TV). But...would I feel less overwhelmed if I weren't constantly doing 2 things at once? And finally...the cleaning also entails my getting rid of stuff. I'm hoping that once I get rid of some clutter, the amount of time I spend cleaning goes down dramatically. SO I guess just keep track of it.

Contrast this to:
LIST 20 THINGS YOU ENJOY DOING MOST. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU DID THESE THINGS?
In no particular order:
(1) Hiking
(2) Camping
(3) Going to the beach
(4) Playing with my niece's and nephews
(5) Bike riding
(6) Jogging
(7) Swimming
(8) Roller blading
(9) Playing Guitar
(10) Going to see live music
(11) Traveling
(12) Reading
(13) Writing
(14) 'Rithmatic (just kidding) Lifting weights
(15) Going to the movies
(16) Hanging out with friends
(17) Scuba Diving
(18) Sleeping in and cuddling with someone on Sunday morning
(19) taking a long bath
(20) trying new recipes

And yeah, its been a long time since I did some of those things. It seems silly that I have extra time to do extra work, to watch so much TV, to spend so much time on the computer, so clean so much, to spend workout time "putting in the hours" rather than doing something enjoyable, but not enough time to do the things I love the most.

And what changes can I make to make these two lists more compatible? I don't have the answer to that right now. But I do have alot to think about. And maybe THAT is the answer for not feeling guilty over things I shouldn't feel guilty about.