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Last week I drafted some specific steps that I can do to “grow my tree” so I’m not as fragile with regard to my moods, so that I’m less vulnerable to wind–and my branches can bend and move without threatening my foundation.
1. Be better about my sleep hygiene: go to bed at 9, and get up at 6. Every day.
2. Return to my fifteen minutes of prayer every morning. Downstairs. Not in my bed.
3. Make room in my schedule for coffee and lunch with friends. Try to schedule at least one coffee or lunch a week. And be honest with them. Tell them how I REALLY am.
4. Have lunch with Eric as many times during the week as we can (since we can’t seem to find a babysitter so that we can go out at night).
5. Frame and hang up the pictures of our family that were taken last summer. Have them visible to remind me of the most important blessings in my life.
6. Thank Eric more for all the small and generous things he does for me throughout the day. Try to translate them into a kind of spiritual or religious language, as gestures of love, because they are. That way I won’t feel so much need to pursue spiritual connections in other places.
7. Surprise Eric by picking up the house, doing the laundry, pulling weeds, or planting flowers—in order to communicate love back to him, in a language he appreciates more than flowery prose.
8. After I’m finished with “Beyond Blue,” the book, take a break from additional work projects so I have some down time.
9. Write through the addictive cravings and hypomanic adrenalin. Write honestly. Write about why I want the thrill, the affirmation, the high, and try to find safe places I can get those warm fuzzies—like on this blog, “Beyond Blue,” and in Group Beyond Blue.
10. No checking e-mails or spending time at the computer after dinner.
11. See my therapist more often.