Turdy Flurby and Trifling

Like in the film, I also feel like a 13-year-old in a 29-year-old's body sometimes.

So I'm turning 30 in less than a month. And guess what. That doesn't really mean anything. At least, it doesn't have to mean anything. It means what I want it to mean, and I think, what  I want to do with this point in time, not because I have to, but because I want to (OK Bea, don't hurt yourself), is to look at what things I've been working on. To combat any nagging voice that may come in the next month that might say "You did NOTHING with your 30 years of existence! You need to get up and do a thing!! What thing?! I don't know! But you have to get stressed over not doing it! Because anxiety says so!!!"

Things Bea is working on.. (.. are? Bea are? No, Bea am. Yes.)

Building Buildable Habuilds -I mean- Habits.

Yes. The H bomb! I dropped it! (no Bea stop) 

Everyone knows this, but habits are like that invisible ghost in your house that you need to befriend and get on your side so it can help you and not trick you. 

Okay, maybe not everyone thinks about habits in that way, specifically, but you get the point: The habits you have are the invisible, automatic forces that power your day - and so many of our habits are UNCONSCIOUS. You probably don't really think much about how every time you plop down the couch, you have to eat a snack that unconsciously adds 50 grams of added sugar every movie night. You probably don't think much about how you always have to check your phone every 10 minutes or so, even without the trigger of a notification. Or how you tend to eat the inside of your lips when you're thinking really hard (I'm sure many other people do this.. Right?? Please make my auto-cannibalistic habit feel normal? No? ok). 

Lately I've been trying to be more CONSCIOUS of my habits, because that's the first step. But just because you know something (I repeat this so much pero true eh) doesn't mean it automatically crosses over to application. With habits, your brain is always on the side of least resistance. It will take strategy to remove/add triggers and whatnot. I try to use trackers in my Bullet Journal and to just practice more mindfulness and intentionality during my day.

I recommend the book Atomic Habits by James Clear if you want to know more.

In my own habit-creation journey, I thought that it might do me good to set "Foundational Habits" first. Ones that can make it easier for me to form other habits on top. I tried to apply those first (very imperfectly, but don't let perfect be the enemy of better) to make the rest easier.

The Habits I am currently working on are:

1. Mindfulness exercises - I find this to be maybe the #1 "foundational habit", because it primes the "canvas" which is your mind, so you can paint on it intentionally. I'm quite poor at consistency, but according to James Clear, it's more important to be able to hold space for an action and do it repeatedly than to do it very well, or in the same way every time. So sometimes I just do breathing, sometimes I do the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding exercise, sometimes I just do stances or movements that I feel are soothing, or a short body scan... It's different everytime. Here's a podcast that details a few exercises you can do in case you don't know any  
2. Health habits - Unless you find a way to live life without a body, you need to be in a physical state that allows you enough mental and physical ENERGY to do the things you want to do. I try to be a little more conscious about my mental energy and physical energy by tracking them, and I try to see if there are patterns or actions that help or don't help so I can do more or less of them.
3. Learning Habits - Because I'm very bad at doing the same thing the exact same way every time as I said, I find ways around it. I try to be consistent in different ways. For example, I try to learn something everyday. Some days I practice French, some days, I read my books (yes, I'm the type that reads many at a time. I TOLD YOU IT'S REALLY BAD) Sometimes I practice guitar. Sometimes I can do all of them. But they only count for one tick in the tracker. As long as I intentionally learn something every day.
4. Creativity Time - I'm still very bad at this, but I try to "create" something at least once a week. It can be a blog post like this, a painting, a drawing, a song, even just recording a cover of one. Like the previous habit, I let it count as one tick.
5. Plannery - This year, I have been more consistent with my planners and journal than in the past year. This has really helped me find some continuity in my own life. I had some periods of discouragement with tracking, journalling, plannering, because when I compared mine to other "influencers", mine are far too inconsistent and fluid. But at my age now, I'm learning more and more that I can adapt things to suit my own personality. It's not all-or-nothing. Yes, it's better if I'm more consistent, but the only way to be more consistent is to keep going, even as inconsistent as I am. The alternative is just not trying at all. That doesn't help! Embrace error. Embrace failure. Be you, be better. Speaking of that...

Being myself is another thing that I've been consciously working on. I know, I know. The more you think about it, the less natural it is. This is a really philosophically confounding topic, so I'll spare you. But suffice it to say that I'm just trying to allow myself more space to be. To censor less, to trust more. To let myself find and do things I genuinely love. To remove more worries and make room for magic.

Being with others is another thing. One of the biggest "a-ha moments" I've recently had is the one where I read through the journal I've been sporadically filling out for five years, since Beardy first moved to the Philippines. It was very moving. I saw patterns in myself, and in my journey, and I realised that even though I feel generally stagnant, I've changed SO MUCH. And it pointed me to the next step I felt I was being called to. There was a page I was examining, which had a drop of water on it. This drop of water made two words disappear on two separate lines, so I couldn't really understand what I wrote fully. But it was a page where I was brainstorming what I could do with my life next. I have many pages like this, in many separate notebooks, and no matter how well thought-out the plans I write seem to be, there was always something that I could sense was missing that prevented me from moving forward. As I squinted at the two words on the page, I jokingly told myself "whatever these two words are, they're probably some secret code I need to crack to figure out what the missing ingredient is to all of this. hekhek." But then I got creeped out:

Because when I stared at it and tried to guess it from the context of the rest of the sentence, it seemed to have said "other" and then "people". OTHER PEOPLE. That actually makes sense and is really profound. I always stay on the sidelines and watch things happen. I've always been shy and afraid of other people. I thought, huh. Maybe it's my current mission to learn to look at actual people to serve and the "next step" will be easier to see.

However, writing this today, while procrastinating on my reports (my day job, which has been prematurely terminated for the current term because of COVID-19, is teaching kids) I now see that it actually says "smaller" and not "other" ... SMALLER PEOPLE!! My students!! I think the universe is telling me to get my head out of the clouds and to get back to what's my CURRENT DUTY because the opportunity is already here if I just choose to see it! My current job already is helping me be better at communicating and cooperating with people. Smaller or not. 

I have long resolved myself to not making the event of turning 30 into an enemy. I want to look at it not as a mirror that points out my greatest flaws and shortcomings, but as a mirror that lets me see myself, however I am, to be able to accept what is, appreciate what has been, and to be determined for what else could be.

LET'S GET IT 30! Stay silly, stay strive-y, stay free!