Intolerance of Uncertainty and Managing Emotions

Took me a while to find my own thread. 

I guess I'm posting because it's been a month since I finished my course and I'm sort of checking-in to see how I feel I'm getting along. In the whole - not as well as I would have hoped. I'm not going under by any means - but I think I could be self managing better. With the move back to my regular role - and the ensuing chaos - I've not really had time or the energy to reflect on things. As it's the weekend, and it's early, I figured now might be a good time to take advantage and write out some thoughts (seeing also on how the cat decided to wake me at half five).

Self management v self awareness

Strangely this keeps coming up in conversations with folk at work. "You're very self aware" they keep telling me, not realising that it isn't self awareness that's the issue. It's self-management. So I'm very good at picking up on when I feel lousy (after I've been floored), and what set me off, I've been doing that for years. What I'm not so good at is checking-in and taking steps before it gets to that stage.

I've had a week of sleeping through the evening as soon as I finished work. That's not self-management. That's recovering after not handling my day particularly well. When I'm busy, when I get cognitively overloaded (through social exchanges) I don't do the necessities. I don't use the mood meter, I don't take five minutes to look out the window, I don't relax and mindfully make a brew. Looking back over the week I'm reminded of the constant stream of information - e-mails, MS group teams messages, conversations about how to do things (when I've already figured that out) chewing up into the additional time I need to do things without having my brain explode.

The problem is - is that I'm used to functioning on a dysfunctional level of stress, The business of managing myself and building in the right habits I find very difficult to do when the days is churning over as normal. I liken myself to some wheel/belt mechanism where the power is turned up and the wheel keeps turning faster and faster, smoke burning off the rubber belt, and then once the power is turned off it takes some time for the wheel to slow down and the belt to become slack. I keep allowing the power (stress) to be turned up.- and it takes a long time for me to slow down and find my balance again.

Intent is everything I've learned. Rather than get up and wrestle with getting through the day - I need to spend the first few minutes of every day setting my intent. "I will nudge myself to manage myself better today" and taking an action. Be it saying to someone "I'm feeling tired - can we pick this up later" or blocking out quiet time in my diary to work on a piece of work or even just deciding to take full lunches and breaks instead of steaming on through until "there's a gap" or even just reminding myself that people don't always make the best decisions (I've noticed how I've been on a churn just before breakfast thinking how we've been asked to do "x" when "y" would be so much better!!!!). But, as I have to keep reminding myself, my corner of the the office - in a virtual sense - is not at the cutting edge of the organisation I work in. A point made by HR when I had the conversation about my diagnosis.

Good Enough

So I've finally got a PC on it's way out to me. It's not the best value for money, it's not the best spec, I'm not getting it as quick as I would have hoped, it's not even the best flash-deal (I lost that one when I had to cancel the original order because I fudged the shipping address) but it's "good enough". 

I've always had this obsession about making the best (mean "right") decision and even though I've had long discussions with my therapist (and myself) that sometimes, most of the time, there isn't a best decision, there's the best I can do with the information I've got available - when it comes down to figures and stats I can get lost. So technical specs on a PC - or anything else for that matter - is a minefield. So after deciding I was going to get a new one (after not even considering the option of just living with a slightly cracked screen on my all in one which I'm learning to ignore or even just plugging the thing into a new monitor) I went through the usual hellish nightmare I always do when upgrading my mobile phone every five years or whatever it is. It all boils down to making the "best" decision. If I had the money to get whatever I wanted it'd be a nightmare. I'd still be obsessed about getting the best deal.

When I started mapping out things on an excel spreadsheet to see the optimal purchase configuration/price/delivery time and going into you-tube video's I figured things had to stop. What did I need this thing for?

Bluntly - to surf, stream and play some of my retro games which are a little bit too heavy on my integrated graphics card (which has served me well over the last few years). I also figured it made sense not to replace like for like (just get a monitor if I was going to do that) but kick everything up a gear and not obsesses about anything next-gen. Because I don't have time for it.

So I found my kit, a decent delivery time, accepted that there's a ton of folk out there who'd say I could get a better configuration for the money, shrugged my shoulders and said "so what?" and placed the order.

It's on its way and I feel better for it. 

(Things were so much simpler in 8 and 16 bit territory back in the day)

Take a breath

This was weird. It's probably the most productive 2 minutes I'll spend today but for some reason I was getting incredibly impatient waiting for breakfast to cook (two eggs in boiling water - 5 minutes!) and I my mind started to wonder. Here I was getting narked that a decent boiled egg didn't cook quicker and yet all week I've been feeling stressed, driven, weighed down because I didn't feel I had enough time. And here it was. 5 minutes of time all to me.

So I took it. Instead of pacing the kitchen (which is what I was doing) I forced myself to slow down, pick up my mood chart and find out where I was ("restless" if you're interested rated on 7 out of 10 for intensity - that's my own addition ) close my eyes and give myself time to check-in and "listen". 

It's actually incredibly the dross that runs through my head - they're not even thoughts, just a vague awareness that X and Y aren't quite as they should be and if Z hadn't had happened then we wouldn't be here - and it's all work stuff of course. I mean, what else could it be? Like there's nothing else which is important to my sense of order and well-being.

So I slowed down, focused on my breath, checked in with my emotions - and exploring them a bit (a habit I've let slip since reading Russ Harris' book), decoupling from some of my more obsessive thoughts and within a few minutes I became a little more grounded. I drifted for what seemed like double the time and the timer went. Five minutes had gone - and it had felt like ten minutes - maybe even longer. Much more grounded, focused and a little more present. Strangely it had felt like a lot of effort just to take the step to do something which was so simple and so beneficial. 

When I don't self-manage well, I don't feel present. I feel like I'm being pulled in different directions, having my thoughts scrambled trying to keep up with others random thinking and generally feeling weighed down when working to someone else's schedule and bombarded with useless information (as my organisation is prone too). I've steps I can take to change this but it reminds me that no matter how much of a better fit this role is for me now, it won't serve me well long term,. 

Took me a while to find my own thread. 

I guess I'm posting because it's been a month since I finished my course and I'm sort of checking-in to see how I feel I'm getting along. In the whole - not as well as I would have hoped. I'm not going under by any means - but I think I could be self managing better. With the move back to my regular role - and the ensuing chaos - I've not really had time or the energy to reflect on things. As it's the weekend, and it's early, I figured now might be a good time to take advantage and write out some thoughts (seeing also on how the cat decided to wake me at half five).

Self management v self awareness

Strangely this keeps coming up in conversations with folk at work. "You're very self aware" they keep telling me, not realising that it isn't self awareness that's the issue. It's self-management. So I'm very good at picking up on when I feel lousy (after I've been floored), and what set me off, I've been doing that for years. What I'm not so good at is checking-in and taking steps before it gets to that stage.

I've had a week of sleeping through the evening as soon as I finished work. That's not self-management. That's recovering after not handling my day particularly well. When I'm busy, when I get cognitively overloaded (through social exchanges) I don't do the necessities. I don't use the mood meter, I don't take five minutes to look out the window, I don't relax and mindfully make a brew. Looking back over the week I'm reminded of the constant stream of information - e-mails, MS group teams messages, conversations about how to do things (when I've already figured that out) chewing up into the additional time I need to do things without having my brain explode.

The problem is - is that I'm used to functioning on a dysfunctional level of stress, The business of managing myself and building in the right habits I find very difficult to do when the days is churning over as normal. I liken myself to some wheel/belt mechanism where the power is turned up and the wheel keeps turning faster and faster, smoke burning off the rubber belt, and then once the power is turned off it takes some time for the wheel to slow down and the belt to become slack. I keep allowing the power (stress) to be turned up.- and it takes a long time for me to slow down and find my balance again.

Intent is everything I've learned. Rather than get up and wrestle with getting through the day - I need to spend the first few minutes of every day setting my intent. "I will nudge myself to manage myself better today" and taking an action. Be it saying to someone "I'm feeling tired - can we pick this up later" or blocking out quiet time in my diary to work on a piece of work or even just deciding to take full lunches and breaks instead of steaming on through until "there's a gap" or even just reminding myself that people don't always make the best decisions (I've noticed how I've been on a churn just before breakfast thinking how we've been asked to do "x" when "y" would be so much better!!!!). But, as I have to keep reminding myself, my corner of the the office - in a virtual sense - is not at the cutting edge of the organisation I work in. A point made by HR when I had the conversation about my diagnosis.

Good Enough

So I've finally got a PC on it's way out to me. It's not the best value for money, it's not the best spec, I'm not getting it as quick as I would have hoped, it's not even the best flash-deal (I lost that one when I had to cancel the original order because I fudged the shipping address) but it's "good enough". 

I've always had this obsession about making the best (mean "right") decision and even though I've had long discussions with my therapist (and myself) that sometimes, most of the time, there isn't a best decision, there's the best I can do with the information I've got available - when it comes down to figures and stats I can get lost. So technical specs on a PC - or anything else for that matter - is a minefield. So after deciding I was going to get a new one (after not even considering the option of just living with a slightly cracked screen on my all in one which I'm learning to ignore or even just plugging the thing into a new monitor) I went through the usual hellish nightmare I always do when upgrading my mobile phone every five years or whatever it is. It all boils down to making the "best" decision. If I had the money to get whatever I wanted it'd be a nightmare. I'd still be obsessed about getting the best deal.

When I started mapping out things on an excel spreadsheet to see the optimal purchase configuration/price/delivery time and going into you-tube video's I figured things had to stop. What did I need this thing for?

Bluntly - to surf, stream and play some of my retro games which are a little bit too heavy on my integrated graphics card (which has served me well over the last few years). I also figured it made sense not to replace like for like (just get a monitor if I was going to do that) but kick everything up a gear and not obsesses about anything next-gen. Because I don't have time for it.

So I found my kit, a decent delivery time, accepted that there's a ton of folk out there who'd say I could get a better configuration for the money, shrugged my shoulders and said "so what?" and placed the order.

It's on its way and I feel better for it. 

(Things were so much simpler in 8 and 16 bit territory back in the day)

Take a breath

This was weird. It's probably the most productive 2 minutes I'll spend today but for some reason I was getting incredibly impatient waiting for breakfast to cook (two eggs in boiling water - 5 minutes!) and I my mind started to wonder. Here I was getting narked that a decent boiled egg didn't cook quicker and yet all week I've been feeling stressed, driven, weighed down because I didn't feel I had enough time. And here it was. 5 minutes of time all to me.

So I took it. Instead of pacing the kitchen (which is what I was doing) I forced myself to slow down, pick up my mood chart and find out where I was ("restless" if you're interested rated on 7 out of 10 for intensity - that's my own addition ) close my eyes and give myself time to check-in and "listen". 

It's actually incredibly the dross that runs through my head - they're not even thoughts, just a vague awareness that X and Y aren't quite as they should be and if Z hadn't had happened then we wouldn't be here - and it's all work stuff of course. I mean, what else could it be? Like there's nothing else which is important to my sense of order and well-being.

So I slowed down, focused on my breath, checked in with my emotions - and exploring them a bit (a habit I've let slip since reading Russ Harris' book), decoupling from some of my more obsessive thoughts and within a few minutes I became a little more grounded. I drifted for what seemed like double the time and the timer went. Five minutes had gone - and it had felt like ten minutes - maybe even longer. Much more grounded, focused and a little more present. Strangely it had felt like a lot of effort just to take the step to do something which was so simple and so beneficial. 

When I don't self-manage well, I don't feel present. I feel like I'm being pulled in different directions, having my thoughts scrambled trying to keep up with others random thinking and generally feeling weighed down when working to someone else's schedule and bombarded with useless information (as my organisation is prone too). I've steps I can take to change this but it reminds me that no matter how much of a better fit this role is for me now, it won't serve me well long term,.