elainegrey

Answers to questions from the coach

I am at an inflection point where i am resolving an asthma flare and apnea which should increase my energy, some multi-year stresses have resolved, and i have awareness that i have ADHD mental patterns. I know habit building is very hard for me, but with additional insight, i am trying to make some changes. I'm hoping CoPilot coaching can help me with habit building. The habits aren't necessarily for physical exercise. More after other answers.

For fun and relaxation i landscape and garden, i am returning to some artistic hobbies, and i spend time with my spouse and extended family. My spouse and i have a few TV rituals in the evening several nights a week. My favorite exercises are mowing, standing during meetings, walking down the nearby hill, and cutting down invasive trees and chipping them. I have a bike set up on a trainer to ride on the deck at night.

I'm not sure i find myself "stressed out" that much, but i know this month has the challenge of my mother's memorial on the last Sunday. My spouse has not been treated well by extended family in the past and that is a challenge.

I'm sure my Dad has told me some jokes recently, but i'm not very good at remembering and telling them. My spouse and i played cards on Saturday night with my sister and her husband: we laughed over how we developed our own "house rules" for the variation of rummy we developed.


Goals:

* continue to add more physical activity maintain mobility. My knees and feet would brobably be happier if i lost weight. I wish to do so very slowly: a pound a month is OK.
* improve balance - my ankles are "loosy-goosey" and i am to wear ankle supports when out per a podiatrist.
* find time in my week to spend with my recently widowed father, develop sketching/drawing skills, return to more regular journaling, be in better contact with friends and family

The asthmatic cough was cleared up by the prednisone on Monday.

--== ∞ ==--

The surgeon visit on Tuesday, June 28 went well. He just looked at my nose and recognized the shape as one that could use the functional rhinoplasty. He also said to the observing physician that he thought the nose surgery might be sufficient to resolve the sleep apnea, and then let me know he could never tell me that. We discussed how it might help me with exertion and with the asthma. As we wrapped up he said thinks it will be a life changing operation. (I know it doesn't fix everything 'cause both siblings have had similar work, although this guy is apparently the world specialist in his thing so maybe his will be better than theirs?)

I won't know for a while: when i schedule on Tuesday i am to expect it to be about a year from now.

I'm thinking i should not develop a diaphragmatic breathing practice any more than i have until after the surgery. But look for how i could add it? Or maybe starting the practice now and being delighted when it is easier? Ugh.

--== ∞ ==--

I am not sure my therapist is right for me any more. I am well in many ways, i suspect i am doing much better than i feel i am doing. I need to learn to see the happy and the joy. S-- has been very good at coaching me towards acknowledging all the good, and i think i just need to keep the awareness. But she's not a coach: her tools might be better with recovery than with growth. She doesn't have the ADHD background.

Someone in a women in tech Slack ADHD channel posted that "My Copilot," a real human coaching program mediated by an app, is now available on Android. It's $99/month, which is less than i am paying for therapy. The internet's average rates for ADHD coaches are more than what i am paying for therapy.

I can tell i am at an inflection point.

* 6 weeks of asthma flare resolving, giving me more energy
* nine months of realizing i probably have ADHD brain patterns, giving me more insight
* COVID behaviors changing (whether rational or not), creating shifts in expectation and opportunity
* 3 and a half years of elder care concerns for my stroke survivor mother, now replaced by much less stressful concerns about my now widowed father, reducing stress
* many years of sleep apnea,  under treatment for one month, presumably giving me more energy and clarity
* surgery in a year on my nose so that i can have better breathing capabilities, promising even more energy and well being

(Simultaneously it's a new fiscal year at work, which was demanding me to think about goals at work, along with the disruption of me taking the corporate security rules seriously and getting all* the not-corporate software off the computer and move my corporate note taking off personal cloud software. *except Alfred)

Right now i feel i have no time although i think that's feeling and not reality. I'm not doing everything i feel i should be doing and i want to do more. How do i fit in more physical health care -- breathing practice, physical movement? And stay on top of all the things that slide? Like regularly journalling? And being in contact with family? This -- the sense i have of flailing and of the futility of asking -- i am recognizing, is about the ADHD. So i think that's where i need to go next.