Over the 90 days, I’m going and aim to blog little micro entries on this website. It’s okay if I break the chain. This will be a practice in discipline.
I’ve been exchanging emails with Kit Laughlin, the pioneer behind Stretch Therapy. In addition to asking him (and his partner and co-owner of Stretch Therapy, Olivia) if he had felt comfortable about me embedding clips from their program into my stretching journey video logs (they said yes), he was responding to submission to the teacher training intensive program that they (currently do not) offer. In his reply to that submission, he shared a link to a blog post of his: the 90 day blog challenge and the 50-year test.
After reading that post, I wanted to challenge myself to see if I can blog for a consecutive 90 days. As mentioned in (almost a year ago) blog post titled “A brief life update”, my blogging habit stopped when I tried to start monetizing the content. In a separate post from this, I’d like to dig into it but for now, I had unexpectedly added self-imposed pressure and overwhelmed myself; that combined with my sensitivity to criticism basically crippled me.
And now, I’m trying to jump back on the proverbial horse, so to speak.
I’m not going to “force” myself to blog 90 days. I’d like to gently encourage myself to write everyday. Add an element of play. See how it might complement my video blogging (on YouTube and Instagram).
So for the next 90 days, I think I want to practice and blog about things where my curiosity currently leads me:
- Improving my breathing – I’ve been fighting off a lingering lung infection for the past 12 weeks and tackling the problem with a multi-faceted approach with visiting salt caves (google view link here), practicing Buteyko Breathing (took this online course) after reading the book Breath
- Reading “Good Inside” by Dr. Becky Kennedy – After following her Instagram and watching (twice) the podcast episode of her on Huberman Lab, and feeling like her Instagram content resonates with me, I started chipping away at the book that I rented from the Merton Library (for free). Though I’m no longer in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), I’d still like to continue practicing mindfulness and other skills and become the father that I envision for Elliott. I’m a great father. And I can do better.
- Chipping away at Waves of Focus online course – my capacity for being “productive” has dropped substantially over the past few months and I suspect that my body and brain are responding to the major life change of going through a divorce, moving to a new country, etc. So I’m both extending self compassion (this really is a hard time and anybody would find it difficult to go through a rather drawn out divorce process) and at the same time, developing skills to work with my wandering mind. So I signed up for a one-week trial of Waves of Focus, a program developed by Koroush, who I worked with 1:1 last year when building up my productivity system. Just today alone, I blasted through about 10 modules because I felt so much joy, excitement and hopefulness of a more controlled future regarding productivity
- Stretching and Pilates – I’m on a personal journey to overcome body stiffness. This journey, I suspect, will take about 5-10 years (trying to set the reasonable expectations for myself) and in the short term, increasing my ability to crawl around on the floor with Elliott, perform certain dances moves that I’ve avoided out of fear of pain. Also, I’d like to get teacher training in both stretching (through Stretch Therapy) as well as Pilates instructor training as well. In another blog post, I’ll talk about how I want to transition from working behind a computer (which I think I’ll always do) to something more physically active and more human interaction based.
- Dancing – Every Tuesday and Thursday I take a house dance class at The Pineapple and Base Dance Studio, respectively. In addition to this, this upcoming weekend July 20th and July 21st, I’ll be attending the Mighty Mover Seminar, followed by a monthly jam hosted by Indahouse UK, then on Sunday I will be attending a dance workshop.
Okay, so writing this blog post absolutely surprised me. Often I think I’m not going to be able to write more than a few sentences. But after just sitting here and typing away for about 20 minutes, I’m on a roll. Okay next 90 days: let’s go!