It’s 10:18 AM and I’m currently at Boon Boona, sipping on my London fog, staring outside and observing this drizzling weather. Today, I started off the day a bit later, emerging out of bed at around 7:00am (although I was woken up at 6:00am by the sounds of the dogs barking, because my dad had let them outside in the backyard and Mushroom — unless you pick her up and put her outside – barks when being let out).

When my dad stays with me at the house, I constantly need to check in with myself, more often finding myself check in with wise mind. The reason? I still feel like I’m constantly walking on egg shells when he’s around, never sure how he’s going to react (aggressively) to everyday normal conversations, since he’s hypersensitive to any perceived criticism. That being said, I had a huge epiphany yesterday, when I felt another twinge of fear in my body. Even though and after I validated the feeling/interpretation of fear, I started getting curious about the fear and following up with multiple questions:

Questions I asked myself

What am I afraid of?
What could happen if it continues to get aggressive and/or irritiable?

For the first time, I think, I had the thought that if he did get aggressive, I’m safe. He’s not going to physically attack me and if he did tried, I realized I’m physically stronger than him and can easily defend myself (although I hope that never actually needs to happen). This thought alone helped me realize while uncomfortable, being around him and his volatile behavior can be challenging, I can (in the short term, during his short visits) tolerate them. In a nut shell, I’ve radically accepted that with him in particular, I just have to utilize cope ahead and other distress tolerance skills more often. Sure – not ideal. Sure – some might think it’s unfair (for me). And, I can do it and willing to do it, when thinking about my long term values and regrets.

Definite Chief Aims

Revisit my organization system – several projects in flight, many that need to be closed out. Would like to reduce my feelings of stress (i.e. feeling like things are out of my control) by taking action: problem solving.
Start collecting documents for filing taxes – would like to get an estimate of how much to set aside for upcoming taxes for both Crossbill and W2 etc