Fasting

2020-08-19

If you are curious why I fast and/or what my fasting day looks like, I’d encourage you to read my blogpost Why Do I fast?.  To read previous blog posts about my fasting experiences click here.

During this fast I did a recap of my 2014 thus far and had some big realizations.  From Jan 1 until the Sochi Olympics started I was: having more and more really good synchronicities happen, in a good state of mind nearly all the time, focused and sharp mentally, reviewing each week and planning the next week every Sunday, getting up at nearly the same time every day and being productive in the morning, eating very clean and healthy, having a lot of creative ideas, and making a daily habit of thinking of how I can support a family member or friend.  Needless to say the year got off to a good start!

Then the Sochi Olympics began.

Since I was a kid I have always loved watching the Olympics, especially the winter games.  Prior to them starting this February I told myself that I wouldn’t watch too much and would only focus on seeing key events and certain athletes competing.  That didn’t happen and I ended up watching much more of the games than I had intended.  With the huge time zone difference between Russia and Canada, many times the live events were in the very late evening through morning time period.  Needless to say I got caught in the cycle of going to bed late and getting up late.

During this fast I started to beat myself up a little bit for getting caught in this poor sleep cycle which then snowballed into other things, including not doing many of the small habits and supporting the most important people in my life.  How could I do this?  When I was in the hospital last December after having a manic episode, the hospital psychiatrist told me that getting good quality sleep would be the most important aspect of health for me to focus on moving forward.  I’ve read so many times and heard in a multitude of courses that I’ve taken how important sleep is.

Once I recognized that I was getting down on myself, I started asking myself some good quality questions.  Such as…what can I learn from this experience?  What are two action items that I can complete before 10 am tomorrow?  What am I grateful for?  After going through these questions and others, my mindset began to shift.

I also forgave myself for getting off track.

In some courses I’ve taken there is an analogy related to personal growth that says we take “two steps forward and one step back”.  In my case the Sochi Olympics was more like a one and three-quarter step back.  Thankfully I still had the realization to focus on forgiving myself and what I learned.

My biggest lessons from that mid-February time period were to forgive myself for getting caught in that sleep cycle, how important having a consistent wake up time is for me, to be consistent with small daily actions which keeps me in momentum, and to be supporting key people in my life the best that I can.