Jack of Many Trades

Goal: Health

Originally posted: 2011-12-16

I'm on the train to work, sitting across the aisle from a fellow who's cursing under his breath. Not sure if he's angry or has a tic, I honestly can't tell. Everyone's ignoring him. I bet I could do full invokations on the train and no one would notice. That's the beauty of Someone Else's Problem. Imagine the cumulative effect of all those subconsciouses trying not to think about what you're doing.

I'm going to do a series of posts expanding on my New Year, New You goals, so today I'm starting with my first target: my physical health.

2010 was the exact opposite of a banner year for me, healthwise. 2011 was an improvement in that I required only minor surgery, but otherwise it left plenty to be desired. I've been without insurance for four months now and it's still terrifying if I think about it too hard.

I can't get rid of my health issues with a single spell, though that would be awesome. Instead it's about management.

Meditation is the big one, here. A daily meditation practice will discourage stress and discouraging stress helps my vertigo and tinnitus. Tai chi was also good for stress and had the added benefit of keeping me in touch with my body. I need to get back in the habit of both. Since I currently have most of my free time during my commute, I'm going to experiment with meditating on the train and see about finding a park to do tai chi in.

My insurance-free state is likely to continue until at least April, so I'm going to focus on what I can do for my physical health. That means making the effort to eat real food more often. It also means getting back into studying non-traditional medicine in search of possible treatments for my chronic issues.

I also need to not be afraid to use magic for "petty" personal reasons. This will cut across all my goals and be one of the focuses of my magical goal for the year, but it's particularly ironic that I struggle with doing magic to bolster my health because I did it at length during my struggles in 2010 an clearly it helped- I'm still alive, after all.