Values based living, it’s been hard for me and very rewarding for me.

I change my values a lot, not that I abandon them, just that with limited time and focus, responsibilities around me changing and the world changing, things change.

My daughter checks in with Habitca, a habit tracking app, and selects her value of the day in the morning (chosen from her own top 7). Then she can focus on her value. Tuesday was humor and she kept joking until she made me laugh. Monday was fun and she was extra silly. Last Friday, friendship, she hung out with our room-mate a little bit and had a blast.

I’m so proud of her, she is four years old and she knows what her values are, rather than the ones society would like to push on her.

And she finds her own way to live by her values.

It’s good for the prefrontal cortex to plan and make goals.

The Navy Seals developed a mental toughness training course to help more people pass their training, it worked, it changed the passing rate from somewhere around 1/3 to 1/2 (I don’t remember the specifics).

But it works enough for me to trust it.

1. Eat the Elephant
2. Visualize Success
3. Emotional Control
4. Non-reactivity
5. Small Victories
6. Find Your Tribe (And Necessity)

I would split number six into two pieces (following rule 1, meaning split up something hard into manageable chunks).

Looking at this list, I realize now that blogging has helped me in all these ways over the past year.

I started blogging for a few reasons, 1. I like writing. 2. I wanted to move on from morning pages. 3. I was really shy and it was a bit of exposure therapy. 4. I wanted to find myself as a writer. 5. I wanted to find myself as a person (I was so lost in fog). 6. I wanted to get better at writing clearly. 7. I read a challenge by Mark Manson to write 100 blog posts before deciding about what to blog about or even if you should blog.

I’m at 82/100 right now, but I can’t really imagine choosing 1 topic, nor trying to monetize. Not that I’m against those things for other people. I feel a boundless freedom in being able to discuss anything, perhaps the most freedom I’ve ever felt or had. It really reminds me of “the Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey” Episode 1, where Giordano Bruno is imprisoned and killed because he believes in an infinite universe against what the Catholic Church at the time believed in… was the church too stupid and violent or was Giordano too stubborn? I don’t know. But I’m starting to feel that free floating feeling of freedom and it’s so hard to imagine confining my mental space to an non-infinite range of topics now that I’ve tasted freedom.

I also don’t want to monetize, I’ve never tried to drive traffic, never tried to make my family or friends read my articles that they are not interested, never minded when people don’t follow or like what I write.

Perhaps because my expectations were so low, I’ve always been told I have weird tastes and opinions that no one wants to hear, so that when actually about 1/5 articles I write are liked, that’s infinitely more than I expected or “need”.

Actually yesterday on Coach.me where I also write, I got the first comment that I made a difference to someone in the exact way that was my goal and it felt amazing.

My goal was 1 person.

And I met that goal.

And now, I’ve gotten so much benefits from writing this blog, that I can’t imagine ever being without it, or without some kind of writing.

Thank you readers, I realize now that you are my tribe.

Some will just glance and read something else (1/2), some will dislike (X), some will read more (1/2), some will like something (1/5), but all are acknowledging me as a human being, for who I am. My writing is me, much more than my body ever has been. You can like me, dislike me, remain neutral, but by reading my work, you are seeing me, meeting me, knowing me.

Just like a real tribe, some people in the tribe don’t have much interest in me, but others do, and I’ve found so much support, encouragement, interesting perspective in the blogger/reader/writer’s tribe. The “wordsmiths” if you will…

It’s been nice to find the feeling I belong for the fist time in my life. Even if it’s to a completely open club, it’s still nice to belong.

Hopefully I’ll get a “writer’s jacket” with patches at the elbows sometime soon. My son has one and I’m completely envious of it.

Just started a new book “Emotional First Aid,” it’s wonderful (I always say that right?). This book is water in the desert for me. It’s like a dummy’s guide to emotional problems, which I completely needed my whole life and thank God/the universe/fate that I finally found it (you can tell I’m agnostic a little bit there).

I skipped right to the guilt chapter and it’s nice that there are three main types of guilt, survivor guilt is probably the worst for me, but I think like an ice-cream sandwich bar I have all three flavors! I don’t why that’s exciting, but it is. Perhaps, since reading “Permission to Feel” I feel like I get a gold star every time I notice my uglier feelings? They have become like rare “Pokemon” to collect, rather than things to hide or suffer from day in and day out.

This post makes me want to write about each aspect of mental toughness and link to the posts that helped me most in each area, and also I didn’t even talk about serenity, my new value of the day for Thursday, but I really want to get school stared for the kids, so I think I’ll end this post here and leave some of the “fun” for next time.

Thank you guys so much for being my tribe! Much love and gratitude for you time and presence here.