Dear Lily:

You demand perfection from yourself, set very rigid rules and expect perfect adherence to these rules, such as waking up at 7, and then being disappointed with yourself for waking up a bit after seven: “Today I also got up 9a bit after 7:00 am)”, and not getting distracted by the internet at all, and then being disappointed with yourself for getting distracted by the internet just a little: “I still got distracted by the internet”.

“I am learning and getting better”- yes you are, and learn more to move away from setting rigid rules for yourself and expecting perfect adherence to the rules. For example, you can set a rule to wake up between 7 and 8, instead of rigidly at 7, and you can set a rule to get distracted by the internet an hour a day instead of not at all.

What happened today is that you woke up before 7 am, “but then looking at the phone made me postpone the start of the day. What a bad start! I do not want that to happen again.. some rules I want to keep”-it  feels to you like a bad start but it’s not. At least, it doesn’t have to be a bad start if you tell yourself that it is okay to not adhere perfectly to rigid rules. Allow yourself to look at your phone for five or ten minutes in the morning. Don’t set rigid rules and you won’t have to adhere to rigid rules.

Next I will quote your first two rules followed by my suggested adjustments, or examples of suggested adjustments:

“1) Not look at the phone in the morning”- It is okay to look at the phone up to ten minutes in the morning.

“2) No  internet while eating (Magazines are still allowed)”- It is okay to look at the internet when I am done eating for up to ten minutes.

– good job on the LAD (Life Admin Day) front and regarding your communication with your mother, having “thanked for her kind words, but didn’t say ‘I love you'”- is a fine communication with her, polite and you didn’t betray yourself so to please her.

“Well, I am still running away from communicating openly”- you are still being hard on yourself. Like I wrote above, you communicated fine with your mother. As long as you don’t betray yourself so to please another, you are doing well.

Regarding your friend, “hopefully she will take care of her health”, and hopefully “she knows best what she wants”. What is for sure is that she is the one making the choices that she is making, that’s her freedom, to choose for herself. It is okay that you changed the subject to you on that phone call, nothing wrong with that. Conversations should not all be about her.

You mentioned that you imagined I was living in California- well, I did live most of my adult life in Southern California. And then, I moved north. Have a nice afternoon yourself (it’s 4:29 pm where you are, I believe).

anita