HALT!

Today's prompt says.... "A Review of __________." And like yesterday, there's no measuring stick of other blogs to read for a template, so I am reviewing just anything I feel like reviewing.

I have been a roller coaster of emotion recently and so I decided on a spiritual refresher. Am I Hungry? Am I Angry? Am I Lonely? Am I Tired? When I am out of sorts and my emotions are topsy-turvey, I should look at these guidelines and not make any rash decisions. Sometimes the answer is a simple as going to bed and waking to realize I wasn't in a crisis at all, I was just tired, or even exhausted. Sometimes I forget to eat. If I'm busy, or being obsessive about something or fully engrossed in something (like blogging or reading), I might not recognize hunger signals until I am cranky and everything becomes a crisis. I might an emotional puddle of emotion that can be solved or at the very least greatly diminished by eating something edifying to my body. Am I angry? I have spent a lot of my life being angry. That simmering anger that is always there under the surface. It is a joy killer. I hate that. But I am a long ways from where I used to be and hopefully I'll stay willing and humble and I will continue to become a better person who doesn't want to live in anger all the time. But if I am angry, I need to talk about it, vent, pray, and possibly even work on myself a little. I have to acknowledge that it's there first so I can work through it and let it go. Now here's the biggie for me. Lonely? Am I lonely? The answer is: of course. And one of my friends told me that I might have to learn how to just be lonely for awhile. Yuck, not what I wanted to hear. But this isn't just talking about the lonely of a relationship, or lack thereof, that I tend to believe will fix all my ails. But the lonely of needing human contact, of needing friends to connect with, or needing to feel loved and lovable. Feeling loved and lovable doesn't necessarily come from romantic love. Especially considering the people I've chosen to blindly trust in the past. My SMO (standard method of operation) is to be untrusting, of everyone. Except that is overwhelmingly lonely. So I have to trust someone. Generally I tend to choose the most emotionally dangerous person in the room and blindly give my trust and love to that person and then I am surprised when things don't work out. Having said this, I haven't attempted to give my heart to anyone for AWHILE. I dated someone a couple years ago, and I felt things emotionally, but a lot of it was that my hormones went "Woooo-hoooo!" and it's hard for me to sort the two out, I would tell you that there was both a friendship and love (or at the very least heavy "like", or "on-the-road-to-love") type of feelings there. But in the end, we might not be that much alike after all. *sigh* Or we might be more alike than what I care to admit and that might be why it didn't work. Anyway, I am not real big on dating and the reason is this: as much as I try to change who I am and who I pick to trust with my soul, I am still attracted to the wrong guy. And.... there is this little kicker~ nice guys are boring. And I want a little excitement. I'm tired of bland and boring. Let's have some fun!! lol! Which brings me to this little gem.... I have become aware (I think some wise soul enlightened me about this) that I have some wires crossed and when the warning sirens go off and the "Run like hell" siren starts sounding in my brain I mis-take it to be the "Hmmmm.... this looks interesting" alert. So.... looking at the lonely piece of this is not really all that simple. Overcoming loneliness doesn't necessarily mean romantic love or a relationship/boyfriend/lover.  But it does mean vulnerability and being open to friends and to being willing to expose my soft side, and be the authentic me, even when it isn't pretty. And I am getting comfortable with this. But sometimes.... sometimes I want to know that I am still attractive, that there is someone out there for me, that I won't grow old alone. Sometimes I miss having a best friend who is biased by romance and in my corner. Sometimes I am desperate for this to happen again for me and in those times, the truth is, I need to take a step back and do something else to relieve the feelings of loneliness. Because that desperation, that is an old habit/trick. I need to steer clear of that. It will feed me to the wolves every time. I'll make a bad choice and I'll end in ruins by my own hand. But lately I've been lonely. Feeling so alone and like I'm losing the battle. The "I will survive" battle. I am combatting this by spending time with my bff's. I have a life long best friend who became my bestie when we were in the First grade. Thanks to boys mostly, we spent some years not being besties. But we figured that nonsense out and now we are besties again. There is no one else who knows my childhood as well and can laugh and joke about childhood or who can relate to the trials we faced growing up. But I also have a soulmate best friend. We were instant best friends when we met some 9+ years ago.  So I have been connecting with my best friends, the people who know the me that is not graceful or pretty. Sometimes I just need to know I am connected to my family. My big girl was gone for 3 weeks, yes, 3 weeks!! And her phone gave up the ghost. So my only contact was messaging on the computer. I didn't hear her voice for 3 whole weeks. I didn't know how much that wore on me until I heard her voice and started to come back to life. I was "fine" when she went to college and we didn't talk all the time and I went longer than 3 weeks without seeing her, but I never went so long without hearing her voice and without having communication at my fingertips. Of these four things to be aware of, I think Lonely is the most complex and hardest to combat. But I'm doing the work, I'm baby-stepping. And I am working to remember H.A.L.T..... hungry, angry, lonely, tired.