I forgive myself. I just want to start with that.
Had a call with my therapist K. this morning. I started out the call in bad place, and I ended the call in a bad place.
I woke up at 9AM and I took the garbage to the street, and some packages to the mailbox. I came back inside and read e-Mails. One of them that I saw was a notification that my March eBay seller invoice was available.
I owed $230. I felt ripped off. I don’t even have $230 in my Paypal account because I’ve been spending the money I earn so quickly. I signed up for the $59.99 tier for eBay seller accounts. Why the hell am I getting charged over $200?! I’m the one doing all the work, and eBay is just collecting from me.
I’m going to have to pay taxes at some point, and I think I’m going to get a similar feeling when I have to pay them. eBay and government think they have a right to the product of my labor. I’m busting my butt over here, they’re doing jack shit.
This isn’t true really, and I’m mixing two different topics. eBay is doing a whole lot of shit. They are providing the software, the servers, the anti-fraud team, the payment gateways, support staff… eBay does a whole lot.
Government on the other hand, isn’t doing jack shit. Well, they are, but it’s shit I don’t want them to do, and it’s shit that I was born into and am supposedly obligated to be okay with. That’s a separate issue and one I don’t want to get into today.
eBay is ripping me off, but I signed up for this. eBay’s terms are well documented, and I was aware of them when I signed up. eBay takes a final value fee which is a percentage of the final value of the item. Next, eBay takes a flat insertion fee for the number of items listed per month which are greater than the item count allowed by my tier of eBay store. Because of the tier of eBay store I have subscribed to, that’s $0.10 per item.
Next, eBay takes a flat fee per month for whichever eBay store tier I choose. In my case, it’s $59.95 per month.
You know what the problem is? I’m expecting too much. I’ve been going at this for 3 months, and suddenly I’m having a bad month. $640.65 brought in during March, as compared to the $1200 brought in during the previous two months.
I’m expecting too much. I haven’t been listing the items that bring in the most money. I’m trying to live off my sales right now, and that’s simply not realistic! It’s going to take a long time for me to pump enough money into this venture to where it’ll be able to supply me the income I need to survive. I am just getting started here, I’m experiencing growing pains, and this is going to take awhile before it gains the traction required!
The call with my therapist didn’t go well this morning because I brought this up, I noted I was angry, and I too quickly tried to move onto the next topic. I wasn’t over being angry, and I let that emotion dominate my thoughts for the duration of the call. We ended the call about 15 minutes early because I think it was obvious that I was not in a good place, and not wanting to work on that.
Do you want to do some work on that?
My therapist, K.
My response was no. I was being honest, but I kind of wanted to be talked into working on it anyway.
Instead, I tried to distract myself. K. called me out on it, but I didn’t yield. I went straight to distraction patterns and K. knew it. I knew it. Everybody knew it, and it was a terrible call because I put up a wall and wasn’t willing to talk about it.
I felt like I didn’t deserve to waste K.’s time on working on my anger. I pushed the anger aside and tried to ignore it.
This is why I’m forgiving myself. I have the urge to beat myself up about what I did, and how I didn’t give myself the self-worth I deserve. I forgive myself for saying no to K.’s help. I forgive myself for being angry. I forgive myself for putting up a wall.
Next time I speak with K., I’m going to be honest even in times when I feel like I can’t be honest. I’m going to say, “You know what? I can’t stop thinking about that thing that caused me anger. Do you mind if we work on that?”
This is a learning experience, this relationship I have with my therapist. Life is a learning experience. Every relationship I have with every person is a learning experience. Today, I’m choosing to forgive myself for what I have done, and prepare myself for what I will do.
Let’s talk more about anger. Let’s talk about that feeling I get when I am so disgusted and dissatisfied with something to the point where I want to punch something.
I often have the urge to punch one of my computer screens. Which screen varies from time to time, but the feeling is very intense. I don’t know if I’ve ever punched a screen. I don’t want to start.
I have smashed a number of keyboards. The keyboards were probably not the cause of my anger, the cause of my anger was more likely something which occurred in software.
So the thing with punching my monitors. I know what would happen if I did that. The monitor would be sent flying off my desk. The monitor would topple over, carrying cables with it and possibly snagging and knocking over more items on my desk. I would have a mess on my hands. I would either end up with a somewhat usable monitor with a damaged monitor display, or a completely unusable monitor due to the damage I would inflict.
There is no situation in my mind where I would take out my anger on a monitor and be back up and running after I cleaned up the mess. I assume that punching my monitor would leave me with a hole in my computing experience, and that there are no exceptions to this.
I think about this when I have the urge to strike one of my displays. I think that it’s not worth it. I like having three monitors. Two for working, one for podcasts. One less would feel cramped. One less would be a regression.
6:54 PM. I slept for most of the day. I felt like I needed the extra rest. I’m going to go outside and walk before the sun goes down.
8:33PM. I walked 20 laps, did some yoga, did some meditation. Showered & shaved. I couldn’t get into the meditation zone very well. I have turbulent thoughts, a turbulent body, and a turbulent soul.
I don’t even know what I mean by that. I do know what I mean by turbulent thoughts. I can’t sit and be in the moment for more than a few seconds before a flurry of thoughts come in. I try to acknowledge the thought and get back to thinking about being in the moment, but the cycle of thoughts repeats itself.
I’m happy I tried though. Meditation takes a lot of practice. Perhaps I will make more of an effort in making meditation regular.
I started watching the Netflix tiger documentary. I forget the exact name. Tiger King: Murderous something something. Crazy shit. Like legit craziness. I couldn’t watch two episodes back to back because the people are so out of this world nuts. There’s so many mentally disturbed individuals, so many hypocritical thoughts, so many attacks against fellow men, so much hatred.
Everybody is so ugly! Inside and out, but mostly inside! It hurts to watch and I cringe so hard. But it’s a trainwreck type of a thing. I’ll probably watch more because I can’t look away and the images of the people acting so wild is more than I can resist.
There’s the one dude who loves animals and hates animal rights activists. There’s the one chick who doesn’t see her own hypocrisy in sheltering large cats and hosting events where people come and see them. There’s the insane battle between those two where they refuse to let eachother be. Then there’s the other guy who overfeeds his cats and it’s sad to see them obese, meanwhile he can’t talk to a camera without this caked on, scripted, fake persona that was so common by personalities in the day of television.
Absolute train wreck. I can’t recommend this show, because it’ll draw you in and eat up your free time!
Back to yoga. I got started when the sun was going down. I finished when the moon was shining bright. I took a moment to set my intentions for today. The most pressing issue which bubbled to the surface was, “make money.”
I pondered on this for a moment. Is making money going to lead me to happiness? Sorta. I’m doing what I want to do with my life. I’m building a career where I get to sit in front of the computer for large parts of my day. I’m building independence and the satisfaction that comes with working hard and delivering quality products to my customers.
But is this happiness? Is my whole idea of a career the wrong path to take in life? I have to do something with myself, something with my time and energy. Is this the right path?
I’m not really sure. I think more people in my life is what I really need. This need is difficult to satisfy right now, due to the ongoing pandemic. It’s very frustrating.
All I can really do right now is stay the course. I can keep up my good habits. I can prune the negative thoughts that enter my head. I can keep working at my eBay store and growing my inventory.
I want to take a moment to recognize a success. Today after I had a poor phone conversation with my therapist, I realized that I was in a bad place. I had a physical vulnerability– I was tired. I was angry, and I tried to bury the feeling. I was experiencing self-deprecating thoughts and I noticed them and stomped them out. I cut down those thoughts like they were weeds, and immediately wrote down some affirmations that came to mind.
I am worth it.
I can move past this.
I deserve to be happy.
These three affirmations are in direct opposition to the feelings I felt when I was on the phone. I felt like I wasn’t worthy of working through my anger issue with K. I felt like I was stuck in that feeling of not wanting to deal with the anger. I felt like I deserved to feel terrible.
The opposite is true, and I wrote down the truth. I think I thought those thoughts of self hatred due to the years I spent hating myself. Due to the emotional trauma that I experienced in my youth. Due to the situation I put myself in where I was subservient to my father as an employee in his business.
Those days are over. I am re-parenting myself now. I am taking control of my future and I’m taking over where my parents fell short. I’m enough as I am. I am deserving of love and belonging. I deserve to be accepted and I’m worth my weight in antimatter.
I was thinking of saying gold, but that much gold is not worth enough! Antimatter is highly sought after and incredibly valuable, yes? The most precious and valuable thing in existence! That’s my worth.
I deserve to work through my problems with my therapist. I’m not there to just talk empty words, I can actually do work with my therapist and I’m there because I’m worth it.
Next time K. asks me if I want to work through something, I can say yes, and I deserve that!
I’ll wrap this up for today.
Bonus affirmations!
30. I can reach out for help if I need it. (wow, so relevant!)
31. I am special I will not change myself for anyone. (except myself, if I want it!
32. I choose hope.
I have to share this video. I’ve watched it like 50 times now. It’s so funny and brilliant!
I’m grateful for funny videos because they make me laugh and it feels good to laugh.
I’m grateful for food. Food fills my belly and it gives me the energy I need to move forward.
I’m grateful for my therapist K. She has done a lot to help me and I hope we can do more work together in the future.
