Unit 6 (super long)

I don't think I need much improvement in the loving kindness department.  For the most part I tend to put everyone else ahead of myself & I am always thinking about others & how my actions affect those around me.  At my work I always stay late because I don't want to leave the manager high & dry when there is still work that needs to get done.  In order to make things easier on the manager who has to do the schedule of about 40 employees, I told them that I had a completely open & available schedule, which has not worked in my favor at all...  I used to have a major problem telling people, "no" when the needed something from me, because I always wanted to help & be there for people.  However, too many people started taking advantage of me & I was burning the candle at both ends, stretching myself out too thin, & leaving nothing left for myself.  I'm usually the life coach that people turn to because people perceive that I always have myself together & I am a stable person for them to turn to.  Even when I am wronged by a person I justify why they did what they did by understanding that they are only human, no ones perfect, I try to understand what made them the way that they are, something from their childhood, their environment, a past trauma, their own self esteem issues, etc.  I do not wish ill on others, & I try very not to speak negatively about others.  I am only human too though I yell swear words in my car while driving on the road with other drivers & I do get upset when someone hurts me.  The loving kindness exercise is very important message though.  We are all interconnected so if we wish ill on others then we are also wishing ill on ourselves, because when others are suffering we are affected by their suffering & if we are not compassionate to others, then why would people want to be compassionate towards us.  It is also an important concept about selflessness & being more of a selfless person.  

Most of my stress I would say comes from work, schoolwork, & driving.  When it comes to work, I feel like I am working myself to death for an extremely small paycheck.  I may still be young at 25 years old but my back does not feel young at all.  I like my job but I do not like working so hard thinking that I am going to get a decent paycheck & I end up crying instead.  I've been contemplating the last couple days about looking at different job that is tipped based as well as hourly & has a more consistent schedule.  This term has been the most chaotic term I have had since I started going to Kaplan.  I have had an easier time moving across state & still doing school work than working & trying to accomplish the work load of assignments.  It feels like it is non stop each week of so many assignments for both classes.  I am grateful that I am not taking more than 2 classes or else I would probably lose my mind.  My grades are highly important to me so with the heavier workload and chaotic unstructured work schedule I have been stressed out everyday of each week.  If I was working full time instead of part time & a half I would surely be more stressed out trying to get the school workload done each week.  As it is I have to manage & budget my time hour by hour day by day, I am lucky if I get 4.5-6 hours of sleep a night, which is not enough for me because I need 7.5-9 hours to be able to optimally function.  When I am not getting enough sleep I start to make minor mistakes that increase my frustrations because I am such an overachiever & perfectionist.  Everyday when confronted with stress from work or school I have to talk myself through it by telling myself that it isn't the end of the world, it is only a couple points, I am doing the best I can with what I have to work with, and I can still achieve my 4.0 term.  Pretty much my life has been revolving around getting ready for work, driving to work, working, driving, school work, & maybe a little bit of sleep if I am lucky.  There is no time for me & so far I don't feel like I am getting back nearly the amount of effort, energy, & sanity that I am putting in.  When it comes to looking at what is the source of difficulty in myself is the constant mental & emotional refinement that I put myself through.  This includes being conscious & aware of when I am having destructive behaviors, thoughts, & attitudes such as being angry, stressed out from mainly fears, speaking or thinking mean/negative thoughts that are not constructive or positive they are just reactive.  Pretty much psychoanalyzing myself on a constant basis, holding high expectations for myself, being very critical of myself because I know I can always do better but get frustration when I don't do well.  Not long ago I had an epihany about the timeline of my life an a pivotal moment that forever changed my life to why I have been where I have been & why I am at where I am at.  That everyday is a struggle to make the best out of my life despite the choice that changed my life that was not of my doing but has altered all aspects of my life & who I was, who I am, & who I will be.  One of the major things that this has affected is my relationships with others, & apparently I have the worst luck, I don't know how but I attract all the wrong ones.  I have counteracted this by being very particular, having standards & expectations that I don't compromise on, I trust my gut instinct, & I am very clear that I will know what I am looking for when I find it.  I just get very frustrated with people's perceptions and misconceptions that I am a right instead of a privilege.  Moving on to what line of development is most important I would say being on top of my stress levels with positive affirmations, keeping up with my exercising & active meditation, & being actively aware & deciphering my stressful situations in the moment.  Such as stopping, thinking, asking myself what is it that I am really stressed about, what am I afraid of, why does this anger me, what can I do about it, is it in my control or not, and telling myself I am in charge of my attitude & I choose to have a good one & make the best out of the situation & do the best I can.  I don't know what label I would give my level of development on a scale of 1-10 or a F-A grade.  I would like to say I am higher up on the scale, but every time I look back on my life timeline I think to myself man I did not know what the heck I was doing, or thinking, where was my mind at!  Maybe I would go with a B- or an 8, that I know a lot but I still have lots of improvement because let's face it I am only 25 & I have a whole lot of life left to live & a whole heck of a lot of experiences to experience.  I would say that sometimes though I am a 7 because there are periods of time where I get caught up in the chaos of reacting & not being in control of my own life, or going down dead end roads creating more work for myself by having to back track & get back on the main road.  What areas of my life are ready for growth & development?  I would say all areas of my life!  Physically, I am still in recovery mode from being so depressed I was bed ridden & sick for over a year losing a lot of lean muscle tone.  I am also only 4.5 months quit from smoking cigarettes after 10 years of smoking.  There are also needs that need to be attended to most importantly going to the chiropractor because I know my hips are still out of alignment causing pinched nerves, difficulty working out, & work takes a physical toll on my body.  I have my gym membership & my routine is an hour & a half but I need to include Pilates for lower back function & I would love to make yoga a part of my daily lifestyle.  Belly dancing is also on my bucket list.  Meeting my own personal nutrient needs is still not completely down pat, I eat healthy but I tend to not be able to get enough from forgetting or not having enough time for breakfast, forgetting to pack a lunch for work, not having the money to buy groceries or stop & get food, & most places are closed when I am out & about.  I was doing really great but then my schedule changed once I got a job & since my work schedule is never consistent I have had a hard time adapting so far.  After the holiday is over I want to put in a request at my work for no less than 20 hours a week, Monday & Tuesday off for school work, & to work only from afternoon & after.  Working night, then morning, then afternoon, then double shift, then this, then that, there's just no rhythm or reason!  Spiritually there is always room for improvement.  I am very spiritual & it is a part of me & my life everyday with how I think, behave, treat others, see the universe, & how we are all interconnected.  I feel there is room for improvement because I don't participate in some of the activities like I used to that made me feel more in tune with the universe, I haven't studied any of my spiritual books in a long while.  I bought a short book last term about dreams & I only got a couple pages in & it hasn't been touched since.  With the weather being so cold I don't ever want to go outside even bundled up to participate in contemplation in nature.  Mentally & emotionally I will always have room for development, that will never stop needing attention.  For me this is one of the aspects that becomes out of balance affecting the other aspects on a regular basis.  There are many hereditary traits, environmental learned behaviors, many major traumas throughout my life, & the tendency to be a codependent stress prone personality type as well as type A, luckily I am also the survivor stress resistant personality type so I always preserver no matter what.  An area that could use healing aside from my back needing chiropractic attention & probably a massage wouldn't hurt I could afford it right now, would be my mental & emotional state.  A major goal that I have really been taking action on the last handful of months has been decreasing my stress levels, not being unhappy or depressed, & being happy.  For the most part I have been doing very well except when crazy work hours like Black Friday, over-night floor shift project which is an intense redo of the entire store, & midterms or finals.  I have terrible luck with timing, usually everything will land all at the same time & I drink way too much coffee to keep up, not enough water, not enough food, not enough sleep at all, and mental drainage ha ha!  I would say that the same areas in my life that need healing also have room for growth & development.  I also believe though that every aspect has room for growth & development because there is no end to transcendence  it keeps going to the next stage of evolution.  What would the next level of development look like?  That is a really good question.  I think the next level of development would be having many of the positive lifestyle choices be a part of my everyday life, that it will be second nature, I would just do it without thinking about it.  I think I skipped a few levels though.  Some things are in the pre-contemplation stage, some in the contemplation, others in the preparation, and some in the action stage.  My goal is to be in the maintenance stage.  For example, my gym membership & exercising is in the maintenance stage, I went from the contemplation stage of thinking about a specific gym, I researched some information, I went straight into the preparation stage by deciding that week on a specific day before work I was going to go in & talk to the people.  I even signed up for a week pass but I knew that the times that I was allowed to come in to the gym weren't going to work, I was going to be better off getting a membership.  Upon going to the gym talking to the person & having a tour I told her to sign me up & I went 3 times that week!  Sadly I didn't get to go this last week because of work & school work.  Quitting smoking is in the maintenance stage so is taking my supplements & drinking more water.  Yoga & Pilates is in the contemplation stage, school is in the action stage, and going to the chiropractor is in the preparation stage to name a few examples.  So, I guess it depends on what area I am looking at to know which level of development I am at.