Off Schedule

[sae]

I exist within the realm of rigid routine. Aside from my bedtime, everything, including the time I wake up is always the same. This week has been another week that my schedule just doesn't fit. I have been staying much of my days at a friend's house while she recovers from surgery, cleaning and cooking.
Being off my routine feels like sheer hell and I am at war with myself. It's gut wrenching doing my daily tasks at night, at the wrong time of day. I have the overwhelming feeling something bad will happen if these things are left undone during the day.
I have to make myself more flexible. I don't want to tell my friend I can't help anymore just because I am too wrapped up in my own routine. It's embarassing and just plain wrong. I have missed too many lunches with friends, my kid's school programs, job opportunities over my overwhelming desire to maintain routine.
I know I need to be much more flexible; I am just struggling to let it loose. It's like looking at an oncoming train but being unable to step off the tracks. The very thing I created to give order to my daily life is now becoming a real hindrance.
I have a plan of attack against this, but I will openly admit I am terrified. It feels silly to be this damn scared of ditching routine even for a short enough time to convince myself nothing bad will happen if I just don't do my daily tasks. Logic and compulsion are at war.
In my own round about way I am just venting, really, but if anyone else can offer advice on how to be okay with flexibility I would love some thoughts.

[needtogetwell]

Hi Sae

I got the most part the polar opposite to you. I thrive on chaos. Well thrive isn't exactly the right word, but I can understand your desire for routine and I likely you require order in your life.

You are doing a wonderful, selfless thing staying with your friend while she recovers. You are pushing your comfort zone obviously to its limit.

I don't think there is anything wrong with you wanting to return to your own routine. I think to some point we all function better on our own routines.

You have come this far, and once you do get back to your routine, then maybe building in a little flexibility into it slowly will be the way to go.

Good luck, and if you have had enough then maybe suggesting another friend or family member can take over.

[gypsylee]

I think being flexible is a very good skill to develop. My mother is a bit like you and now she's in her 70s and won't change.. You don't want to end up like her LOL.

[Im-Suffering]

Sae, the abuser (s) are gone. But the beliefs remain more or less intact (you have been doing some belief work, mostly on an 'unconscious' level). The beliefs that attracted those people into your life are stirring the thoughts, feelings, and emotions. As long as you continue with the same beliefs, your outer experience will not change, nor will you be able to make sense of or release any unwanted emotions.

Tomorrow you will wake up the same person, with the same thoughts as you have today. What you 'think' you will become. Want to know the future? Look no further than todays conscious thoughts. Which come from strongly held, solidified beliefs.

Good or bad, the human psyche is stabilized, by a set pattern of thought. This gives the illusion of continuity in the personality. Preventing dramatic shifts back and forth that science would call severe mental illness.

So even if your life stinks, there is at least a stability in that experience, because of a network of protected beliefs structures. I use the word 'structures' to paint a picture of what beliefs look like in the mind. A city bridged with and connected by a framework of solid ideas, or concepts. Tear one building down, and the whole network is affected. Do nothing, and the city will remain 'the same' with a permanence or stability over the years.

Needtogetwell -

"I thrive on chaos" (what 'accidentally' 'comes out' is your truth).

That is a belief, and as you can see, you live it. (Look at your life)

Now, generally speaking, to anyone,

Nothing, ever spoken (even a so called slip of the tongue), thought, or action is without a personal belief behind it. Nothing.

For example, someone may be acting timidly, and feel awkward around others. They are acting automatically in certain situations and their emotions and thoughts seem to line up with the actions. They believe this is who they are. Meanwhile the belief 'i am unworthy' from childhood is the spring from which the personality is drawn. And re-drawn to maintain continuity of character.

This person may never find the belief that creates her whole experience. Or even know to look.

Is this the way any of you want to live? What you want to experience? A slave to beliefs that make you unhappy?

Change your beliefs, change your experience. There is no other way.

[Kuma]

Sae - maybe the need to help your friend, and that "forcing" you to move away from your schedule a bit, will turn out to be a good thing -- even if it is not easy. You probably want to be a little bit less wedded to your schedule, but it is hard to move beyond your comfort zone, when there is nothing pushing you to do so. Now there is something that has pushed you. You will see that when you deviate from your schedule, all hell does not break loose. You survive just fine, everything that needs to get done gets done, the stuff that does not get done did not really need to get done. That does not mean you abandon your schedule. Why do that, if it works for you? But you see that when there is a need to deviate from it, you can do so without any long-lasting adverse consequences.

Alternatively, you and Pam could morph into a single person -- with your routine and Pam's chaos offsetting each other!