Week 6 — Confronting My Negative Energy

"Growth doesn’t come from pretending things are fine — it comes from managing what isn’t.

We all have negatives. Ignoring them keeps us stuck. Managing them is how we grow.

This week was meant to be about me finding my rhythm, getting into some sort of productive and healthy routine and beginning some real change. It turned out to be quite the opposite. Instead, the week proved to be a lesson in negative energy - the things that drain me, derail me, and quietly influence my decisions whether I acknowledge them or not.

For me, it became clear there are three things in my life that stop me meeting my goals .

• Kidney disease

• Bipolar disorder

• Alcohol

Ignoring them and pretending they don’t impact me isn’t going to help me to me change.

So I chose to confront them.

The Negative Energies

🩸Kidney Disease: The Constant Drain

One of the hardest truths this week was recognising how much my illness affects my day-to-day life.

There were moments when I wanted to do things — genuinely wanted to — but couldn’t finish what I started. Fatigue set in quickly. My concentration slipped. Tasks that should have been easy became difficult.

It’s annoying and it’s frustrating. Jobs go unfinished and my « to do list » just gets longer.

It stops me wanting to start anything because not trying is easier than realising I’m failing.

This isn’t about lack of willpower. It’s about managing limited physical and mental energy. I need to stop trying to ignore it and learn to work round it instead.

🧠Bipolar Disorder: Mental Noise and Instability

Alongside physical fatigue, bipolar disorder adds its own layer of difficulty.

Mood fluctuations, erratic bursts of motivation, periods of low mood, racing thoughts — all of this makes consistency harder. Some days I feel capable; other days everything feels overwhelming.

The chaos in my head really impacts on my making progress. It destroys my ability to focus.  I start something with intention but then  lose focus, get distracted, and move on to something else.

By the end of the day, very little feels complete.

I don’t know how to deal with this.

Although I’m more aware of my emotions and mood swings, that awareness doesn’t fix anything. It does however mean that, when I realise I’m in a negative mindset, I can remove myself from the situation, distract myself, take time-out. It can give me space, a space that allows me to reset.

🍾Alcohol: The Biggest Source of Negative Energy

Of all the negatives in my life, alcohol has the widest impact.

I don’t drink constantly, I don’t drink every day and I don’t drink heavily — but I drink enough for it to deeply interfere with everything else. My sleep. My mood. My motivation. My health. My finances. My ability to follow through.

Alcohol has been a comfort blanket for most of my life. It dulls discomfort temporarily, but it also keeps me stuck. And avoiding that truth has been easier than facing it.

This week, I decided to stop avoiding it.

How I’m Dealing With Them

📝Mental & Physical Fatigue

I need to be kinder to myself and I need to be honest about the limitations my physical and mental health place on me. I need to lower the expectations I place on myself and I need to stop judging myself so harshly when I can’t do or finish something. I need to stop seeing this as failure.

Instead I need to congratulate myself on what I have managed to do.

To help with this I’ve now revised my weekly schedule and build in catch up time – this way fewer jobs might get started but more should get finished.

🛑Alcohol

Because a future without alcohol scares me I won’t make dramatic promises. I need to look at this without emotion but with logic and practicality. So, I made a plan.

• I wrote down every negative way alcohol affects me, without minimising or justifying.

• I listed all the excuses I make for not quitting, no matter how convincing they sound.

• I started keeping a journal of when I drink, to understand triggers instead of pretending they don’t exist, and

• I set a date to take a break from alcohol.

That date is today.

Because promising a limetime of sobriety is overwhelming I am not declaring myself teetotal and I am not giving up alcohol. I am simply going to take a break from it.

I can choose not to drink today — and tomorrow I’ll decide again.

I’ll keep my list of reasons to quit in full sight, not to shame myself, but to remind myself why this matters.

Structure As A Way To Reduce Chaos

Despite the negatives, having a weekly schedule helped this week — not because I followed it perfectly (I didn’t), but because it gave me focus.

When fatigue hit, when my mood shifted, when I felt overwhelmed, the schedule gave me something to return to. Without it I would have leapt from one task to another so much more and achieved very little in the process. By giving me a direction I made progress.

• I ate healthier

• My daily step count has increased

• I finished several examples of my resin work and documented the process

• Most of the chores got done

• I hosted the family « Cheerful Chinese Christmas Chow-Down », an asian inspired 12 course buffet cooked from scratch.

Structure might not  solve everything, but it gives me a stability I desperately need.

What This Week Taught Me

Negative energy doesn’t disappear just because you decide to change your life.

Illness, mental health challenges, and addiction don’t politely step aside.

But they can be acknowledged, managed, and worked around — if you stop pretending they aren’t there.

This week wasn’t uplifting. It was necessary.

Facing uncomfortable truths is part of this reset — not to define myself by them, but to stop letting them quietly run my life.

— Linda

Disclaimer

This post reflects my personal experience and choices. It is not medical advice, and I am not suggesting that my approach is right for everyone. I write this to be honest about my own life, not to diagnose, excuse, or define myself solely by illness or addiction