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Day 6 – for sticks and sticking

As part of my drive towards improving my health and well-being, I took advantage of the sunshine this morning to dust down my homemade bo stick and did some gentle drills after not doing any drills for the past three months. I remembered some moves from my martial arts training (Tang Soo Do) and found a lot of other stuff on-line. When I say homemade, I mean I stripped the bark from a stick and sanded it down. That level of DIY is pretty good for me.

And talking of sticks, I thought today I would write something about sticking. By this I mean how difficult it can be to stick to those important changes we want to make. Here we are looking at a key stage of the change cycle – maintenance. No, not cycle maintenance – this is a reference to the Stages of Change model proposed by Prochaska and DiClemente that is widely used in the area of behavioural change (e.g., eating habits, drinking, gambling, smoking, and other health related behaviours).

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Day 5 – alive and kindling

Day Five and I’m coming alive. The low energy levels I wrote about yesterday seem to be receding. Today I managed to do a bit of wood chopping in the morning sunshine. It was just gentle chopping to provide some kindling. I did have to swing the big axe a couple of times to get things going. Swinging the big axe does tend to get things going.

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Day 4 – to sleep perchance to dream

The usual pattern of my day is a cup of tea while I tackle the daily Wordle puzzle, followed by some toast or cereal. Thus energised, I clean out the wood burner, disposing of the ashes of the previous day. I imagine this act also has a symbolic aspect to it. I sort out the wood needed for the day, cutting some of the bigger logs down to size with my axe as necessary. I build the base of today’s fire ready for igniting a bit later. After these rituals, the day can unfold in multiple ways. There is always a lot to do, but the question is – do I want to do that today?

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Day 2 – calories and start of trivia quiz

It is early evening and all is well. Still on track with my abstinence from alcohol. It is probably too early to report any obvious benefits at this stage, There have been no cravings but it has necessitated a shift in my thinking and in how I organise my time, as noted in my introductory Dry January post on New Year’s Eve. It really is about changing habits, both behaviourally and cognitively. I try to keep in mind that I am not depriving myself of something (although that is how it might feel at times), but rather I am exploring new ways to experience life. That sounds very noble, but really it isn’t! I’m a bit like Charlie Brown – he couldn’t play baseball but he could talk a good game.

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Day 1- and some info on units

My celebrations last night were quite modest. A couple of glasses of Bulgarian Syrah (2019) from the Thracian Valley region with an ABV of 14%, followed by a little Sauvignon Blanc (2023) with an ABV of 12.5%. At some point there were a couple of fireworks that did not quite deliver – they briefly fizzed and popped and then fizzled out. No competition for the beautiful clear night sky and its array of stars that formed the backdrop to this display. Appropriately, I wedged the fireworks into a couple of empty beer cans. Poetic, almost.

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