I am in a conundrum and a dilemma with myself, or parts of myself. I am trying to be more of an artist and less of a drone, and last week you saw me do lots of art as an act of service to myself. This week I am struggling to find a suitable activity or game to play that I will enjoy, that will be good for my soul / inner child and will be healthy for me. The current expression of that is a yes/no to purchasing a video game on my laptop. If I were in the UK I would have lots more of my stuff to play with and enjoy and explore and make use of without having to spend money to do so (I already own video games on a PS2 I love and have Warhammer minis to paint etc). But here in Italy where I am for the next three weeks I do not. So do I buy the game for £16 or do I tell myself to wait. Fear is standing in the way and fear says "you do not have an income, you cannot afford to buy a video game you might not use more than a few times. you must be frugal until you have an income" And fear is decidedly a BUMMER, but I cant seem to look past it and find a way to spend the money, nor can I find anything else to do that is free and enjoyable. I am stuck. Any advice?

I really hate admin days. My shadow loves them as they get between me and the truest work - the art - whilst being "productive" and therefore "aren't bad" and I should "do more of them" etc etc. But is there a deeper shadow about being a good enough artist? or getting the admin done quickly enough? or being successful enough at protecting my time? Yes, absolutely, its like a hazy room full of eval cigar smoking villains all working on their own evil plans to foil the hero. Or a hydra I must face each morning when faced with competing distractions and tasks. Shadow after shadow comes up to say "FOCUS ON ME" "NO FOCUS ON ME!" And the truth for me today, is admin days are better than letting the admin creep into the art days, because if I don't do the art straight away then I rarely get to doing it at all, if I do I judge it is usually of a lesser quality when I am tired and stressed from it having taken so long. Even this post, here today, 'necessary admin' is turned into a tool of procrastination to avoid doing the bigger, scarier task of messaging people and asking for work. Of sending them my CV and of asking them if they have any contacts they could set me up for a call with. But now I have done this task and I have to decide if I will do the big scary one or another smaller one that feels safer and less threatening to my current story - that I can't make it as an artist, that it wont all work out well and that I will fail and have to crawl back to a horrible office job. I HATE that story, it twists and cuts at my innards, it rots and decays my heart. I hate it. So, what will I do for myself? I will tack the big hairy scary monster like its a rugby player on the other team and I will risk getting absolutely crumpled to do it. And it will be scary, but it need not be horrible. it need not be suffering.

I failed to check in yesterday after having said I would each day until the 25th. Why? Firstly the easy logistical answer is I forgot to add it to my physical written to do list. And I could say "I will remember to add it going forwards" but that would just paper over the crack. The deeper message here is that I was prioritising pleasing other people and getting their validation. I was worried about making sure my partner was okay and was not upset at me. I was worried about an MKP call happening later that evening that I wanted to be impressive at and was also afraid of attending. I let my desire to seek validation, fuelled by my belief that others can actually provide that validation get in my way and take me off mission for the day. And I felt that the whole way through. It is an old and well worn wound for me and one I know well and was conditioned into growing up. But it is also a wound that only I can heal now as an adult and one that I must heal in order to grow and progress. And I am hoping this is the year to do it. What can I do to serve myself instead? I can write. I can do my art-form today and give it 110% just like I wasn't going to until I wrote this. And in doing so I can show up for myself and not seek validation from outside, but inside me. And I can say no the next time someone or something tries to distract me from that. No matter how scary that feeling is.

Today is my sobriety birthday and for the first time ever number 6 has crept up on me. I usually spend all of January thinking about my sobriety and my recovery and how far I've come and how far I have to go and what my sobriety means for me and what 'recovery' means to me. But this year, I judge, I am both so on mission, and my mission has grown so much wider that just 'staying sober' that I had totally forgotten to reflect on it because it wasn't necessary, it is truly just another day and another year because the work to get sober and stay sober is completely integrated. It's just part of who I am. And that is a living miracle and I love letting be mundane. Mundane Magick is often my favourite kind.

Checking in very late today as I had a very 'off day' I woke up to a sick partner who felt very much that their sickness was both my fault and that they would not be cared for by me if they shared how they felt about it, so I spent most of my day caring for them without any time to prepare to do so. And I did it, and it was okay, and I am proud of myself for doing that, its not long ago that I wouldn't have been able to be that kind to both myself and to them. So I'm checking in and checking out all in one motion, but hopefully tomorrow being a Monday will bring with it more intentionality and less need for reactionary behaviour.