A good week?!

Wow, so this week has been a strange one for me. As in, I think it's been good?! What the hell is good?! It's really freaky to be honest. I've felt productive, I've woken up before 9 am and not been completely exhausted, I'm generally in a good mood. 

I've been house sitting for the past ten days, only to finish yesterday. So this has definitely lifted my mood. Let me breakdown how this is good for me:

• Being in a house by myself (happiness ++)

• Three cats, 2 of which like me, and one of those I have chosen to be my cat girlfriend many years ago <3 (happiness +, social +)

• Three chickens, one of which used to be my chicken (happiness +, social +)

• Dishwasher (happiness +, comfort +)

• Spacey kitchen (happiness +, mental health +) room to cook nice meals (happiness +, physical health +)

• heating (happiness +, physical health +, comfort +)

• desk space and monitor to work comfortably from home (mental health +, comfort +, health +)

• access to Netflix, allowing me to watch season 2 of a series I first watched in 2020 (happiness +)

• pillow that is more comfortable than my own (physical health +), this means less migraine symptoms (comfort +) - I need to buy one of these, it sort of looks like the image below.

But more has happened that has also likely influenced my mood.

I was unable to meet with my uni counsellor the other week when I was very bad. So I contacted the psychologist that my family has worked with before to see if they had time. I have met up with my counsellor just over a week ago, which kind of helped, but I have also met up with the psychologist this Monday as well. I pretty much spoke to them both about the same thing that was my last post, fairly cat focused. However, after going over it again on Monday with someone else, I have been feeling good. Lets break down why this might be the case.

• talking through my problems yet again, getting more validation and acknowledgement about my life situation
• Psychologist is private, not uni associated. The session could be about whatever I wanted with no mention of uni work if I so desired. 
• Less time to travel getting the psychologist than the uni
• They have worked with members of my family for more than 5 years at least, so they know a lot of what my life involves already
• they are male, and I always get on better with males than females
• I feel easily very comfortable with them, its like chatting with a friend 

= Psychologist (mental health ++, social +)

I know they cannot be my "friend" per say, they are a health professional and I am their client. We have similar interests as well, which also can blur the lines a little sometimes. I have been aware of this for a while and it's the reason why I was not seeing them already. I quite self-aware that I could be projecting a relationship that did not exist, so I was avoiding one on one sessions with them for a while. I brought this up on Monday too, and they totally get it. It feels good to have brought it up and have yet more feelings acknowledged and validated. 

One last thing, my supervisor is away for a month, so I feel less pressured with my PhD :)

So overall:

happiness = 9+

social = 3+

comfort = 3+

health = 7+

Now how do I keep getting these positives in my life? What happens now I am back home and the negatives are loitering just around the corner? 

I'm not going to spend too much time on those thoughts, I have the motivation to do other important things, like my PhD, so let's just ride the motivation train for now?