Hello everyone! I'm very excited about this particular post, dear reader, and I will briefly - 'ish' explain why 😁. So, in the beginning of this week, I joined the DreemPort 6 Weeks Challenge that consist on doing a series of small, yet important, tasks in order to achieve healthier habits, personal goals, support and motivate each other to keep on track 😉

This are the tasks for week #1 👇

I immediately found this an amazing idea, which led me to contribute with a post to help all those entering on this challenge, specifically on two of the tasks of this week - breathing and physical activity.

👀 Dear reader, if you need a little assistance or guidance in this two particular tasks from this week I suggest checking this out 👇 👀

A guide for breathing | The importance of your diaphragm muscle

Therefore, today I'll report here all the progress I've made this week and I'll start with explaining to you what ability I've been procrastinating for a long time! Afterwards I'll walk you through every day of this week, letting words flow as for today (Monday) and tomorrow I'm on vacation from work so, gladly, I have more time to write 😊

To be honest, this year I already started working on this particular ability/goal, however it's been hard to follow. Therefore, this is a great opportunity for me to get the motivation and courage I need.

Why courage, do you ask, dear reader? Just keep on reading to find that out 😉

I say ability because I don't consider it a talent of mine per si. But I guess you could look at it from that perspective. Playing an instrument was always a fascinating idea to me. The frustration that comes from trying to learn it, well - not so much.

I have this irrational and emotional frustration/shame regarding anything related to music, especially playing and/or singing in front of others. It's a real personal blockage for me and I can't really explain or understand where this comes from. My mind keeps playing tricks to me and thoughts of 'why do you bother? You're so bad ' are recurrent.

From a rational point of view, of course that when you are learning how to play or sing you're gonna miss and fail a lot! It's only natural and expected. I do know that, yet it seems hard to me to keep it in mind when I fail or miss a note. In fact, it's holding me back from even trying and just enjoying it.

Nevertheless, these last few years I've been trying to push through it and in the beginning of 2022, one of my new year's resolutions was to get back to guitar lessons with a teacher to guide me. I thought that in this way I could keep on track and actually evolve by having someone to tell me what to do, what to correct and what to train.

I already had one lesson and I've been training one song to present in my next class. My pledge to myself was to play 15 minutes, at least, everyday and I did manage to do it in the first few weeks... That was the easy part because I was mostly doing some basic exercises to learn and memorise all the notes from the guitar strings.

When it came down to actually practising the song and trying to play it in synchrony and on tempo... Frustration just kicked right in and I started to lose all my motivation again.

So, dear reader, I'll take advantage of this awesome challenge to get my task of 15 minute playing the guitar done and hopefully get the courage to show to you a little tune when I get the timing and all notes right 😁

Today I find myself a little bit down... Can't really identify the main reason but I already woke up with a small headache that's now turning into a migraine. I'm also feeling body aches a bit around (note to self - you should do a COVID test just in case 😬). I shouldn't even be on the computer but I feel guilty because I compromised to do a post with a 20 minute pilates class and I'm not really in a mood for it (note to self - not to mention about your guilty feelings when you're not being productive).

I believe our body is really amazing in telling us what we need but it's not so easy to always respect it though... I try my best to be an example to my patients, as a physiotherapist I work hard to motivate people to listen to ones body but that doesn't mean it's easy for me to always be an example 😆.

But that's enough complaining, dear reader... Let's now go through the tasks completed today:

1. 5 minute breathing ✔️

This task was completed before playing the guitar for calming my nerves 😆😊 In my last Three Tune Tuesday posts I shared some music of Carolina Eyck and in this TEDx talk I was inspired by her to be more watchful towards my feelings and thoughts that come into my mind while practising.

2. 32 oz. of water ✔️

Well this is an easy one for me 😁 The hard part of this task was that I had to do the conversion of oz. to lt. because in Portugal that's the most utilised unit of measurement (note to self - and you don't know how to do it by memory. Your maths teacher is now disappointed) 🤣🤣🤣.

With that being said, I don't have any trouble getting enough hydration and I usually have a big bottle (1.5L or 50 oz.) that I drink throughout the day with ease.

3. 20 minute physical activity ❌

I really tried, and it makes me really sad that I wasn't able to do this task. I felt bad all day long, but I dragged myself from the sofa and tried to do some light stretching exercises. I wasn't really feeling good so I decided to stop and didn't make the 20 minutes.

4. 15 minutes towards personal goal - playing guitar✔️

For the time being, as I keep practising to make at least a decent tune to show, here is a picture to prove it ^^ (note to self - wearing a fluffy pyjamas and socks of course! 😎)

5. Other ✔️

I decided to make the most of this challenge and stop procrastinating on a task I talked about before in this post. Basically, I had to go through a major change in my wardrobe and I already had separated clothes to donate and others to sell second hand. But they been sitting on bags on my room for 2 weeks now 🙈

So today I got my butt off the couch and went donating those clothes and placed half of the others for sale. Tomorrow I'm planning on finishing this completely.

6. Write a post and submit on DreemPort ❌

Today I didn't had energy for much so I didn't do any writing beside advancing this post for friday 😌 I hope tomorrow I can do that as it is tuesday and time for another #ttt post 😁

Well, not much better today... Actually a bit worse. I did a COVID-19 auto test but it reported negative. Throughout the day I felt worse and worse so I went for a little nap in the afternoon to see if it helped before resorting to any medication. It didn't and I woke up with a really bad migraine, I couldn't even open my eyes. So I took some medication to help and now I'm feeling a little bit better.

I've also contacted the health authorities and I have to stay in isolation for the next 7 days 😭😭😭 Tomorrow I'll probably be doing a PCR test to confirm if I have COVID-19 or not. If it is I really don't know how I got it 🤷‍♀

So as you would expect, dear reader, I didn't do much today...

1. 5 minute breathing ✔️

2. 32 oz. of water ✔️

3. 20 minute physical activity ❌

4. 15 minutes towards personal goal ❌

5. Other ❌

6. Write a post and submit on DreemPort ❌

Still feeling pretty bad, migraines and body aches. Going to do a PCR test today. So, as you can imagine I didn't do much today either.

1. 5 minute breathing ❌

2. 32 oz. of water ✔️

3. 20 minute physical activity ✔️❌🤷‍♀

For work, I had to give 3 online pilates classes because I couldn't reschedule and didn't want to leave my patients down. Can this count as my 20 min. physical activity today?

4. 15 minutes towards personal goal ❌

5. Other ❌

6. Write a post and submit on DreemPort ❌

I did write a post for Three Tune Tuesday but I didn't submit it on DreemPort.

Feeling a little bit better, my PCR test got back negative so I guess I must have just the common flu. Started with a terrible cough today but I'm feeling a little bit better overall. The migraines for me are the worst part of it though.

1. 5 minute breathing ❌

2. 32 oz. of water ✔️

3. 20 minute physical activity ❌

4. 15 minutes towards personal goal ❌

5. Other ❌

6. Write a post and submit on DreemPort ❌

Still woke up with a headache 😩 But they are now lighter and they go away fully with medication.

1. 5 minute breathing ✔️

2. 32 oz. of water ✔️

3. 20 minute physical activity ✔️

Finally I recorded a 20 minute pilates lesson for making another post to help fellow Hivers on this task for the next couple of weeks. Only need to edit now and write a post 😁

4. 15 minutes towards personal goal ❌

5. Other ❌

6. Write a post and submit on DreemPort ❌

That's it for me and my report on week 1 of DreemPort Challenge. Not a great week for me and I really hope I can do better next time!

I'll take the weekend to rest a little bit more and regain my strengths 😊 Look forward to read, in the meantime, all the achievements all other dreemers did this week.

See you soon. 👋