Finding how to cope through total behavior

I know I haven't blogged in a long while. So here I am in Tulsa with my honey, my cats, a great job, and I am feeling frustrated, sad, and lonely. This has been ongoing pretty much since I moved here. Making friends is hard. Putting yourself out there is hard. Making a new life, new friends, new job, new community, new gym with so-so cardio machines, grocery stores that don't carry the items I like, the oppressive heat, the constantly fighting cats...well, it's feeling pretty overwhelming. And to tell the truth, I've taken to sitting on my duff. Part of this is the plain fact that I am absolutely exhausted. I am sure part of my exhaustion is simply from the fact that I am adjusting to an 8-5 job and 1.5 hour total commute every day. But there's another part to exhaustion that I think people often overlook, and that is emotional exhaustion. This plays a large role in our overall feeling of physical exhaustion.

The other day I was observing a colleague conduct a group session, and he was talking about total behavior, which is a part of reality therapy. The concept of total behavior says that our actions are not just how we behave but is also composed of our feelings, our thoughts, and our physiology. No behaviors happen without our feelings, thoughts, and physiology working in concert.

So my feelings ...well, I've already talked about them some. My thoughts, what I tell myself, have been very negative. I won't get into it here, but I've been pretty down on myself...My physiology: I'M DANG TIRED! And my actions: sitting on my duff.

So after this last week of getting ridiculously angry at my cat (I mean, really, she's my cat but she's an ANIMAL), working out only one day this week, and barricading myself in the house all weekend (John was gone), I've decided that, although I feel sad, overwhelmed, lonely and fat; although I think I'll never make friends, I'll never make a life for myself, that this will not just work out; although my body is tried, I will change my actions. And hopefully by changing my actions alone, my feelings and thoughts and physiology will follow. Sometimes that's just where you have to start. People can't change their feelings; they don't have too much control over their physiology; their thoughts they can change, but sometimes the thought pattern is so strong that we have to jump to changing our actions, and our thoughts will follow.

So this is my plan to get myself out of the dumps.
1. I will remind myself that IT TAKES TIMES and a whole hell of a lot of it to build a life. When I moved back to Reno, it took probably a good 2-3 years to finally feel HAPPY.
2. I will go to the gym four - five days a week, preferably during the work week. Just get it done and over with.
3. I will eat regularly schedule meals instead of just noshing on whatever.
4. I will research ways to volunteer or get involved in the community.

That's good enough for now. No need to go too crazy and overwhelm myself even more with a super long list. We'll see how this goes, and I'll be sure to report on my "experiment" of manipulating my actions to change my thoughts, feelings, and physiology.