As Promised – 21 Days Later… The Results

“Presence” from the Treedom Photography Collection available on canvas and paper

Remember my October 27th post about taking 21 days off movies because I’d grown too dependent on them?  Well, my 21 Days are over, and here are the results.

Did I break the movie habit? Yes!

Was it easy?  No!

I confess, at first, I felt the same irritation I’d seen when smokers quit cold turkey.  It took about a week for the withdrawal pains to stop being so noticeable.  That’s proof I’d become addicted.

What I didn’t tell you is that I was also pausing my chip habit. Yes, I am a health food nut… But I’m also a chipaholic.

And you all know that chips and movies go great together. Right?!

I’m not stopping forever. In fact, I celebrated the end of my movie-hiatus by going to see “Le garagiste” at our local francophone festival. The screenwriter/director gave an inspiring talk beforehand, reinforcing my beliefs in following-through on artistic dreams.  Then, 2 days later, a couple of friends came over to celebrate my accomplishment with a movie/chip party. That’ll be enough chips for a while…

And I won’t be doing the movie thing daily anymore.  I’ve become more conscious about my choices again.

So what did I do instead?  Here’s a list of what I chose to do each day whenever the urge to watch a movie hit.  It doesn’t include all the creative work, business tasks, meetings, social outings, etc. that were already planned. These are just the in-the-moment substitutes when I would have rather gone to bed with Netflix. Yes, that’s probably a substitute too 🙂

1. cleaned the studio & washroom
2. painted an extra few hours
3. went for a walk & scenic drive with friends
4. creative visualization to music
5. did yoga at night (usually in the morning) and ironed my new Kaliyana collection
6. listened to the book “Kinship with All Life” while painting
7. played with my neighbour’s dogs & went for a walk to an old cemetery I’d wanted to visit for 1.5 years
8. did my own guided meditation
9. dance party for 1
10. socialized with my housemate and her cousin longer than I would’ve
11. had no time to think of movies – worked from 3:30am – 11pm
12. designed my mandala calendar (O.K. so the goal was not to fill my time with more work, but…)
13.  work…
14. designed little decks of mandala cards in a pouch (work, but again, so much fun!)
15. explored the world of Facebook – yikes! so easy to fall out of alignment there…
16. wrote a card to my parents for my birthday
17. went for a drive and then to an art show opening and talk about the Manolis L oil spill here in NL.
18. invited myself to a dinner with my housemate and her friends (who are also my friends)
19. worked some more
20. meditated and listened to Abraham Hicks
21. didn’t even think of movies 🙂

There’s nothing wrong with movies or chips (especially when you bless and give thanks for them), but over dependency on anything isn’t healthy. So I’m glad I took a break.

What about you? Are you making or breaking any habits?  All it takes is 21 days!