Lisa,

I hate Summer because when it is hot I have no energy. Sun does not do that to me but the heat does. Thankfully here it rarely gets that hot but because of all these insects I don't go outside until September comes. There are still lots of insects in September but it is much colder so I have the energy to walk. I used to be able to ride a bicycle, rollerblade and go to the park during Summers when I was young despite the heat but then my bicycle broke and so did the rollerblades and they never got replaced so I let the heat turn to hate, I've been staying inside during Summers for many years now.

Summers seems to be like my laziness and depression, I let those things come into my life and take a big place so I just have to find a way to get rid of these things.

As for quiet time to meditate I cannot try until my mom is in bed. My dad stays up later than her but he stays in his room upstairs and goes downstairs only to get food when he is hungry. Like right now my mom is in the other living room doing her best to annoy me, hard to meditate like that.

I will try to remember to visualize that stop sign the next time I get angry or stressed. For me what works is to think of Shumi, the next best thing is to play a favorite song of mine. For a few years I could always go back to my happy times (theres not a lot but theres some) but years ago these happy memories have started to only make me sad so that does not work.

You know the saying is the glass half full of half empty, well I'm the half empty type. I always go to the negative instead of the positive. I was able to stay away from this for many years despite my depression but the years of being let down, rejections, plans that did not go anywhere and dreams smashed just about killed me. Everytime I went down I got back up but the problem with doing that everytime I had to get up the climb up was longer than it was before so it just got too far so I gave up. I want to change that too.