Over the last week I’ve done well with the No Buy Challenge and haven’t spent any money (on myself – my husband and I bought a few things together for the house but that is outside of my challenge as I’m doing this as an individual challenge).

There were a few times when I felt the urge to go shopping (especially for junk food when my energy levels were very low) but I managed to avoid that.

How?

I found other things to focus my time on.

I did more decluttering and now have a pile of things I want to give away. I’ve put together a few presents for people I know I will be needing presents for in the next few months and I’ve asked a friend over to go through the rest of the stuff before I donate it to charity.

I played games with my husband… we’re playing through the Lord of the Rings card game at the moment.

I napped… My energy levels have been very low, especially over the weekend, so I’ve spent a lot of time napping.

I worked… I had a meeting during the week and worked on the Foggy Frog and the Pain Gang picture book. I also went for a walk with my mum to check out one of the sites for the Biodiversity trails I’m developing.

I read and wrote… I spent time reading blog posts each day as well as writing my own posts.

I meditated… I have an app on my phone that has a lot of guided meditations. One of the things I’m doing in my aim to balance this year is to do at least 2 guided meditations a day… one on waking and one at bed time… most days I’m also doing one mid-day as well. Each is between 3 – 13 minutes long.

These activities were not only to distract me from buying but (probably more importantly) distracting me from the pain I live with on a daily basis. For the last 3 months my pain levels have been slightly higher than average so it has been important for me to find ways to distract myself from it.

What do you do to distract yourself? – from pain, from impulse shopping, from anything…