It's been two months now, and things are finally going back to normal again.

I didn't play very much during the first 6 weeks, and when I did, then it was just for distraction and fun - while being too emotionally unstable to actually focus on the game.  So I ended up playing much lower than I normally would and tilted off a lot of money to low-stakes fish.

About two weeks ago, I finally started to play my normal game again, but also spend a lot of time watching videos.

I also watched this one again: http://www.husng.com/content/cog-dissonance-video-44-importance-focus, and now I'm really following its advice - not focusing enough on my opponent has always been a major problem for me in the past, and it's definitely an era where I still need to improve on a lot.

It's not just about playing drunk or 3-tabling while watching TV - it's also about not playing when you're too tired, for instance after a long work day, or getting on auto-pilot.

One thing I remember from past downswings is that whenever I lost 5 buy-ins or more, it mostly happened towards the end of my session, after playing for hours.  So it's very likely that this was just the result of auto-piloting.  In future, I'll only play much shorter sessions and also take a lot more breaks in between.

At the moment, I'm running extremely hot - HEM say I'm almost 15 buy-ins above equity - but it's possible that I ran way below equity during these weeks that I spent in hell, and I have no HH's from that time; the devil didn't allow that ;-)

However, I don't think bad beats or variance will still affect me as much as it did before - I now see things differently, it's just a game after all and there are more important things in life than money.

Being happy is all that counts for me at the moment, and I am truly happy at the moment.

Wish you all a happy holiday season and good luck at the tables,

Jack