I found myself in this exact discussion with a great friend recently while having lunch. As we were discussing "Stress", yes that catch all for so many things that go on in our lives I mentioned at a recent medical appointment, said I had little to none. Ha! While sitting with my friend, she said "I get stressed just thinking about your life".
Then taking a deep look at the little things, it always seems that it is the little things that really sneak under the radar and get us by the end of lunch, I thought... How do I do it? How do I do all the things I do, handle the little stressors I handle? Short and sweet, I was not handling it. I didn't have what most of us think of as "Stress", like a stressful job, stressful marriage or anything of those sorts. Instead lots of little ankle biters nibbling away at me. Needy kids including their outrageous academic drop off and pick up schedules, a time needy spouse, friends that I wanted to spend time with, business to run, curriculum & books to write, in laws to check in on, pets to walk, pet and care for, a house to take care of, so on... All of my time was filled. Where was I even at in this equation? Let with stolen moments as if I were my own mistress to myself. As an Intuitive, as an Energy Worker, as a Yogi how could this have happened? Where was my self awareness?
Well, it had been showing up in the subtleties I had been failing to observe. Fatigue, chronic from the mind always being overwhelmed from my rigorous schedule, certainly my body as well. I was not able to just tap into my intuitive skills so easily, it had become like peripheral vision. I knew it was there, could somewhat see it, but just wasn't straight ahead in my vision with only times of absolute clarity. My mind was always cluttered with things to do, places to be, people to reach out to, thoughts I needed to get on paper and I wasn't sleeping to add to this wonderful assortment of joys.
After our lunch date and some self prompting. I took inventory some things are "must do's" in life. Other things are options. Even the "must do's" can fall into an order of priority. What I was surprised to find was that I had a great misconception of "must do's". I then decided to evaluate what are really "must do's" and what are "I'd really like to do's" and even better yet, "someone else would really like me to do". I ran through lists of not just these, but even lessing in priority. I am a big- list person, I love them. They help build a sense of accomplishment, release beneficial hormones as we see we are accomplishing our tasks and help us to stay organized.
Here are some examples of how I broke things down:
Must do's
- Sleep
- Daily nutrition-eat, self, family, animals
- Meditate, self practice
- Connect to family
- Connect to nature
- Daily hygiene, self-care
I'd like to do's
- Work
- Reach out to friends
- Take a class
- Hit the Gym
- Laundry, dishes, other household tasks
- Social Media, emails, work tasks
- Write, journaling and other writings that I have on the back burner
Further on the list, Someone else's to do's
- The "can you take me here or there'"
- "I need you to do this, if you could"
- "Hey, did you want to go here or there"
- "Let's go..."
Step one, just say NO. Sweetly, with a balanced voice we must refuse to overextend ourselves, for the sake of ourselves... To others who ask, to family, to children, to spouses and mostly to ourselves when we are trying to set ourselves up with far to much! There is a little irony here for all of you... I used to never say yes. How amazing life takes its turns. Finding that balance, is the key.
We, will allow the mind to busy the body to the point of exhaustion if unchecked. The mind, to busy itself to the point of lack of concentration and confusion, memory loss. The mind, to busy the spirit, the soul that we may disconnect with who we truly are and what we truly need.
I'm sure someone is reading this and thinking... I need to do Laundry every day or it will get crazy. Yeah, that was me too! Not do dishes, insane! Wrong, first let's seperate need from want. We need air to breath, food and water to sustain our body, we need love to survive (if you want facts about that reach out), but Laundry, doesn't need to get done. We, want it to get done so that from the minds point of view our lives will run a little bit soother.
What I have found is through taking care of the true needs first, all parts of me were more fully refreshed to care for everythings else. The tasks that needed to be done were so more easily. Yes, including Laundry... And it did get done, seemingly effortlessly, timely too. I napped here and there to get my physical body caught up with sleep. Releasing the misconception of needing to busy my life and fill it with "I'd like to do's" I balanced my schedule more. Yes, even work is an I'd like to do. If we are not well, our lives are not balanced it will show up as illness within the body eventually equating to really not being able to go to work. The time I spend with others is of higher quality, instead of quantity. With a much freer, clearer mind, sitting to write, everything flowed so easily.
Another big one for me was releasing the illusion of control. Being a type A personality, a lot of my stressors came from attachment to outcome. Well, we can work towards a desired outcome and should be prudent about working towards what we hope to achieve. In reality, things rarely turn out exactly as planned, hoped dreamed. When we release attachment from the outcome there is less stress. An example of that is I had been working on a modified school for one of my children. Me being me, had it all planned out as to "How it needed to look" to be successful. Of course it didn't turn out that way. Initially, it was much worse. There were several meetings, revisions. Now, though completely different then I ever expected it is perfect?! Things will work out exactly as they need to if you are doing all you can... Allow things to unfold.
Starting with us can be simple and can look a number of ways, here are just a few examples:
- Dedicating time to ourselves everyday to Meditate, Journal, Pray, be outside, whatever clams the mind.
- Prioritize the Needs, want's of our own and those of others that are placed upon us. There are some things that can wait and everyone will be okay.
- Establishing a routine or self care practice that works for us. It doesn't have to be intensive, long, short and sweet is just as beneficial.
- Say no, say yes finding balance in our lives. This helps to maximize our output overall.
- Be compassionate with ourselves, some days we just need to take rest. Everything can wait, honoring ourselves.
- Go outside, get grounded into nature and reset.
In addition to the above mentioned you can always see a Practitioner such as myself but any Practitioner worth anything, will first and foremost share that we all as individuals have the ability to heal ourselves. Anything that I or any Practitioner can do is to assist you in assisting yourself. It starts and finishes with you.
We can make the choice to stop forcing the body, spirit, soul to live by the mind misconceptions and take inventory of what really is a priority. When we force, things are seemingly harder. When exhausted, I didn't get very much out of my workouts or much else accomplished. When overwhelmed and trying to work, I was present but how truly present? Always in the mind is where the mind prefers us to be.
Taking care of us is like recharging, rechargeable batteries or our phones. We have take time to charge ourselves, renew our energy. Though we are taking time, our output is better. Or we may allow ourselves to be completely drained, going into an auto-shut off mode... Leading to mind, body, health issues. Take time for you first, restore, renew, making managing your Energy Management a priority.
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