Reawaken Your Life

I've been promising a series of posts about my breakdown and waking up experience, but I want to throw in a couple more pre-remarks. When we are exhausted, lose our compassion and feel hopeless, we acclimate to the climate of this dark and dreary existence. We may not realize that this is not "us." Maybe we think this is the way life works. I want you to hear me: this is NOT true. There may be many reasons we feel "off" or bad, and I'm not suggesting that my "off" is the same as yours. I do not know what your pathway through the tunnel and back into the light might look like or what you need.

I just want you to know that you may need to reawaken to your life and it may take a LOT more time, effort and exploration than feels reasonable to you. Also, I do not want you to look for the magic bullet because I do not think there is one. I suspect that it is more likely a series of small steps forward, backward, to the left, to the right, over and under and around.

When my mother died my body tried to tell me that this was not a normal grief process. My usually sturdy, healthy body got sick. I caught every virus that floated in the environment. My joints felt creaky, my workouts were half-hearted. My sleep was off. I asked my husband, "Do you think I will ever feel happy again?"

I started my road to recovery by finding a primary care physician who believed in wellness. This required spending money on myself, lots of bloodwork, a nutritionist, an exercise guru and more. It was a decent start but did not immediately come with a side order of joy. What it did accomplish was return my body to a baseline of wellness with a regular monitoring system to warn me if something physically was moving in an unhealthy direction. I also found encouragement. My physician, looking at my numbers, asked me if I practiced mindfulness and meditation and I said, "I do." She told me that my cortisol reflected my good work in that area.

I was practicing my self-care routine even though it did not FEEL like it was helpful. Hearing that my body was getting the message even if my emotions were not exactly falling into line was an encouragement. Who knows if I could have sustained the efforts around self-care without my physician's encouragement?

When you consider human giving and human being - obviously, balance is key. How is your balance? Does one need more attention than another right now in your life?

Making Adjustments

"To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart."

Eleanor Roosevelt

My grandson's kindergarten is very focused on emotional intelligence and relationship connections - which I love so much! They inspire me! But it is possible to become so attached to an emotional experience that we fail to address questions related to what is working well and connecting with people around what they feel confident about. I appreciate how they told the parents to watch out for back-to-school meltdowns BUT it was also helpful when they reminded the parents what the kids needed to bring in their backpacks!

It's all a great balancing act!

Could this be you? Are you in balance with your head, heart and body? Anything need an adjustment?

Using Your Power for Good

"The mark of a great man is one who knows when to set aside the important things in order to accomplish the vital ones."

Brandon Sanderson

My highly successful, hard charging friends amaze me. Their focus on their goals, their ability to create an image that is attractive and inspiring, and their capacity for efficiency and multi-tasking is awe-inspiring. Until it isn't. When taken too far these amazing achievers lose sight of their own goals, their own heart, their own desires. This can become a lonely existence and these folks often feel like they will die if they stop achieving. For balance, these folks need to look for their values and try to make more heart connections with the people that they are influencing - because trust me, these folks are influential!

Could this be you? Is it time to evaluate whether your power is used for good...or not?

Focus on the Tangible

For a month’s worth of posts, I (Scott) am critiquing my own past blog posts. I’m viewing this as an experiment in being willing to admit when I’m wrong, change my mind, and to do so publicly.

If we're content to react to whatever is beneath our surface unconsciously then we miss the opportunity to listen to ourselves, deal with pain, share the pain, and find community.

Our unconscious reactions are rarely directed towards the true source of our frustration, disappointment, or whatever.  What I mean is:  when we react to what is beneath the surface unconsciously then we're not actually addressing what is beneath the surface.  We are addressing something altogether unrelated and, generally, dragging innocent and vulnerable people down into our misery.  

We maintain control through exerting ourselves on something more vulnerable than ourselves.  When we're confronted with powerlessness our bodies intuitively seek something else to be in control of.  We will find a situation or person less powerful than ourselves that we can push lower to keep some (false) sense of internal balance.  We intuitively and unconsciously believe, wrongly, that subjugating something or someone else helps us feel like we are maintaining control in the midst of great uncertainty.  

Tomorrow we get real practical.

Future Scott vs. Past Scott:

I don’t really think in terms of subconscious processes anymore because I’m not really sure how helpful it is and I don’t think there’s any way to really get to the bottom of subconscious processes anyway. So I prefer to talk in terms of what is (today). 

When I say what is I mean things that are tangible. When we take our frustration out on someone, that’s very tangible. We can own that incident and make amends. And, if we’re frustrated at a high enough level on a regular enough basis, we may need to work on mindfulness of our emotions so that we can pay attention to things we might be overlooking. 

The bottom line point might be the same regardless: If we’re not acting like ourselves, we might want to explore that.

Finding Balance

“Balance isn’t fitting everything in. It’s starting with what’s important and letting the rest fall as it will.”

Erica Layne

I do not know why I am so tired and worn out today. I woke up tired. But I got my workout in and my quiet time practiced without slumping into a nap. In a few minutes, I might need a nap and that will be A-OK, but first - the important things. I sat for a while and then went into the kitchen and prepped for dinner. At a minimum, Pete can heat these foods up and we can eat tonight.

Last night I had big plans for today. Cleaning and organizing and writing and reading. Maybe tomorrow.

I am considering how I feel about my day. I am tempted to feel cranky and impatient with the piles of laundry to fold and, to be honest, a bigger pile of dirty laundry to wash. But fortunately, I am considering. And I’ve decided that I’m going to appreciate that I completed what I have done today and thankful that maybe tomorrow I can get a couple more things accomplished.

I’m grateful that balancing is not fitting everything in. I am committed to doing what I can manage. If your day is shaping up full of vim, vigor and vitality I am so happy for you. But if not, I hope you will find one important thing today to attend to - it may be a good nap!