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Inspirations, Mind Management

Moving into the New Year

Well here it is, the last few days of 2016. I feel a strong shift happening in me, a need to prepare, to plan, to get ready. This doesn’t always happen; sometimes I feel like the New Year snuck up on me! But this year feels different, for some reason. I’ve heard a lot of people who’ve said they are so glad that 2016 is ending and how hard a year it has been. And it has been hard in some ways, and for some folks it’s been hard in many ways. But when I think back over the year, there have been a lot of wonderful things about this year as well. So in grateful list fashion, I’m going to list some of the good I remember from 2016…

 

  1. I started this blog!
  2. I did the Institute for Integrative Nutrition course and it was wonderful!
  3. My oldest daughter is turning 10 YEARS OLD – unbelievable!
  4. We spent a week in Florida at a beach house doing NOTHING
  5. My youngest baby learned to read at age three
  6. We had a family reunion this year
  7. I can do an arm stand and headstand in yoga now!
  8. My meditation practice is deepening
  9. My son is a math whiz
  10. My middle daughter has a memory that is out of this world
  11. We celebrated 13 years of marriage
  12. I’m learning to breathe deeply

 

There are many others, but this is a good start! It sets the scene for looking ahead to 2017. I’m doing a few things to get ready as the new year comes to us. Let me tell you more about what I’m doing…

 

Slow Down

Today we are spending the day at a day spa, retreating and resting. Mostly, we’re doing it because it’s my oldest’s birthday and this is what she wanted to do, but I’m using today to start my launch into the new year. It’s useful to stop and take a moment to think, reflect, and dream. I’m going to read and start preparing my mind for the vision board I’ve been planning to do.  I’m going to review my grateful lists, journal, and rest. It’s a good start to the new year!

 

 

Meditate

I have a tendency to run at top speed all the time, so for me, meditation is necessary to help me to reset. I like being busy, and I like having projects to work on and complete, but all that activity can make me feel burned out and resentful at times. Meditating helps me to feel like I took a mini retreat that day. I use my meditation retreat to breathe, listen to God, and let the best parts of me rise to the surface.

 

My meditation pillow set

 

Rest

I’m so grateful to have a few days off work! I only took two days off before Christmas and with all the cooking and visiting and busyness, I’m feeling a little overwhelmed. It was a great holiday and I’m so glad I got to spend a little time with family, but now it’s time to power down. Tomorrow I’m taking down the tree and cooking my black-eyed peas and greens for the New Year. Sunday will be church (and probably pizza!), and Monday will be the Rose Bowl parade and laying around as much as the kids will let me. Maybe I’ll cut out some pictures for that vision board. Sleep is definitely in the plan for as long as my tyrant bladder will allow! I plan to watch a little TV, which I rarely do, but I’ve decided that a little Madam Secretary is a good rest and reward for the end of a big, busy year. Come Tuesday morning, I’ll be ready for the start of a powerful 2017!

 

 

What are you doing to get ready for the New Year? Tell me about your plans in the comments below!

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Mind Management

What We Consume

I’ve been thinking about creativity and production lately, which led to me thinking about how we are able to be creative and productive. I always find that I’m most productive during certain times of the days (morning for me!) and when I’m not sleep deprived, cranky, or hyped up on too much caffeine. This thought process led to ideas about not only what I’m getting out of my brain and body, but what I’m putting in as well. Remember the phrase, “Garbage in, garbage out”? Well, I know people do live on junk and minimal sleep, but I wonder if that’s part of why so many of us are hanging on by our fingernails everyday…

 

 

So, what do we consume? Food, of course, but there are other things too. I absolutely believe that the quality of what we eat matters, and the more chemical containing, highly processed, over salted and over sugared food we eat, the more the body has to work to clear out the mess we’ve put in. There may not be much good left behind to nourish us! And how do you produce something from nothing? So instead of peanut butter crackers in shrink wrap, how about a handful of grapes? Or a vegetable soup instead of takeout? Can you put an organic apple and almonds in your purse instead of a sugary “energy” bar? Real foods actually taste good too!

 

Eating apples and sweet red peppers. Yes, really!

 

Another thing we consume is sleep. Now stay with me, this is important. I know, how can you “consume” sleep? But if you think of sleep as a need, and recognize that we chronically deprive ourselves of sleep, you can start to think of it as something we can “put in” to our bodies.  Sleep is so much more than just resting our bodies. Sleep allows our brains to clear away the waste products that build up from all the functions the brain performs every day. When you don’t get enough sleep, you wake up with brain fog, right? It’s not all clean in there yet! Go back to sleep!

 

Snoozing on the couch 

 

 

The next thing we consume is light. What do I mean? Your body absorbs sunlight and makes vitamin D, a very important vitamin in our bodies. Seems like everyone today is vitamin D deficient, if you check their blood. It seems to go along with the fact that most of us spend the vast majority of our waking hours inside. We’ve gone from being an agrarian society, or at least one in which we spent a lot more time outdoors, into one where we spend almost all our time indoors. We sit under artificial fluorescent lights all day, and then burn up the electricity at home to power our computers, laptops and phones, flooding our retinas with blue light late into the night hours (that’s part of why we can’t sleep – but that’s another post!). We consume poor quality light day after day. When’s the last time you spent any time in the sun other than on a vacation? I like to go out of my office at lunch time and sit in a sunny spot and soak up some rays! I know it’s tempting to try to get a few more emails done at your desk during lunch, or make one more phone call, but even 5 or 10 minutes outside can make you feel good. Even your dermatologist won’t argue with up to 15 minutes of sun exposure, so even if you forgot to wear your sunscreen, go get out there! Sit and breathe deeply for a few minutes. Don’t look at your phone or work on anything. Just enjoy your moment in the sun!

 

 Enjoying the sun…

 

 

No post about consumption would be complete without at least a mention of media. We definitely consume media, either TV, news, Facebook, videos, advertisements, all kinds of media. Lots of it is entertaining, I’ll grant you that. But I’m not sure that much of it is all that beneficial either. I think we consume media the way one inhales a pint of ice cream in front of the TV and then can’t remember eating it. It’s not intentional. It’s just happened, and now it’s gone, just like our time consuming media. Personally, I have to be very careful about media – it affects my thinking, my feelings and my outlook. Remember, I’m working on a sunny disposition, and often media works against that. For example, this week I (along with the rest of the world) was paying attention to the U.S. presidential election. The more I watched, the more anxious I felt. Before AND after. I finally realized that watching or listening wasn’t going to change anything, but it would continue to increase my anxiety. And it’s not really about the election. This anxiety gets provoked for many of us around many different media topics. So, no, I’m not advocating for you to be an ostrich and ignore the world around you. I’m just saying that we probably should take our media exposure in doses. Like a prescription. Seriously…

 

(Ok, not actually prescription meds. My vitamins…)

 

The next step is to figure out how to put these good things into our lives, and crowd out the bad ones. We may not be able to cook every meal, but we can carry good snacks with us. We can sit outside for a few minutes at lunch. We can limit our screen time at night and stop wearing sleep deprivation as a badge of honor.  We can entertain ourselves with good media and reading and avoid the spiral down into the abyss of despair created by the media (can you hear the drain swirling?). How?! I’m working on that. I’m writing a series on how to get the good we need in our already very full lives, so keep coming back. We’ll get some good changes coming! In the meantime, keep breathing deeply into your belly, sit outside in the sun, and nourish yourself.

 

 

Are you finding ways to consume good things in your days? Share with us! What about things you want to avoid but haven’t figured out how yet?  Share in the comments section below!

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Inspirations, Mind Management

Loving My Days

Well, I want to talk today about something I’ve been noticing, both in myself and from people around me. We seem to be slogging through our days, unhappy about what we’re doing, wishing we were somewhere (or someone!) else. We don’t seem to be enjoying our lives. If you look at Facebook or other social media, we watch people moving from event to event, one vacation to another, with no gaps in between. Maybe we’ve started to believe life is supposed to be like this; a never ending series of fun events.  But really, since when did we decide to live from vacation to vacation, for long weekends and holidays, for days off and retreats? What about all the time in between? If I only enjoy the vacations, time off, and rest time, that means that the experience of the vast majority of my life will be time that I do not enjoy. I want to look back on my life with joy, not through rose colored glasses of revised memory, but knowing that I was able to find happiness in the ordinary, routine, but still precious days that I lived on this earth.

 

It doesn’t always come together though.  I just spent two hours mapping out an office and call schedule for myself and six other doctors, and was aggravated when I didn’t see the breaks in my weeks that I wanted to have there. That tells me that in my mind, I’m expecting the work days to be hard and unpleasant, and that I should be looking forward to the off times as light and pleasant. But who says this has to be true? What if I could look forward to my office days with anticipation instead of dread? That sounds crazy! Almost…

 

Schedule making…

 

 

Here’s the thing: I think we’ve trained ourselves to think this way. We have become a society of complainers. Now, I’m not pointing fingers: remember, I’m that girl with the glass half empty. But listen to the conversations around you – people are constantly talking about how hard their lives are, and the dynamic in the conversation is of commiseration and a downward spiral of whose life is tougher. This is not Polly Anna speaking. I am aware that we face real situations that cause us to feel that things aren’t going well. Sometimes, we are facing real tragedies, like job loss, financial ruin, addictions, grave illnesses and death. Those things are tough, and real. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about complaining because we have to go to work, or because our kids are in basketball practices every night of the week, or because we have to wait in line at a busy grocery store checkout. Yes, we are busy and yes, we are tired. These aren’t true hardships though. Might we be part of the problem?

 

Mommy, I don’t want to go to work!

Before you get offended, I need to remind you that I write these posts about things I am either learning, working through, or have at some point been grappling with in my own life. So this is what I am learning: When I actively think about all the good things in my life, when I remember to focus on the positive instead what I’d rather have or do, I am a much happier person. I can’t choose not to go to work because I’m tired, but I can decide that it’s a good day for a hot steamy cup of coffee and be glad I get paid to do something! I haven’t found a way to decrease the amount of moving parts in my household of two adults and four children (no one is volunteering to adopt them!), but I can choose to remind myself that this time is a season and I’d better enjoy their giggles and silly games before they turn into big hulking teenagers. I may not be thrilled with the number on the scale today, but I can choose to be glad I’m strong, healthy, and able to exercise and eat well. It’s not easy to control my mind because it wants to run away with predictions of doom and gloom, but I am learning that those thoughts aren’t real. They’re just thoughts, and my mind is not in charge of me: I am in charge of my mind.  The bible says it best in 2 Corinthians 5b “…and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” I don’t think it would be written that way if it were not possible to do it. Difficult, maybe. Requires lots of practice? Certainly. But not impossible…

 

Practicing hard!

 

 

A few years ago, I read a book that helped me a lot with my thinking. 1000 Gifts by Ann Voskamp (aholyexperience.com) was transformative for me. She writes about some incredibly hard things in her life that formed her into the woman she was, and then how the Joy Dare caused everything in her life to change. She tells it better (so get the book if you can), but the Joy Dare was a challenge to write down three things a day that you are grateful for, and in one year you will have a list of 1000 things that you’ve seen go well in your life. Nothing is too small; it could be a clean sink, or the sun shining in the window, how pretty your water looks in your glass, or that you have AC in the house. But you have to write it down. Something happens in our brains when we write things down: they stick. And you can go back and review it later, which starts changing your thinking while you’re reading it. I’m finishing my second year of my 1000 gifts list, and I’m not planning to stop. It helps me find the beauty in my craziest days!

 

I’ve also been doing some brain experiments from my friend Lisa Washington (setthetablewithlove.com). She puts out a practice for a group of us to do, like repeating positive affirmations about the day, playing our favorite happy song over and over, or putting out positive ideas for what we need or want into the universe and expecting them to happen. Then we see what comes from the practice. It’s always amazing how when I expect and look for great things to happen, they do! We get to rewire our brains from using the worn out, easily traveled negative pathways into new, fresh positive paths. It can be done – you create new neural pathways all the time, not just when you’re little. I’m learning that my outlook actually is coloring my days, and the energy I put out is what I’m getting in return. I want strong, positive, loving energy coming to me. Don’t you?

 

Ok, the doctorly statement: Our thinking isn’t set in stone. We’ve just created maps in our brains that our thoughts are able to find very easily, because we’ve used them so much. We have plasticity: the ability to redraw the maps. If we practice, we can rewire our brains to have new paths for our thoughts to follow. We lay down new neural pathways all the time, remember? We have to actively work at it, but it can be done!

 

Mapping it out…

 

Life is a gift! Living as we do in this realm, we can only go forward, We can’t go back and do-over our years. So I’m going to enjoy all the good times, routine or not, and really enjoy being happy. I like me better happy and positive! Being negative and angry and frustrated and judgmental hasn’t been a good place to live, at least not for me. The good news is, I’m watching myself change, and I like it!

 

My mini me, my happy girl!

So, what about you? Are you dragging yourself through your days or are you enjoying the life that you live? Have you found ways to transform your thinking? Tell me about your insights in the comments below!

 

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NOCOMMENTS
juggle

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Help Getting It Done, Mind Management, Top 15 Weight Loss Posts

Learning to Juggle

Actually, I have never learned to juggle. At least not in the fun way with balls, pins, or torches on fire. Nope, never practiced that one. Life can feel like one big juggling act sometimes though, right? It seems like we manage multiple things at work, home, and family as a routine and the small and great unexpected things on top. I often get asked, “How do you do it all?!” Usually, I’m a little stumped by the question and say something like, “I don’t know – I just run around in circles all day!”  But that’s not actually true, so I’ve been giving it some more thought. This post is going to be about what I’ve come up with as an answer to the question of how I do it all…

 

 

So first, what do I do? I’m married and I have four children from ages 3 to 9 and we homeschool. I work as an obstetrician/gynecologist, take call, do surgery, and manage our group practice. Currently, I do school online with the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and read 48 scholarly articles a year for my continuing medical education. I cook because we don’t eat out a lot. My kiddos do ballet and tae kwan do. Of course, I’m writing this blog each week and I’ve started playing my violin at church when asked. My husband and I help with other families at church. I read my bible daily, pray, meditate and do some kind of exercise. There’s probably something I’m forgetting too. When is all this supposed to get done? I’m tired just writing this…

 

Let me make a disclaimer: I do not think I’m doing something exceptional. Everyone is busy, not just me. But there are so many times that I hear women talk about how tired they are, how depleted and run down, stressed, anxious and depressed. And for sure, it’s tempting to feel all of this myself. But maybe it doesn’t have to be this way…

 

How can we do all the things we need to do and not lose our minds doing them? There are a few things I’ve found to work for me. Hang in there if you’ve heard some of these before…

 

Stop Moving

Everyday, there’s so much to do that it can seem like if we stop moving, something isn’t going to get done. So I will go from one thing to another in rapid sequence, all day long, and then feel like a wrung out rag at the end of the day. I came home the other day, running upstairs to take a shower before dinner, and just laid down in the floor of the closet to stop for a moment. I just stared at the ceiling and took a few breaths. It felt wrong, like I was goofing off in some way. But it felt good, like things slowed down for a minute. Laying there for two minutes, max (before someone came looking for me!) was helpful. It didn’t derail my schedule – actually, it helped me to figure out my next steps and get centered before jumping in with the kids. Ever feel like snapping at anyone who approaches, because it feels like they just want a piece of you and you don’t want them to take it? I hate it when I do that, especially when it’s one (or all of) my kids. Stopping for a minute helps me slow down enough NOT to do that.

 

Breathe

I know I’ve said it before, but I have to remind myself, so I’m reminding you. We just do not take deep breaths very often. Most of the time, we are busy, stressed and breathing very shallow, just at the top of our lungs. Stop for a moment, wherever you are and breathe in for three, pause for three, and exhale for five. Do this three times. Clear out that stale air and energy and get a quick reset for your brain. It helps!

 

Make a list

I don’t know about you, but the more I have to do, the more can get forgotten. I keep a list going ALL THE TIME. Trusting my brain to remember what needs to be done is absolutely a recipe for disaster. One thing that often happens if I don’t write things down, is I wake up in a panic at 4 am either thinking about what I missed, or obsessing over what I still have to do. But I can’t go back to sleep, because I might forget by the time I wake up!  Maybe it’s just me…

In any case, I write a list and cross things off and rewrite the list, and on and on. I also have sticky notes everywhere. I put a sticky on my phone, on my dashboard, on my book. I kid that I could run the world if given enough sticky notes! Really though, I operate on an out-of-sight, out-of-mind principle: If it’s not in my face, I will probably forget to do it. But if I can’t miss it, I’ll take care of it.

 

Prioritize

Let’s face it – we just have too much to do! Maybe it’s because we over-commit, maybe because we have multiple kids and multiple activities, maybe we have a extremely demanding job, and maybe we don’t have much help. There’s only one thing to do: look at all the things you have to manage and find something that can go. What if even though you want your kids to play tennis and soccer and basketball, the schedule of games and practices are killing your family life and leaving you drained? You might consider limiting your kids to one activity per semester and take the summers off. What if you didn’t check work email after you left the office? What if you said no to being on multiple committees at work, church, or your kids’ school? What if you let someone else help you instead of turning down their help? The alternative is you being overextended, frustrated, and exhausted. What good is that for you or anyone who depends on you?

 

Accept help

I need to dispel a myth: Superwoman is not real – she is a comic book character. We walk around thinking that we have to take care of everything ourselves without help. If we have help, we are somehow weak, undisciplined, lacking character. That’s garbage! As our communities spread out and our lives are more insulated from each other, we have less support than ever. We don’t have family nearby, we don’t have relationships with our neighbors, and our friends are spread out everywhere. In the past, our lives used to be very integrated, so we could get help from our mom who lived with us or nearby, or our neighbor would watch the kids while we ran out to the store for a moment. That’s less true these days. Our families live in Boston, Los Angeles, and St Petersburg, FL, so it’s hard for them to help except when they are visiting. Personally, I find it hard to ask someone to do something for me, especially if I could make it happen. But making myself a pretzel because of my pride just hurts me! So we hire help for some things, like house cleaning and childcare. My friends offer to help when I’m vulnerable enough to share what I need. I strongly recommend that you try this, because people who love you want to help! When someone offers to help, try this: say YES. They feel good that they helped you, and you feel good because you got help and know you are loved.

 

Get a good hug

This one is easy! If you want to get a good hug, you give one. We often give these quick little hugs and keep it moving, but when’s the last time you held someone you loved for more than a second? As a society we are touch starved. We can go a long time without really touching or being touched in a loving way. This isn’t about sex – this isn’t about that at all. That’s a different need to meet. This is about getting filled up in your soul by holding someone you care about and being held back. Try it – wrap your arms around someone you love, squeeze and hold for three breaths. You’ll find that they may be a little surprised and try to pull away right away like normal. When you don’t let go, they lean in and hold you back. There, now don’t you feel better?

 

Sleep

Well, this is one of the harder ones to practice well. Most of us stay up later than we should and get up early to get our day started. Here’s the problem; not getting enough sleep is linked to excess weight, increased stress and early death. Sleep needs to be a priority! Sleep is restorative – our brains and bodies are repaired and refurbished while we are asleep. Sleep washes the waste products out of your brain: if you don’t get enough, you wake up with brain fog. It’s kind of like taking your car to a carwash – you can choose a quick drive-though version, or get a deluxe wash with hand drying and a wax. It takes a little longer, but your car is in much better shape with the better wash.  Most adults need at least 7 hours of sleep a night. How’re you doing with this?

Sometimes our nighttime activities sabotage our sleep too. Watching TV late at night is not only a massive time sink, but the blue light waves from TV, smart phones and computer screens impair melatonin release from your pineal gland, a brain hormone that helps you go to sleep. To keep your melatonin release normal, you should stop using screens at least 2 hours prior to bedtime, and at least get a blue light filter or blocker for the device.

 

Do something for you

Yes, I’m serious. I can hear you laughing at me now: “With all I have to do and all I’m trying to figure out how to get done, she thinks I have the time to do one more thing for me? Yeah, right!” Ok, but hear me out. We each give out of what we have to give. Think of yourself as your pantry. If you feed your family and friends out of your pantry, but don’t refill it, eventually you will run out of food, right? If someone comes over and all you have in the pantry are some stale crackers, you can give that, but you can set out a spread from a full pantry. We are the same. You can give while you’re running on fumes, but if you give yourself some love and TLC, you will have more and better to give to those who need you. Here’s the key: you matter too. You are worth love and care too. Whatever you do, it doesn’t have to be huge, but it should happen regularly. So take fifteen minutes and read a book. Take a hot bath instead of a shower. Sit in front of the fire or on the deck and space out for ten minutes. Get a pedicure or a massage. Go on that girl’s weekend you’ve been talking about for years! But even more than the big things that take time out of your schedule, make sure you carve out small, regular blocks of time that are about you. You need it!

 

Don’t waste time – unless it’s on purpose

We have jam-packed days and it can seem like we are always doing something productive. But in truth, we can steal time away from ourselves doing activities that take us away from what’s really important. Case in point: How often have you sat down to watch an episode of your favorite show and gotten up after a mini marathon, realizing that you just lost two hours and it’s past your bedtime? What about looking up a quick notification on Facebook and you get caught up in your feed for 30 minutes? It’s fine to veg out and watch TV, do social media, or surf the web for fun, but it’s best if we plan for our recreation instead of letting these things distract us from our intentions. Our time is a commodity, just like our money. Twenty-four hours is what we get to spend each day, not more, so budgeting time is critical. We are the only ones who suffer when we waste our time. So do the fun things you want to do, but plan for them. Don’t let them hijack your schedule!

 

How do you juggle all the things in your life? Share your tips for managing your time in the comments section below!

 

 

 

 

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The Performance Trap

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Inspirations, Mind Management, Top 15 Weight Loss Posts

The Performance Trap

I just got back from vacation. It was a beautiful week in a little house on the beach in a quiet town on the Gulf of Mexico. There wasn’t anything to do except walk out the front steps to the white sandy beach. The kids played in the water and sand all day and we sat nearby, reading or resting. The sun shone everyday, the water was gentle, and we saw fish and birds and dolphins. So why was I feeling this low level of tension, like I was supposed to be DOING something. I kept feeling a pull to write a post, check my email, do some administrative work for the office. There was this nagging feeling, a pit in the area of my heart that kept telling me I was going to pay for this rest time when we returned home. But this was a vacation! We waited, planned, and worked hard before we left for this retreat, so why was I feeling so stirred up inside?

 

birds on the beach

Early morning with the birds

 

So I prayed about it. I got still and listened – should I be doing something? Was it wrong to take a week-long break from my commitments? This blog is new, so maybe it would suffer if I left it for a week. What if someone at work needed something while I was away and I didn’t take care of it? The answer came, very quietly but firmly. No. This is time to rest, be with the family, enjoy these few days together.

 

Playing Othello

Playing Othello

 

So what was that anxiety pit in my stomach about? I call it The Performance Trap. I get caught up in wanting to be so sure that I’m doing everything within my ability to do things right that taking a break seems like I’m being irresponsible. Sitting on the beach reading a book, or coloring an adult coloring book, or taking a nap felt like I was wasting time. I wasn’t accomplishing anything – I wasn’t being productive.

 

Being "unproductive" on the beach

Being “unproductive” on the beach

 

Here’s the problem though – productivity can have diminishing returns. If you work yourself to empty, never refilling your tank and resting, you can do less even though you are giving your all. And we like to be productive, we want to feel we’ve accomplished many things; so much so that it can become a need. We can become attached to the fulfillment we get from completing our tasks, our to-do lists, just getting things done. It’s a hollow fulfillment though, because we have to keep going like the hamster on the wheel to continue feeling good about ourselves.

 

Living in The Performance Trap is like running your car at high RPMs all the time – the engine will eventually burn out. It puts hard wear on you, on your mind and soul. Being able to rest provides balance to the constant need to DO, to make something happen, to accomplish something. Life isn’t just for doing: it’s for living. We spend so much time doing things that we aren’t living our lives in the moment, and before we know it, the moments we’ve missed have become years…

 

Sunset from the porch

Sunset from the porch

 

I can be so rigid, so trapped in my own definition of success that when I stop for a moment to breathe or rest, I feel lost. Uneasy. Unmoored. Maybe it’s just me, but I suspect I’m not alone. Everyone around  me is running at top speed all the time. No time is ever “wasted” because we’re always connected. If we have five minutes between meetings, we check email. We make phone calls while driving. We send a text while we wait for the water to boil. When’s the last time you were waiting for a train or got on an elevator and everyone waiting there wasn’t on their smartphone? It’s as if we are afraid to make eye contact with other people and feel awkward, like walking into the cafeteria in high school. Maybe if we are absorbed in our phones, no one will know how vulnerable we really are. We’re busy, so we’re important, right?

 

Doing too much

Doing too much?

 

So what happened on my vacation? I wish I could say I didn’t feel that uneasy feeling anymore, but it kept coming around. But I fought it, sent it away and reminded myself that rest was my need right then. I left my phone by the bed and didn’t check it often. I didn’t do my work email. I didn’t write a post. I read six novels from the library, colored my mandalas, played in the sand, and read my bible on the beach. We went out for pizza. I asked my husband to do lunches for us and I cooked some dinners (easy ones!). I let the kids watch TV while I went out the the beach alone,  and I let them get their own breakfasts. I did a little homeschool work with the kids and kept some of our regular schedule, but I didn’t fight so hard for it. I did accomplish something: I asked myself what I wanted to do and made sure I gave myself at least some of what I wanted. I actually considered my needs as important as those of my husband and kids. That was a new frontier!

 

dinner

Dinner at the beach house (roasted tilapia, quinoa and kale, salad)

 

What’s the escape from The Performance Trap? Stop. Breathe. Think… Are you doing because that what you always do? Is it time for the thing you are doing or is it time for rest? Are you doing out of fear – fear of running out of time, fear of missing something, fear of making a mistake? If it’s time to work, then get going and get it done! But if it’s time for rest, take your foot off the gas and slow down. Roll to a stop. Refill your tank and nourish your soul. Decide that you will NOT feel guilty for taking care of your self, because you are worthy of it.

 

Sending love to you all…

Parks playing on the beach_1

 

Parks playing on the beach_2

 

Parks playing on the beach_3

The Parks playing on the beach

 


Do you fall into The Performance Trap? How do you get yourself out?  Write in the comments below and tell me about how you care for yourself!

 

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