Am I allowed to panic yet?
This week has been a race to the finish. Our homeschool group ends for the semester next week, and with Easter and our cultural Sunday last weekend, I have had a total of four potlucks to prepare for (three next week!). My three older kids are sitting for memory master testing, which is an oral exam where they are tested on the over 400 pieces of information they have memorized this school year and no mistakes are allowed for them to earn the designation of Memory Master. My oldest is testing for Mega Memory Master, where she will do the same, but for three years worth of memory work in one sitting. My shoulders are creeping toward my ears as I write this…
In addition to the exams, my high risk list is due for a meeting next week, I need to send an email to my group about nurse’s week, and I’m giving a class on spiritual meditation for the women at church on Sunday. There’s other stuff too, but I have to get dressed for work now and I can’t even remember it all right now!
In it all though, I’ve been able to find the bright spots. I consider this a triumph for me, because it wasn’t long ago that I’d have wanted to hide in my bed under the covers and sleep to get away from the stress. I wouldn’t have been able to see the beauty in all this hustle. But I’m learning to slow down enough to see the moments of love in the midst of all that needs to be done. The best tool I’ve used to slow myself and appreciate my life is my grateful list*. The best way to use it to be consistent and write in it every day – but I’ve completely fallen off. So in the midst of the strain of this week, I’ve brought my list back. It surprises me how much writing in it helps. Almost every time I pull out my pen, I struggle to think of something to write down. That’s certainly a reflection of how negative my thinking can become, not how many wonderful things I have in my life! But as I write, more and more comes to mind and I always write down more than my daily minimum of three.
With all the exam prep, I’ve had to help coach the kids through their test anxiety. That’s been hard, because I can feel myself connecting back to the anxiety I’ve felt in all the years of exams I took for my education. The difference now is that I have tools in my arsenal I didn’t have back then. So I’m praying with the kids, taking them on prayer walks, and working with them on meditation and breath work. When I put the kids to bed last night, my oldest asked if I would make sure to get her up for our morning walk, because she felt that she needed to pray. That was a gift and an answered prayer! I hugged her tight and promised to get her up for my walk before I left for work.
That’s my biggest girl!
Other moments of encouragement have come at work. In the past week, I’ve had a nurse manager at our procedure suite and a charge nurse at the hospital comment to me on how calm and patient I was in the face of some frustrating circumstances. That was wonderful for me, because it meant I’ve grown. A lot. I tend naturally to be very reactive and quick to anger, but I’ve spent years working against that tendency. There have been lots of times where I had to “fake it until I made it” – where I behaved calmly but raged internally. But in these two instances, I had let go of the need to react and was truly calm inside. These two nurses don’t know me well, so they don’t know what I’m telling you. But they were able to see something peaceful in me that I know I didn’t used to have.
Another simple but fun thing I am grateful for is my henna tattoo. I’d been wanting to get one for a long time, so when my friend invited me and my girls to a henna party I jumped at the chance. Every time I look at my foot, it makes me smile. I feel pretty!
I also found a new tea at the store. It’s a lavender blueberry tea that’s supposed to be good for skin. I bought it because it sounded delicious (and it is!). But the part that makes my heart happy every time I make it is the rich blue-purple color of the tea. It’s very soothing and peaceful…
During my eighth trip to the grocery store this week (ok, that’s absolutely an exaggeration), I bought myself flowers. The colors I choose depend on my mood – these feel like sunshine to me! Side note: Don’t wait for the occasions when someone might give you flowers. Buy them if they make you happy!
Gratitude is the antidote to my feeling overwhelmed and negative. It can help with sadness, depression, anxiety and just plain feeling funky! So I’m gonna keep at my list and let it keep helping me grow – it’s been working so far!
How about you? Do you keep a grateful list? How you do work with your negative thoughts? Please share in the comments below!
*For those of you who didn’t see my post on where the grateful list came from and how it’s helped me, you can read more about it here in my post Loving My Days. Also, the book 1000 Gifts by Ann Voskamp is what really motivated me to start my first list a few years ago – it’s an incredible read!