As you may or may not know, I’ve had a lot (A LOT) of stress recently. So many, many stressy things. In addition to that, I’ve injured myself more than once recently, so I haven’t been able to walk or exercise, which is one of the ways I deal with stress.
The good news is that there’s sort of an end in sight. I’m figuring come May my life will probably settle back down into a new normal.
Possibly. But it will be a new normal, not my previous routine when things do settle down.
In the meantime, I need to surf the chaos. Ride the waves as they hit. Because there are going to be more (and more) waves coming, some of them pretty high, between now (February) and May.
When I was in my late twenties, I worked as a manager of a technical documentation firm. We provided vendor services to a bunch of clients. The primary contract I was responsible for was with IBM. It was worth $750K, which was a tremendous amount of money back in the 1980s.
I worked 60-80 hours per week, every week, for about three and a half years. Some weeks I put in closer to 100 hours.
By the end of it, I wasn’t just burned out, I was crispy toasty-fried, brittle, bitter, and in some ways, broken.
During the ensuing decades, I’ve been super sensitive to stress. Whenever the stress and chaos threatened to rise up, I did everything I could to mitigate the onslaught.
Sometimes there was nothing I could do about it.
Like now.
Since I can’t control what’s coming at me, all I can do is control my reaction to it.
Part of what I’ve learned from my past experiences with stress is to indulge in what I call aggressive self-care. If I could walk, I would carve out time to take long walks every day. Maybe in March I’ll be able to do this again.
I’ll take myself off the clock when I can, so never set an alarm. There will be days when I have to get up earlier. But when I don’t have to, I get to sleep as long as I’d like.
I’m focused on eating well most of the time. Probably 90% of the time I’m on target with my food.
The other 10% of the time, I’m indulging myself with healthy foods. Don’t care if I’m gaining weight right now. Don’t care if I’m spending money on snacks. Normally, I try not to snack but right now, I’m not going to worry about it.
However, I don’t have anything unhealthy in the house because I know I can’t control myself. Instead, I have healthy snacks so that if I do feel the need to snack, I can. And though I may feel slightly guilty about it, I still know I’m eating things that are good for me.
Side note—I used to stop eating when I got stressed. I’d drop weight, between five to fifteen pounds. That changed as my hormones grew more wacky. I’m not sure that eating more is better for me. But I’m pretty sure it isn’t worse.
I’ve gotten religious about taking my vitamins and supplements. Also pretty strict about drinking plenty of water. I’m prioritizing sleep, and taking whatever I need to ensure that I have good sleep.
In addition, I’m frequently checking in with myself about how I’m feeling. My husband is so very good about asking what I need. I am doing the same thing, seeing how I’m feeling, asking what I need, what will bring me joy.
I’ve also slid things off my plate. I’m doing the bare minimum for the publishing. I can’t take on anything else at this point. That would break me.
I’m focused on my writing as much as I can be, because that brings me joy. Due to all the things bombarding me, I find it difficult to focus sometimes. That’s okay. My word count was already lower this year. Might not make even that goal. Trying not to add to my stress by looking at it currently.
I’m very fortunate I have an understanding partner who is picking up what he can, and who is maintaining an even keel when I flail sometimes.
So now, I’m taking off most of the rest of the day. Going to watch some TV on my computer. Maybe listen to a podcast and knit. Take the day off, because Monday I’m going to have to go like hell again.
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