Busy Life…

Last night just as I was falling asleep in bed, we heard a loud crash downstairs. This was about 10 minutes after I finished cleaning up after my dog who threw up chocolate on my bedroom carpet (where in the hell did she get chocolate??!!). We went downstairs and saw that the glass on the oven door had shattered all by itself and was in a million little crackling pieces on the floor. (After some research I learned that this is a known issue for this type of oven). So we cleaned up as best we could and went to bed until the alarm woke us up this morning at 6am for my husband’s MRI appointment. Last weekend, while moving, he tore his bicep and has to have surgery this week.

Needless to say, we’ve been busy. I feel like the brunt of our busy-ness is on me because I’m the one working from home right now so I have the “convenience” to deal with most things (insert mom guilt and wife guilt and overall woman guilt here). I hadn’t worked out in over 2 weeks. I was feeling terrible and I finally made myself meet my friends for a run.

I don’t know why running is easier for me to cling to in these times more than any other form of exercise. Maybe it’s the commitment to friends that helps to get me out the door? But I always feel great when I do it and then that motivates me to do another one and then another one. I ended up running 3 times last week. That’s more than I’ve run in the past month. I’m sore today but I’m happy I did it.

We all get busy. But busy isn’t always healthy. Mindfulness and activity are healthy. How can I show up for myself better during the busy times? I have some ideas following:

1. Find an activity that you enjoy and go all out. Get the cute clothes and accessories that go along with it. Get the latest and greatest apps and gadgets. GO ALL OUT.
2. Schedule time everyday for your activity. This is where it gets tricky. If I schedule time in the morning, but have a stressful day unloading heavy boxes during my move – there is no way I’m waking up early for more physical activity.
3. Have a back up plan. If I do not wake up early, and I’m terribly sore for my run, is there something that can serve as my backup? Can I fall back to a yoga video for some stretching? Or, a longer walk with my dog? I’m still working through 2 and 3 so I don’t know the right answer, but I know I need a back up plan.
4. Scale back the busy-ness. Sometimes, I put extra pressure on myself. Do I really have to paint the whole house before we move all of our stuff in? Do I have to make sure that everyone who will pass through my house this week has the right drink and snack ready to go in my fridge? Do I have to go to the post office today, can I wait until tomorrow? I really struggle with this. I am type A and maybe a little OCD. When I have to do something, I want to do it now and 100%. But it adds to my stress level, and when I’m stressed, I don’t want to do extra activity. I have to do better at scaling back.
5. Imagine. When I envision my whole activity, how I start, how I feel, what it’s like when I finish, I am more apt to do it. I imagine getting ready. I imagine warming up. I imagine that I have a strong run. I imagine that my legs and stomach muscles feel strong. I imagine that I sweat and that I’m out of breath. I imagine that I finish and I’m exhausted but that I feel like a million bucks and then I go shower and write a blog about it. Whenever I do this, I complete my activity. Sometimes though, I don’t even let my mind wander like that because I feel like I should be thinking of “more important” things. I do believe that activity is also important. So when I neglect it, I try to imagine what it’s like when I don’t.

We are all busy. It’s important we don’t over-glorify it. Decide what’s important, and get busy doing that.

In the next week I will try to put these ideas into action. Follow my blog to see how well I do!