Navigating another pothole in the road

   Here I am, having not blogged for a while. I've been taking time off to deal with a medical issue that appeared out of nowhere. I'm still taking things easy as I recover. 
   When I was little I used to be scared of doctors and a myriad of other things. Throughout this very recent experience, I was surprised to see some of my childhood anxieties return. It was a very weird, dejavu-type feeling as I headed off to hospital last week. I felt like a four year old all over again.

   I was very fortunate to have family providing loads of support and I'm very grateful for friends who dropped in with flowers and homemade goodies. When family and friends have been sick I've usually been too busy to help out!! 
   Now there's some food for thought...

   My prognosis is very good. I know many people go to the doctor's and end up having to deal with much more than what I have come away with. 
   In the lead-up to the operation I found myself drawing on my anxiety-coping skills. It was good to know that having to learn those skills years ago has given me strength in other areas of my life many years later.    As I waited for test results I remembered to keep it very real. I kept in mind that this experience is part of the natural flow of life: ups and downs, challenges, joys, opportunities to learn and grow. I stayed focussed (OK, maybe not always) and I have learnt enough to know that I matter and it was OK for me to take time off from work (I have plenty of leave, so that was not a concern) and not feel guilty.  
   I guess you could say that I recognised it for what it was. Another pothole in the road of life.
   As I mentioned earlier there were times when anxiety did creep in. The little child in me lives again. As well, the post-operation time has been more difficult than expected. My arm has been sore and I've found everyday things challenging. Things like brushing my hair, picking things up off the floor, writing, having a shower and so on. I've been anxious about some of these smaller things more than the bigger issues.  

   On the bright side I am on the mend. I feel happy as some of the regular rhythms of life make a cautious return. Yesterday I made some sweet buns using a very simple recipe. It's been terribly dull here with winter rains and cold weather so it was a pleasant surprise to see pops of colour in the garden. I couldn't resist bringing some of that colour indoors when the sun came out yesterday afternoon. Last week I scheduled an afternoon to do a blog post. Just over a week later it's happening. 

As a friend explained the other night, you have to take care of your body and make sure it's OK. No matter how much I want to blog or organise the front room of our house, I'm learning that it can only happen if my body is ready. I think I'm still trying to accommodate this idea. How many wellbeing gurus cry out that power is all in the mind? I remember one yoga teacher once told our students that the mind is your strongest muscle.   I  thought that was rather profound and I wanted to display it in the classroom.

But over the last two weeks my body just wanted to sleep and rest...

Though I do believe that difficult times reap incredible growth and richness...

It's rather like going on a holiday to a first time destination .... great anticipation of the unknown... minus the sunglasses and photo snaps...And they speak a different language...

Mr S had a workmate over for lunch today. He got up early and cooked a small feast. I could hear him singing and joking around as he prepared curry pies, steamed buns, taro and corned beef. It was very plain to see - and hear- that he was in his element. He doesn't cook as often now because his nails are so bad and he's usually too tired from work. I think the last few weeks have been confusing for him as he grew up in a community where people did not articulate their health needs and concerns. Indeed, people in his community employ different but very natural-based methods and knowledge  when it comes to wellbeing. And as when one learns any new language (cf the language of hospitals and health practitioners and western science), it takes time to learn and accommodate new concepts and terminology.

It was very heartening to hear his joviality and see his brilliant smile filling the house all of this morning.

And to see that life goes on and good things continue to happen, no matter what!

Goal checking

Mr S and I are spending a quiet Sunday at home. My energy levels have been low for a couple of weeks so I've been trying to avoid doing too much. Meanwhile, Mr S is keeping life simple as he works pretty hard during the week and needs to catch up on rest on the weekends. Hence, a very quiet Sunday for us.
It's fair to say that in the last week life has been more about doing what we can and letting the rest go. The idealist in me wrestles with that, though by now I know that I have to let nature prevail. It's very humbling and I must say, it certainly has helped me shake off my perfectionist tendencies.
I thought I'd make the most of this time now to do a quick review of my goals. This month has been busier than usual with several social appointments  so I need to keep the goals manageable. 
I'm pretty happy with how things are going. The early morning routine - on account of Mr S's work - means I get a lot done of a morning. I've hashtagged the goals which I have managed to work on and I've underlined the goals which I think I can get to in the next few weeks . 
I think at this stage I need to consolidate what I've started. If possible, I want to find an effective way to reduce screen time. If I can reduce screen time it might give me time to do some art work or read a book. Hmmm!!

GOALS 2016

Organisation

• Use Friday night to pay bills, menu plan and organise weekend and week ahead.  ##
• Wake up early. Do small jobs before and after work. ##
• Make lunch three times a week. ##
• Reduce screen time. Make screen time more intentional. Before going back to work, I did keep the TV off till evenings which was a great effort for me.## 

Health

• Drink lots of water daily.##
• Eat food made from scratch. ##
• Exercise three times a week. ## In the holidays it was easier.(Must include yoga as a way to maintain back care. Run twice a week.  Ride once a week.)  I start yoga next week!

House

• Do one cleaning job a week. (Usually does not happen. Think about how it could happen!) OK...happened twice because people were coming over!!
• Get broken window handles fixed.
• Finish setting up front room. Getting there. Just need to get rid of the rubbish and an old desk.
• Hang up pictures.

Me

• Take time regularly to indulge, relax, enjoy: read a book, create/paint, work on my family tree, visit the countryside/beach: Sitting outside of an evening, time to reflect
• Learn something new: possibly sewing or making soap
• Find a regular time each week to reflect. ##
• Go to a talk or a play (x2).
• Invite friends over or out once a month:  Keep practising those social skills which are too easy for me to overlook.    

In summary:

Organisation: very good, big improvement from 2015

Health: very good start to the year, can I keep it going?

House: The house is looking good :) :) but I really need to get on to some of those jobs that need doing but just don't get done!!!!

Me: A nice start to the year

        

Weekend Focus

I’m glad it’s Friday.

It’s been one of those weeks.

Sometimes fatigue hits and I struggle.

I come home from work and I have to decide whether I should put my energy into school work or cooking a decent meal.  

Fortunately I feel stronger now. Fortunately I have the weekend to catch up on everything. Fortunately my classroom, that was becoming increasingly challenging, is starting to get a little easier.

I feel I really need to refocus this weekend.

Which reminds me that I need to do many other things this weekend.

Friday night is my time to do bills and banking. It’s my time to meal plan and prepare a shopping list.  

It’s also a chance to find my focus again and plan the week ahead.

My Weekend To Do List

• ·         Bills and Banking and Planning ( a good chance to focus)
• ·         Time to tidy up
• ·         Cook a decent meal. Make up lentil soup and freeze two serves.
• ·         Go for a walk and a run.
• ·         Go to my favourite craft market.
• ·         School preparation.
• ·         Get my haircut. (appointment made)
• ·         Clear out a shelf. Declutter my art supplies. (30 minutes)

A little ambitious … but I make the list knowing I can be flexible and knowing that if I need to change something that is OK. And time to chill out is a given. I haven't scheduled it but I know I don't function without it. I've also cut out a couple of things just so that I can be kind to myself and ensure I give myself time to rejuvenate.

Hope you all have a good weekend.

Trying very hard.... to wake up early

 
     It must be over six months now that I have been trying very hard to wake up early when I go to work .... after 30 years of getting up at the last minute. 

    I have to be honest and say that the last three weeks have been tough. In the morning it's so cold and dark when I wake up that I actually started pushing the snooze button and turning over to get a bit more sleep.  I was clearly stepping into dangerous territory. Around 7.20 I would begrudgingly get up and scramble to pack a quick  breakfast. Some mornings I wouldn't get as far as packing breakfast.

    I realised I needed to apply drastic measures to counteract my downward spiral from what had started as a grand and almighty  attempt at waking up earlier each day.

    A few weeks later and this is what I have done to turn things around and make the "waking up early" experience possible once again.
   
    I turn on the bedside lamp as soon as the alarm goes off and then turn on the heating... then I run and hop back into bed! Both of these serve to disguise the cold and dark and help me take my mind off what it's really like  outside.

    I decided it would also be easier if I tried to add incentives.  I like listening to the radio in the morning so I've combined that with having my breakfast (in bed, I might add!). After the house has warmed up and my eyes are ready to open I get up and prepare a quick and healthy breakfast. 

    I love my chai latte on Thursdays before work. It's become a habit. Having a very appealing incentive has been a real help to getting out of bed on a cold, miserable morning.

    The other thing I've done is keep it real. As much as I would dearly love to accomplish great things in the morning I could see my goal of waking up early was getting away from me. There's no denying I find it really hard some mornings. So I needed to stop expecting to accomplish 5 new things in the morning when I was struggling to do one. I decided to reduce my expectations and prioritise. At the moment, breakfast is the main goal.

I'm very proud of what I've achieved thus far. I certainly haven't conquered the mornings. However, I've been very surprised to see that  I've actually managed to get up early every morning and have breakfast at home. One factor that makes waking up so hard is not getting  to sleep early enough. Perhaps that will need to be the next step in strengthening my morning routine. I'm also hoping to find myself some more "appealing incentives" for the mornings. Those goals will need to be simple and sweet which sounds good to me.  Who knows what I might achieve by the end of 2015!
    
    
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What I Can Do

 

 I don't feel well. I haven't felt great for a few days now. There's so much I want to do. I want to run. I want to garden. I want to create. I want to invite people over. Yet, I can't. I miss my days of planning and ticking off goals and tasks and feeling like I'm making the most of my life. 

   This morning, lying in bed and feeling too tired to get up, I wondered how to make sense of it. I've been reading lots of blogs as I haven't had enough energy for much else, but it has left my mind buzzing with stories of people who are running around doing hundreds of  things while I do nothing. 

   Then I remembered. Nearly twenty years ago, I was going through a slump. It was one of the worst times in my life and, back then, not knowing I had social anxiety, it was incredibly difficult to know what to do. I felt isolated at that time and no one really knew I was struggling. It was a time of transition. I had left a beautiful job and lifestyle for another one and it wasn't working out. In fact, the job was disastrous and I had to leave. 

   With no work, I used to sync my life with the TV. Oprah was on at 2:00 in the afternoon and after a dose of inspiration from her I would feel better about moving on with my day. One afternoon, still feeling very sorry for myself , Oprah was interviewing a young man who had lost so much and had so little. I was impressed to see how conscientious he was. It amazed me that he believed enough in himself to go to school, have goals and be determined to pass and go on to further study. 

   Oprah asked him how he managed to keep going. 

   He replied, "I just think about what I can do. I don't think about what I can't do." 

   Now those words have stayed with me. Very close to me. For the big challenges as well as the smaller ones. I may have mistaken the precise wording but I have never forgotten the lesson that young man taught me. I don't like to promote "big business" but I do want to acknowledge how important that program was to me at that time. 

I was so self-absorbed in what I couldn't do that I had forgotten what I could do.

   So this morning, I shared the story with Mr S and I realised that I need to approach my life this week with that in mind. It's frustrating not being able to do the things I love but there is still so much that I have and that I can do.

This week...
I can lie in bed while the rain pours down (not the whole week!).
I can see the sun shining over the park after the last downpour.
I can still try to keep up my water intake.
I can still try to be mindful of my internet usage.
I've got two lovely classes of students so I think I can still keep teaching without losing my voice and taking time off work.
I can make sure that I monitor my health and rest as much as possible.
I can prioritise what needs to be done.
I can dream about all those projects and dreams I want to work on when I do feel stronger!

Just do one thing before you sit down

When I come home from work I find all I want to do is sit down and veg. Some days I have no energy. My inclination when I walk through the door is to sit down on the couch as quickly as possible. The problem is that I usually have plenty of things to do, including getting a meal ready. 

One day, after thinking about my time-wasting habits,  I realised that flopping down on the couch was the crucial point at which I was choosing to "slack off".  I realised that I needed to change what I did right at that point. Ever the queen of making life easy, I challenged myself to do just one thing before I sat down. I figured that would lighten the workload at least a little. I don't believe in work, work, work but I know that relax, relax, relax is counter-productive as well!

So, one thing is what I try to do before I sit down and succumb to the need to veg out after I come home from work. Keeping it simple, is the key!! I usually assign myself something easy to do, such as put ten things away (yep, there can be a lot of mess sometimes), before I have a cuppa, or clean the basin, then have a snack.

You might have already guessed what I'm going to say next. After I do one job I feel a sense of achievement and I find myself doing a little bit more. The ten things I pick up, quickly and easily, become twenty things. While  I give the living room a quick tidy-up, I start working out what I need to do for dinner. The other day I decided to water the pot plants and I took a quick walk around the garden.  Most of the plants are dying off after the summer season but I found a zucchini ready to pick. 

This is also where a meal plan works well for me. It helps if I start on the meal preparation before I sit down. I sometimes feel daunted by the task of cooking a meal after a day's work, so it is much easier when I don't have to think  too much about what I'm going to cook. I apply the same principle to meal prep: just do one thing for the meal before I take a rest. More often than not, I end up cooking the whole meal.

I recommend doing just one thing when you need to do work but can't be bothered or you're just too tired. It makes life a little  bit easier and lightens the load with minimal effort. And, if you're lucky, you'll probably end up doing more than you set out to do!

Some of this probably sounds outlandish to busy parents who don't always have the luxury of free time before mealtimes.  To tell you the truth, I'm not sure how they do it. 
I do know that  in the years gone by I would be totally drained at times by being with other people.  There would have been times when I felt worthless (and worse) and it was very hard to turn around and do a simple task such as nourish myself with good food. Social anxiety can be extremely taxing on the mind and body. 

Goals: Heading in the right direction

After quiet a few weeks of not feeling well I think I'm finally getting back on track. This morning I was able to pop outside and cut off some of the dead flowers in the front garden. It was a good feeling and a beautiful morning, as well. Now my mind's ticking over with other little jobs I might be able to squeeze into today's program.

At the start of the week I set myself some goals, taking into consideration the limitations of having no car and still needing to take it easy. In some ways it was a little harder than expected. I found I was extra tired and waiting for buses took more time than expected.

My goals were focussed on waking early, eating homemade lunches, drinking water, going for a walk and cutting down my screen time (hoping that would give me the opportunity to get on to other more productive jobs).

Waking early: I certainly woke early each morning but that time was taken up with catching the bus.
Eating homemade lunches: Um...er...it only happened once.  For the first time I bought some cream cheese and made up a wrap with avocado. It was scrum-delicious.  This week I've bought cheese and chicken, bread and wraps to have on hand for lunch and snacks. It's nice to have something new in the humble lunchtime repertoire.
Drinking water: no...no... no
Going for a walk: no.... public transport takes up my time and my energy
Cutting down screen time/ using computer time effectively: Well, there has been improvement. I've been more careful about using the computer. One night I made myself  work out on paper what I needed to do and ended up having a very focussed evening. One night out of four is good, right? The other nights I did go online but I'm proud to say that I stayed off FB all week.

So, all in all, I feel that I'm heading in the right direction. I ended up making inroads on my food goal of one new recipe a month, which wasn't planned this week. I have often wanted to take public transport sometimes as a means to reducing my carbon footprint so that's a green living goal which came to be but also wasn't planned. I'm managing to get up early which, remember, is something I haven't been able to do for over twenty-five years. This did not start as an intended goal but I'm certainly glad it's happening.  I've begun to reduce screen time but I know that, really, I need to go much further.

It's 35 degrees today so not good for going for a walk. I'm sure, though, it won't be long before that can happen. The pantry is stocked and ready for three days of homemade lunches. I might need to wake up a few minutes earlier- gulp!-to make sure I have enough time for preparing lunch.

My goals this week will remain the same. I will keep heading in the right direction and I actually think that these smaller steps are more reliable than going all out on and changing life in a big way.
It's also shown me that tiny, substantial steps towards goals is easily managed and possibly more dependable long-term.

Happy SAD Tips

Tip: Employ a life coach for free!

The journey along the pot-holed road to happiness can be harrowing at times. I remember years ago, as a young teacher, trying to summon up courage and energy each day to face my eager students and the intimidating,  ever-confident, (so I believed) faces of  colleagues and parents. I was exhausted during those years and, of course, I didn't know why.

One day I came home feeling terribly uncomfortable. I had said something I regretted to a student. I was mortified and riddled with angst. What would the parents say? How would I face the principal over this? They'll tell other parents....    And that night the same thoughts went round and round and round in my head.

I can't remember how it came about but amidst that stress I realised something. My sister is cool, calm and collected. She is super organised and she knows what she is doing. She's the complete opposite of me. It struck me that  she would not be sitting at home worrying like me. Also a teacher, she would just move on after a difficult exchange. I could picture her and how she would react. I also knew she would tire quickly of my unrelenting thoughts which is why I never shared with her!

Somehow I began to see that I could "use" my sister as an instant gauge for indicating when I was overdoing the worrying. I could imagine what she would say and what she would do. She never knew it but there were many days when I would consider her when I needed a perspective different from my own.

Perhaps, like me, you can't employ a life coach to help keep your life on track. You might live by yourself and find it hard to ask others for advice.  So consider a person you respect and know well; someone who makes decisions easily. Use them as a gauge to help you get perspective. Ask yourself: How would  they react if they were in my situation?  


FYI : The next day at work no student, teacher or parent said anything about what I had said. Ever!

Feeling down: No easy answer.

I'm an idealist. I love to dream. I love to sit back and reflect on life. From time to time I find myself reading lots of articles about Living Life to the Full, Being Happy, Life is What You Make It.

I truly wonder whether some of those writers have had a life where they constantly have to deal with  health issues  and whether they've ever had to make do on their own, day after day, year after year. It seems to me that, in their world, living a good, healthy life naturally and easily results in finding a fabulous life-with partner- in a few weeks or months.

Oh, I wish my life were like that!

With this in mind I often feel disappointed  when I can't live up to those expectations. In the last few days I've found myself coming home wanting to cry. I try to tell myself that I am happy but the truth is that for some unclear reason I am not.

I have been busy and I'm finally managing to shake off a bug. Last night I went to yoga relaxation class only to return home tired and with more book work to do. The dishes were not done for the second night in a row (hopefully tonight I'll get them done). Monday nights are always stressful.

I need to be level-headed at these times and not get carried away with the emotions.

I am tired +
I have had a bug and I haven't shaken it off completely +
I have been busy +
My new class is very demanding and the level is new to me +
I am getting out less and less these days
= a Rivergirl who misses her time and space and energy!!!!

I'm not sure what the answer is.

In the past I have made time each night to think of 5 things which have been a positive part of my life on that day. This  may not take away my feelings of sadness straight away but I believe that it  helps balance out my "tiredness" and "down" feelings. I think that  life with SAD readily gives way to negative thinking so  this practice "trains" me to think more positively (even though I haven't been practising it lately). I first started using it when my mind was overwhelmed at nights from  worrying too much.

So today, I am grateful for...

• I went grocery shopping and now I've got some decent food in the house again!
• It's my television free night and I'm sticking to it.
• I've got something to look forward to- tomorrow I've organised to meet with another teacher for coffee before school. This is something I like to do but I rarely do because so many of my colleagues are busy with family etc.
• I'm glad I saw the opportunity last week to accept the coffee invitation when I could have said that early mornings are too hard for me.
• It's Tuesday night. Monday nights are a mad rush but Tuesday nights I can relax.
• Hey, I got to work earlier than usual. After a great start to the year (breakfast every morning, gettin to work with time to spare) I've returned to the days of old: get up, get dressed, run out. But today I got to work ten minutes earlier.
• ...which reminds me, I got to clean up a portion of the  mess on my desk at work; a very small portion but a portion nonetheless

So my strategies this week for combatting the blues and the energy drain:

1. Keep things in perspective. If possible separate the emotional from the practical.  "I am feeling down because I am sick and I am tired... and that's how it is right now."
2. Take time to focus on what has been good in your life today. Celebrate these moments.