Do you ever need to call a time-out, making things still just for a moment to calm the stress? I needed to de-stress ME, so I picked the thought of blowing dandelions to create my moment of bliss. It totally turned around 2 very stress-filled weeks.
Life comes with stressors, there is no way to hide from it all. Chronic illness just ratchets it up for us.
My 7 years of a major life-threatening health crash taught me great wisdom about stress. We have to prioritize our stressors. Usually, we have to do it for ourselves. There is no anti-stress fairy to come and do it for us.
Great, learned the lesson very well. I have had tons of practice over those 7 years. I am an anti-stress pro!!
Yahhhh right….
As a layer of healing approached a couple weeks ago, I could feel the physical stress on my body and I did not slow down. I did not apply my precious tools that I had learned. Each day got a little harder until it got my attention full force.
My compter crashed. It would not allow me to do my normal daily work. I spent many hours on the phone with tech support, making little progress. All I was doing was banging my head against the wall.
Then it dawned on me, I know better than this. I teach better than this. My entire coaching style is based on being in touch with our bodies and our needs (so we can serve others more effectively).
I am the one making this more complicated and uncomfortable than need be. Be still!!!!! Let my body ride this wave of healing. It is simply another layer and it is perfectly natural. What is not natural, are MY actions of pushing through it just because I have a mission. The mission will be more effective IF I simply stop, take a breath, and exhale slowly.
Dandelions, what a fun visual for me to focus on my breathing.
I like this. Since I cannot get out into nature, I can bring nature to me. I need to be still, not traipsing around looking for dandelions to blow.
I was working on researching plagues. Wellll…… that is depressing. That negative force on top of my body needing extra attention finally made me open my eyes when I no longer had a working computer. It took the computer crash for me to see it.
Who has ever been grateful for a crashed computer??? Took me a few days to get there but I finally saw it. It took a broken computer to force me to stop and see the situation for what it was.
I had no business adding a depressing project like researching plagues on top of a computer crash. I needed a moment of bliss to refocus me towards being still and keeping me on my committed healing path. I wandered a bit for days but I am back on the focused path.
I am focusing on my breathing by picturing myself blowing on dandelions. I am able to get lost in the moment of bliss that takes me to still waters where I need to be.
Tomorrow is another day. The work has to wait and that is simply okay. I can fix the computer next week. If I am going to preach it and teach it, I better be doing it!!
If I can make myself slow down, so can you. During chronic illness, we have got to learn this lesson. It takes practice and practice and then some more practice. The way out of chronic illness is implementing these lessons over and over again.
Go blow on a dandelion and enjoy the day!!
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