By: Lisa M. Hayes – Confluence Daily is your daily news source for women in the know.
I don’t know how to explain how much effort it takes to keep me upright and moving forward in the Winter. For a girl who clearly suffers from Seasonal Affective Disorder, Washington State is a rough place to be in the Winter months. I know I should probably change my story about how I fair in the winter months, and some years I do better. However, generally the winters I do well involve quite a bit of travel, and for reasons out of anyone’s control, there was not enough travel last winter. So, without elaborating too much, I’ll just say, I’m more than a little sluggish right now. Spring is here, but I’m not fully recovered.
Self-care is not a luxury right now. It’s a mandate if I want to do more than sit on my bed, in the dark, intermittently crying between episodes of Dr. Phil and Scandal reruns. I sailed through the holidays without a bump in the road, but January brought a whole new set of pressures and deadlines and my self-care routine was devastatingly compromised. Then we decided to make a whole suite of major life changes. Those changes have been pretty much like putting my life in a blender and hitting high.
Yesterday started with me hitting the snooze button more times than I will admit in writing. When I finally did roll over and force my eyes open, I did the thing I know is not good for me. Instead of reaching for the remote for Pandora and putting on music, I reached for my phone and got lost in the haze of barely awake in Facebook and CNN, not for a few minutes, but for an hour. One-full-hour.
By the time I got up, I was an hour behind, and rushing to get everyone else ready for the day. This of course not leaving time for me to get ready. So I didn’t eat breakfast, or really get dressed. I worked straight through lunch. At two o’clock I ate an apple and then tried to spend a couple of quality hours with my kid. I didn’t give him any quality attention. I sat next him and watched TV. For the record kids should not watch re-runs of Scandal or Dr. Phil. But hey, what’s a tired mom to do in the middle of the day?
I shuffled him to a rest break and fell face first onto the bed to nap. I crashed hard for fifteen minutes before my husband got home. It was the kind of sleep where you wake up and realize you were almost drowning in a pool of drool in your pillow.
I got up from my nap still too tired to cook a proper meal so I suggested going out to pizza, which for the record I know is going always going to give me serious stomach upset. I’ll spare you the details on the stomach upset, but trust me, it’s not pretty. I throw on a sundress because it’s easy and I don’t have to put on a bra, but it’s super cold outside. So, I end up being that woman in a sundress and a parka. To be honest, I did not comb my hair. That was probably a mistake because at some point at the pizza parlor I realize people are looking at my husband like the compassionate man who took the bag lady to get a slice.
We get home too late to spend any quality time as a family. After we get our kid to bed we spend forty-five minutes trying to find something to watch and there isn’t a damn thing on. Regular network TV – nothing. Hulu – nothing. Netflix – nothing. Nothing is on because we have watched every single show ever made.
Finally, we watch a very uplifting rerun of Criminal Minds causing me to fall deep asleep and have gut-wrenching nightmares. The gut-wrenching nightmares went well with the stomach upset. Criminal Minds will do that to you.
And let me be perfectly clear, everything about my day was a choice, or series of choices, over which I had complete control.
Today started with music and not Facebook. I did eat a healthy breakfast and washed it down with ginseng tea instead of Dr. Pepper. I did my pilates. I got everything on my list checked off before two. I ate a quick light lunch, then went for a walk in the sunshine. When I got home I had a wonderful group call before going to the market to get stuff for an incredible vegan dinner shared with friends. After dinner, we had a bath and then did Qigong. Before I go to bed tonight I will have time and energy to do some meditation and alignment work, and spend some time with my husband.
Life is good – and let me be perfectly clear, everything about my day was a choice or series of choices over which I have complete control.
This is a tale of two days. This is all about the choices we all face every day.
Circumstances and schedules aren’t an excuse. Not taking care of myself is lazy and selfish. The people around me deserve better than me showing up like a broken down bag lady.
What kind of day are you going to choose? What small choices do you need to make to have that day?
More by Lisa M. Hayes:
THE MOMENT WHEN TRUMP SUPPORTERS LOST THEIR MORAL HIGH GROUND DEFENDING TRUMP’S PRIVATE LIFE
LOVE DOESN’T TAKE SH*T AND IT WON’T ASK YOU TO EITHER
THERE IS ALCHEMY IN THE DETAILS
Lisa Hayes, The Love Whisperer, is an LOA Relationship Coach. She helps clients leverage Law of Attraction to get the relationships they dream about and build the lives they want. Lisa is the author of the newly released hit book, Score Your Soulmate and How to Escape from Relationship Hell and The Passion Plan.
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