I started this year on a great note. I’d planned blog posts for January, gotten my Trello boards sorted, and had plenty of plans for the start of 2020. And then life happened. Work got manic and before I knew it, February was over.
As someone who needs control (and someone who is a people pleaser), one of my biggest struggles is trying to keep everything together 100% of the time. I suck at delegating, battle to set boundaries, and put way too much pressure on myself. Trying to balance my passion project with my day-to-day copywriting business has not been easy over the past two months. Trying to look after my self care has been even harder.
The thing is that things will ALWAYS be hectic. Life will always throw curveballs. We may get breathers now and then, but, for the most part, we have to juggle many things as humans. Aside from the more obvious things such as working and feeding ourselves and our families (or cats), we have to adult. We have to do tax returns. We have to organise things. We have to make time for exercises. We have to try and get ourselves out of the house to see people. We have to do things like clean the pool. We also have to try and find time for ourselves in all of this, too.
Somewhere along the line during these first two months of the year, I went into crisis mode. Not because I was in a full-blown crisis but because I was too exhausted to focus on anything aside from the most important things. I had to remove stress wherever I could, whether that meant moving deadlines, cancelling plans, saying no to new work or taking an hour at lunchtime to nap. I was sick, for added fun. And it was tax season. I was a wreck.
I survived
But… I survived. I got through it and came out the other side. I’m not going to lie and pretend it was easy. It was hard and I had more than a few meltdowns. What these months have taught me, however, is that trying to hold onto that control only makes things worse. That does not mean giving up or letting things slide. What it means is letting go of that need to keep control over every single thing. When I stopped fighting and focused instead on getting through the bumpy patch however I could, it got easier.
I may have neglected this blog and I may have skipped yoga far too many times and I may have eaten way too much junk. I may have done almost no meditation aside from nightly breathing exercises. I may have felt sorry for myself. That makes me human. We are not perfect. We are all just trying our best on this journey. The more we try and make everything perfect, the harder it becomes to deal with life when crisis mode hits.
I got through it all
Strangely, by lapsing my usual self care rituals, I focused on the most important self care measure of all – putting my current needs first and doing whatever I needed to get through a tough time.
I will get back to blogging. I’m already slowly easing back to yoga. I’m trying to eat better and I know that I’ll get back into the rhythm again soon. That is all icing on the cake. The important thing is that I am here, I am ok, and I am ready for the new month ahead. And that is what true self care is all about.
