I can’t believe it is the end of February already. This month tends to fly by for me with my daugther’s b-day on the 20th and all that leads up to it. She is VERY into her birthday and talks about it for months and I swear it turns into a THING, but she had a great day and she was very excited to turn 13. (SHE ALSO GETS THE LOVE OF BIRTHDAYS FROM ME LOL.)
I feel like I am coming out of a funk that has lasted me for a few weeks. It’s a combination of anxiety about her bday (I want to be perfect and special) and feeling overwhelmed, as well as it being winter and dreary, and just life in general this past year. I talked to my therapist about it all this past week and that was great, I’ll share more below on that. I am looking forward to my kids both going to school full time, in person this upcoming week. It has been a year of either full time at home learning and a few hybrid weeks here and there (in October and February.) I think it will be the start of a new normal and I am looking forward to being home with no one else there so I can paint and write and get my work done ALONE!! What does that even feel like? LOL
Let’s get started on 3 things to think about this week!
1) After a few weeks of being ‘off,” I got to chat to my therapist about how I was feeling and how to combat it. I get really overwhelmed trying to make things ‘perfect’ in my home and in my life, and the process of trying to control that is pretty overwhelming. I then get really dizzy and it feels terrible and like I can do nothing, with stresses me out. I then feel like everything is really important and I can’t rest until it is done. At one point I was near tears hanging up birthday balloons at midnight. They kept falling and I was so tired, yet I knew that I should do it the next day but couldn’t. My biggest feelings with anxiety is being very overwhelmed and just frantically trying to do a bunch of things that go wrong.
It’s fun;)
So she mentioned maybe, just maybe, I can find ways to lower the bar for myself, and take things off my list? Which sounds simple, but in the moment I see no way out. I’m trying to push through. I am working on that! On letting things go that feel impossible, but won’t hurt anything. I don’t have to actually DO all the things my brain tells me to, just so I can ‘deserve’ rest. It snowballs and then I am not resting and near tears and a mess. Each day I am looking at my list and asking, ‘does this have to happen right now?” Can I do it later, or never? I’m really trying to narrow down list and lower my standards. My personal standards, I am finding, are really freakishly high and they can harm me more than help me. On one hand, it is my Achiever personality (type 3 Enneagram!) that helps me be successful and get things done, but only in balance. I am learning to walk that line. I can be an all or nothing person, and I need to be more in the middle.
Do you have high standards for yourself? DO you think they help or hurt you? DO you get anxious or overwhelmed?
2) One simple brain trick I have been using lately that has helped me has been asking, “What if it all works out?” I’ve talked about using mantras and affirmations for self love and body confidence, but when it comes to other areas of my life I have been slacking. Which has led to my thoughts spiraling and basically crying over birthday ballons. What we think and say to ourselves matters! I find a day or two of runaway thoughts can really derail me. It starts in one area of my life and snowballs from there. Suddenly, I am forgetting all my affirmations and believing all the negative thoughts. Some of my favorites:
All is well.
Everything is always working out for me.
I am healthy and free of illness.
My body heals itself.
And when my mind goes crazy with worry, ‘What if it all works out?’
The first step is noticing when your are feeling a certain way and replacing the thought with a better feeling one. I know I talk about this a lot, but it is the number one way to help your mental health and is what my therapist suggest using first.
3) On another note, I was listening to Jenna’s podcast the other day and it reminded me how much I love Carol Tuttle’s books. I have a few of hers in hard copy, and have read her Child Whisperer book many times on my Kindle (it is free with Kindle Unlimited!) She basically breaks people down by energy types (you can take the super quick test HERE) and then you can learn about the types in this book and how to parent each type in her Child Whisperer book. It is so helpful if you can ‘type’ the people in your family to better understand them. Basically we are all the types, but we will have a strong dominant one and the a secondary one. I am a Type 1 with Type 2 tendencies. I had everyone in my house take it, too. My husband and son are both Type 2’s and my daughter is a Type 3 with Type 4 tendencies.
I love these because it helps you learn how to love the peope around you better, and understand their deeper needs. If you have kids, and more than one, you can easily see that you can really parent them they same. Both of mine need very different things and I parent them pretty differently. Anyway, it is interesting to read about and very eye opening!
If you take the test, let me know what you get! Do you think it fits you? Hit reply and let me know!
