Hi Everyone,
Tonight’s post is for those in charge of managing the chaos.
If you’re a caregiver, teacher, administrator, clinician, business person…or just human…the pressure of constant deadlines, emails, bills, increasing responsibilities, short tempers and frantic responses as well as things that take twice as long as you thought they would, are all commonplace when life feels like it’s spinning to fast.
A friend of mine once told me I’m the Queen of Understatements. Well, I am clearly stating that life has been overwhelming recently. I know, many of you are wondering why now? Have I not been paying attention to the last 3 years?
My explanation can not be easily defined except to state that each phase of Corey’s recovery brings new challenges along with the life that I have that is separate from hers…believe it or not that does exist! There are moments I wonder can we possibly cope another day or stay awake another night. Can I fight one more battle? How do I balance what needs to be done with what we want to accomplish?
How many of you have the stewards speech memorized? Place the life mask on yourself first then save the person next to you. When you’re on land, the mask doesn’t drop from the sky reminding you to care for yourself in the midst of chaos.
Life is overwhelming regardless of our individual circumstances. How then can we cope?
The answer is to step back for a moment if you can’t step back from it all on a regular basis. Is some of what we deal with urgent, Yes. Is some of what we deal with critical, Yes. But overall, for the “small things” that tend to camouflage themselves as grand things, are they that important?
I’m trying to teach Corey to appropriately express her emotions. There are days I need to listen to the lesson too. Especially when I’m overwhelmed. That’s when I need to be in control of caring for myself first. If not, I won’t recognize when the mask drops from the sky and hits me in the head.
Worrying and stressing is a waste of time. Today I made the effort to step back. Tonight I am reminded that the more peace I feel the more productive and creative I will be. Without peace as my personal focus I can not properly care for myself or care for Corey.
I must remember the phrase, “What’s the worst that could happen”? (of course we know there is NOTHING that could qualify as an answer). My answer “keep things in perspective”. Accept that there are very hard days, days we have a lot to do, and there will be problems to deal with that may not resolve themselves immediately.
We all can deal with anything as long as we know we only have to deal with it for 24 hours. Tomorrow we get to do what needs to be done within that 24 hour day. Take a deep breath and start again.
Marie,
…listen to what you tell Corey;
“this isn’t forever, it’s just for now”