January 3, 2020

Is anyone else stressed? By what is happening in your life? Family? Health or work or lack thereof? New year pressures? The state of the world perhaps? Anything? Everything?

 

I am trying so hard to take this all day by day — to not stress any single element, overthink any one choice or expect too much from any given situation. That is far easier said than done, especially when actively working to introduce, commit to and sustain actions, habits and routines that restore and promote mental and physical health, as to further my recovery journey. While I can set the intention to do more — or to do at all, which sometimes is a feat in and of itself amid dark days or challenging times — I also continue to focus on releasing the pressures of the SHOULD. I am reminded that I can quietly attempt things just to see how it feels, without the need to make it a part of everyday life moving forward. I'm learning to be wholly okay with doing something once, whether or not I choose to repeat it, for any number of reasons that I don’t have to substantiate either to myself or to anyone else. 

 

I am always awed by a person who completes xyz activity for a string of consecutive days, an entity that was founded long ago, a couple married for many decades, but there is also great value and power in purely doing, in beginning, in daring to try, in testing the waters, in putting in effort.

 

As much as I want to do everything at this very moment, wave my magic wand, habitualize the good, eradicate the undesired, gain all of the lessons, and return to full health and the life I knew, that which I worked hard to build such that I can be in service to others — I simply and sadly cannot. Accomplishing tasks beyond absolute necessities in the course of a day is now a feat. My still-injured brain does not function how it once did, leaving me perpetually overwhelmed without the ability to multitask or handle much of anything at all. Though powerful and important, aspirations, intentions and plans can also prove acutely stressful, especially when I fail to reach or tackle even the most modest of goals.

 

Once able to seize various opportunities and balance diverse lines of in-depth work with grace and comfort, accustomed to a high-paced existence with freedom and fluidity, surrounded by high achievers, inspiring doers and fiercely capable mover-shakers in a world with endless stimuli and great need, it can feel intensely stifling, frustrating and disheartening to have my life seemingly put on hold out of medical necessity, by no doing of my own. While honoring this full spectrum of emotions, I am also trying to accept my present realities, to let go of stressful expectations, to know that whatever I can do is enough — at least for now.