Pace Yourself

My motto for this surreal time in our lives to myself or anyone I speak with is: pace yourself.

In early March I had been at a conference in Houston (traveling through two airports) just when the rumblings that we were going to need to be more careful with handshaking had begun. Most thought it was just hype. No urgency, little concern.

By March 12th I had been sent home from work sick-  still believe it was just a regular cold as I never got a fever or the cough. Since that time most people have also been sent home. Now that we're in week 7,  just pacing myself has kept me sane (-ish 😜).

Here's what I mean by that.. be concerned when things warrant it, laid back when they don't. Rise to the occasion if I'm needed, let things go when I'm not. I check in with my friends that are essential workers or having a hard time but don't get dramatic- not helpful. I'm working during the day and zooming most nights, but if I need to handle something I do it when the timing is right not necessarily by the clock on the wall.

People are anxious to get back into their routines, their offices/jobs, get their hair done and be served a sit down meal- I get it. I do. Not everyone thrives in their homes all day. This is where my gift for calmness kicks in. I can live like this for a very long time. Don't want to, but I can. And I know we all have different lifestyles and concerns but in order to not drive ourselves nuts we need to find the pace that works for us. Here's a couple of things that have worked for me or that I'm at least trying to practice:

• Meditation: I am a regular meditator but I've been even more diligent about checking in with my zen while this craziness is all around us. Normally I use Headspace but I've been grateful that this Oprah & Deepak Hope In Uncertain Times one is now free to use. If you're tense- or even if you think you're not -deep breaths make everything better (of course away from others). 😌🙏
• Weekdays: Staying away from junk food (chocolate, sugar, chips) or alcohol during the week. And in bed by 11. Find what feels good for you so you're not beating yourself up but still staying as healthy as you can.
• Zooming: I'm on video-conferencing during the day for meetings and co-worker communications but now I am keeping in touch with my family and friends most nights as well. To keep things fun my family and I are doing theme calls (above was hat day). Take advantage of the tech that makes it possible to see people even when you're not seeing people. 
• Music: There is a singer I adore 😍who I see once or twice a year when I visit my sister in WI but now he's doing Facebook live shows so every Saturday I make myself an adult beverage, grab a little organizing project to do and sing and dance around the house and rock out with Phil Calkins.
• The other thing I've been really enjoying is cleaning to Parisian tunes. Makes me feel like I'm somewhere else even while folding laundry. 🎶
• Flowers: We need live things in our life so if you don't have a pet or person in your space grab some plants or flowers to pep up your place. It's a small expense (esp. at Trader Joes) for a much more happy day. 🌺😊🌷
• Love List: No need to wait until Thanksgiving! Make a list of the people you love and pick a couple to check in with each week. Doesn't need to be long talk, but call them and tell them you love them. Priceless! 🥰
• Forgive Everyone: Good idea even when not in a pandemic but especially great reminder- life is precious and most folks are doing their best. If this was actually the end of the world what would you want to have had said? 

These days I am not even pretending to play a doctor on Twitter- I really have no idea how the rest of the year is going to go. But I believe it's going to be a lot longer to get back to some sort of normal then most think; I'm guessing at least a year. So I'm doing what I can: being in touch with those I love, keeping expenses low, trying to be understanding of others moods and concerns, and mostly taking care of myself so I can take care of others when needed and others don't need to take care of me. 

This pause is a great time to declutter the rest of your home, reevaluate your lifestyle (mapping helps 😉), get back to essentialism, and rejoice in how grateful we are to be alive and well and living through this unprecedented time. 

And if that's too much to contemplate- no worries... just pace yourself however is going to work for you. Because I know it feels sad but it could be so so much worse.  All you need to do is live through this pandemic. Not perfectly, not even gracefully on days that's not possible, but just get through it. 

This isn't a sprint, isn't even a marathon, this might be our new way to be in the world. Instead of running yourself down find what will make that ok for you. For me, I've found to make JOY out of this situation I need to pace myself. 

Stay healthy, well and joyful 🤗

Recharge Yourself

Do you get anxious when you see your phone is at 10%? Of course you do, it's the Pavlovian trigger of our time. Arianna Huffington often talks about how we check in more often on how our cell phone battery is doing during the day than we check in with ourselves.

A few years ago I was reading Finding Your Own North Star, by Martha Beck, and in part of one of the exercises called Climbing Back Into Your Body she asks you to check in with your left big toe. Now this was a startling revelation for me- not that I have toes- but that I probably had not specifically checked in with each one individually since I was a child figuring out which one went to the market.  🐷

I had been really neglecting the vessel in which I live and only paying attention to my body when it's in pain 😖or in pleasure 😉. Of course there was yearly maintenance but as long as I got a ✅ that nothing was wrong it was all good until next year. Even when I would be in workout mode I was mostly going through the motions- let's get this done. Not really connecting with my energy in a way that honored how I wanted to be in the world.

Our bodies are amazing! And we take them for granted because we think if our mind is still awake and functioning enough to get us to our next hour of the day we must be fine. Ridiculous!

Look around... how many of us our numb to how exhausted we are or how we are living on auto-pilot. We do no one any good living on empty.

So what's an exhausted but grateful body to do?
Practice being as connected to our toes as we are to our texts. For me, I'm practicing having quiet time at night before I go to bed so I can calm myself before sleep. Meditating. Stretching when I feel tense. And decluttering my space regularly so I don't have my energy zapped by things that don't spark JOY.

Every time you check your phone: check your mind for clarity... check your shoulders for tension... check your heart for peace... check your gut for direction. Our phones are our tool to be in communication with the world but let's also use that battery-deplete-panic as a reminder that the most important form of communication is with ourselves.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Diagnosis

****** Spoiler Alert ******* 

No one wants to be called crazy... even and especially when they are acting, well, crazy. But just as people break a bone or get cancer, most of us will at sometime in our lives struggle with our mental health. It can range from exhaustion after the death of a loved one or depression after a divorce, to the more chronic and barely manageable.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend's first two seasons were playing with the "crazy" in the title, but season three takes a turn to get serious about how Rebecca is really not well. She has always known she had issues with depression and anxiety but had never had a correct diagnosis. Which after the obligatory musical number we see why even after the relief of getting a diagnosis she fights being labeled and manifests why it's so hard to treat someone with an issue like BPD.

Borderline Personality Disorder is helpfully described in the clip above and the reason I bring it up is I know all too well how being in denial of a mental illness can lead to insane behavior and even death. My college sweetheart had bi-polar manic depression and because of his stubbornness and pride he would not take his medication as directed or take care of himself as needed. This lead to self-medicating and eventually his death from an unintentional overdose.

He was an engineer with a brilliant mind but wouldn't/couldn't do the smart thing that might have enabled a productive happy life. The waste of it is overwhelming to think about sometimes. It pains me so 😢

When I watched the recent episodes of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend it reminded me immediately of how mental health is both an art and a science. There is no perfect fix-- there are misdiagnoses, there are adjustments needed to medications, there is resistance to getting the help we need. But there is no prize for toughing it out; there is only the pain we cause ourselves, those who love us, and anyone who has to deal with us not being at our best.

If you find you're not thriving in life like you know you can: get help. Get a diagnosis and if it doesn't fit, get a second opinion. Just know you are worth the effort of taking care of yourself. You are not your disease or disorder -- you are a human who is tending to life with its complicated challenges and this just happens to be the one you are dealing with at this time.

It would be crazy not to address our mental health and be as well as we can be.

Wishing us all a healthy happy New Year!   😊

After-note: Good first hand description of BPD in this article.

Are You Well?

Last week on Twitter, Canadian phone company Bell sponsored a #BellLetsTalk day to spread the word that it's time to talk about mental health. Glenn Close released a video addressing trying to end the stigma of mental illness last week as well. And that's great and I agree! But I think there are a lot of people that don't have mental illness, so to speak, but are also not well. Let's call it mild depression. And let's talk about it. 

I'll go first... in 2001 I was super stressed at my job and had some relationship issues that were making me sad and I was just out of sorts. And when I shared that I wasn't feeling great I downplayed it so no one really took me seriously because by nature I was a mostly a happy person. I was the one others came to tell there problems to. Only after I got into a car accident did I finally start to take the issue seriously. At first I tried medication which took the edge off but wasn't really what I needed so I got a therapist and did some real work on myself. 

It snapped me out of the funk enough so that even when the next year a bunch of things started going wrong that were out of my control (deaths, breakup, job change) I was able to cope. One big breakthrough I had came during a weekend seminar I took when I noticed that if I was in a good state my shoulders were relaxed and I could breath normally and when my shoulders were off so was I. At that moment I knew I would never let myself get that stressed and exhausted again. So now whenever I catch myself getting super tense or feeling off I can reset myself because I know how to think my way through the anxiety.

Recently a few friends have come to me sharing that they are having a hard time with this issue or that and when I suggest that they either go talk to a doctor or a therapist they resist. 

We don't have to be mentally ill to kick our mental health up a notch. This can mean everything from evaluating our sleep habits, alcohol consumption, stress levels, unhealed childhood trauma... whatever it may be.

Here's the thing, depression sneaks up on you. Depression doesn't mean someone has mental illness, per se, it might just mean they are exhausted, that there is real stresses they need help with, that there might be a nutritional or hormonal issue that might be wearing on their body. Who knows?  

What I do know is that people die if they don't take care of themselves. If depression goes untreated it can lead to physical illness and further mental issues and for a couple people I've known even suicide. It's not something to just ignore. 

So how are you? Really?

If you haven't been your best please at least get some more rest. If that doesn't help tell someone you aren't doing great and see if you can get some advice from a professional. 

Don't live your life numb or sad or not well. People who care about you are busy with their own lives but I assure you they would want you to stop them and ask for help because they want you well. The burden on your friends and family doesn't come from getting you help it comes with dealing with someone they care about who won't get help. 

And if someone is caring and brave enough to share that they are concerned about you please don't brush them off or be embarrassed or ignore their concerns. If they notice you're not you lately take that as a cue to check in with yourself and see if now might be a good time to get a physical and maybe reassess where you are with other life matters. 

We all deserve a good life! That won't always mean sunshine and rainbows but if you're not good-- get help. I want us all to be well so we can partake in the joy of life :)