Taking Care of What Matters

It’s taken me a while to write this blog. Since my last post in March of this year, I have drafted several others, which I never got around to publishing. The timing has just never felt right based on everything that was happening.

And though I know that COVID and everything that the pandemic has wrought is a completely valid excuse, I’m also keeping myself accountable where it matters.

Early on I realized that there was an underlying and unspoken anxiety that accompanied this pandemic and affected most of us, regardless of whether we actually contracted the virus or not.

It was just the tension around all the uncertainty that the pandemic brought with it and especially the upheaval it’s caused to the lives of so many people. Being expected to function, like normal and perform at the highest level at work and in life, is not as easy as it seems.

Awakening

My own eye opener came just about 7 months after the beginning of this whole thing, when I started to feel generally unwell. No, I hadn’t contracted COVID but all that pent up anxiety and the lethargy it set off within me, finally caught up.

For some people, they have been coping by exercise and generally making an effort to be more active. That however, has not been my coping strategy and instead I simply threw myself into work and tried to be as occupied as possible.

While I remained aware of the underlying anxiety, I never fully owned up to the ripple effects it was causing in other areas of my life which mushroomed over time.

So when I finally decided to visit my doctor and I received a blood pressure reading that was too high for comfort, I knew that something had to give. The visit also forced me to acknowledge that I had not been sleeping as well as I should. The result of all this was a cascade of small maladies that pretty much meant that I was doing myself a disservice, the opposite of self-care.

Getting There

I’m already taking corrective measures which includes taking proactive steps to get better quality sleep, I’ve altered my eating habits, started an exercise routine in the gym and I now make deliberate efforts to actually relax more.

That said, I have also started to take stock of some of the other aspects of my life that I can control. There are a few things that I have become much more intolerant of during this time.

Protecting my Peace

Now more than ever I am fully invested in protecting my peace from people, places, emotions and things that could possibly heighten my stress levels or otherwise make me uncomfortable.

I’m a bit more sensitive to people in my life who selfishly try to fill my well with their issues while never considering or even seeking to find out about the load I may be carrying. I am a limited resource and therefore, I will not allow others to use me up.

Self-care is as much about eating well and relaxing as it is about ensuring that the energy that I surround myself with is just right.

Reading has always been escapism for me, but now even more so because my mind seems to always be ON. Slowly plodding my way through books has been a respite and though sometimes television time steals some of that time, I’m recalibrating the balance needed.

Patience all around

Probably the greatest lesson I’ve absorbed this year, is the importance and value of being patient and gentle with myself, more tolerant even. With the world just doing its best to survive in this very weird and troubling time, it does not work in my favour to torture myself about my perceived shortcomings.

I did a few online courses and they were helpful but this idea that I needed to use this moment to become something else, betrayed the fact that just by doing my job and so much more, during a difficult time, is in itself an accomplishment.

I’m happy to be on the mend but the important thing about this shift is that it feels like it’s the big one that I will actually stick with.

Pray me up.

Be inspired, Be informed, Be Glorious!

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