January 2019

Whew, guys. This week is a doooooooozy. The New Year started off a little easy-breezy for me, but this week it ramped ALL THE WAY UP (to quote the great Fat Joe). Work is cray, but my personal life feels like it’s running off the rails even worse. What was supposed to be a quick, nearly-free two-day trip to Reno turned into a super expensive three-day trip that involved a hotel booked at the last minute, a snowstorm and a crazy six-hour white-knuckle drive home that required that purchase of snow chains that we never used. To top it all off,  I forgot my purse at a Jack-in-the-Box somewhere in Sacramento and didn’t realize it was forgotten until the next morning as I was scrambling to get to my dermatologist on time to have a nickel-sized hole (!!!) cut in the back of my ear to remove a basal cell carcinoma. By the time I realized what was up, I had some sketchy charges at a liquor video store, had nearly funded someone’s massive trip to Walmart and was out my ID, car keys and several debit and credit cards.

Woot. Woot.

I’m doing my best to take it all in stride and I really, honestly and truly am handling all of this much better today than I would have even a year ago. I intend to write a massive post on what I think of self-care in the age of Instagram and face masks, but I wanted to quickly jot down a couple of the habits/ways I’m dealing that I am finding massively helpful getting through this week. My hope is that some of this will be helpful for you, too.

• Triaging my life. You know what triage is? Basically, it’s the way that places like the ER determine how they are going to address all of the people who need their help. I’m doing this relentlessly in my life right now. I’m only doing the things that are important right this minute. Sounds obvious, I know, but it’s majorly helpful for me. Things that I normally would do, like going to the grocery store, getting my nails filled, responding to all my emails, doing laundry are just not happening right now and I’m cool with it. I’m also triaging the urgent things, too. I only focus on what I must do next. Anything else, I put it on a list and decide what to tackle once I get through the current thing. The overwhelming feelings are debilitating for me, so I remind myself that I can only do one thing at a time and keep my focus on the one thing as much as possible.
• Send out lifelines. I’m sending out the signal left and right this week. I told my boss I’m overwhelmed and set some expectations and asked him to scale back some of his asks. I asked Keith for help with certain things. I postponed anything non-essential on my meeting lists. I’m going to call my mom who is visiting this weekend and let her know that I won’t be able to be super host. You’d be surprised how much the people who love you or who work with you are willing to help if you just ask for help. I really wonder why it took me 33 years to figure this very basic life skill out.
• Relentlessly prioritizing me. Normally, my self-care routine would fly out the window in this time of stress. I would under and over eat, cancel exercise and skimp on sleep. Right now, I’m forcing myself to get adequate sleep. For me, that is the bedrock for balanced emotion. If I don’t sleep, I lose a lot of my ability to regulate my own emotions. I also didn’t cancel my training session today. I showed up for myself and I feel so much better for having done so. Even writing this post is my way of prioritizing myself. Lastly, eating with regularly is major. Trying not to let myself get too hungry is key because it stops me from binging on all of the food and making choices that don’t honor my health.
• Meditation. I know, here I go. I sound like such a hippie, but starting my morning off with just ten minutes of quiet and a few minutes jotting in my gratitude journal has made a huge difference. It feels less like life is coming at me. I’m not perfect at quieting my mind, but just having the intention of sitting quietly before I jump in the melee makes me feel more controlled. It also helps at night when I can’t stop my thoughts from racing. I had trouble sleeping the other night and I did this guided meditation and it put me right to sleep.
• Keeping some Perspective. Not to minimize my own experience, but I know that in a month or even a week, all of this stuff will be just a blip. I’ll get my cards and my keys replaced. I’ll find a way to get the work done. I won’t lose my job if I don’t do it all perfectly. My family will survive if we eat more take-out than usual this week. It feels enormous in this very moment, but it’s really nothing in the grand scheme of life.

What do you guys think? Any tips to add? PLEASE share because I’m constantly searching for ways to do this stuff better. I don’t pretend to have it all figured out by any means, so I want to know alllll of your advice.