Busy and exhausted? I was too!

Last week was a tough one for me. I woke up every night between 3:30 and 4am. My mind would be racing, trying to figure out how the hell I was going to get all the shit done that I had committed to each day. While this may happen to me on occasion, when it happens every day I’m being asked to pay more attention.

You know that feeling when you are totally exhausted but you can’t sleep? That’s was me. I tried every trick in my arsenal to quiet my mind so I could get back to sleep; breathing exercises, body scan meditation, and a brain dump (writing what's on my mind to get it out of my head). Nothing was working; I just couldn't get my mind to quiet down.

At first I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t sleeping. But then it hit me like a Mac truck; I had overextended myself.

I said yes to a few new opportunities, which was awesome. But the yes’s kept coming until my schedule was completely packed. The more I said yes to others, the more I said no to myself. Add on to a packed schedule Dave’s car breaking down and us sharing a car and you have a recipe for complete and utter chaos. 🤦🏻‍♀️😂

As little as 5 years ago, my life looked like this every week. Eventually, the constant busyness made me sick. My body gave me no choice but to slow down.

While I’ve gotten really good at recognizing when I’m over scheduling myself, I sometimes find that I do it anyways. I’m a “yes” girl. I like to be of service to others so that word escapes my mouth a little too often.

My body is really good about letting me know when I'm doing too much and I've gotten really good at listening. I know that I don't ever want to put myself in a situation again where I have to be really sick to pay attention to the fact that I need to slow down.

Last week I felt frazzled, overextended, stressed out, and exhausted. While it was too late to do anything about how I already felt, I knew that if I stopped when I noticed it I could hit a reset button. I did just that; I stopped as soon as I noticed and took a bath.

It sounds like a small thing but a bath is a very clear sign to myself that I am doing something to take care of myself; to put myself on the priority list. It’s exactly how I get myself back on track. I take a small habit that is completely doable and build from there.

As the week came to a close, and so did all of my commitments, my sleep returned again.

We may not be perfect in our habits, but when we recognize we are off track we can stop and reset. It’s that simple. We don’t need to berate or judge ourselves, we just have to begin again.

A little reminder for us all. ❤️