Overwhelm

Overwhelm - to bury or drown beneath a huge mass

This past week has felt more than a little overwhelming.  Overwhelm seems to be a fairly close companion of mine since my concussion.  Life is hectic and my new brain does not seem to adapt as quickly as my old brain did.  This often leads to anxiety attacks and an inability to function - basically the feeling that you are literally drowning.  This week I have managed to keep the later at bay, but just barely...

So what is so overwhelming... 

Well, this is my busiest month for work.  Deadlines are looming (only four more days).  In my business, I do not do taxes but it is my job to make sure that everyone else is ready to do their taxes over the next couple months.  I can see in more than a few instances where I perhaps did not put enough of a focus on work leading up to this month and now I am paying for that as the deadlines loom. 

The next bit of stress is we are renovating our basement.  Not just one room but the whole thing.  My husband is determined to get this done as quickly as he humanly can.  We started in January and I will be shocked if we aren't done within the next 3 weeks.  To put it in perspective, I am not talking about a coat of paint.  We have taken down walls, built new walls, put in new ceilings and flooring.  We are on the home stretch yet we are working on the hardest part at the same time - a bathroom that has been a storage closet for 30+ years and a hallway/office area.  This past week found us with a small pool of water leaking from the shower in the main floor bathroom.  This issue is now fixed but it did cause us to lose an entire day on Saturday and much stress.  I am grateful that we did find the leak exactly when we did.  It was the last moment before we would have had a real mess in the near future.  I am also grateful that things are continuing to progress and a project we have talked about for many years will finally be done (plus it is one of my personal requirements).

That leads to kung fu....  My start this year has been slower than I would like.  Although my requirements come to mind multiple times a day, being pulled in every direction does not always lead to the doing part after the thinking part.  I have continued to poke all of it with a stick but that stick needs to get bigger and harder.  I have also been doing a lot of work with Sifu Hayes on some of my stances, particularly my cat stance and horse stance.  I believe I am making some progress but the old habits keep sneaking back in especially when I am doing forms.  This has been my focus the past few weeks.  I am also starting to really feel overwhelmed looking forward at all that I need to accomplish this year.  I have received all the advice about just do the IHC requirements, come to classes, work hard at home.  I have also received more than a few pep talks (a huge thank you to all my people).  I know that much of this feeling comes from not feeling as prepared as I feel I should right now because I look back at lost opportunities.  I also know that the general state of my life is fueling this feeling.  I suspect that this feeling will linger for much of this year.  I will need to learn how to use it instead of be buried by it.

This is where I am at as of right now.  I know that I must just keep my head down and keep plowing on the work front for the next four days.  I will try to take the lessons I am learning on the aftermath of procrastination into the rest of my life.  I will keep moving forward.  Deep breathe, now carry on!

Consistency In Progress...

This week the plan was to blog about the new routines that I have been working to put into place for a few of my requirements.  I was going to talk about how wonderfully they are starting to work.  Doesn't that sound like a fantastic blog!

Well.....  That blog was meant to be written on Sunday.  It is now Tuesday night.  It appears that my routines are still a work in progress.  Not exactly the message I was hoping to bring forward but the lesson is still ongoing.

One of the routines that I have consistently had in place for several years is still serving me well.  I have a reading goal that I use to centre myself on a daily basis.  This is one of the first things that I do each morning (after I brew my hubbie his pot of coffee).  I curl up with a blanket in a comfy chair with the ipad and I read my Bible.  I have had to refine things over the years to help this habit work.  I use an online app most days so the family ipad is the go to device.  The biggest bonus is that I can't access any of my own texts, emails or social media on this device.  No distractions, just quiet focus where my mind needs to be first thing in the morning.

Another goal that has served me well over the years has been keeping a personal journal.  I have dabbled with the timing on this over the years.  I started out with it as a way to sum up my day.  I found that my journals were often filled with should have/could have negative self talk.  I switched it up to writing in the morning.  This worked well to focus my day and I found that it turned into quite a pep talk.  As awesome as this is, I found it hard to maintain because as good as my intentions are, life seems to happen and it seems to happen early.  If the first part of the morning would get away on me, then I had that sweet quiet moment once hubbie left for work and the kids caught the bus.  That is not my reality any longer with one at home full time so an adjustment was needed.  The past couple weeks I have been writing right after lunch most days.  My sweet girl settles down into a 1/2 hour of quiet reading.  This has proven to be a great time to write and then read with her.

That covers off a few of my goals but there are many more where consistency is proving to be a struggle.  I have discovered the value of get things done earlier in the day as it is very difficult to accomplish everything that has been missed once you are in your fuzzy jammies settling down for the night.  Nights in our home are busy and I am not really a night person.  Early is much better than later.

I find that I also struggle with this time of day called "later".  It is not that I don't think of the things that I need to do throughout the day, I just tell myself that this moment is not a good time and that I will conquer that "later".  Then I find myself reviewing my day in fuzzy jammies trying to figure out why my numbers are not where I'd like them to be.

I am blessed with a great deal of flexibility in how I spend my day.  I am sure many people covet that flexibility.  What I have discovered though is that this flexibility also means my days often lack imposed structure.  To succeed in mastery, there must be a degree of structure.  Since my life lacks imposed structure, it is up to me to develop self imposed structure or simply put routines.  Although I understand this and it really sounds simple, it has proven to be a struggle for me to fully implement.  This is a key focus that I will continue working on this year.  Why?  I want to achieve my goals and the only way that will happen is if I put in the work.

Start Where You Are

The Year of the Pig has been underway for nearly a week.  I have to say that my start has not been strong.  There are a variety of reasons- illness being one of them.  Then there are a pile of excuses - busyness, funk from the delightfully cold weather we are experiencing and just general complacency.  For the past week, I've been poking away at requirements but not with full commitment.

The banquet always helps to give me an attitude adjustment.  Watching the candidates this past year has filled me with mixed feelings.  There is a general sense of awe at how they just nailed every part of their year.  They followed to program laid out before them.  They did not question why they needed to do what was asked, they just did it.  The improvement over the year was incredible to watch.  They may not have been able to see it themselves, but it was evident to those watching their progress.

Then there is this feeling that is hard to define but it is definitely not as comfortable.  I'm not sure how exactly to explain it because it is a mixed up mumble in my own mind.  I know the feeling originates from the disbelief that I too can achieve that level of awesomeness.  I truly question my ability to ever be prepared to grade let alone actually pass.  These feelings come from a high level of respect for all those who have travelled before me mixed in with a heavy dose of lack of faith in my own abilities.

Anyways, back to where I had planned to take this blog...  Start where you are...

A couple weeks ago I was wandering through the library waiting for my girl to be ready to head home and this book title jumped out at me from the shelf.  It was "Start Where You Are".  I initially walked away but something in me kept drawing me back so finally I decided to just sign it out.  I have not really had the chance to get very far with it but the initial message is one that I needed right now.

Life is a journey.  Right now I am just starting out on the road that I hope will lead to grading day in the fall.  Part of me is looking backward with regret.  I should have started preparing earlier...  If only I had done a better job with my Dog year requirements...  I should have's and if only's are really only good from making me feel badly about myself.  They do not spur me on or inspire.  What I have been doing the past week is working to first acknowledge exactly where I am right now and then to accept it.  I have found the acknowledgement part far easier than the acceptance part, if I'm being honest.  It is only from the place of acknowledging and accepting that I can truly make a plan to progress forward in a meaningful way - to start where I am - not where I wish I was.

This week I have set the goal to be mindful about where I am and what I need to be doing not just in that day but in that moment to keep inching forward.  The new black belts have shown all of us that what we need to do is just follow the program.  My plan is to be able to blog next week saying that I have not only followed the program but have managed to make up some of the lost ground from this week.  You would think after being on the team for so many years that this would be easy, but I am finding that the longer I am on the team, the harder it is proving to be.

On a side note...  My weapon came in the mail on Friday!  I am ridiculously giddy about how pretty it is...  Sorry Mr. Sollinger...  I promise I will do my best to make it look pretty mean instead of just plain ole pretty.