Learning Not to "P" on Your Relationships
Do you ever become gripped with indecision and fear?
Do you ever get overwhelmed?
What do you do about it?
If it's not writing you're blocked from, can you call it creativity block?
That's what it feels like for me right now. And has for some time.
I woke up Sunday morning at 3 a.m. feeling overwhelmed with passionate work projects, personal relationship communication issues and cluttered home along with dragged-in-animal-dirt-leaves-and-hair piles. In the past I've been disconnected from this feeling of overwhelm instead giving into extreme stress, pushing myself harder to be superwoman, and taking it out on the people around me. Not this time.
This time I identified what was happening then quickly went into practicing afew self-care rituals that always help. I offer them to you today if you are feeling overwhelmed, blocked or fearful in any area, so you can manifest internal Peace, the only real "P" you want to see mirrored back to yourself through your relationships.
Just sit and breath. Take big full belly breathes allowing your belly to expand and contract. If you don't know if you're doing this, put your hand right above your navel and feel your belly expand.
Journal, even if it's just for a brief bit, to name the feeling.
Take a cue from the 12-step philosophy of "just for today." Know that you can handle anything for the next 24 hours. If that is too long, have a plan for the next hour or half hour or 15 minutes. Break your time into manageable increments.
If you don't have a calming ritual, start one. Start with something small. Five minutes. Fortunately, I do have a prayer and daily reading ritual so I did this and as ALWAYS one of the the messages was exactly what I needed to hear. This particular morning the actual quote was from a book titled, "Just for Today."
Continue to sit and practice more deep breathing. I did this in the calm quiet of the 5 a.m. silence.
Meditate. If you don't have a meditation practice, consider lighting a candle and just watching it flicker for 5 minutes and whenever you find your thoughts wandering, just think "thinking" and gently go back to focusing on the candle flame. I meditated for 20 minutes while keeping my attention on my in and out breathes.
The piles, projects and personal issues (three destructive "p's") didn't miraculously go away, but my automatic response of feeling overwhelmed by them did so they didn't run my brain or body any longer—or affect my relationships.