Sooo. my dog wakes me up this morning. Not with sweet wimperings at my door. Ooooh no. With loud, angry, boastful barks.
Confused, I look at my phone to check for the time. What?!? It’s 9:08am?!?!? Holy shit, how did I sleep in that long?
My foggy and slightly panicked eyeballs notice a text. It’s from the restoration company rep. The one from the company I called to help me with the damage that stemmed from the leak from a recent burst pipe in my house.
“Workers are going to come in and do some repair work on your house in about an hour.”
She texted that….about an hour ago.
Craaaaap!
Well…that explains the barking.
I get up, fully decked out in my PJ’s. I scramble to get Remi out in the backyard. I rush to the front door to greet the workers who must be rolling their eyes at the absurdity of a grown ass woman who couldn’t be bothered to get out of bed until what is now 9:15am. “Must be nice” I am sure they are thinking.
P.S. I have a zit on my face the size of an un-podded sugar-snap pea. That’s not embarrassing at all.
I scramble across the furniture (which is all set into one pile because…well half my floors are getting de-molded, dehumidified and re-put-back-together…so I have to keep my crap all in one section of the still walkable flooring.)
The men, outside, are polite and friendly. I let them in and apologize for the wait (and promise them that my very vocal pup is safely blocked in the backyard).
That’s how my morning starts. TGIF indeed.
I bustle around, trying to get ready for work, quickly, because I was supposed to be there ohhh….30 minutes ago, now?
I throw a couple of protein bars in my lunch box. I whip up a fruit and veggie smoothie to take on the go. Grab some coffee. Grab my absurd quantity of supplements (#neurotichealthcoach). Grab my purse, keys, coat, hat….you know the drill.
Then, I’m on my way.
When I get to my office, I try and get myself organized. How about I start with a to-do list? That always makes me feel more in control. More focused. I start writing up a list….and it is at this point that I realize things have gotten a little out of hand.
Right now, as I write this post, I have…
- A full time day job (I work at the local hospital as a health educator)
- A podcast for highly sensitive people
- A blog for highly sensitive people
- An unfinished book I’m writing for highly sensitive people
- A new supplements business I am acting as a sales person for…aimed at helping people with stress…and which I am hoping will help my fellow highly sensitive people
- A house that has had a leak in the crawl space which somehow led me to needing to rip apart 50 percent of it so I can de-mold, demoisten, and renovate.
- A boyfriend that I haven’t seen in two weeks because my life is chaos and he lives an hour away
- A dog (her name is Remi, but if you asked her, she would tell you her name is princess Remi)
- A cat (Sasha…but she would likely go by “your royal highness Queen Sasha)
- A circle of friends (one of whom is kind enough to have offered up her washer and dryer while I live without mine for the duration of the renovations…which are apparently going to take sometime between 6 weeks and infinity)
- An MBSR certification I’m working on (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction…I’m looking to become a certified meditation instructor. Ironeeeeeeeee!)
I want to be clear, here. That’s a pretty easy looking list for most folks out there. I don’t have children. I am still employed. I no longer have to work a full time job and go to grad school (been there, done that. No more, thank you).
Still…it’s a bit MUCH. At least – it seems like a bit much for me.
I feel like I’m hustling…which is often called for in this world. But what is catching my attention and causing me some concern is… it feels like I may be hustling unnecessarily.
I once sat at a presentation given by an exercise trainer. He was a guest speaker for a class I was facilitating. He told the group that no matter how much we exercise, it will always feel hard. He gave an example. He and his wife started cycling together. Months went by. They went up the same hill over and over and over again. One day, she turned to him and said “WHY DOESN’T THIS EVER GET EASIER!?!?!” He turned to her, half chuckling, and said “Hon…have you figured out, yet, that you are going up this hill twice as fast?”
His point was this: we naturally seem to gravitate to our threshold. That’s true with exercise. It also appears to be true in life. It’s part of our nature.
That seems to hold water. I seem to repeatedly find myself flirting with my saturation point. I’m constantly trying to keep myself in the sweet spot of feeling engaged and excited by life…but without feeling exhausted and burned out by it.
Just so you know…I’m now RIIIIIIGHT on that threshold. Maybe I need to take a breath.
The trouble is…as a coach…I really like having goals. I like striving toward something. I value growth and am always looking for ways to improve…improve my heart rate variability…improve my sleep score…improve my income status…
But here is something I sometimes forget. Goals are great. So long as I’m not identified with them. Which is to say…it’s fine to want to get someplace, so long as I enjoy the route I’m taking to get there AND am aware that once I get there, I’m just going to choose another destination. Another project.
There is no finish line.
Okay…that’s not true. Death is the finish line. But who is in a hurry to get there?
So I sat down and decided to take some time and just ….ponder. I like visualizations. They can be kinda fun. So I asked myself “if I could wave a magic wand and transport myself where I would like to be…what would that look like? How would I be spending my time? What would be different about my surroundings?”
And something really interesting happened. I realized…I’m already there. I have a home. Sure – it’s a hot mess right now…but…DAMN. I have a home. There were times in my life where that wasn’t a given. I did my fair share of “I don’t know where I’m sleeping tonight” in my life. Right now? I know where I’m sleeping tonight. Would I like a neater home? Maybe a larger home that has a big backyard and no neighbors that can see into my bedroom window? Yeah. Sure. That would be cool. But do I need one? Not really.
I have a job that I thoroughly enjoy. I worked my ass off to position myself such that I could work in a field I enjoyed and make a livable wage doing it. I love the people I work with (the kind of people who don’t mind letting me show up 30 minutes late and work 30 minutes late to make up for it).
I have a calling. I wanted to find a way to help other highly sensitive people create lives that make them feel excited and engaged without have to exhaust themselves in the building of it. You are reading some of the fruits of my labor.
I have people in my life who are happy to open their doors to me and let me use their washer and dryer when I don’t have one because…ooops! I don’t have pipes right now!
At what point am I going to feel like it’s enough?
Oh…right…I guess I could do that like…right now.
I wonder how many people get caught in this little mind trap….the one where they think they need to always be hustling before they can sit back and appreciate what is going right.
I still have a shit-ton of things on my to-do list right now. But I felt called to write, instead. I’m not worried about it. Because that to-do list will still be there when I get back.
Here is something I hope you find some time to do, today…just for yourself. Take a moment and consider everything that is going right for you. (Hint…if you’re breathing ….there is already more right with you than wrong with you).
Ask yourself – do you feel like you are enough? Just as you are? Even as you keep moving toward your goals and your aspirations…is what you have worth celebrating right now?
Then ask yourself…what is something you could do that would bring you a measure of joy? Right now? In my case, I decided it was writing. I love to write. That seemed like a delicious way to celebrate my crackpot state of mind.
What’s yours? Is it a chapter in a good book? Is it a moment to sit still? Is it a call to a friend?
Go do it. Right now.
Because your to-do list isn’t going anywhere. It can wait a few minutes.
And if you find yourself feeling guilty because you didn’t get everything “done” just stop.
Is it enough, yet?
I’m telling you it is. You are enough. Just as you are. Go celebrate you.
