I’ve had a rough couple of weeks.
Dealing with menopause, family sickness, catching colds and having to take time off. When I have to take time off, the wheels of the family start to wobble. It causes a bit of a ricochet effect where the systems I rely on stop working because I can’t operate them, and everyone just gets a little more stressed than usual.
And – it’s not just me. My life is very community oriented and I talk to a lot of different people in a day: the school mums, Playcentre folk, my gym buddies, my yoga teachers, my physio, my hairdresser etc. etc. We all seem to be experiencing the same thing: things are a little crazy right now. Everyone’s stressed, emotions are heightened, the energy around the place seems, just, chaotic. I don’t know if it’s the full moon, or because the sun has put out more radiation than usual recently (apparently).
In the last few weeks, I’ve had to endure so many professional mistakes made by others (mainly, if I’m honest people working in the health system, but also people who make the mall-smoothies) which have caused no end of inconvenience and time wasting. People are stressed, they’re dropping the ball, and the ricochet effect is very real. It affects all of us.
My stress mountain peaked, my nervous system got overloaded as it sometimes does before I could stop it, and, like any train wreck, it kept going until it crashed. I’m on the other side of that crash now, recovering well. The trick is, each time this happens, is to get better at understanding HOW it happens, and to catch any signs at their earliest stage and nip them in the bud, heal them, let go of the triggers. Perhaps I should be better at this than I actually am? My nervous system is an interesting beast, robust but also sensitive, and I get to know it a little better every time this happens.
The other thing is, that there are simply things beyond my control.
Hmmm.
That’s a hard one for us A-types, isn’t it?
If we really think about it, most things are beyond our control. As my physio said to me on the table the other day, releasing me from the physical fight-flight I’d been stuck in, she profoundly said: You can’t control, but you can make choices.
This felt like relief for me.
When you grow up with an underdeveloped sense of an internal locus of trust (i.e.you can’t trust yourself) you overdevelop your external locus of control (you try to control outside forces in order to feel safe). I did this.
It’s not easy to let go of control. It’s a life’s work. It’s possible however, to learn to let life happen around you, and continue to be resourced to make the best choices in any given now-moment. I think, this is all we can do.
On the same day, as I waited for my car mechanic to write up my invoice, we had a wonderful coaching conversation. And, in case you were wondering, he was coaching me (he’s a wonderful person). We talked about the pressures of life, how chaotic life can be, and how as much as we intend to clear space and only spend time on the things we actually care about, we often end up “doing shit we don’t want to do at the end of the day”.
I’ve examined this so often in my life. I think I’m probably more boundaried than most people I know. And – this kind of chaos STILL happens. I still get sucked into the societal expectations around me. Because I care about being a good person doing good things, it can derail me at times. The efforts at keeping up with school and kindy themes – Dress Up Week, Move It March, Cyber Safety Evenings etc. etc.etc…. it never ends!
My mechanic said – “at the end of the day, you have to make sure you’re shovelling all the shit out of your life, so that you’re only paying attention to the right shit, the shit you actually care about.”
Yes.
To do this requires a few things:
- Knowing what actually matters to you – your unconscious set of VALUES made conscious. (Values are the things that actually matter to us, the structure of motivation and satisfaction. Often unconscious to people. When you’re aligned with them you feel good, when you’re not, you don’t. Simple.).
- Using these as your guiding compass – always.
- Having the courage to go against societal expectations in order to live out your values. This will piss people off.
- Setting any and every boundary necessary in order to protect these values. This will also piss people off.
- Knowing who your “Penguin Huddle” of people are in your life. The ones that actually matter (i.e. not trying to be all things to all people all the time).
- LETTING EVERYTHING ELSE GO.
What shit are you shovelling? Is it the right kind? Do you know your values? I may run a short values elicitation workshop online, let me know if you’re interested.
Love, Charlotte.