Value of Daily Balance
It is a three day weekend, due to President's Day. My wife and I are house sitting for some close friends, while they are away on vacation with their family for winter break.
I am very grateful to have several days off to be quiet, sit, and process my thoughts. Yesterday we meditated in the afternoon. I didn't hear anything, but received the thought about the value of balance in one's life.
My previous week submerged me in a sea of of emotions, due to tremendous stress at work, family, and tragedy in the state of Florida. The details of the stress and tragedy are not necessary to delve into. More importantly, it is how I delt...or better yet, how I didn't deal with all the news and stress.
When hit with multiple stressors this past week, instead of using a method that I developed to manage such situations, I chose to revert back to my old habits, which don't serve me well. These habits were learned when growing up in my family. They are the following: To not acknowledge and feel your feelings. To not talk about your feelings, if you did happen to allow yourself to feel. To not process your feelings in the moment with those close to you. To not pause for reflection on the situation. Rather, to just pull yourself up by your bootstraps, bare and grit the pain, shake it off, in order to move forward and get the work done. As a result of these old and well practiced habits, my feelings get bypassed, leaving with me either criticizing and judging myself and/or those around me. The danger of unresolved internal anger can lead to depression. Furthermore, If one doesn't have the opportunity or make the time to feel one's feelings or state one's needs, it leads to daily life stress tipping the scales of balance.
In spite of me eating healthy, exercising, meditating, and doing Reiki on a daily basis, my scales of balance were still tipped towards too little self-care. I was not exploring my feelings over multiple days of extreme stress. I was avoiding the really hard work. I have discovered over the years it is way easier to talk about one's feelings and listen to others advice. Unfortunately, I have only found the latter process to serve me well, after I have done the hard work first on my own. To sit quietly, feel one's raw feelings, and process them on paper or computer, is way more challenging. To wade through the murk and fog of actions that are causing emotional reactions within, and somehow come out the other side making some sense of it all. All of this creates change, growth, and allows one to move forward. This is the hard work that needs to be addressed, rather than have it be suppressed.
So, for me to keep moving forward in a healthy manner, in spite of times of extreme stress, I need to head the warning of balance-giving to others and exploring feelings, especially when things do not workout for the best.
I am very grateful to have several days off to be quiet, sit, and process my thoughts. Yesterday we meditated in the afternoon. I didn't hear anything, but received the thought about the value of balance in one's life.
My previous week submerged me in a sea of of emotions, due to tremendous stress at work, family, and tragedy in the state of Florida. The details of the stress and tragedy are not necessary to delve into. More importantly, it is how I delt...or better yet, how I didn't deal with all the news and stress.
When hit with multiple stressors this past week, instead of using a method that I developed to manage such situations, I chose to revert back to my old habits, which don't serve me well. These habits were learned when growing up in my family. They are the following: To not acknowledge and feel your feelings. To not talk about your feelings, if you did happen to allow yourself to feel. To not process your feelings in the moment with those close to you. To not pause for reflection on the situation. Rather, to just pull yourself up by your bootstraps, bare and grit the pain, shake it off, in order to move forward and get the work done. As a result of these old and well practiced habits, my feelings get bypassed, leaving with me either criticizing and judging myself and/or those around me. The danger of unresolved internal anger can lead to depression. Furthermore, If one doesn't have the opportunity or make the time to feel one's feelings or state one's needs, it leads to daily life stress tipping the scales of balance.
In spite of me eating healthy, exercising, meditating, and doing Reiki on a daily basis, my scales of balance were still tipped towards too little self-care. I was not exploring my feelings over multiple days of extreme stress. I was avoiding the really hard work. I have discovered over the years it is way easier to talk about one's feelings and listen to others advice. Unfortunately, I have only found the latter process to serve me well, after I have done the hard work first on my own. To sit quietly, feel one's raw feelings, and process them on paper or computer, is way more challenging. To wade through the murk and fog of actions that are causing emotional reactions within, and somehow come out the other side making some sense of it all. All of this creates change, growth, and allows one to move forward. This is the hard work that needs to be addressed, rather than have it be suppressed.
So, for me to keep moving forward in a healthy manner, in spite of times of extreme stress, I need to head the warning of balance-giving to others and exploring feelings, especially when things do not workout for the best.
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