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I've had a rough week. I've been battling with feeling down emotionally and since my blog is more about positivity than being an online journal I chose not to write as much, or as in yesterday's case - not at all, until I was feeling better, which I am today.
It was a lot of little things and a lot of no good reason at all things that had me down. Things like the house being a mess or pressing work deadlines or not being able to find my calendar. Things that I let take power over me. I gave my control over to them and felt helpless. At least I knew what was going on and gave it a good fight to not let it win.
Have I mentioned how smart my son Jacob is? He's seven and wise beyond his years. Last night after the kids were in bed I was going through the kid's backpacks and I realized that I had forgotten to pack Gracie's snack AGAIN that day. I've done it at least four times in the month that she's been in school. I know it's a little thing and the teacher's have snacks on hand when this happens, but this is one of those things that I beat myself up over.
I was down on myself, giving my forgetfulness the power over my emotions. I went in to say something to Jacob and mentioned to him that I forgot her snack again and he should help me remember it in the morning. And then he said something profound. He said:
"Why don't you just pack it now?
Smile. I told him he was right, hugged him and went and packed some pretzels and put them in her bag.
Here's what I took from Jacob's little nugget of wisdom. If I'm feeling down; if I'm feeling like I'm not in control; if I'm feeling like my power is gone - I need to do something about it RIGHT THEN to get that power pack.
And that's what I did today.
I am a list maker, but I took it a step further at work today. I made a list of things that I wanted to accomplish each hour at work. When I succeeded in reaching that hour's goals I felt a sense of pride. When I saw that I was running behind on my goals the next hour I worked harder. When I left work today I felt a sense of relief and control and turned off my light on my clean office.
Every morning when I leave for work and turn on my van headlights I beat myself up for letting another day go by without getting my right headlight fixed. It's been out for four months now. When I got to work this morning I e-mailed my dad and asked if he could fix it. He said of course. I went over to his house after Zumba tonight and ten minutes later I had a new headlight. All those months of giving myself a hard time fixed by doing something about it right now!
My missing calendar. I could have easily gone to bed with it still missing. But I decided the first thing I would do when I got home from work would be to find it before doing anything else. On the way home I figured out where it probably was and when I got home I was right - it was in box of stuff that I had thrown under the kitchen desk. With my calendar in hand I was able to rsvp to a couple of parties now knowing what our family schedule was. Control was back in my court.
I know these are all little things, but for me it's the little things that count. They build up and every little bit of positivity helps me get my power back over my mood and my emotions. When I got home from my parent's house tonight I walked in the door and saw that Jim had cleaned the family room and kitchen. I felt a wave of relief come over me. It's just so less stressful when the house is clean.
I'm feeling a lot better and now if I have something that starts to get me down I'll just do something about it right then to make it better.
I'm proud to say that even though I had a rough week emotionally I was totally in control with my food and exercise. I still tracked and worked out as planned. I think it actually helped me hold it to together. It was the one thing I had total power over and I wasn't about to give it up.
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