It’s been a busy and grinding February for me (as perhaps for most), but as the snow and ice have been thawing, I feel like some long-frozen patterns in me have been thawing as well.
I tend to just go-go-go, keeping on working to tend to my children, housework, job, and all the various details of life. What gets pushed aside, by default, is what I need.
That is the model I was given, growing up, and the programming from my patriarchy-based culture and sacrifice-based religion. That is the pattern that got frozen in me, that I’m now trying to break and thaw.
(My mind makes a connection with the current Epstein files fallout: old, frozen patterns of abuse and secrecy are finally thawing...painfully slowly, but still.)
Back to my here and now: when I’m feeling worn down and burnt out, the question should not be “How can I cope better?” but “How can I radically take care of myself?”
My direction of correction is to do less, let my family members fend for themselves more, and speak up more firmly for my needs.
It’s almost a foreign concept to me to say calmly and clearly (as I have sometimes witnessed another mom I know do), “I need to go lie down now” or “I’m going out this evening”—to just make the necessary arrangements and then go do what I need to do to take care of myself, without explanation or apology.
Of course, this involves learning to even recognize my feelings and needs in the first place. I’m still on a rather remedial level in that area, despite all my thinking and writing about the inner life and such. By default, my mind has no sense of limit to how far I can push myself—no cap on my giving of myself—no innate sense of “no.” There’s just endless giving, serving, and coping.
But my behaviors can provide the clues, if I pay attention (practicing mindfulness/self-observing): as I depicted in my recent “Hold Your No’s” essay, when I notice that I’m sighing or muttering a silent “aaaarrrgh” in response to someone’s request, that means I’m feeling overwhelmed (etc.) and that I need to say no!
Another indicator is to keep an eye on is joy (as I wrote about last week). Joy is the result of being aligned with my feelings and needs, so non-joy means further investigation is needed into how I can take care of myself. If, for example, I’m slaving away feeling stressed, stop as soon as possible and go rest/recreate until I am back in touch with joy.
Of course, real life is messy and imperfect, but this is the general model I’m exploring.
So far, it seems very much like the way to thaw what has been locked up inside me all these years.
My dogs in the thawing winter weather this past week:
Sunday Springs
Just a few section posts last week, all Serenity Splashes:
Oh yeah, I totally understand that feeling, the compulsion to give more and more and more. It's probably easier to fall into that pattern in winter, when everyone is feeling trapped inside. The recent thaw has been doing wonders for me, too. ☀️