It’s unseasonably warm today and, so far, I’m not really doing the work I had planned to do.
Instead, I’m resting and refreshing.
As in quenching a thirst.
As in reloading a screen so it can reset.
As in a new perspective making you feel better.
In my efforts to get things done ‘before I forget’ and/or not to hyper-fixate on one task and ignore everything else on my list, I often end up treating my day as a series of things to check off.
I end up feeling like the important thing is get things done rather than to enjoy the process of doing them.
I just set a timer so I could relax into reading my book and drinking my tea for 20 mins before getting started on my day’s work.
After a few sips of tea, I suddenly found my mind wandering to my to do list, because I had mentally checked off ‘drink tea.’
That’s not good for me and it’s a waste of a good cup of tea.
I have to find a middle ground between ‘drink tea and read all day’ and ‘take two sips and check it off.’
I end up feeling rushed far too often to do it to myself unnecessarily.
Yesterday was a hard day.
I don’t know if it was the fact that I had slept poorly or the fact that the weather was so grey or the fact that so many of my planned tasks were irksome, but I couldn’t make my brain get things started.
None of my usual get-going techniques worked and I got more and more frustrated.
And it was hard to know whether to try to push myself harder or to find ways to rest and take it easy.
You see, the thing about ADHD is that I can’t always trust signals from my brain.
My lack of enthusiasm for the day might be a sign that I needed more rest or it might be a sign that there was some part of one of my tasks was off-putting to my brain and so it had put the brakes on all my tasks to avoid that one thing.
That makes it very difficult to glibly choose to rest because even though, in general, it’s good to rest it might be the opposite of what I need. And, in fact, resting might make things worse because then the task I don’t even realize I am avoiding is going to seem even more daunting when I return to it.
But if I push myself and it turns out that I do need to rest then I will be even more fatigued and miserable.
And, of course, all of this thinking means I’m going to end up overthinking and over-monitoring what my brain is doing (which is a path to misery in itself.)
So, it always seems like there is no good approach to a bad day and that, in itself, adds to my frustration.
Yesterday, I just tried to take it piece by piece.
I jettisoned anything I could.
I did some reading and some drawing.
I did a little exercise.
I tried to do some work.
I took the dog for a walk.
I made supper.
I met a friend for tea.
I went to bed relatively early.
Today, I feel a lot better so I guess yesterday’s non-plan worked ok.
My TKD classes take a a summer break and I love taking time away from that weekly routine.
I generally don’t need a break from TKD per se, I need a break from having to get to class twice a week at a specific time.
This year though, I also needed the physical break, the time away from the movements.
After the stress and pain around my Dad’s passing in May and the stress of scrambling to catch up on things in June, I needed to just let my body do what it wanted to do at whatever pace it wanted to do it for a while.
Today, though, it was time to get back to those movements and it felt really good.
I just did the first four patterns, relatively easy stuff that my brain and my muscles are very familiar with.
And it was fantastic.
I loved the almost meditative quality of those familiar movements, the ease of just letting my body do something it knows how to do.
And I felt very satisfied with the whole process when I was finished.
Self care for the win.
A few times each year, I go away for a weekend retreat with some dear friends of mine for a few days of writing, rest, and snacks.
I could only join them for one night this time but I am making the most of it.
So far I’ve had great conversations and delicious snacks and now I am doing a little resting before doing some writing.
Every time I come to one of these retreats, I tell myself that I’m going to re-create some of this feeling at home.
So the key for me should be making sure that I revisit these ideas.
Of course, that’s often the problem with my good ideas is that I forget to revisit them.
Let’s hope that the smallness of these ones helps.
