Day 266 - A Time to Focus on Being Rather than Doing

When I was a little girl I loved school. it made me a little nervous sometimes because I didn't always feel like I lived up to my teacher's expectations, but all in all, school was a good place for me. When I became a teacher, the classroom felt like home and I did my best to meet the needs of the students in my room. As my career bloomed and expanded, I found myself in front of a classroom full of adults and that felt comfortable, too. I feel like I have always been either a teacher or a learner. And it is more true in my every day life than it has been in a classroom. It's what life is about - big lessons and small ones in all shapes and sizes, some expected and others a complete surprise. There are lessons I learn easily and others that seem to come back and have to be considered again. Sometimes it's because I didn't learn the lesson well and other times I needed to learn my lesson deeper or in a new situation. I am open to learning new ways to manage my life, my feelings and my circumstance. I am far from perfect, but I can observe and appreciatete how far I've come.

Not a single one of us escapes life's tough lessons. The trick is to be open to the learning, growing, changing, evolving and expanding that those lessons bring. When I fight the tough lessons and stubbornly stick to my old ways, I only get to experience the lesson again. Same stuff, different day. As I look back I can see that there have been patterns of choices that didn't serve me well, and I finally got miserable enough to change. Then there are situations where I embraced growth because it feel so fantastic to find a new way to deal with my life. I guess I'm being a bit vague here, but I'm not looking to turn this into a soul revealing therapy session. What I am working on in my own head is the possibility that I can change some habits of mind and help this fibro thing to loosen its grip on me. I can think out of the box and maybe start to nourish my soul so my body can heal. I met with a fella today and we were talking about how my stress level has contributed to my health issues and particularly my adrenal fatigue and the fibro. He had some thoughts that were interesting to me.

Our bodies were not built to handle ongoing, unrelenting stress. It releases toxins that weaken our immune systems and causes a host of other health problems. Not a good combination. Stress has been a huge issue for me and I thought I was doing enough to balance out the negative effects. Guess I missed the mark by a bunch. Since I am on this medical leave, I want to make sure I do everything I can to restore my health and today I had a great conversation about some strategies I haven't tried. I was open to learning and exploring new possibilities. I need to design time for rest that is stress-free. No television, no computer, no phone. Just time to be quiet and contemplative. I don't do well with chaos and I need to create peace. I love nature and animals and mountains and the ocean. I love beautiful art and antiques and I love music that lifts my spirits. I love children's paintings and the nighttime sounds of summer, My time away from work needs to include the things in life that are beautiful and soothing. I know that silence is a healer and also think that beauty has something to teach me, and I am a willing learner. So during these coming weeks I will quietly surround myself with beauty and quiet and relish the being rather than the doing.