Anyone who has flown commercially has heard the phrase, “Put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others.” This same idea can be applied to our everyday lives; to serve others in a meaningful way, you must first serve yourself. How often do we recognize the need to put ourselves first?
Read MoreSetting goals is an important step on your path to well-being. Understanding and learning to manage the obstacles we will confront along that path prevents them from becoming barriers and allows us to work through them to achieve our goals.
Read MoreFloating when depleted proves to be a strong Rx, a natural one, too. You don’t need to be on an ocean- or river-bound ship to do it, either. Floating, I’ve come to realize, comes in many versions and leads to a more- restive state of mind…
Read MoreI’m depleted. Out of juice. Stopped dead in my tracks. I know I’m not alone. Just saying the words, “I’m depleted” somewhat eases the sense of depletion. I suspect you might know the feeling. The question is: Why does it take so long to admit it? And who do we think we’re fooling?
Like so many of you, I am finely attuned to my body and to my mind. The slightest change in calibration – be it physical, mental, emotional, spiritual - reverberates throughout my integrated system like shock waves. I trust my body and what it communicates, and I trust that I know my body best. I trust myself to make sound decisions that affect my body, mind, and spirit – I trust you to make yours.
What I mistrust? The ubiquitous “I’m fine”, “I’m well”, “I’m good” when someone asks me how I am and when I ask someone else. This mistrust bases itself on my direct experience. If I, your average human being albeit one who possessed huge amounts of energy, feels depleted from time to time, I assume with a high degree of confidence that most other humans do, too.
My depletion flows from a hidden underground spring of challenges, many of which we share. A primary culprit? Two years of coping and then recovering from the pandemic – in the case of MB and me fighting to save a business while facing the worry about loved ones. We’ve heard your pandemic sagas, too: saving your kids from the shock and challenge created from it, working from home (a blessing and a curse), feeling stuck.
Depletion results from so many triggers: grief, worry, overwork, no work, conflict with friends and family members, overeating and undereating, too much exercise and, for most of us, too little. Sometimes the cause slams into us like the fast-moving service vehicle that recently rear-ended my car on the freeway from following too close. When an accident happened in front of me, and I was able to avoid colliding into it because I’d left enough space, the driver behind me had not. Stopped dead in my tracks turned out not to just be a phrase. That impact depleted me in multiple ways and forced me into cutting back my schedule.
I wanted to keep going – this is both an instinct and a learned behavior (“just keep going” being a favorite idiom in many family structures). My head, my neck, my brain, my mind, my heart say otherwise. I’m listening to them. MB said recently and kindly, “My Energizer Bunny is missing in action.”
Stopping for a while, what a notion. It’s in the pause that we find ourselves and our well-being again. I’m working less because those are the doc’s orders as my eyes and brain require time to establish the proper communications patterns between them. In the pause, a secret revealed itself to me: When we finally admit to feeling depleted, healing and rebounding begin. Slowly, the body wants to move again. Carefully, the brain permits trying different approaches to counter the ever-present pounding headache. Mindful that we are energy, we attune to the ebb and flow of it and make different choices.
What if, when you feel depleted, you stopped yourself dead in your tracks? What if, instead of blustering through with the “I’m fine” and “I’m well”, you told the truth – “Right now, I’m pausing for a bit”? Would you, like me, begin to turn a corner into respecting your body, mind, spirt? And if you’re already practiced at this, share your stories.
What I’ve learned from this experience is to honor only that which I am feeling – whatever the feeling is – and pause in it. In the pause a solution reveals itself, whether it’s for rest, action, reflection.
The philosophy of yoga encourages us to “stay in the body”; to find the middle path; to non-harming ourselves and others (ahimsa); to telling the truth to ourselves and others (satya), and to cleanliness toward ourselves and others (saucha), which means to take care with ourselves and others.
Don’t wait for a debilitating shock to your system, for doctor’s orders, for collapse. Admitting to depletion (satya) completes it so we can move forward with the confidence that we know ourselves best. Admitting to depletion is the first step in defeating depletion. Join me.
In yoga and meditation classes, we’re often asked to have the intention of grounding or are cued to ground ourselves. Most of us, correctly, hear those as an invitation to connect more deeply to the earth. What exactly does that mean?
Read MoreThe feeling of happiness moved throughout my body like liquid gold, starting at my heart center. I understood what happiness feels like for me. Because I stayed present the thought was no longer just a thought – it morphed into a physical sensation….
Read MoreWith each passing week, I meet another caregiver caught like me in the “sandwich generation”, people simultaneously taking care of their children and their aging parents. We are stressed doing our very best to support all involved – emotionally, financially, mentally, and physically….
Read MoreIn the introduction to one chapter, Oprah reminds readers (or listeners) that babies come into this world whole and complete. When they begin life without feeling safe, deeply grounded, and rooted into community and culture, however, the effects can be felt throughout their lives….
Read MoreAs we dive deeper into the practice of yoga and start to investigate the philosophies that inform our practice, questions like “Who am I?” emerge. Perhaps who I thought I was isn’t so clear anymore. Perhaps I am letting go of attachments and identifications, and I’m starting to feel differently now. Perhaps as my mind got quieter, I started to see more clearly. Who am I unbecoming?
Read MoreWhen grief comes calling, it rarely arrives alone. Sometimes guilt accompanies it. It’s complicated and many-layered. Sometimes relief does – the innate gratitude that the loved one no longer suffers – and inadvertently triggers more guilt….
Read MorePrior to lock-down, I walked regularly, often with Sally, our Jack Russell/Australian Shepherd mix. I enjoyed our walks (and Sally always enjoys her walks!), often leaving my phone at home, the better to enjoy our time together. Although I was never rushed, and I enjoyed the sights and sounds of nature, there was always “something” to get home to do, a “next thing on the list”, My appreciation and enjoyment were of the “walk-thru” variety, and my mind might often wandered….
Read MoreIt wasn’t always easy to recognize positive outcomes in the age of the pandemic, given the brain’s preference for negative thinking. Especially in the darkest days our community faced together, all I focused on was absorbing the shock of the “unseen enemy” and its relentless assault…
Read MoreDid you know that there’s a self-help tool that’s quick and easy to learn, that you can use anytime, anywhere, and that you can use with just about anything that is challenging you?
Read MoreGrief arrives for many reasons. We often identify the death of a partner, spouse, friend, child, parent, or colleague as the deepest form of grief – and rightfully so. We’ve witnessed the pain of this kind of grief etched on survivors’ faces.
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