Planning for Self Care
Episode 006
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to the Plan for Wonder Podcast. I’m Crystal, the talking head, founder, and creator of myLifePlanners.ca.
“Just when I thought I was out. They pull me back in!”
This classic quote is from “The Godfather” and has appeared as my mantra this week. The ‘they’ is my period. And after 75 days, I was hoping I was finally getting to the end of my peri-menopause cycle of chaos.
I yearn for the days when I no longer have to manage through two weeks every month in physical chaos.
It’s annoying! Imagine a person sitting next to you, pinching your arm at varying degrees of pain, and you still have to focus on what you are in the process of doing.
But nope, she has come back in a fury of headaches, anxiety, aches and cramping. All in the middle of a week, I don’t have the luxury to pause, rest, and curl up to wade out the storm.
Did you know ⅓ of the female population is currently with me on this (1.3 Billion - 15% of the world)? And another 1.3 Billion women are managing through normal fertility monthly period flow and pains. So there is 30% of the world can relate to the interruption that simply having female organs has one’s day-to-day routines and expectations.
But the same challenge comes whether your back goes out, you get hit with the flu, you wake up under a blanket of mental depression or anxiety, you are managing an annoying cold, or your not-so-friendly migraine visits unexpectedly as well.
When it comes to goal setting and planning strategies, we rarely, if ever, come up with Plan B’s for when the shit hits the fan and our deadlines don’t care about our health or situation. So, we must step up and ensure we have pre-determined self-care tactics to quickly gear down and up as we manage whatever life throws at us.
Is it kismet that it all happens right when I have less than two weeks to push through a month’s worth of project work? So, how am I managing and also not managing the situation well?
I am thankful that I reduced my meeting availability to 15 hours three days each week. This has allowed me to focus my open time on doing creative work and is also flexible for me when I need to manage through personal care. Less commitment means more commitment to myself and my vision for how I live my life.
Avoid over-scheduling. Just because you have the ‘time’ open in your schedule doesn’t mean it should be filled. In fact, every time you add a meeting to your calendar, confirm that it’s needed and limit the time if you can. Don’t give every meeting an hour of your day. Make them 15-20 minutes if you can, with 10-15 minutes between meetings to allow for overflow and perhaps micro-breaks for yourself to pause and reset for each.
Be honest. When life has thrown you for a loop, be honest with your clients, employers, family and others needing your attention that you are under the weather. Share the responsibility of demands. Allow them to work with you to clarify what needs to be done now and what can be rescheduled.
Your space in life is precious, so treat it as such. Avoid getting caught up in someone else’s emergency. Create boundaries around the space you hold in this world. The opinion that if something is important, you make the time for it can be a detriment to the impact you want to make in and around your life.
Be kind to yourself. I think this is the most important one. Instead of binging on Dr. Who, use that time to have a warm bath, take a cat nap, and rest both the body and the mind for full benefits.
This is where I have been focused as I have been managing the unexpected visit of Ms Period. I have learned to respect my body’s needs for rest and kindness when migraines, cramping pain, and emotional de-regulation are out of my control. I adjust my expectations to meet where I am and what I can offer at the time. I may only have 40% to give one day, but that means I’m giving 100% of what I have to give. So, I am running at full throttle.
I am making adjustments and focusing on progress over perfection. For example, I usually have this podcast written and recorded by Thursdays and then scheduled to be released on Sunday. But this week, I have had to flex, so I’m using the quiet hours on a Saturday morning before my family emerges, sitting down at our dining room table typing away and instead of setting up at my office desk under the cover of a blanket with my fancy microphone to record, I’m using the Voice Memo app on my phone.
I’m consciously making an effort to focus on good enough right now. And this is not an easy thing to do. I’m sure you can relate. When you know you can do better, you want to do better. But sometimes doing enough is the better you need now.
So, on a tough day, I use the myLife tools to flush out priorities, determine what needs to happen today, and decide what can be rescheduled to another day and time. myLife tools are my worksheets to manage my day-to-day, and they will never be pretty or perfect. What really matters is the results of what you put your energy into each day. What makes the impact you strive to work towards?
So if and when life has thrown you ten-pound rock, I give you permission to dodge it, then nudge it to where you can. Then stop and have a nap. Pause and reset, then nudge it a little more.
Life isn’t a race to the end. If anything, there should be a multitude of adventures and roadside stops to enjoy along the way. The faster we move forward, the quicker we reach the end because no one gets out alive.
I’d love to hear how you manage through aches, pains, and sickness and still come through the other end. Please comment below.
Thank you so much for being here.
The space you take up in the world matters, not just to me, but even more importantly, if you need reminding, you matter the most in your life.
