Worth Your Time

What is worth your time?

There is so much out there in the world today, and there isn't enough time to do or see it all. Supporting health involves picking and choosing which pursuits are worth spending your time on. It might seem urgent to attend to everything all at once, and it's also a subliminal message of the fast-paced world we live in. Being stretched in many different directions has its limits, however, and can ultimately lead to more stress than you need. It can also hamper enjoyment in what you ultimately spend your time doing.

Being busy is okay, but it's helpful to prioritize what's worth busying yourself over. Are there certain areas of life where you've been craving more action, versus other areas where you'd like to feel more calm and less stress? No need to whip out a big To-Do list to prioritize what you want:  it's helpful to feel it first. Relax and try to picture what types of pursuits you'd like to bring more of your energy to. Leave the doubts and worries out of it for now. Let it be a simple exercise that helps you consider the possibilities of how to spend more of your time, your way.

Time may feel like it's against us sometimes, but often it's asking us to make choices regarding what matters to each of us the most. Time is more than just a number. So, what's worth your time?

Patience Can Help

What is patience?

Patience is valuable in many aspects of life, including health, and it can take practice. Even though it involves waiting, it isn't passive. Even though it can take take time, and often more time than trying to force an outcome to happen, it's not made up of empty time. Patience involves the ability to accept that while not everything is within your control, there are things within reach that you can do to help you get what you want.

Impatience can often set in from the fear that things won't work out, and that if you hurry things up or control situations you can increase the chances. It can be challenging to relax the feeling that everything has to be under control at all times. Fears may arise that it will all fall apart and head in a direction you don't want. Outside of control, life is happening and there's a natural flow to it. That natural flow is more accessible when you invite patience to take part in what's important to you. Will you always know the outcome? No, but the outcome may turn out to be more your style than if you'd decided beforehand how things should turn out.

Patience isn't always the most comfortable feeling in the moment, but in the long run it can help set a healthy pace and rhythm to life and opportunities. It can also give you a chance to clearly picture what you want in life. What areas of life have you felt rushed or impatient about, and how can you breathe more patience into them?

The Feeling: "I don't care..."

Ever had a feeling pop up that sounds and feels like "I don't care"? These moments can feel disconcerting when they do come up, but they're also a part of life and can be valuable to go through. The thought "I don't care" may not be saying you don't care at all, but more so that you're sick of caring about expectations and pressures that don't suit who you are as a person.

Sometimes we can get wrapped up in caring about things that aren't really important to us. Expectations that we place on ourselves can tell us that we should care about A, B, or C. Where did A, B, and C come from? Wherever they came from, if they don't mean something real to your life they can make you feel like you don't care. It's probably because you really don't care about those expectations.

Expectations and requirements that we impose on our lives can also eclipse things that we actually do care about. A, B, and C can send messages that the things we do care about are meaningless in the face of what should be. When "I don't care" comes up, the true wants are bubbling up under the surface waiting to be noticed again. "I don't care" can mean "I do care". . . about parts of life that are being neglected or dismissed in the face of artificially imposed values. It can also be scary to care about real things, because we feel like it will hurt less in case they don't work out.

Next time you have a feeling of "I don't care," try and think of whether you're paying attention to things you don't care about over those things that you naturally do value.

It's Okay to Feel Tired

"Tired" may seem like a nasty 5-letter word in today's world. We come to expect the body to keep up with full work schedules, harrying commutes, family responsibilities, social responsibilities, finances, progression and improvement, and all the worries and anxieties that come along with being a well-rounded human being. Sometimes, the body just has to put its foot on the brakes by making you feel tired. Is this tired feeling evil for making you press pause? Should you just override it and keep going anyway?

If you seek energy in 5-hour, 8-hour, or 12-hour energy bottles, caffeine, or sugar, these temporary bursts of energy aren't real. These quick-fix substances put you on overdrive so you can get through more hours with a level of energy that your body can't keep up with. The backdrop still remains the same---in other words, you're still tired at the end of the day.

It's okay and natural to feel tired sometimes. Blaming yourself for feeling tired or expecting yourself to pick up the energy overnight only rubs salt into the wound. What the body is trying to say during periodic dips in energy is that you need more rest, physically and mental-emotionally---end of the story. It's not trying to tell you that you're not good enough and you need to do better. It's not expecting you to be super human and to find a magical supply of energy somewhere.

When you're feeling tired, don't ask yourself how you can keep up with the Jones's by pushing the body harder. Try and see that your health is talking to you, and it's asking for a break of some sort. Will you give yourself that break, so your energy can start to rise again naturally?

Satisfaction in the Simple

We often seek satisfaction from the biggest and the best in life. We imagine that the bigger and better the experience, milestone, and reward, the more value it will add to our days. Then we look at a cat, happily preening herself in a sunny spot on the carpet, and we wonder how that small action can provide her such satisfaction. Is the cat weird, or are we sometimes out of touch with the satisfaction inherent in the simple?

Simple avenues of enjoyment are all around us, yet we often ignore them while chasing after the big stuff. Why? Sometimes we don't even know because bigger and better seems written into the trends of culture. But if you pay attention, you can feel the body and mind tugging at you to reward yourself with more simple moments like the cat does.

Instead of seeing it as a bummer when you don't have plans on a weekend, it's a perfect opportunity to relish in simple activities. If you enjoy cooking, pull out that unique recipe you've had stored away for months in a kitchen cupboard. Let the process of cooking and eating your food deliver as much reward as you imagine a "big" experience would.

If you want to try your own form of preening, soak your hands in warm water for 15-20 minutes, then massage lotion into them while watching T.V. or listening to music. You could do the same for your feet. Practice a new hair do for no reason at all, that no one will see but you. Re-arrange your closet and notice how your taste has changed over time. Write a short story, even if you've never done it before. Play piano or learn how to play. Make up a new song.

Daily activities like making coffee, washing the dishes, or walking the dog are all simple moments that offer not only satisfaction, but also an anchor during strange or stressful times. Just because you don't get a blue ribbon or trophy for creatively stacking the dishwasher doesn't mean it's an unimportant or useless part of your day. How you approach the simplest moments can influence how you approach other experiences in life, large or small.

This week, let yourself find satisfaction in the simple.

The Blank Page

Imagine pulling your resume up on the computer---and deleting it. Did your brain say "ouch" at the very thought of electronically crumpling up the piece of paper that claims to know everything you're good at and that you should be striving for?

The resume is a handy tool to get a job, and it's also a confining piece of paper that can spark feelings of anxiety, inadequacy, and dissatisfaction. Even without the paper itself, you can see "resumes" metaphorically in how they affect life.

Each of us has roles that we can pressure ourselves to perform perfectly, and sometimes unrealistically. The roles and tasks performed can become larger than the person. The person can drown in the resume. It can feel like nothing's ever enough.

Again, imagine deleting all the lines on the resume page. The lines that talk about being the perfect business person, parent, daughter or son, teacher, worker, student, athlete, human being, and so on. What's left?

A blank page. It may seem like just an empty page, but it stands for a lot more than that. It's potential, free and ready for you to use. How would you fill it if you didn't have to stick with 12-point font, employment history, years worked, qualifications, education, and skills?

There are probably things that you imagine doing from time to time, fleeting thoughts in your mind. Maybe after you imagine them, you're habitually used to scrapping them because there are more important things to do on your resume. Of course the resume is bible...or is it? Maybe you do have space to do the things you've imagined doing. As long as you do them your way. The blank page may not come with directions, but it frees you to go where you've never been.

Just because we use resumes, doesn't mean we have to become them. Try pulling out a blank page, and see what happens.

Wants Can't Be Discovered in Worries

Despite any tricks your brain pulls, it can be helpful to remember that wants can't be discovered in worries. Worries masquerade inside our heads as being caring, ambitious, and more "on it." Are they really helping, though?

Worrying is the mind's attempt to exert more control over situations that feel uncertain or uncontrollable to us. With enough worry, we imagine we can tease apart the ultimate answers to life's problems and get what we want. The act of worrying ties up a lot of energy and potential that can be used in other ways.

Ever had an experience where something you want comes around when you're not constantly worrying about it? Life doesn't usually seem that concerned with our worries, and it may actually wait until the worrying subsides before opening new doors and opportunities. Worrying is easy and common to fall prey to. What's challenging is to step back from it and see what else the world is made of. Energy, adventures, uncertainties...not always bad uncertainties.

By worrying, we can focus so much on the unnerving side of uncertainty that we lose sight of the other shades of it. Would you want to keep watching movies that you always knew the endings to? With worries, we seek to know the ending right now before going through the meat of the experience itself. Trouble is, worrying doesn't exactly produce real endings or results, so it can leave us spinning our wheels instead.

Next time a worry is waking up with you, piggy backing all day, and snuggling up beside you at night, look at it in the face and ask, "What? What do you want from me?" Reducing its importance will help you remember what you want instead.