The Restorative Power of Rest

For every high, there is a low. For every burst of energy, there is a need to recoup, refresh, rest and restart. I am presently "restarting".

When I sat still yesterday, a wave of exhaustion overtook me. I overpowered that sensation and forced myself up off the couch and I headed to the kitchen to "cook" (does frying up hamburger and adding a package of seasoning = cooking?).

The reward of this act of motion in the kitchen was "taco salad". I took my plate and sat myself back down where I had previously wanted to do nothing more than sleep. Instead of sleeping, I ate.

Big mistake.

My son was actually quite pleased to find the aroma and offering of food in the middle of the afternoon. Normally, I would think eating at 3 p.m. would give me permission to skip cooking supper. Except I had already peeled potatoes so I offered to cook a late supper (second mistake?).

My son has just returned from an "all expenses paid" workshop where three meals a day were provided as part of the package. As a result of this, he has returned home with a healthy appetite.  Christmas Day, he turned down the last piece of bacon at breakfast because he wanted to be sure he would be hungry for Christmas dinner. One piece of bacon? Who in the world doesn't have room for one piece of bacon? I believe even Mom (the smallest eater I have ever known) would have leapt at the offer.

Not only did I provide a mid afternoon meal, I went through the motions of cooking a late supper meal as well.

All this time in the kitchen was a great excuse to NOT cross any other item off my mental to-do-list. Plus I was tired. Physically and mentally. I was tired of thinking, planning and doing. I just wanted to rest. Except I felt guilty for resting, so I ATE to stay awake (and I wonder why my new pj bottoms don't fit so well?!).

Fast forward to this morning.

I woke up to a brand new work week. My heart sunk to the bottom of my mattress and made it so hard to put my feet on the floor. I want another Sunday. Sigh...

Then, I flipped open my "Living Juicy" ("daily morsels for your creative soul") book. Week #1 for the new year focused on procrastination. I read the first week's worth of morsels. Closed the book. Then worked at pushing myself out of procrastination mode. This exhausted me. So why should I be surprised that the second week's focus is "napping"?

I wish I would have picked up this book yesterday. I would have fully honored my exhaustion, closed my eyes and rested. Instead I have an achy stomach hangover from eating too much. My son needed the nourishment. Me? Not so much. Nourishment? Maybe. It was all the snacking I squeezed in between the meals that hurt me.

I am not a big fan of the word "napping" but I do believe in its restorative qualities. I am not certain where I could work this time of restoration into my current day work week but as I type the words, I am hearing my answer.

I eat to stay awake. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to add those two facts together and figure out I should honor that exhaustion and rest instead of eat. I get home by 7:30 at night. If I didn't snack, I would be in bed by 8:00. What if I didn't eat, but allowed myself time to close my eyes, relax, restore and plan to get up in an hour. Then, accomplish "one hard thing" before I went to bed at night? What if????

My procrastination excuses are primarily based on a lack of time and energy. What if I created that time by feeding my body "sleep" when it was tired instead of food? What if??

My excuse is that by the time I get home at the end of a long day, my mental fatigue is high. My body is well rested and I am more tired of sitting idle than physically tired. Instead of using my mental exhaustion as an excuse to eat and Netflix my night away, I should find a way to "honor" that without medicating myself with food and sleep.

I have sleepwalked (what IS the past tense of sleep walk?!?) through most of the entire past year by using food, sleep, Netflix and surfing the Internet to dull my thoughts and put my head in a neutral zone so I could keep placing one foot in front of the other.

Food and sleep are my reward for "doing hard things" and making it through a day. I must admit I am as addicted to the reward as I am to the excuse for creating the reward to begin with.

Admitting I have a problem is the first step. I am addicted to my "numbing" activities. I am exhausted.

Rule #1 - rest when you are tired
Rule #2 - eat when you are hungry
Rule #3 - admit I am a "recovering procrastinator"
Rule #4 - do ONE hard thing each day
Rule #5 - gradually increase the number of "hard things"

Yesterday? I cooked. Today? I shall work on one project for one hour AND I will do one more hard thing. Does leaving the house count?

I need to reinstate the goal to do "Six Impossible Things Before Lunch". Changing "lunch" to 8 a.m is my obstacle. Perhaps I need to revise that to "One Impossible Thing (before I go to work)" and "A Second Impossible Thing" (after I come home).

Baby steps. One step at a time. I have SO many vices to overcome and I truly believe the weight of the excess within our home is at the bottom of a lot of what I am battling. Thus, I am starting there.

Yesterday's obstacle? The second category of Marie Kondra's steps to tidying up is: Books. I sat still with my perfectionist mindset yesterday trying to orchestrate a method where I CAN put all of the books together in one room of our home. My obstacle? I want to build these books a home for them to live, which is THE complication which has stopped me in my tracks this entire past year.

I know I should renumber the sequence Marie Kondra suggests. But I also know the power of taking that impossible "first step". I know the energy which will be released the moment I start taking action.

I need a nap ...