Category Archives: rest

30 Day Challenge – Day 23 – avoiding burnout

31 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by in 30 Day Challenge, creativity, gratitude, rest

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It’s funny, right now everything I chose for my 30 Day Challenge is going swimmingly.   I adore my morning grass time. Today the angel’s trumpet is full of blooms.

There’s nary a stray paper in sight because I spend ten minutes a day corralling the papers so they’re not allowed to reproduce.

I’m still so happy to sit with my sketchbook and my super-smooth oil pastels and play on paper. Today I started a portrait of the sweet turtle who lives in the yard. Here’s the progress:

But aside from that, I’m bushed.  I could press on and keep working, continuing to ignore my body, leading eventually to a lot more resistance and maybe even illness, and definitely some stress breakouts, or I can go rest.  I’m opting for rest.  I didn’t make all these great changes to my life to keep playing the burnout game.

Do you still play the burnout game?  Do you kind of give yourself a break but not really, so that all the pushing and pushing eventually adds up complete body breakdown?  Or are you beginning to listen – to realize that your life is made up of minutes and hours, and how you spend those minutes and hours is how you spend your life?  And that spending minutes and hours pushing and being stressed and harried means living a stressed, harried life?

I’m going to go rest.  And all is well.

30 Day Challenge Day 10 – tired

18 Wednesday Jul 2012

Posted by in 30 Day Challenge, rest

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This is when I need to be careful.  I did my grass time, my paper time (tossing more photos) and my art time – I would post the cardinals again but I didn’t change it much and maybe made it a little muddier – alas!

I’m actually excited about the new art piece I’m working on – it’s another colorful whimsical project – a sort of rebus.  I don’t want to give it away yet, so here’s a far away photo:

And here are beautiful plumbago flowers from the yard during grass time:

What I need to be careful about is what happens when I’m tired.  Right now I’m kind of overriding my body (we do this SOO much in our culture!)  I don’t want to miss a day or miss a post so I’m showing up here, and that feels good, but I’m also tired.  And my brain is listing all the things that I didn’t do today instead of remembering the ones I did, because it’s tired.  It’s feeding me a story about how since I’m tired this plan is not sustainable, especially since we didn’t do everything we’d like to have done today.  My brain has somehow forgotten the six assorted meetings and calls I had today, the amazing coaching with a fabulous client, the brunch with a dear old friend – the happy way the day went!  It’s just cranky and silly.  So I’m going to fix my body some comfort food then put my tired mind to bed.  All is well.  The answer to tired, I’m finally learning, is rest.  Not caffeine, not more tasks, not feeling bad, just plain old rest.