Tag: stress

The Busiest I’ll Ever Be…

Erica1 Comment

Well friends, I am just about done with my first semester of grad school! I survived! (Though the online group project just about killed me…)

I have my last assignment due next Tuesday and then I get a three-week break until summer courses start! Those three weeks are going to be so amazing, I am already feeling less stressed now that most of my assignments are done!

I have to say, this is the busiest I have ever been in my life – I keep thinking at some point in my life the level of busy-ness will taper out, but so far that has not been my experience. When I was in college, I thought I was busy – and I couldn’t wait to graduate so I could be less busy.

While post-college life had less assignments and homework (until now), it did not prove to be less busy. Once I started teaching, I had never felt so busy or worked as hard! My first year teaching 2nd grade, I would spend hours and hours at home grading papers, I was tired all the time, I could never keep up!

Fast forward a few years to having a baby – I didn’t work during the first year of Calvin’s life, but I can assure you I felt like this would surely be the busiest and tiredest I would ever feel! Well… I was wrong yet again.

Here I am, working full-time, taking 6 graduate hours, and balancing life with a husband and almost-two year old… and despite being wrong in the past, I have convinced myself that surely THIS will be the busiest I will ever be in my life!

Is anyone else’s life panning out this way? Do you find yourself just waiting and looking forward to the times when you aren’t busy? Do you ever wish the next few weeks or months were already over? Do you try to catch your breath in the few unplanned hours or minutes of each week before plowing full steam ahead into the next one?

We recently had a reunion with our Re-Engage group- we hosted dinner at our house. (See my previous post about our Re-Engage experience.) We decided to go around and have every couple share how things were going in their marriage, post-Re-Engage. Almost every single person talked about how busy things were, and for some of us, we really noticed a negative effect on our marriages. I know for me, being so busy with school and work, I have certainly felt like I can’t find the time to do the things that were so strengthening to our marriage – things that we did while participating in Re-Engage. It’s hard to sincerely devote yourself to very many things, and as typically happens, sometimes we forsake important things (marriage, family, health) for urgent things (work, deadlines, homework.)

At that dinner we also discussed the concept of Sabbath – we discussed how hard it is these days to even take a few hours off to relax, and devoting an entire day to rest seemed practically impossible! It really got me thinking thought about why God required his people to take a Sabbath. I think sometimes we convince ourselves that the concept of a Sabbath is old and outdated, and that back then people didn’t have so many demands on their time like we do … but I think that is a myth. I think it’s a cop-out to not feel guilty for our busy-ness and to justify it by saying that’s just how our culture is.

I think God knows that being too busy hurts us – it hurts our relationships, our marriages, our families, our health even! Stress from being too busy can sometimes consume us – it makes us less patient, less Christ-like. We focus on the urgent and forget to take care of what’s most important – we get distracted. When I feel overwhelmed with busy-ness, I definitely don’t take care of myself the way I should – I don’t meditate, I don’t exercise, I don’t take time to pray or be with God.

I recognize all this, yet I feel so conflicted about how I could be less busy. I don’t want to give up my hobbies or time with friends – I don’t want to stop working or quit on grad school – I don’t want to give up being involved at my church when I feel called to do so. So what can I do to be less busy? What is God calling me to give up in my life so I can nurture the things in my life that are really important?

Today after work, I decided to try to find a few verses in the bible about busy-ness and here’s a few that stuck out to me:

Matthew 6:33 – But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Matthew 13:22 (Jesus explaining the parable of the Sower) – The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.

I also found a great article online titled, “Busyness Is Not a Spiritual Gift.” It is a great read and really articulated some of the things I had been thinking about nicely. 

I think the next steps for me will be to really sort out my priorities and decide what is most important – then take a good look at my actions to see if they align with those priorities. As the article mentions, God might want me to get rid of some of the things that I really love, and even some things that are good, which is why this is so hard. But I think it comes down to having faith that God knows what is best, and that seeking Him first really will let the other things in my life fall into place.

There’s so much more I could say about this, but I will leave it at that for now. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this if you want to share.

 

 

 

 

 

Back to School! Graduate School, That is…

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(Monday)

I began writing this on the evening of January 15th, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and tomorrow is officially my first day of graduate school (again!) I had a semi-small freak out moment earlier today when I logged into my TWU account and saw that my professor had opened up his class online – I started reading the syllabus and looking at my assignments for the semester… I think it really hit me today that I really am going to be a student again after 8 and 1/2 years being out of school!

This blog is all (*well, mostly all) about how I am managing my anxiety – about how I am being intentional on working through my anxiety issues and recognizing and addressing problems before they get out of control. Any sort of change or life transition brings its own stress and anxieties on some level – some changes we choose and others are thrown at us whether we like it or not. Going back to graduate school was a choice I made, fully knowing that it was going to be hard and bring about a certain amount of anxiety.

So, why would I choose to do this?  I definitely am already “busy” enough – I have a husband, an 18 month old son, I work full-time, I am very involved in other activities at my church and at home… Maybe the “why” isn’t so much of a question as “HOW?” How am I planning on adding anything else to my schedule? How can I be the mother/wife/employee/friend/individual that I want to be when any of those just by themselves can feel overwhelming?

We’ll get to the HOW in a minute – to go back to the WHY is much simpler: after accepting my new job in August, part of the deal was that I would go back to school to get my degree in Library Science. I am beyond grateful for the opportunity to do this and extremely excited! I knew up front before accepting the job that this was coming, and I chose to do it. (Challenge Accepted!) I also love the feeling of accomplishing something – I really value being able to work hard at something and succeed – and I love learning, and I love reading and libraries… so the “WHYs” all kind of makes sense really!

Going back to the HOW though – yeah, I’m still taking this one day at at time. I feel like the busier I get, the more purposeful I am with my time, out of necessity. So, my planners – (plural) – are my best friends, and I am definitely working on remembering what is most important to me and what I may not have time to do as much of. People always say they don’t have time to do things – I think this is not always the case for me. I generally find time to do the things that are really important to me – or the things that are really urgent and cannot be ignored.

I’m honestly not as worried about the planning/prioritizing aspect, I’m good at that sort of thing, and I love planning! What I do want to keep tabs on is navigating my stress and anxiety through all of my responsibilities – knowing that I’m going to undertake the challenge of graduate school for the next two years means that I need to really get serious about doing things to keep my mental health in check.

Blogging is part of that – it holds me accountable to you people (thank you, by the way!) and it also allows me time to really self-reflect on how I’m doing. In my other post I mentioned that I’m taking some time each day to do some meditating and listen to positive affirmations, which I already feel like are helping me a lot.

So, I haven’t technically started grad school yet, and I’ll keep you posted on how it’s going. I anticipate many ups and downs along the way – so if I go off the radar for a bit, you’ll know I may be in a bit of a “down” phase.

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(Saturday)

Today is January 20th, I’ve finished my first week of school! Here’s the week in review – I wrote a short journal entry each day this week that may be interesting for some to read. My first week of working towards my library science degree is done!

Monday

1 day before school “officially” starts. I log into my account and see that one of my professors has opened his class on Blackboard. I start reading all of his instructions, try to figure out how to navigate this system, begin reading over the syllabus and various attachments… and that nostalgic feeling of being completely overwhelmed on the first day of classes all comes rushing back to me! Went to Walmart and bought my “school supplies” which consisted of a folder, monthly planner, and 2-subject notebook. Excited and nervous about tomorrow!

Tuesday

Lots of feelings today! Took my “first day at school” picture, because that’s what you do (obviously!) I wrote down all of my assignments and due dates for the next few months in my planner. I notice that someone has already starting posting in some of the discussion boards online – I start to worry that maybe I’m already behind… Is it possible there’s another person more over-achiever-y than me? I have a feeling the real discipline of online classes is not doing the work, it’s being able to not do ALL the work the first day your classes open – knowing that you have more to do, but knowing you can only do so much – taking it one day at a time.

Wednesday

The initial shock of being a student is fading a bit – I submitted my first assignment online! (Afterwards I found out I didn’t use the proper naming schematic that the professor wants us to use, so I resubmitted it… hoping that’s not a big fail!)

Thursday

Had my first “synchronous session” as it is called, a live online session with my professor and classmates. I need to give a shout-out to to Dr. Elkins at TWU – he is a hoot! I’m looking forward to “attending” his classes via Blackboard this semester!

Friday

I took the night off from doing anything school-related. Dean and I went out to celebrate my birthday since on my actual birthday I had my first synchronous session online. We had a nice dinner and went shopping at the mall – woo-hoo!

Saturday

Starting to realize how soon Tuesday the 23rd will be here – the day my first assignments are due! Small amounts of anxiety building up again today… it’s time to get down to business!

*Keep watch for continued updates on grad school! Have a great weekend!

Think Happy Thoughts

Erica4 Comments

Image result for peter pan think happy thoughts

 

So, something hit me the other day – and it was one of those instances where after it happened it was like, “why did I not think of this before now?”

It started at lunch the other day – Dean and I were discussing a friend of mine who is pregnant and having some anxiety about her pregnancy and about being a good mother. I don’t think this is highly unusual, but I remembered that during my pregnancy I really did not have that much anxiety, (at least compared to my anxiety after Calvin was born!) I attribute a lot of this to the fact that most everything went “right” during my pregnancy – my checkups were always good and I never had circumstances that really made me worry about my or my baby’s health.   

Dean, however, reminded me that during my pregnancy, I was actively doing my Hypnobabies program daily – part of which entailed listening to a 30 minute MP3 track called “Joyful Affirmations.” So for 5 months before I gave birth, I was constantly listening to phrases like, “pregnancy is natural, normal, healthy and safe” and “my body is giving my baby everything he needs.” I listened to those tracks up to the day Calvin was born … and then I stopped. And those of you who have followed my other blog posts know that four weeks later I was admitted to the hospital for severe postpartum depression.

How powerful are thoughts? My friend, Sarah, and I are reading a book together called, Think Good. It has challenged me to be more observant of what I am thinking about throughout the day, and has reminded me how my thoughts can affect my mood, anxiety levels, and behavior. One activity the book challenged us to do was to keep a thought journal for 24 hours – and while this honestly was impossible due to, well, life, I did attempt it. When I looked back over it, I found many more thoughts of worry, anxiety, and jealousy than I did of contentment, thankfulness, and peace.

How powerful are your thoughts? There are lots of verses in the bible that encourage mediating on good and positive things.

One of my favorites is in Philippians – Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Psalm chapter 1 says – But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

Growing up I remember warnings about watching bad t.v. shows or listening to bad music because it would “affect me.” I also remember rolling my eyes at that and thinking it didn’t affect me. (Think back to Jennifer Connelly in Labrinth – “You have no power over me!”)

But I think God, being wiser than me, knows that the things I spend my time thinking about and listening to or watching will most certainly affect me – which is why He wants me to think about good and pure and beautiful things.

So… how powerful are your thoughts? It hit me that maybe finding 30 minutes a day to listen to positive affirmations really would make a difference in my life. I stopped listening to my “Joyful Affirmations” because it was only meant for the time while I was pregnant. What I didn’t consider was that there are many more ways to incorporate affirmations into my life no matter what stage of life I am in – and many good reasons to do so!

All that being said, I have downloaded two different meditation and positive affirmation apps, and am planning on taking time to listen to them daily. If I end up liking them I’ll try to write a review on here later!

I will write an update on how it’s going in a few weeks – in the meantime, if any of you have any positive affirmation apps or techniques please share them with me! I’m looking forward to seeing positive change in my thoughts and in my life!