Hi!
Yeah, I took 2 days off. After 40 days (or something like that) of blogging, logging on and writing a post was starting to feel like just another checkbox, and I have enough of those in my life.
Too many, maybe. The past few days I’ve been in sort of a gray mood, feeling like I have been hurtling from one to-do to the next. The good news: I have not been placating myself with social media/email/whatever (yay! Day12 and really really still going strong!). But I guess perhaps this has made me more aware of feeling empty or sad sometimes. Which is probably a good thing. But not necessarily fun.
I do feel like I have a tiny bit more time now that I am not spending as much of it online – though not much. Yet I still feel like many things in my life feel pressured, rushed. Last night I found myself counting the minutes until the end of the workday, driving home (in bad traffic) and then counting the minutes until A&C were in bed. It does not help that Josh had some sort of superflu this week and I was essentially on my own. And C seems to have a runny nose for the 398th time since starting school just 6 weeks ago.
I was listening to a podcast that was focused on the concept of incorporating things that bring pleasure into life, and I found myself feeling like HEY, THAT SOUNDS GREAT BUT WHERE’S MY PLEASURE?! The host and guest seemed to have endless pockets of time to take peaceful walking breaks throughout the work day and luxurious bubble baths. I do not.
But then again, maybe I do. Because I’m writing his post right now, and then I will run, and then the kids will be up, and hopefully in good moods because they both slept well (yay!). I could incorporate better breaks into my work day, because the time I spent previously refreshing my gmail between patients can now be filled with something else! I get to spend the day doing an interesting job, and get to come home to A&C tonight to kick off what will hopefully be a fun-filled weekend.
I do not need to bemoan my lack of “hours”. I think I can do just fine being more mindful of the pleasurable things already present in the life I am already living. Which includes spending more time appreciating what I have/am doing and less time worrying about what I do not have/am not doing. But maybe that’s a post for another day.
THINGS I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO TODAY //
Run (outside!)
Breakfast 🙂 (lately: 1 waffle with pb and raisins is my go-to. I love it.)
Warm shower after my cold (in relative terms; it’s 56F right now) run
Getting my New Results list down to a reasonable size and feeling caught up
Family dinner (!) (Josh is leaving work early to help with an eye appt for Annabel)
Taking a break at lunch to read my book (even if it’s 15 minutes)
Reading to A&C
Watching more of this ridiculousness: Triumph Election Special (equal parts funny and terrifying!)
6 Comments
I can 100% relate to this. I definitely have periods like that, where I’m getting everything done, but it just feels like a bit of a slog. I’ve counted hours til "quitting time" and only recently stopped counting down until bedtime on weekends (14 hours from when I wake up, usually!)
It usually comes down to a few things 1) I need to do something FUN. Not "fun" like taking the kids to the children’s museum or baking cookies with them but really truly no-responsibility for a few hours FUN. Like a lunch with a friend, or a date night doing something different. Even the act of planning & scheduling the fun thing, and then looking forward to it, can pull me out of the funk
2) like you said, its about NOTICING the good things, as little as they may be. I try to write "3 good things" for each night in a journal (I’ve been doing it consistently since November). I’ve noticed that, throughout the day, I have to pay attention to come up with the good things, and when I note them in my mind, I start to savor them. Like, really linger & notice the delicious coffee, or stop and REALLY LOOK at the pretty sunset, or take the time to really just sit & watch my kids when they are being cute. 3) I notice this feeling more when I’m being really "good"—which, for me, often means a lot of self-denial. I think some sort of rebellion starts emerging. I get so tired of eating super healthy, not drinking wine, not buying anything for myself, not watching TV, not not not not not and I just need to be "bad" (drink 2 glasses of wine & watch Gilmore Girls and stay up a tad too late). Its probably related to #1, and its completely unhealthy, and maybe its just me that gets this way? But usually a little indulgence helps and I can get back on track again.
Anyways, thinking about this has got me looking forward to drinking some wine & watching TV tonight, and maybe I’ll see if I can get a sitter for a date night!
I had a similar experience this week with that old ‘schmeh….’ kinda feeling but in case it’s helpful, I’ve learned over time that:
– this is often a sign that my body is fighting a flu – sometimes my body wins and I just feel flat for a week instead of getting sick, other times it’s an early warning sign to clear the decks cos I’m about to go down hard (so if Josh is out you might want to be on alert)
– As Ana alluded to, this is also sometimes a symptom of being a bit too good for a bit too long – my brain starts to rebel! With such a big change in habits in the Unplugged30 there’s bound to be some cognitive kickback…perhaps it’s the equivalent of the Whole30 exhaustion or ‘kill all the things’ phase?
– Just one evening ‘off’ made a HUGE difference for me. I was supposed to have an hour free to study between class and a public talk but the class finished super early so it became two hours free – and instead of studying I just hung out with a class mate, chatted, went for a stroll. After the talk I grabbed take out, watched a tv episode and had a really early night. I felt a million times better the next day, and have now finally shaken the schmeh – the rest of the week has been awesomely productive. Easy for me to say, I know (student/no kids) but the point is that just an evening or afternoon off can be enough to ‘reset’
I’m trying to keep up! You seem like you’re not glued to the computer 97% of the time for your job (correct me if I’m wrong, I’m a nascent MD/PhD student and have no clue about life post-PhD!), and if you are charting or something, you’re focused on that.
I am trying to figure out how to stay unplugged while also being on a computer reading (boring) papers all the time. When I get into a topic, I can ignore everything, but if I’m reading about protein aggregates in a mouse, I actively search for distractions. Any suggestions?
We missed you! You have a good looking day ahead of you, so enjoy it!
Someone recently told me that when we want to change the way we feel, or change a behavior, it’s much easier to do that if you can come up with something to ADD to your routine rather than just trying to STOP something. So you want to STOP facebook, social media, etc, but can you think of something that you could add that could fulfill you? Perhaps it’s keeping a list of people you like to stay in touch with, but only are able to do so through social media, and reaching out to one person a day through a brief email/text. Perhaps your sad because you are missing some of the benefits of staying in touch with some folks that you don’t otherwise come into regular contact with.
And I completely understand your feeling of always having something else to do. Think about our days: – RUN –> EAT –> PARENT (verb) –> COMMUTE –> WORK WORK WORK –> COMMUTE –> PARENT (verb) –> COOK/CLEAN//WORK –> TALK TO SPOUSE –> SPEND 10 MINUTES READING BEFORE FALLING ASLEEP. I mean, I’m not alone from 5:00 am until … well … the 10 minutes in my car between getting to the park and ride and getting to day care pickup. That’s not enough downtime. There have got to be ways we can find some restorative downtime in our days to really be able to switch from one mode to the next. I’ve decided to spend some time at work / during lunch reading a book on my kindle app.
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