Like Thoreau says
After years on the self-flagellation/diet/exercise wheel, I have plenty of experience thinking about what I want, what I’m doing right and wrong and what I’ve put in my way in regards to what I’m calling PhysicalFit. As I sat down to write a quick easy piece on my MentalFit goals, I realize I don’t think I’ve ever really done this. I’ve read countless articles and blog posts on exercise and eating right, on setting goals for my body, on backslide and recovery. And now I realize that I haven’t really put that effort in on the rest of my life. The closest I came was a few months of therapy, where the therapist told me to stop trying to do so much and that there is no shame in focusing on a couple goals right now, and saving some of the other things on my life-long-must-do list for “later.”
She was right of course and I knew it of course. But I didn’t really listen to myself or my family when they told me the same thing – I needed to hear it from someone else. Now, maybe it was the “someone else”; this was from a woman with a successful part-time practice who also had a good gig at a local counseling center and was in her mid-30s, happily raising two kids and, from what I could see, balancing her life very comfortably. When SHE told me to calm down and pick somethings to focus on, putting the others on hold, it meant I was hearing approval from someone who had been to the mountain. Or maybe I’m just stubborn and she was just the last voice among many yelling one thing: SIMPLIFY.
So I’m going to take heart at that message. That’s my MentalFit goal. I know that doesn’t meet the specific, measurable and reasonable qualities that goals are “supposed” to have. That maybe the point. Maybe I do need something more defined in practice, but for now I’m going to start by re-emphasizing the goal I’ve always known but rarely acknowledged: SLOW DOWN and SIMPLIFY.
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I love how people tell suggest you simplify…when practically all you are doing is work/health related. Really? What should I cut back on? Running? Rowing? going to my job? I mean, hell, I’m not even working for someone else and I can’t find enough hours in the week to get my body and brain what they need.
Exactly! Which is what my shrink told me to do – a new job and starting rowing was PLENTY. She encouraged me to stop beating myself up about not working on projects around the house, not having enough time to go back to school, not being sociable enough, not blogging, not having a kid yet, etc. She was right – just focus on those two new things and quit spazzing about everything else I was guilty about NOT doing.