Have you felt an increase of stress lately? I have. Maybe it’s because I scheduled myself to travel and teach every single weekend this fall. Along with the membership every Tuesday and Thursday morning, this schedule doesn’t leave me much time to get things done. I’m not complaining. I absolutely love teaching yoga. Teaching is like a “vacation” for me where I let my creative self-expression flow. But wowy! I didn’t realize how busy I would actually be!
I think the increased pressure is coming from something called “time compaction.” Just when the earth takes a big exhalation, and birds fly south, and animals prepare for hibernation, life seems to speed up to a frenzied pace.
The fall season is known for its intensity of change which affects us all.
The days are getting shorter. As soon as the sun goes down, I feel ready to go inward and rest. Every fall season I seem to forget about this. I also forget that more sleep is needed during the transition months and when I don’t give myself the extra sleep, I can feel tired in the afternoon.
In addition, with so much at stake in the upcoming US Presidential Election, I feel a kind of dull, grinding sense of dread. Even with all of my yogic practices, I can’t seem to shake the general energetic Zeitgeist. I’m in it and I’m a part of it.
As I reflected more deeply on the nature of my stress and feeling of pressure, I realized that my to-do list is just too long. I can’t get it all done, yet I keep trying. And when I don’t get it done, I feel stress about that. Could this be coming from my old perfectionistic paradigm? I say I’m a recovering perfectionist. But maybe a more accurate self-diagnosis is that I am a “functional perfectionist?”
Alongside my long list of to-dos that weren’t getting done, I kept noticing the dust accumulating in my house. I would walk by a spider web in the corner and tell myself, “I’ll get to that later. I have other more important things to do.” But I kept noticing more and more dirt, grass clippings, smudges, spider droppings, and food crumbs on the floor.
My feeling of pressure came to a head when I broke down and told myself, “Even if it’s not on my to-do list, I MUST clean my house!” I couldn’t stand it any longer. So, I dove into cleaning my house.
Knowing that I cannot get everything on my list done and recognizing the challenge of the narrowing window of daylight this time of year, I had to prioritize.
First, I dusted, then vacuumed with my adorable and efficient new vacuum cleaner that I affectionately named “Sparkles” (mentioned in a previous blog). Then I vacuumed the hard-to-get-to corners and edges of the floors, mopped the wood floors, then got down on my hands and knees and spot cleaned segments of the floors. (Mopping doesn’t really get the black dots on the floor left behind by spiders. What is that stuff? Spider poop?)
Then, I cleaned the bathroom, not both of my bathrooms, just one, since I declared I didn’t have time to do both. After the floors dried, I went around and sponged up the threads of dust created by mopping. Have you noticed the mop leaves behind braids of “dust worms” accumulated and rolled from the mopping?
Then I left the house to do some errands and buy groceries. When I returned, I noticed the sparkle of cleanliness in my house. It shimmered with clean. I smiled. I instantly filled up with energy and was able to sit down at my desk and get a ton of to-dos done. Savoring the cleanliness of the house, I occasionally did a lap or two around the inside of the house just to appreciate how clean it was.
I had no idea that cleaning my house would open up a conduit for getting a ton of other things done. I just followed my heart and cleaned. I prioritized one thing on my list. Once that was finished, it gave me energy to accomplish the next thing.
We are perfectly imperfect just as we are because we live in a perfectly unfinished universe of becoming.
The fact that I couldn’t get everything on my list done, was eating away at me. Not because things didn’t get done. But because I was subtly putting myself down, making myself bad and wrong for not accomplishing it all.
Why did I make a list that I couldn’t complete only to feel unworthy for not accomplishing it? I identified the perfectionistic side of me that was discreetly sticking its head out, trying not to be noticed. But I gotcha! Upon recognizing this unworthy part, I swooped down and surrounded it with generous amounts of self-acceptance and self-love. I felt instantly soothed and was able to release the stress associated with the perfectionism about not getting everything done. It’s okay. I’m okay. Whew!
I feel more ready now to embrace the beauty of this season of change and, each day, to prioritize my too long list of to-dos so I accomplish what’s most important, while leaving the rest for another day.
May you prioritize the one thing on your list that will make the most difference when you get it done! And may you lavish yourself with self-acceptance and self-love regardless of whether you get it done or not, knowing that there will always be more to-dos than you could possibly get done in a day, in a season, or in a lifetime!
May you let go of needing to get it all done and appreciate what you can get done now. And more than anything you do, may you appreciate who YOU ARE! If you’ve forgotten, allow me to remind you that you are the crystallization of the divine’s desire to know itself. You are one-of-a kind, a unique conduit of infinite possibility. You are gifted. You are talented. And you are already whole and complete just as you are.
Namaste,
Todd
P.S. Here are a few more self-love affirmations:
I stand with and for myself.
I believe in myself.
I am worthy.
I am valuable.
I am talented.
I am a vessel of divine inspiration.
I love and approve of myself just as I am today.
I am enough just as I am.
I am more than good enough.
I have a unique gift to give this world.
I love and accept myself as a one of a kind being of immense value.
My voice matters. I have something to say, and I say it.
I speak fearlessly from my heart.
I courageously stand in who the universe made me to be.
I am strong.
I am powerful.
I am a manifester.
I am a bringer of the light.
Fate is what’s given to me. Destiny is what I do with it.
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