Monday, September 18, 2017

Atlas Shrugged

I wake up almost daily and do the same thing.  I mix my Plexus, take my Accelerator/Vitalbiome, turn the kettle on, open the blinds, then putter back to my room to make my bed.  While I drink my coffee I write in my journal or blog.  I function best when I'm in a routine.

There are days that I don't do this and I'm all discombobulated most of the day.  I find that these are the days that I allow to overwhelm me.   I want to stay in bed.  Turn my phone off.  Eat bad things.  Waste my time.  Productivity is not anywhere close on these days.

Life is a series of small decisions.  And those small decisions dictate our path.  When I was younger, I definitely did not understand this.  I made hasty decisions.  I did what I felt like doing in the moment.  I lived recklessly.  Not much carried significance.  I was just going with it.  My brain was in neutral.

An employee told me once that she couldn't believe how calm and methodical I was in the middle of a hairy situation.  I was in a heated meeting between employees and there were tears and loud volumes.  I gave the verdict of the disagreement and ended the meeting.  I was not at all upset by the exchange.  I just wanted the facts in order to make a good decision.  Who was I and what had I done with myself???

I believe that being a boss has helped me develop diplomacy.  I am able to make rational decisions in the middle of irrational behavior.  At work, at least.

In my personal life I have to try hard to slow down.  Trauma therapy has helped me in this area.  I now pay attention to how my BODY feels about something.  Your body tells on you.  It will increase its heart rate when you are upset.  It causes you to breathe more quickly when you feel endangered or ashamed.  Your stomach gets queasy.  It's alerting you to pay attention.  Learning to slow situations down and be curious around my responses has been an intriguing journey to finding out how I truly feel.  I use this tool often.

I realized when I was upset over something seemingly small that it was my heart telling me something.  It was something negligent that shouldn't have been mentioned much less poured over.  Yet pour over it I did.  Because my body responded harshly to the situation and I knew to listen.  After uncovering the reason behind my response, I was able to adjust my thinking and my behavior.  But it was only because I have learned to do this that the outcome was favorable.

In the movie, "Split" (which incidentally I love) the psychiatrist tells her patient that she was erroneous in glossing over a small incident that happened to him.  She says that perhaps it carried more weight than she had realized and triggered a response in him that made the other personalities surface.

Granted, I don't have multiple personalities lurking beneath but I do have multiple reasons for my actions and emotions...which I suppose seem like multiple persons.  Had I not learned to listen to my body, I would be continuously living in a state of upset and confusion.  And making poor decisions as a result.

My routine may seem insignificant, but they carry the weight of my world.  If I let that slip, my world falls off my shoulders.


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