Balance

Does anyone remember the Madeline books? The ones about the little girl who lived in an orphanage where the twelve little girls did everything in pairs and were watched over by a caring woman named Ms. Clavel?

In one particular story, Ms. Clavel awakens in the middle of the night and exclaims “something is not right!” Welcome to my morning, I’ve been up since 4 a.m.

This is the second time this week I’ve awaken in the early hours of the morning with the lurking feeling something is amiss. On Sunday, as if catapulted into my face, the realization that I’d forgotten to update something for church that day woke me up. It was an uncharacteristic miss on my part, and it didn’t sit well with me. I carried my disappointment in myself into Monday and by the afternoon I was overtaken by the thought that something needed to be done.

Do you ever get the feeling you’re doing too many things at once and none of them as well as you could?

Since coming back from Florida, I’ve felt slightly off balance, as though I’m running in sixteen different directions and spreading pieces of Amanda all over the place. I’m scattered.

It makes me think of yoga -one of the things that’s definitely suffering in my current state is my Yoga Teacher Training. I’ve been stuck on the same lesson of my teaching manual for months now... the part on the art of alignment and assists. I continually blame my inability to learn these physical assists remotely for why I’m stuck. The reality is: I’m just not allocating the bandwidth I need to in order to study it and get it right.

Long story short, I’ve read the beginning of the chapter on alignment and assists over and over again and I think they provide an apt metaphor for my current situation. To my more experienced yogis out there, bear with me, and please feel free to shoot me a message if I’m butchering this…

I think of alignment as re-centering, checking in to make sure your hips are squared the right way, that your form is correct, that you’re rooted and grounded with your feet planted firmly. Assists help ensure all of those check points, they are gentle adjustments that help you stand firm in your pose.

Earlier this week I realized I’m in desperate need of a proper realignment.

Thankfully, I knew exactly what to do. I have this amazing planner called “The Legend Planner,” and if used correctly it can be an incredibly powerful tool. Emphasis on “if used correctly.” When I’m performing at my best, that planner is how I spend my Monday mornings, planning accordingly for the week ahead. For the last two weeks, I’ve skipped that sacred ritual, instead diving head first into the week’s actions without pausing to evaluate what I’m actually doing. I feel it and it shows.

I was actually in a meeting with my incredible boss, watching myself spread thinner and thinner before his very eyes, when I realized I hadn’t checked my planner lately.

When I got home that night I opened it up to discover that not only had I skipped two weeks of planning, I’d also missed my monthly review and opportunity to set goals for the coming month. May was in the books and I hadn’t taken an honest look back at it. Here I am, nine days into June and I haven’t clearly decided what I’m trying to accomplish. Scatter ensues.

Filling in my month in review and planning out my goals for the month, I felt this sense of calm over me. Well… calm and “jeez Amanda you maniac why didn’t you just do this a week ago?” It would have saved me a lot of spinning.

One of my favorite parts of the monthly review included in my journal is the life balance wheel. It’s actually a practice I first learned about in SMART Recovery. For anyone sober-curious I highly suggest checking SMART out. (They also have a fantastic guide for friends and family that my incredible sister read and I’ve noticed ways in which its helped her engage with me and my sobriety…) The best way I can describe it is that SMART uses CBT techniques to help you abstain from alcohol. The Lifestyle Balance Pie is one of the tactics they teach.

It asks you to rate your performance in a number of life categories and color it in to create a visual representation of what your balance looks like. As used in my planner, this allows you to take a look at the last month and see how you balanced everything as a way to help you identify goals for the next month.

This is my wheel for last month:

Yes, I still struggle to color in the lines.

I know, I too was shocked while coloring it in at 5:30 a.m. this morning. It’s one of the unhealthier wheels I’ve had in a while.

So what happened?

A look back at my goals for May paints a pretty clear picture, because looking back at them today, I was surprised to see what I’d written. I hadn’t met any of the goals I’d outlined… in fact I didn’t even remember them!

See that entire week off! That should have signaled to me that it needed attention!

Last month I set fantastic, but unrealistic goals for myself. Not that writing a blog weekly or mastering a standing sequence are impossible to do over the course of a month, but attempting to do both of those things while trying to lose 15 pounds and deliver 110% at work everyday and start freelancing (which wasn’t even on my list) is tricky. It all comes back to scatter. Without maintaining a focus on my goals, I spread myself too thin over eight billion different things.

This would probably be a good place to tell you that I have ADD. I don’t say that in the flippant way some people say “oh I’m so ADD” (that’s actually a pet peeve of mine… note to self, write a blog about it.) I have been diagnosed by a doctor and can see how this disorder has impacted me throughout my life.

My ADD manifests itself in the typical ways you’d expect… I have trouble focusing on one task, it’s hard for me to sit still through long meetings, yes, I get distracted if a squirrel walks by… but I also see it play out for me on a larger scale. My lack of focus doesn’t just apply to what’s in front of me, I struggle to maintain a focus on big-picture things as well.

My problem is two-pronged. I set ridiculously high goals and then I tend to move on to the next one before finishing the original.

I think the best way to illustrate this is through an example, my aforementioned Yoga Teacher Training.

In the fall, fresh out of treatment and full of new ideas for how I wanted my life to live my life, I decided to pursue my Yoga Teacher Training Certification. Not working at the time and wrapping up IOP, it seemed like the stars had aligned for me to achieve this long-time fantasy.

I applied for a scholarship, was elated to receive one and began my 200 hour training course November 20th. If I followed the schedule and kept up with the daily classes, I’d complete training and receive my certificate by the end of December. It did not work out that way.

I still have access to the full course curriculum and five more months to complete the coursework, but I’m struggling. To my friends who have returned/are returning to school, I give you a TON of credit, because for me learning remotely is a struggle. The discipline required to get yourself to sit down and schedule time for your classes while simultaneously balancing your life is a whole different level, one that I’ve been struggling to achieve.

I’m starting to believe that my best chance for actually learning my certificate would be to enroll in one of the in-person retreats that my instructors offer, something that’s hard for me to come to terms with. I hate admitting I’m struggling with something, that I’m failing is a whole bigger pill to swallow. But I need to get honest with myself about what is realistic for me.

The biggest flaw in my goals from last month (besides the fact that I didn’t stick to them) was that they weren’t realistic. Yes, maybe in a normal month, if they were prioritized, I would have accomplished them, but last month was not a normal month. Just look at it, there's an entire week of abnormal.

I took a week off from normal life to go be an aunt. That was a priceless experience and one that took considerable planning and goals of its own. It required me to get everything at work and home organized before I left to ensure that I could be fully present while I was away.

When I returned I needed time to readjust to normal. To do things like laundry and grocery shopping and reconnecting with Blake. All of that in and of itself was a BIG to-do list. Where I went wrong was getting distracted by other things, to the point where I didn’t address any of those core needs in a productive way.

Instead of returning and getting myself firmly planted back in my routine, I landed at the airport on a Saturday and Tasmanian-deviled my way through the next two weeks. I didn’t practice yoga a single time. I did write three incredibly emotional blogs and keep up consistent posting, achieving at least one goal, but my writing suffered as I got distracted by the idea of freelancing and started picking up little freelance writing jobs here and there. Again, nothing would have been wrong with that, except for the fact that it wasn’t on the list! I was spreading myself unnecessarily.

This is the part where I have to do something I really and truly hate. Admitting I was wrong. To be fair, I’ve gotten significantly better at this since getting sober, but it still doesn’t come easily.

So here it goes… Mom, you were right.

My mother is like of like my canary in the coal mine for my anxiety level.

She’s able to anticipate when I’m biting off too much far before I sink my teeth into the next thing.

A few weeks ago we were chatting and she mentioned that while she loved and supported my blogging, it was important to maintain a balance. Reminding me of the very real risk of burnout and my tendency to overextend, she cautioned me about taking on too much.

“You just have to balance your priorities,” she advised.

Reacting with my inner child opposed to the mature young woman I know I’m capable of being, I scoffed at her suggestion.

Well, here I am eating crow.

When I look back at the last month, I can see that maybe adding freelance writing to my already packed routine was probably a bit much. I can see the things I truly love: my job, my writing and my family, taking a back seat to that in ways I didn’t intend. I can recognize that while I’m able to wake up at 6:00 a.m. to workout and then write before work, spending another two hours writing freelance copy after work just isn't possible.

The other day on my Instagram I posted a goal: I wanted to post my vacation countdown everyday forcing myself to get to the gym each day leading up to that trip.

My body dysphoria is a whole other post, but suffice to say I’m self-conscious about my weight and would like to get in better shape before spending a week in a bikini at Hilton Head. My therapist and I are bound to have a longer conversation about this, but focusing on the goal itself, I want to break it down into those SMART goal standards.

The glaring error in my daily gym goal is realistic. Yes, I like to work out and yes, I do it a lot, but working out every single day just isn’t possible for me. I like sleeping in too much. Some mornings (like this one) I get on a roll writing and don’t want to stop to go to the gym. Besides, haven’t we all agreed that rest days are a thing and we need them?

So today as I fill out my goals for the next 20 days, I’m going to measure them up to the SMART standard and get realistic.

What can I actually do? And, equally important, what do I want to do? Also, what is happening this month that I need to account for? What’s coming up that also involves planning?

One big one I can name right now is that I have family coming into town today. So once I wrap this blog post up I need to get everything done and organized for the rest of the work week so I can be fully present.

In fact, with vacation coming up the first week of July, I need to make sure I get myself back into the center I was in pre-Florida, so I can make sure I’m not as rocked by my next week off.

With all that in mind, here are my goals for June (bare with me, these may not all make sense to you, but they do to me)

- Work out 4 x a week

- Get on solid footing a work

o Get Ro set on bulletins

o Implement checklist system

o Refocus!

o Get ahead on bulletins

- Be more present at home

o Finish work at work so you can be present with friends and family

o Avoid texting at work to stay focused

- Write 5 resentments 3x week (this is a 12-step thing)

- Give yourself grace

The last one is one I took from my boss and its one I really need to keep in mind. As much as I’d like to pretend I’m some sort of super human, I am unfortunately not. I’m human, I’m flawed and I’m only capable of so much. And that’s okay. In fact, it’s human nature.

I need to forgive myself for not being able to do everything all at once. I need to be willing to accept that while things like earning my Yoga Teacher Training Certification and Freelancing are great, they might not be things I can prioritize at this moment.

Right now, my priorities are my sobriety, my work and my writing. I know myself and I can only have the capacity to put those three things up on pedestals. So I need to give myself a break, some grace on the other things. Am I going to complete the last 150 hours of my Yoga Teacher Training this month? I wish! But that’s not in the cards for the reset of June. I have some other things going on that need to take priority. And while I’m still not totally sold on the fact that it’s okay, I’m going to trust the process and give myself permission to focus on the achievable. Because that’s how I avoid the scatter. That’s grace.