Getting Back on Track

Here’s one from the Department of Personal Experience: When you are bombarded with extra-curricular obligations, at too high a rate, for too many consecutive days, no matter how organized you are, you’re taking a toll on yourself.

I am a hyper-organized person. It makes people close to me nuts sometimes. By mid-summer, for instance, I’m already pretty sure what’s happening for Thanksgiving. I’m always 10 minutes early, wherever I go, which makes people I meet with regularly feel like they’re always 10 minutes late, they tell me.

Being organized tends to impart a feeling of control. You have a plan, you will not deviate from the plan, and if you do, you will find a way back to the plan. You are in control. Right?

Not always. Case in point: During the month of August, I had an unexpected house guest who required a lot of attention. It was an old friend, going through some stuff, and no the timing wasn’t great, but, old friends are old friends.

The following week, two expected houseguests arrived. Then, a business trip. Then, more house guests, who stayed for a while.

By the middle of it, my head was spinning. I was exhausted. I’m accustomed to and enjoy living a fairly busy life, usually with a pretty hectic routine – but this was different. Amid menu planning and finding activities for my guests, I found myself obsessing about how to get my life back to NORMAL.

This made me take an inventory of what “normal” means for me. It included these basic questions:

• Did I work out? Yes or no?

• Did I get a healthy amount of “us time” with my sweetie? Yes or no?

• Am I getting healthy amounts of "me time" / alone time?

• Am I eating healthy? Yes or no?

• Am I falling asleep and staying asleep? Yes or no?

• Am I drinking enough water; taking enough deep breaths?

• Am I living in moderation, when it comes to adult beverages?

At the end of it, I realized I was doing really great … on drinking lots of water. (Woo hoo!) But that’s about it. It follows that too many “no’s” means things are not normal.

When life’s anticipated and unanticipated intensities gets you down, re-align by reminding yourself who you are when you’re feeling healthy and at ease. Find your goals again. Or, if they don’t do it for you any more, set some new ones.

In my case, I took a bigger step – like changing my schedule to get a full weekend back in my life. That was pretty major, because it meant