Having Less Stress

I share a practice that has helped me reduce my stress and be more present in times of rest.


Email me at gerdungmelinda@gmail.com

For more on this topic: Rest is Resistance

Find out more about my work: www.melindagerdungcoaching.com

Book a session with me: https://calendly.com/gerdungmelinda/coaching-session


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Transcript

0:13

Hey, my friends, are you tired? I feel like a lot of people are feeling really tired right now, myself included. I've pushed myself really hard the last few months, and while I got a lot done, I also got a cold each month. Also, sometimes it is really hard to just take a break. Sometimes it is really hard to allow yourself to rest. Even when you try, you end up just reviewing in your mind all of the things you still need to do. I watch my partner do that. He'll be on the couch with me, but he won't be enjoying his rest. He'll be stressing about how much yard work he still has to do. We went out to a rodeo one evening, and he wasn't able to enjoy it at all because of the all consuming to do list cycling through his brain. I think a lot of people in our society relate to that. In our capitalistic society, productivity is one of the highest virtues. So much so that when people aren't being productive, they feel guilty. I've had a lot of people express to me a need to be productive, because otherwise they feel bad about themselves. They feel guilty. Busyness is almost a badge of honor in our society; a way of proving ourselves worthy that we are always being productive. I love being productive. I find it very satisfying to accomplish something, but I've also discovered that the human body needs rest. It's very inconvenient, but the body will start to deteriorate if it does not get rest. If I push myself really hard, I get sick. If I don't allow myself to rest, my body will force it, and it will be even less convenient than if I had just allowed myself to rest in the first place. I think we all understand this, on some level, that our bodies require rest. But I think that It must also mean changing the way we think about rest. Sitting to truly rest requires more than just sitting on the couch. on the couch feeling guilty and thinking about all the things you could be doing instead is not restful. It will not leave you feeling rested and refreshed. And this is easier said than done so today I wanted to share with you a practice that I have implemented in my life that has allowed me to not feel guilty when I do rest. That practice is calendaring. Every Monday morning, I make a list of all of the things I want to get done in the week. Then I open up my calendar and I schedule those things. And while I am scheduling the things I want to get done, I also schedule rest time. I will schedule naps and reading and doing nothing time. I've had multiple benefits from this practice. First of all it has made it much easier to get done what I want to get done because I've planned exactly If what is on the calendar for this hour is a nap, then that is when I am going to do it and how much time I'm going to allow myself to do it. I don't waste time anymore trying to decide what I am going to do at any given moment. I've already planned it ahead. There is no re-negotiation of the plan. It also has allowed me to be present in my rest. exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. There is no running tally of what else I ought to be doing instead, because I know I've calendared in what needs doing. It's so much easier to nap when in my mind, I know it is exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. Like the magic of putting it on the calendar gives it its own merit, and it has removed the guilt for me. I don't feel guilty about reading for this hour because that is what is on my schedule. The other things that need doing are also on the schedule, and they will get done because I trust myself to follow the schedule. If you end up trying this practice for yourself, there are a few ground rules that I found to be very important. The first is being realistic. When I first started this practice, I got so excited about all I was going to get done, and I scheduled myself packed full, and I didn't really think too much about how long things should should take me. So I ended up rushing from one task to the next. And it seemed great at first, because I was getting so much done, but y'all, it burned me out so quick. Instead of a time management tool, it became a tool of self abuse. So be realistic. If you schedule going grocery shopping, make sure you factor in the time it takes to drive to the store and back. I find time buffers to be really useful, just to, like, pad the timing a little bit so you don't feel yourself getting stressed or rushed. Another rule is to schedule your rest first. Decide how much rest you desire and schedule that in first. Then put all the things in that need doing. And I color code mine so I can see if my work versus rest is really skewed one way or the other. And I really seek balance in this exercise, and so the color coding just makes it really obvious when it's really imbalanced. The third rule is that you must stick to your plan. Like I said before, there is no renegotiation of a plan. Once I've put something in my calendar, it is there to stay. This has gotten rid of procrastination for me. If I've scheduled something that needed to get done that I find unpleasant, like calling my doctor's office, if that is on

the schedule from 2 to 2: 9:08

30 then that is what I am doing from 2

to 2: 9:12

30. And this is what makes it work. This is how I can be present with my resting and be fully in my rest. Because I know that the things I have scheduled will get done. I trust that I will do them. I protect that schedule. We all know how to protect our schedules. If you have a doctor's appointment scheduled and someone asks you to commit to something else, you know how to say, No, you have a prior commitment. And this works the same way, no matter what the prior commitment is. Even if that prior commitment is a nap, you have to see the calendar as a commitment. Now, obviously things do come up, but like true emergencies are actually very rare. There are a lot of things that we call emergencies and disrupt our schedules with, but they aren't actually an emergencies. Sticking to your calendar is a really good way to practice boundaries and saying no to people. The final rule is to be kind to yourself. The you that schedules needs to do it with kindness towards the you that will be actually doing what's on the schedule. It's real easy for the scheduling you to go hog wild with jam pack the schedule, but that is cruel to the you that will be keeping that schedule. If the schedule is a commitment, you need to be mindful of the doing and treat yourself with kindness as you make your schedule. This was the hardest thing for me to learn when I started this practice. Self kindness wasn't something I was used to, but it was something that I had to start practicing as a part of this because otherwise it just wasn't going to work. It ended up being an unexpected outlet for working on the relationship I had with myself, and for practicing self kindness. As I've been doing this practice for a few years now, I've gotten real good at estimating how long something should take. I wasn't always good at it. Most things, though, you can just decide how long they should take, and that kind of blows people's minds when they hear it. But for real, you can just decide how long something is going to take. The other thing I've gotten good at is estimating what is a good amount of accomplishments for a single week. I wasn't always good at estimating that, either, but with time, I've gotten a real good sense of it, of what is realistic in a week. And that just comes from doing, from following the practice and getting experience with it and getting the feedback. If one week felt too stressful, you know that you want to do things differently the next week. The level of stress you feel is a good indicator of how well you are doing with this practice, because done correctly, there shouldn't be stress. If you feel stressed, you have probably over scheduled and need to adjust. And for me, that has always been the biggest struggle. I love to overdo it, it seems. So this is something I'm always having to dial back down. Calendaring, you see how much you actually do accomplish in a week. Like sometimes you forget just how much you've actually done. But when it is all there in the calendar, it doesn't let you not get credit for it. Sometimes our brains are assholes and try to tell us that we haven't done anything, even though we totally have. The calendar doesn't let your asshole brain lie to you. Which has been another unanticipated benefit for me. If you have any questions at all about this process, feel free to email me. My email is in the show notes. Or if you want to do one week together, you can book a session with the link in the show notes. All right, my friends, enjoy your rest. If you try the calendaring, let me know how it goes and how it works for you. All right, until next time, be well.