Difficult Seasons

This week started with a migraine headache on Sunday morning.

We were driving to church, and about half way there, the aura began.  So we made an unplanned stop to buy some Advil, the medicine that works best for me.  I took some, and we went on to church, then a meeting with our family caregiving support group, and then to lunch with Dad and Sara.  The migraine wasn’t gone, but it was dulled.

It bounced back on Monday, and again on Tuesday.  Not bad for a migraine, like they used to be when I was younger.  But migraines anyway.

I’ve always accepted migraines as a message — one that says I’m not doing a good job taking care of myself.  I already knew that before this week’s warning messages.  I’ve been writing about and working on self care for a few weeks now.  But it takes some time and effort to turn things around.  And other things don’t wait for that to occur before they happen — like my Dad’s cancer diagnosis last week.

So this week, I’ve redoubled my efforts at self care.  And I’m getting some support from my friend Jon Swanson, who’s writing about his approach to the same issues.

Having worked as a life coach, I know the elements of self care well.  Practicing them is often more difficult.

Self care starts with getting rid of Tolerations, those things that we are putting up with, but which bug us, bother us, upset us, worry us, and so forth.  Most people can write a list of 25 tolerations in less than 5 minutes, which is quite telling in itself.

So Monday I made a short list of tolerations that also had a urgency component, and started working on them.  Between my headache and generally bad attitude, it was sort of like slogging through knee-high mud.  But I kept at it and made some progress.  Tuesday I picked back up where I had left off, and made some more progress.  And Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday and today — more of the same.

I’d made enough progress by Wednesday that the headaches went away, and, my attitude about things was much improved.  I was feeling good about some of the things I had gotten handled, hopeful that I could handle what was to come.  We capped the week by cleaning and reorganizing the garage.  The car even fits again.

Getting rid of tolerations — many of which involve clutter and disorganization — is a big piece of self care.  It’s amazing how much more peaceful we feel when things are in order, when things are where they’re supposed to be, when the stuff we don’t need has been disposed of.

It’s taking care of stuff like cleaning the garage.  And cleaning out our closet, getting rid of the stuff we no longer wear, organizing the things we do wear.  And cleaning out my office, filing the piles into folders so that they can be easily retrieved, throwing out what is no longer needed, getting rid of things that I might find a use for some day.  And the list goes on.

Why does working on tolerations help?

1. We’re working on things we have some control over, and we can see progress.
2. We’re simplifying and organizing the things that otherwise bother us every day.
3. We’re spending time and effort taking care of ourselves.

There’ll be progress reports as I keep working on it.