Sam and Basil, comfy in Wales!
I’m in Wales this weekend. After a super busy week I spent two hours working on the train home and spent my Saturday with my lovely fellow students on my Advanced Counselling Diploma course.
Wanna know what I learned about this week?
That life is always going to be a roller coaster. It doesn’t matter where you are, what you’ve achieved or how much planning you do. There’s always the chance a demolition ball will come flying out of nowhere (with or without a naked Miley Cyrus on top of it) and knock you sideways.
What you need to learn to do (in my best fake American accent) is roll with the punches.
Here’s a quick idea of what happened to me this week:
- Worked most of Sunday to ‘get ahead’ for the week
- Had a great day on Monday until, just about to turn my light off, I get a call from the cleaners at my office saying it’s flooded and there’s water pouring through the ceiling on to my precious baby – the software server. Cue me half asleep desperately trying to shove my left leg in to the right leg of my jeans, brush my hair and run through the London tube network, then spend two hours looking at dirty water to finally come up with, ‘So we’ll assess it all in the morning then?’.
- 4hrs sleep to next day. Guys – I am not the sort of person who gets away with 4hrs sleep. I have 3 spots on my chin right now to prove it.
- Virtually met with a few great new clients – awesomely excited to work with them.
- Worked another twelve hours on Friday.
- Came home to my gorgeous Scottie beside himself to see me.
- Studied all day Saturday and got depressed at how all my fellow students seemed further along in their client hours than me
- Woke at 6am this morning and brainstormed how to get more client hours.
See what I did above – I colour-co-ordinated that shit people – blue for feeling blue and yellow for feeling sunny. Get me with the visual aids.
What was the point of that self-gratuitous list? To point out, visually, that life is full of ups and downs. It doesn’t matter how together your life is or how badly it’s going, there will always be highs and lows, peaks and troughs.
What yoga has taught me, is that allowing yourself to go with the flow (that’s Wu Wei in Tao principles
Find a few minutes in your day to be still, close your eyes, and listen to your breath. If you’ve got a iPhone there’s a great app called ‘Sadhana’ which can teach you some Pranayama (breathing exercises) and a lovely little timer.
Make a note of your highs and lows this week – what does your roller coaster look like?
P.S. If you’re interested in learning more about how to use mindfulness to destress and stabilise your roller coaster, let me know in the comments – I’m working on a little ‘su-int – su-int’ for you!