The Problem with Daylight
After so many false starts trying to write this week’s newsletter despite creating structure to make it easier, I realized what was causing the issue.
Spring is wearing me out.
More specifically, now that we have more daylight my brain is yelling, “MORE TIME TO DO ALL THE THINGS!!”
More daylight hours doesn’t necessarily mean more energy for certain tasks, though, and despite knowing this logically, convincing myself of it has been really difficult. I repeatedly keep testing my limits, thinking that maybe something has magically changed, and surprise, surprise, it hasn’t.
A few days after arriving home from driving down to Missouri to see the eclipse, I scheduled meetups with 3 people in one day. Did I have time for it? Absolutely. Figuring each meetup would be about 2 hours, I made sure to schedule them far enough apart so I wasn’t rushing. I even squeezed in creating something for my 100 Day Project because I didn’t want to miss a day.
Did scheduling make things less exhausting? No. By the end of the day I was barely functional. I know that too much socializing will run me into the ground, let alone a lot of socializing when I'm getting back into the swing of things after travel, yet I still pushed myself because nothing could be rescheduled. There was a meeting that had already been rescheduled once, coffee with a friend who was only in town for a day, and a girls night with a friend and her daughters that I had promised to do.
I’m fine with really busy days every once in a while, but the past couple weeks I’ve been taking on more and more and my body is yelling at me that things are getting out of balance.
If you can relate to being less than stellar at staying balanced, here are a few things that help me wrangle my tornado brain.
1) Stopping to recognize how I feel
When my brain is moving fast, stopping what I’m doing even for 5 minutes feels like slamming on the brakes in the middle of the freeway. What I’ve learned to recognize is the difference between fast and chaotic and fast and directed. If I’m organized and have a clear picture of what I need to accomplish, I can move through tasks quickly and complete them. If I’m not organized, I’m bouncing back and forth between multiple tasks, partially doing a bunch of things but not completing anything. The bouncing always leads to frustration, and my tendency when I'm frustrated is to dig in harder rather than take a break. When I finally do pause, there's nearly always tense muscles, tight chest, and shallow breathing. I understand now that those things are my body telling me that what I'm doing isn't working and that I’m not going to accomplish anything by continuing to push forward. I stop what I'm doing, take a deep breath to reset my shallow breathing, and then shift gears to pull all of the loose threads of thought together in order to organize them. Once I have a clear understanding of what I need to be working on, the muscles relax and the tight chest releases.
This took a lot of time to figure out because our medical system wants to paint this as anxiety, but I don't feel anxious. I'm not worried about anything, I just feel like I have a surplus of chaotic energy. I wondered why breathing exercises and stretching and whatnot weren't working and finally figured out it's because the energy isn't being channeled. If I want to go, go, go, but I don't know what I'm going towards, that's when it feels like anxiety. Once I understood that, I needed to find tools that would help me work with that energy, not against it.
2) Find tools that you like and use them
A few years ago I discovered Dani Donovan, a comic artist whose work focuses on ADHD. She wrote an activity book called the Anti-Planner* to help people get tasks done. It’s divided up with tabs that have feelings on them, such as stuck, unmotivated, and overwhelmed. You can flip to the tab that connects with how you’re feeling and there are a list of activities to choose from to help you work through it. It’s been SO helpful when I'm stuck or when my brain is chaotic as I mentioned above, and I highly recommend it.
*Link to Anti-Planner is an Amazon affiliate link
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--ON MY RADAR--
Watching: Palm Royale on AppleTV+
Kristen Wiig plays Maxine Simmons, a former beauty queen trying to make a name for herself in Palm Beach high society. Set in 1969, the fashion is a big focus as well as the opulence of the clubs and homes. I was excited to see an appearance by the Saga Motel in Pasadena, CA and the Saul Bass inspired title sequence is fantastic.
In the first 4 episodes there's a lot of character development that mostly focuses on everyone disliking Maxine with only small hints of a plot. In the 5th episode, where I currently left off, there's finally clarity about the plot and the drama intensifies. 7 episodes have aired so far with a total of 10 in the season. The star-studded cast, with A-listers like Laura Dern and Allison Janney, do a lot of heavy lifting to keep the story engaging. Kristen Wiig is fantastic, expertly balancing drama with comedy, especially in her scenes with Carol Burnett. I'm glad I stuck with it and if you have AppleTV+, I'd recommend checking it out.
As always, thank you so much for being here!
Until the next newsletter, be well.
Giesla
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