Friday, June 18, 2010

Flooded+Empty=Crash

These past few weeks have depleted my internal supply of patience, grace, strength, and peace.  I have felt overwhelmed, on the verge of tears, frustrated, impatient and overwhelmed with emotion about everything.  I have experienced deep kindness, powerful encouragement and incredible support from my amazing husband, yet I have completely run my love tank dry.  Things that usually roll off my back have sent me over the edge. I have snapped at people, I have cried at my desk, I have just felt like my protective shell has crumbled a bit and left me holding pieces of it in my hands wondering what happened.

To be fair, it has been a rather big week for me.  I'm essentially doing two full time jobs at work while I cover for a friend of mine out on maternity leave.  I went to my first baby shower since losing Luke and saw the beautiful brand new little guy his overjoyed parents recently adopted and I've been feeling pretty emotionally fragile ever since.  Father's Day is on the horizon and my heart is aching in such a huge way for my beloved Joe on this special day. I'm flooded with emotion and can't seem to remember how to swim.

Being a self-confessed introverted person, I rely on time by myself to recharge, breathe, think, to ponder, to pray, to cry, to cleanse my heart of its worries and troubles. I have not had too much of this lately simply because I have been moving at 100mph these past few weeks both at work and in my personal life.  I have allowed my schedule to fill up with the urgent and the 'want-tos' but not necessarily the important or the 'need tos'...and I can feel the aftershocks and echos of these choices in my soul.  I feel fragile.  I am exhausted.  I feel disconnected from God.  I feel hopeless.  I feel lost.

Last week when I was trying to share with Joe this overwhelming distress I've been wrestling with lately, he gently reminded me of something so simple and so powerful...and when I looked at it from his perspective, so true.  He encouraged me to think about whether I've been running on full speed using my own strength or if I have been relying on God's strength and power to make it through my days.  The answer was obvious- I have been pressing the gas pedal of life to the floor and not putting any Fuel into the tank.

I wonder why I have to seemingly re-learn this lesson over and over and over again:  rest+quiet+time+intention= peace and strength for the important, hope, creativity, freedom and joy...  as opposed to where as I tend to operate.... busy+urgent+accomplishment+no rest for soul=major crash, no energy for anything, no creative energy and lots of tears.  Although I KNOW the reality of these two equations in my heart, sometimes I feel that I get swallowed up by what I perceive to be people's expectations of me and what I feel people expect me to be capable of doing...when in reality I'm really just letting one person down by pushing myself and worrying about what others may think or say if I do or don't do a particular thing...ME. 

A friend of ours named Chris always calls himself a "recovering people pleaser" and every time he says it, I secretly say, "Me too!"  Working on taking care of myself is a constant struggle and requires muscles I'm working on strengthening every day...important over urgent, time with Joe, good work/life balance, time with God, surrounding myself with life-giving people, making sure I have protected time, intentional rest, creative outlets, life-giving hobbies, healthy meals, build in time for exercise... self care is certainly not easy to learn to do, but it is soooo worth it.  It is what I'm going to be working on for the rest of the summer in hopes that I will develop some healthy habits which will fill me not deplete me.

Tonight is Friday and I have the entire weekend in front of me. I have (with the help of my incredible husband) the next 24 hours or so to myself - intentional alone time for me to rest, retreat, restore, refresh, reboot and spend time doing quiet things. I have a long list of ideas of how to fill this time and every single one of them makes me happy.  I'm so grateful to Joe for giving me the time and space to rest and for helping me to work my way through the flood zone of my emotions and for encouraging me to go to the true Source to refill my empty spirit. 

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