As I’ve mentioned before, we have a few jobs to do around the house and garden that we can’t or don’t want to do ourselves and so today we got a builder round to go through each one to see how he can help us.

Once we have quotes, we can prioritise and the builder will be able to get the relevant people in. This is going to help with the project of moving my eldest into the spare room as well, which she’s been waiting for.

I’m feeling very tired this evening so this is going to be a short post. It might be because I’ve done a lot of driving today and not had much time to myself. I had to take the girls to school, go to the post office to return some stuff, work half a day, and then pick the girls up from school. From there we drove to the orthodontist for my eldest’s appointment. Procedures were still the same at the hospital – we had to have our temperature taken and then wait around in the car to be called into the waiting room. (As the R rate is going up dramatically at the moment, they can’t be too careful).

I felt exhausted after a 50 minute drive back home. I missed my nap time this afternoon and my cup of tea.

I’m tried not to identify with the stressed and overwhelmed feeling that I was getting this evening. In the car earlier I was listening to Stephanie Bennett Vodt (Your Spacious Self) and she was saying how it’s best to use the phrase ‘this is…’ rather than starting the sentence with ‘I’. An example would be… instead of saying ‘I am feeling tired’ you would say ‘This is tiredness’. When feeling overwhelmed and a little stressed earlier, I sat quietly at the dinner table after eating and said to myself ‘This is stress’. I tried not to feel the stress, I just named it.

She also says that the feelings will pass if you just watch yourself instead of reacting to your buttons getting pressed. I suppose you have to watch out for them by being more aware.

“In the midst of some grade five hurricanes, I have noticed that there is this strong witnessing part of me now that just watches with great amusement as I blow my stack. If I can allow the intensity to arise without doing anything to fix or change it, it does pass. Every moment gives us an opportunity to be with whatever shows up, but if a hot button gets pressed without warning, chances are we will fall back into our old small and contracted ways”.

Stephanie Bennett Vodt, Your Spacious Self

It’s going to take practise, but I am at least remembering to use the ‘this is…’ method. I like the idea of observing myself rather than attaching myself to it somehow. This relates to the clutter and general mess lying around as well. Right now, I’m looking at the kitchen saying to myself ‘this is a mess’ rather than saying ‘I feel overwhelmed by this mess’. It does help.

The pizza boxes are still lying around from the pizzas they all had earlier. I just drew some eyes on the box for fun!

I’m now going to quickly clean up in here and then go to bed and listen to my relaxation program, as I’m shattered.

Until tomorrow…

Sandra