It’s not about having time, it’s about making time
Last week, I talked about feeling like I don’t have the time to take care of myself, and my physical wellness in particular. I also started to feel a bit overwhelmed with everything else I want to do; not the things I have to do, but the ones I want to do. That’s especially true for blogging. I started to feel like it’s all too much when I consider my other high priority tasks like homeschooling, meals, caring for my kids, etc. I started to feel like I didn’t have the time for it all. Yet, I spent hours last week just hanging out and watching movies with my kids.
Now, I love spending time with them. It’s very important to me to do this because I want to have a good relationship with my kids. However, I think I can be more strategic about my time and put more value in quality time over quantity. I also think it’s important for them to see how I prioritize… I was about to say “juggle”, but that seems, to me at least, like everything will come crashing down at some point. That’s probably because I can’t juggle! Anyway, I think it’s important that they see how I prioritize my time with them as well as my responsibilities at home and also what I consider to be my work.
Happiness blooms from within
Gratitude is a major focus for me when it comes to my emotional and spiritual wellness. I have to tell you that even though I’ve come a long way in training my mind to look for the positives, I still struggle with it at times, especially in challenging times. I mentioned in another post last month that although the Fall is my favourite season, it’s not one I usually look forward to. That’s because I always seem to go through major change at this time of year. And, this year is no different.
The last few weeks have been very challenging as I wait for change in some areas of my life that I’m just not content with. Waiting is hard when there’s no end in sight. It’s easy to lose hope and give up. So, I think it’s important to change my focus and stop looking for the end, one that might never come, and instead look to now and how I can live well now.
We can be happy regardless of what’s going on around us. That’s good news because we can’t control, for the most part, what’s going on externally. But we do have more control over how we respond to it.
An important part of that, for me, has been redefining what Happiness means. For a long time, I confused happiness with glee, euphoria and excitement. However, Happiness is most often defined as contentment. And, Joy is more like Peace. Those aren’t things we can make happen ourselves, but we can do our part to cultivate them.
