Lightening Online

Yesterday I had an appointment with a Natural Therapist that visits our area. A number of my friends have been to see this guy in the past and recommended him. It’s taken me some time to feel I’m ready to give it a go (that and I knew he’d suggest an expensive amount of supplements for me to take and I didn’t want to spend that money).

It was an interesting experience and didn’t go anything like I expected it to. As soon as I described my health symptoms (or the not so healthy issues) to him, he was able to nail my personality exactly.

Farmboy was supposed to sit in on the appointment with me but he had a meeting and the guy was running a little late so he only heard the first 5 minutes of the appointment. Which was enough for him to be convinced this guy was on to something.

Basically I have 2 gears. Flat out and stopped. And my body has been running on adrenaline and high levels of stress hormone for way too long. Interesting timing that just the day before (Tuesday), I had been feeling good and went flat out cleaning the house all day.

We spent more of the appointment discussing my mental state and how it got like that than we did discussing the physical state of my body (which is actually reasonably good all things considered). Not that I had to tell him much, he just knew. Not in a freaky “psycho” kind of “knowing”. A more general, “I’ve come across people like you before and while they’re rare, they’re out there and you’re not the freak you thought you were” kind of way. His opinion is that one of the reasons I think so poorly of myself is that as a child I would have naturally tried to seek out others like me and not finding any, assumed that there was something wrong with me.

It was a rather interesting and enlightening half an hour.

What does all this have to do with scheduling?

One of his recommendations for me was that I schedule my time each day. Basically “make appointments” throughout the day for various things I want to achieve. And MAKE SURE that I schedule time in for myself.

It’s not a new theory by any stretch of the imagination. Many people will tell you that creating a daily schedule, as well as including time for yourself, is an efficient way to manage your time.

I’ve resisted trying something like this because I tend to get inflexible when I try to work to a schedule and frustrated when things don’t go quite to plan. So that’s something I need to work on (flexibility).

Also, I have to be careful not to overdo things on days when I’m feeling good. Apparently that’s not a wise use of my energy.

This whole concept fits in well with my desire to take “long service leave” this term. I can see it’s going to be easy to focus too much on getting the house to a state I’m happy with (which, unfortunately, I probably will never be happy with anyway) and not spend any time on things I’d like to do.

It’s also about retraining my brain that it’s OKAY to spend time on things that I find enjoyable. That I’m WORTH it.

I can’t help but think that seeing this guy is the next step in “Project Lightening”. My path toward finding myself, accepting myself and living life to the FULL.

I’m going to give this scheduling idea a try - I’ll keep you posted on how it’s working out.