Skip to main content

Meandering-Mind-Monday? Find focus in a fresh start!

As I peruse an ever-growing list of elusive deliverables and bothersome to-do's for today, my empathetic heart swells for all my friends out there who will hit the snooze button at least twice, opting for a pony-tail and 2-minute face to delay hopping into the shower, then the daily hamster wheel, just a little longer. Do you ever feel like this? (the little critter in the wheel)
Sometimes it seems like we are just tumbling from one task to the next, almost mindlessly, so caught up in the urgency to get things done that we forget to weigh the value of what we are doing.

When I say, "meandering-mind-Monday," I'm talking about the weekly recurring panic that sets in as I see the days dwindling away until an upcoming event, with so much left to do that I start to feel that roller-coaster adrenaline start to surge---you know that feeling you used to get the night before a final exam, when reality hits--you don't know half of this stuff, there is no time to learn it, and the day of reckoning is at hand. GULP. Your mind races from one thing you haven't done to the next, and then you find yourself going to the kitchen and forgetting what you went to get...

It's easy to get overwhelmed, and forget the difference between urgency and importance. If you're the little hamster flopping around in the wheel, I can assure you that you won't find enough presence of mind in there to get your bearings and sort out your priorities. 

Before your day spins out of control, your mind jumping from task to task to task, until your head is spinning, too, hit the breaks for a moment. Ask yourself, is there anything at all I can take off my list today? When you know you are going have a ridiculously harrowing day, don't make it any harder on yourself than you have to. I'm not talking about cutting corners or slacking. I'm talking about being sensible. Skip the high heels in favor of comfy flats.  Reschedule the nail appointment if it makes you too pressed for time. Pick up the dry cleaning tomorrow, when it's more convenient...and no one will take away your Mother of the Year plaque if you opt for soup and sandwiches for dinner. 

A great deal of the time, we create our own stress -- the good news is, in that case, we can eliminate some of it. Give yourself permission to loosen up your schedule so that you have a little room to breathe. Most importantly, make sure you take your own quiet time before you start to tackle that to-do list. Fuel up on devotion time, play some calming music, put on a dab of your best perfume and brightest lipstick, and, instead of hiding from Monday, face it--too fearless and fabulous for failure.

"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you...let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." -- the words of Jesus,  John 14:27

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NEMESIS, TRAPS AND DIGRESSIONS, OH MY!

Let's begin at the beginning. You have challenges. You have issues. You have enemies. All of the above would be true for any of us -- from slacker to slave, from victim to hero -- but there is actually one very small but highly distinguishing characteristic: perspective. Yes, the thing that makes mountains out of molehills--and vice versa--is undoubtedly the key to success or failure, and the common thread through the story of every hero. Something interesting about perspective: it can be found, lost, and regained -- although sometimes elusive, it's always attainable.  Through the next week, we will explore the various things responsible for our lost perspective, and talk about how to get it back. I was about to say that there are three things that generally rob us of our proper perspective, but that would imply that it can be taken from us, by force. The fact is, unfortunately, we sometimes "lose" our perspective as easily as we misplace our keys, cell phone, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Guardrails

Thank  From the winding ascent of Black Snake Road through the mountains of Arkansas to the many breathtaking overlook points in the Rockies in Colorado, you’ll find miles and miles of guardrails. Like sentries marching alongside the road, they stand as barriers between the safe and level asphalt and a sometimes cavernous drop into the depths below.  We don’t question guardrails on roads like that. N fact, when we see a potentially treacherous road without them, we wonder why they aren’t there.  Yet we have a desire to careen carelessly through life, without boundaries or barriers — without commandments.  This is a hard thing to convey — that the God whose mercies are new every morning and whose love stretches to the skies also has rules. But like little children, we stretch out our little hand and touch what he’s already told us “no—that’s hot,” and then we are angry with Him because we got burned.  It’s not from tyranny that He says “don’t” or puts up guardrai...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ever After

This weekend, we re-watched “Ever After,” a historical fiction drama based on the fairy tale of Cinderella. As a most beloved daughter reduced to a despised servant in her own manor house when her father died, the girl endured heartbreak and hardship for many years...until...! Long story short, when she stood next to the throne with the royal family, the newly crowned princess and future queen, she was in a completely new position in the presence of her angry stepmother. She was no longer under the wicked woman’s control, to order around and abuse. No longer subject to her unkind words or doubled labor. No longer her slave. She has nothing to fear or dread from the woman who had held her captive in the cruelest way her whole young life, because now she wore a crown.  Imagine your life with the same kind of triumph. Freed from the voice that condemns you and tells you you’ll never be good enough. Free from the ever-increasing burden of plodding through your days with the weight of t...
Post a Comment
Read more