photo credit: Jason Dunnivant

It’s always your next move.

— Napoleon Hill

Do you know what you believe and do your beliefs empower you?  We may think we know what we believe but over time our beliefs change.  We can be so busy that we don’t notice and  unconscious beliefs can be the most helpful/hurtful beliefs that we hold.

For me, I find that I can be a great cheerleader for other people, because I see the possibilities in other people more easily than I see them in myself.  AND I believe that other people can achieve, while being not so sure about what I can achieve.

Lately I’ve been suffering from writer’s block.  For me writer’s block doesn’t mean that there’s nothing out there to write about.  Rather, it means that there’s nothing that I want to write about.  The problem is that after a while, I begin to believe that the writing drought is reality – forever.  As a result, I feel discouraged – which reinforces the lack of energy around writing about anything.

I have created a new set of beliefs, and not good ones.

Into the Depths – How the Heck Did I Get HERE?

It is amazing to me how quickly this downward spiral occurs.  With all that has happened over the last six months – Dad’s quick slide into dementia, the unpleasant but necessary legal actions which must be taken, the additional workload and stuff that is around because we need to dispose of the family stuff that was in my parents’ home – none of it seems to have affected me the way that this little bit of writer’s block has.

On the other hand, perhaps this is just a result of the cumulative effect of everything that has occurred to me personally and in the world.  Maybe I am just so tired and worn down that I’m having trouble getting my mojo on.

Amazingly, someone actually figured out a way to research whether our brains get tired.  Their research shows that our brains really do get tired.  In Tough Choices:  How Making Decisions Tires Your Brain, On Amir reports that when our brains get tired we make less good decisions.  And it doesn’t take very much to tire our brains.  It seems that exerting self-control to resist a piece of chocolate cake uses the same executive function in the brain as making decisions.  If you put enough energy into resisting the chocolate cake, you can tire your brain enough to make poorer decisions. (FINALLY, an argument for just having the chocolate cake NOW!)

Our tired brains can choose to believe something that our rested/refreshed/de-stressed brains would think was just plain silly.  The more we learn about how the mind/body connection works, the more we understand how our thoughts affect our feelings.  If we are tired and we are thinking poorly, we can think ourselves into feeling badly (both physically and emotionally).  And that is the start of a downward spiral that we need to stop NOW.

There are times in our lives when we are overtaken by a storm of work that must be done.  Maybe someone at work is out sick and we must do their job in addition to our own.  Maybe, like Ellie, you now must do everything instead of sharing the load with a partner.  Maybe, like my family, you’ve absorbed responsibility for your parents.  These are difficult situations and may continue for years.  The key to survival is to be aware of your internal state and keep looking for ways to adjust so that you aren’t overwhelmed.

When my father first fell sharply into dementia, we had two priorities – keep him safe and find the money so that we could pay for his care.  Over the last few years he had been unpredictable, some days being pleasant and other days abusive.  We now know that it was the bipolar disease, but at the time getting him to pay bills or let us do it was a hit or miss proposition.  He hid the money he needed to live on and in the end he couldn’t remember where he’d put it.

My job was to start clearing out the house and sort through the papers to FIND THE MONEY.  Over Christmas, I got up early each day and worked for 10-15 hours frantically sorting, shredding and filing papers.  I would take a short break for lunch and dinner and then get back to it.  By the time I left, I was a physical and emotional mess.  It wasn’t until I got back home that I realized how out of balance I had been.

Bend Like a Palm Tree

In his book, It’s Your Time, Joel Osteen points out that after a hurricane, the trees that are left standing are the Palm trees.  The wind can push them over until they’re practically bent in two and yet, they don’t break.  The pines and the oaks are pulled out by their roots, but the Palm trees let the wind blow them over and come back as strong as ever when the wind quiets.  The Palms are flexible, the pines and oaks are not.

We’re designed for flexibility.  We have the ability to adapt to new circumstances and to respond to unexpected challenges.  We may bend in two, but we don’t need to break.  We just need to stay aware of what’s going on inside us and perhaps listen to friends who may try to tell us we need a rest, even a short one.

Strength Training for the Mind is Rest and Relaxation

And so we come full circle to the question I asked you at the beginning of this post.  Do you know what you believe and do your beliefs empower you?  Do you still believe in you?

Last week Ellie wrote about 50 Ways to Shake Off Your Stress.  Are you feeling stressed? Maybe you should give one of Ellie’s ways to shake off stress a try.

In the US, we consider ourselves to be doing less than our best if we aren’t “going” every minute of every day.  There is always something to be done – the house must be picked up, trash taken out, laundry done – and if it isn’t all complete, we must keep working until it is.

Yet, the more we learn, the more we understand that it is essential that we find ways to rest and de-stress regularly.  Although, no doubt, somewhere out there is a person who de-stresses by dusting or doing laundry, actual relaxation is what we need.  Otherwise, we cannot protect ourselves from the subtle downward spiral.  And with that downward spiral, we lose pieces of our beliefs in ourselves.

Our tired brains may adopt beliefs and attitudes that dis-empower us.  We tell ourselves that we can keep going no matter what.  Perhaps that’s true, physically.  But now we know that even while we’re putting one tired foot in front of the other, our reasoning powers are compromised and we lose faith in ourselves.  Protect yourself.  Take the time to rest and relax.  Only by taking care of yourself physically and mentally can you truly be able to bounce back like the Palm trees.  Only by taking care of yourself, can you continue to believe in your own tremendous power.