Category Archives: Self-care

Getting back to it

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Why is it so hard to get back to work after a break? This little guy peeping in my window is not helping.  For people with ADD/ADHD, we struggle with staying on track most of the time, much less with the craziness that surrounds the holiday madness that starts with Halloween and proceeds through the roughly twenty-three holidays that end with New Year’s eve.  Many people make all kinds of resolutions. I wrote here,  about how I did not make resolutions but instead make goals. Goals are fantastic and wonderful and how I manage to get things done, but goals are hard to remember sometimes in the everyday chaos that is life.

This year at a New Year service with our kids, we each wrote a word on a bit of tile to remind us of what we most wanted to do this year, a word to remind us of the one thing that if we accomplished it would make us feel happy /proud/ content/ calm/ wonderful.

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It seems simple enough, but the process of distilling a goal down to one word is powerful. If you are struggling with getting back to writing/ work/ exercise/ eating well, try this: choose one word that will remind you of what you most want to accomplish this year. Write it on a stone or small tile. Keep it on your desk, or in your pocket, and when you feel like you are drifting, hold it in your hand, let it anchor you, remember what it is a that you want most. This exercise was brought to us by our friend Chelsea, and this post is a way to say thank you Chelsea for this wonderful idea, and the start of a new family tradition.

 

Nurturing with Nature

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My happy place is outside. This year Northeast Ohio has been gifted with lovely weather and I have been able to spend more time in my happy place. I wrote about filling the well of creativity here, and once again I am taking time off. This will be my last post for 2015 so I can spend with family and friends. I’m sharing a few of my happy place photos from this year. See ya on the flip side, and wishing you all wonderful holidays.

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Holiday Hell, Part 2

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I wrote a post last year that talked about how to deal with the holidays and the stress and overwhelm that they can bring here , and I wrote about grief here. Today’s post talks about how to deal with grief at the holidays. I am not talking about the generic sadness that can strike because imagined holiday joy is offset by the reality of dealing with family, or work, or horrible happenings in the world at large.

I am talking about the kind of grief that comes from spending your first holidays without the best friend, the child, the mother, the brother, the son, the daughter, the husband, the wife, the partner, the father, the grandfather, the grandmother, the auntie, the uncle, or sister that has left this world.

I am talking about the kind of grief and sadness that sneaks up on you randomly and delivers a heart crushing pain. It can be little things that trigger it, a familiar smell, a place that reminds you of them, a store display, a gift that you might have bought, lighting the candles, a song that you hear, an ornament, or a tradition that now seems empty.

I have lived a bit at this point in my life, and have had my share of holidays that were about getting through them rather than celebrating. I know that I have been fortunate to have more years where I have reveled in all that is wonderful and good and happy about the holidays. I know that this year many of my friends are trying to find a way through the holidays. This my letter to them, and to everyone who is trying to support them.

  1. Take care of yourself. Do what you need to do to feel better, even if that means that you are doing something completely different.
  2. Let yourself be as sad as you need to be, don’t try and stuff your feelings because you are afraid of making others uncomfortable.
  3. Do not self-medicate with alcohol and drugs. As hard as it is, feel your feelings, masking them with substances is not good for your health.
  4. Let others do for you. If you cannot get it together to do what you have always done, let someone else do it.
  5. Surround yourself with people that love you, birth family, or made family, whoever it is, let them love you.
  6. If you are considering self-harm, please, please, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline   http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ . They have online services that are there to help.

If you are the one trying to help someone that is struggling here are your five tips:

  1. Ask what you can do to help, and then do it.
  2. Do not change the subject if the person grieving wants to talk about their sadness, let them express how they are feeling. Listen.
  3. If you are concerned about how someone is handling their grief, ask them. It is okay to talk about being sad.
  4. Love them, even if they are not themselves, even if they are angry, moody, or cry a lot, hold them if they need/want it, give them space to feel what they are feeling.
  5. If you are concerned that the person is at risk for self-harm, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ . They have many resources, to help you help the person you are worried about.

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Goats

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If you have not guessed I have a thing for photographing animals. I was able to spend a lovely Fall afternoon playing with and photographing this beautiful trio of goats. Remember to feed your creative soul. Take the time to get outside and away from screens. Take time for you. Thanks Kelly for making it happen.

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Reentry: After Travel Self-Care

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IMG_2538 I  spent last week in a fog after attending the Surrey International Writers Conference this year. Reentry into family/work/real life after travel /learning /inspiration/ and only having to take care of yourself can make the strongest among us freak out. Combine jet-lag, sleep issues, the time change, and all the stuff you did not do while you were gone and it can overwhelming and frustrating. All the ideas that you have for getting back to work to finish projects or start new ones can come to a grinding halt as your mind and body try to adjust, add a little ADD/ADHD into the mix and you have the perfect storm for feeling and acting like this:

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Here are five things that can help with reentry:

  1. Exercise. Walk or swim, or whatever it is that gets your body moving and rests your brain.
  2. Nature. Get outside, breathe, disconnect from electronics. Give your mind time to appreciate world without a screen.
  3. Eat well. Drink water.
  4. Be gentle with yourself.
  5. Be gentle with your family. Little ones often are sad/mad that you left them, they may cling or be difficult to let you know that they missed you, and are unhappy that you were gone. Sometimes big people behave the same way if they have had care and feeding of the littles. Remember that while a conference is work/career related, you were able to enjoy the company of other adults, and the parent at home was dealing with the fallout from your absence.

Conferences can be well-springs of information, inspiration, and support. Do not let after conference stress keep you from attending, try these tips after your next conference for a smoother reentry.

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Is It Worth It? Tips for Evaluating Creative Projects

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So I’m getting ready to go to a writing conference next week, and in the process of clearing my schedule, travel preparation, creating two editorial calendars, and meeting scheduled teaching obligations, I have been overwhelmed with new opportunities, and new project ideas. It often happens that when I am very busy and productive, my brain boils over with ideas for new projects. I like to take advantage of the times that my brain explodes with creative project ideas, storing them away like a squirrel storing nuts for the winter.

As a person with ADD/ADHD this is how my brain is most of the time, but some days it is worse. It can be overwhelming and frustrating. It feels like there is a tower of ideas in my head, each thought touching and building off other ideas and thoughts. It is a struggle sometimes to pull out the thoughts and ideas that best move me towards my goals, and not have everything come crashing to a halt because I choose the wrong idea to develop.

I never worry about running out of ideas, but I do worry about sorting out which idea/project/ new venture is best to pursue. After struggling to find a way to decide which ideas to take up, and which to let go, I choose this system. Any idea/project/venture that I choose to develop has to meet all three of these criteria:

  • It has to feed me creatively, or financially, preferably both.
  • It has to fit with my goals and it has be a step toward achieving an annual or lifetime goal.
  • It has to align with my ethics and my values.

You will notice I don’t include that it has to be feasible, practical, or sensible. I have found that if a project meets the criteria listed, than the project becomes achievable, and it is reasonable to commit energy and resources to the project.

If you have a creative idea/project/venture that you are struggling to get started or complete, back up and examine why. Ask yourself: Why this project? Why don’t I want to get started? Why don’t I want to complete the project? Take the time to examine the project using the criteria listed above to evaluate it.   Remember, it is perfectly fine to quit a project that does not move you towards your goals; it is okay to quit a project if it is not ethical and does not fit with your value system; and it is more than okay to quit a project that does not feed your body or your soul. 

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Rebalancing Act

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Rebalancing. The act of trying to stay on top of your commitments to yourself and others when your schedule changes. I have written before about why it is so hard for ADD/ADHD individuals to change their routines here. As a parent with ADD/ADHD it is hard enough keeping my own schedule together, let alone the little people in my house. We started using checklists for the kids so that they can help getting us out the door in the morning and into bed at a reasonable time at night. The checklists are working well for them, and after finding myself spinning like the Ferris wheel above trying to get myself out the door one morning I think I need a checklist for me. 

 Balance is really about rebalancing, letting go of what does not work and holding on to what does work. If I don’t take time to examine my schedule and change what is not working, I end up frustrated, and crazed, and not getting anything accomplished. I started out this Fall thinking that I would be able to drop the kids off and head to the pool for a swim workout. I neglected to factor in that there are two aquatic exercise classes for older people scheduled when I planned on swimming, that it resulted in a very crowded locker room, and fewer lanes for lap swimming.

I got so frustrated that I skipped my swimming exercise. After two weeks of blowing off swimming I realized that I just needed to adjust my time. Every exercise recommendation you ever see says to do your exercise first thing in the morning so that you don’t skip it, but for me, the morning is my most creative time, and the pool is too crowded. Instead of just giving up, I tried going after lunch and before I pick up the kids.  It worked, I get my swim time in, I have the locker room to myself, and I am in a better state of mind to deal with after-school-crazy time with my kids.

The willingness to try different ways to accomplish different tasks is key to success for people with ADD/ADHD. Let go of recommendations that do not work for you, and hold on to what works. Exercise really helps me with my focus, but I need to do it when it fits my schedule, not when everyone says you should do it.

This applies to every other task that people have opinions about when and how you should do it. For example almost every book of writing advice ever written advises that you write everyday.  Would that work for me? Nope, after a long shift at my day job I am too burnt out and tired. Write before my shift to get my writing in? Nope, not getting up at four in the morning to put words on paper, although I have stayed up to four in the morning writing when in a groove. What do I do instead of beating myself up about not writing everyday?  I make it count when I do write.  I set goals for word counts. I stick with what works for me.

Two years ago I participated in the madness that is NANOWRIMO (see my post here if you don’t know what NANOWRIMO is) I only had weekdays to write, and only for two hours and forty-five minutes. So I sat down and figured out how many words I had to write each day in that two hours and forty-five minutes to finish.  Did I write everyday? Nope, but I still managed to get fifty thousand words written in twenty days. Find what works and hold on to it, and let go of any advice that does not work for you. Listen to yourself, research, experiment, read and re-balance to find your center.

Be kind to yourself, don’t quit, find what works for you and do it.

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A Reminder: Slow Down

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I am traveling this week with my family, and decided to re-run this post about taking time to slow down. It is from last October when during a pretty chaotic time.  The winter proved to be just as chaotic and stressful.  If you did not get a chance to read it then here it is:

Taking the Time to Slow Down

Spring! Ohio style.
I will be back next week with a brand new post.

Staying Focused Awash in Grief.

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Over the last three months I have struggled with focus. Why? Grief.  In the last twelve weeks there have been eight deaths that have directly, or indirectly touched me. The last time I lost this many people, this close together, was in the middle of the AIDs epidemic.

Grief is difficult for everyone. For individuals with ADHD, it it compounded by behavioral issues. I wrote about keeping it together when a family member faces a health crises here.  Some of the same issues complicate grief for individuals with ADD/ADHD, impulse control, issues with substance abuse, the inability to be still, discomfort in your own skin, and an increased incidence of depression and suicide.

My tips for handling grief can be summed up in a few sentences.

1. Do not self-medicate. I am talking about the urge to binge watch/spend money/shop/drink/smoke/eat chocolate/ whatever your make-me-forget-not-feel drug of choice is, don’t do it. Feel your feelings no matter how uncomfortable they are.

2. Pay attention. Being sad is normal. Not getting out of bed for days is not. Get help.

3. Find someone to talk to about your feelings. A therapist, social worker, clergy, your best friend, your family.

4. If you are a creative, create. Do the thing that feeds your soul.

5. Give yourself time. So many times we think that we should be able to “just get over” whatever it is that is making us sad. A very wise woman once told me “some things you don’t get over, you just get through.”

6. Find a peaceful view. Just sit with it. This is mine.

Please give yourself time to heal.

If you are struggling with depression, please, please, get help, don’t make a decision in a moment that is permanent. This link is for the National Suicide Prevention Organization their number 24/7/365 is 1-800-273-8255.