• "Like the moon, come out from behind the clouds and shine!" - Buddha

How do you recover?

I’ve had a crazy week. I worked much more than usual at the hospital where I am a labor and delivery nurse, several times into the wee hours of the morning. It was busy, but I work with great people and I was glad to be there. But. The recovery. It is an intense job and being there so much required extra recovery.
Finally I got two days off! At first, I was so tired I didn’t know what to do with myself, and what to do about all the things I had let go because I was working, sleeping and driving children to appointments that couldn’t be canceled.
So, I wrote an overwhelming to-do list and stared at it listlessly.
I wandered around and tried to straighten the piles of things to do, without the vigor to actually do them.
Then I had a day to sleep in and I took it! Normally I try to get the newsletter out on Thursday, but instead, after sleeping just a few hours the night before and getting my child to school, I came home and went to bed.
Sleep. So important and so often overlooked in busy lives. It was wonderful.
So. That’s the first step in recovery from too-much-doing.  Sleep and doing nothing for a bit-even though you have so much to do is the first thing to get you back in balance.
We all need recovery sometimes. Sometimes it’s really obvious why we need it, but sometimes we just need a break. So. Take it before you get sick or snap at someone! No need to get permission or make excuses, just take it!
Then when I woke up I could clean, organize and return emails because my brain was more cooperative.
I started diffusing some balancing oils into the house- Green Mandarin,  Lavender and Ylang Ylang. Lovely.
That helped make me feel more like myself and like I wasn’t going to drown in overwhelm.
I did a bit of tapping and would have loved to do more (and probably should have!) But I needed my hands 🙂 Then the family came home and we went for a walk.
That is what finally really got me back to myself.
Being outside.
There are so many reasons to get outside everyday. Our bodies and souls yearn for it. Even our brain loves it (although it can come up with so many excuses not to do what’s good for us!)
It was so nice to be outside in the sun and the sap buckets were out. Hooray! A sure sign of spring and we drank some sap from the buckets as a health tonic (like the Japanese :)). It’s so miraculous to think of the clear sap getting pulled up by all the cells of the tree from the damp cold earth and transformed into slightly sweet sap! How could it not be good for you?! The sap was sweet, cold and clear and I was renewed.
When I got back inside-I felt refreshed and happy by the world outside. It made me think of this Wendell Berry poem and the fact that getting outside can be the most healing thing we can do!
The Peace of Wild Things

BY WENDELL BERRY

 

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
How about you?
What do you do to re-new yourself when you’ve done too much, been too busy or gotten overwhelmed?
I’d love to hear in comments over in the blog.
or

Email me at crowladyhealing@gmail.com, give me a call (413-325-4529) with any questions.
xoxox
Katherine

Comments are closed.