Overwhelmed

Life can be so overwhelming sometimes...

Sometimes I wonder if everyone else is like me in that when they get overwhelmed their mind basically freaks out.  At the moment I am planning a wedding (24 more days), going to school full time, working, and trying to manage my time well to distribute it to family and friends.  With all that said, recently, I have been extremely overwhelmed.  Trying to find the balance of it all is one thing but when I have bills to pay and grades to make it can push me past my breaking point.

My fiancé told me today, when I had a moment of absolute panic (bless him), to just focus on the parts I need to get done today.  It became much more manageable when I could look at it that way.  Today I focused on spending time with my mom, getting a couple things done for the wedding, and doing some homework in the evening.  When I could break it down into smaller more manageable chunks it was easier to digest.  If I don't I end up looking at the giant pile of things I need to do (laundry, checks to write, cars to wash, people to visit and call and check in on, projects to finish, papers to write, chapters to read....AHHHHHH!) If I do that I end up crawling back into bed and saying forget it!

I have always been like that and the people closest to me have learned to tell me to break it into chunks.  When I am reminded of that point I am okay.  But today I became curious as to how other people do it. Do they just deal with the anxiety?  Or do they not feel that anxiety at all?  Do they do what I do?  Or do they try to get it all done in one day?  I began thinking, maybe there is a better way!  Because mine only works if I can remember to do it and usually only after I have had a couple freak out moments.

I have been doing my best lately to let things go.  Letting the person who cut me off go...letting the rude person at work go...letting a mistake I have made go...

It is difficult on some days.  Today was one of them.  I was irritable and grouchy all day.  Emotionally drained.  To be honest, I felt like a total lunatic for the majority of the day!  One second I was okay and the next I was drowning in my panic and the next I was snapping at my cat to leave me alone.

I think what I am learning from days like this is that it happens.  One bad day or two bad days or even a whole bad month doesn't mean that its all bad.  It just means that its a little crazy right now.  In a couple days or a few months from now it might calm down or it might be an all new kind of crazy!  Who knows?!  All I know is that life moves so fast.  You never know what is coming.  So enjoy every second of it.  If you need to be grouchy for a bit, be grouchy.  But then pick yourself back up and try again.  

Compassion

The above picture has the words to the very tough lesson I am learning right now. It is so easy to get caught up in petty arguments with people and to hold grudges that you forget what it is really important in life. You forget that we live in a beautiful place full of broken people. People that are trying to get by in this crazy life. People with mothers and fathers, children, pets, and friends just like you and me. People with money issues...family drama...long hours at work. People with their own set of pains and hurts and sorrows. 

I have started something new within myself in the past couple of weeks. I am really trying to let go of past wrongs and to forgive and forget. I am trying to rebuild relationships that I thought were lost and to root new ones in love. Let go of grudges and hurt that I have felt and embrace the present moment.

A couple of weeks ago the world slapped me hard in the face with something I had been holding on to. By holding onto my hurt I had hurt someone else.  I was raised to feel compassion and all my life I have felt it very deeply. And in that moment when I had seen what my refusal to let go had done, I knew I never wanted to make anyone feel that way again regardless of what they had done to me. 

However, how do you walk that road of being soft without also being a pushover? I have come to the conclusion that it is possible. If someone wrongs me I have within me the power to address it with them and then to let it go. What they do with it is out of my control. For me, and for my life, it is healthier for me to let it go that to hold on to hate and anger and to let "the world make me hard."  

I don't want there to ever be tension between myself and someone else. I want to leave this world some day leaving only love and happiness where I've been. In order to do that, I need to change my heart and strive to be soft. Because, really, life is too short for hate. Don't you think?