Do you ever get up in the morning and your mind feels busy, like there’s too much to do and not enough hours in the day?
This was me this morning, my mind was rushing round not knowing how it was going to cope with everything I had planned.
Luckily this morning I got up a bit earlier than I needed to for my morning class and I was able to observe this state.
Now I am a busy mum of two, and it is the summer holidays currently so stress levels are probably higher than usual BUT today both my children are at football club and the only thing fixed engagement on my schedule was to teach my early morning yoga class.
So why did I feel so dysregulated and out of control?
Enter the Shoulds and the Musts
Shoulds and musts are: ‘rigid, unrealistic rules we place on ourselves, others, or the world. They are an unhelpful thinking style in psychology that creates heavy emotional stress, guilt, and anxiety when we or other people fail to meet impossible standards. ‘
My brain, seeing that I had a small amount of spare time between finishing my class and picking my children up from holiday club, had ‘helpfully’ filled it with all the things that I ‘should’ do.
BUT what I had unknowing done by filling every second was tell my brain that there’s no time to stop or slow down, that it MUST keep going or, well what? I’ve failed? I’m not good enough? What is that drive that keeps us pushing ourselves endlessly and not allowing ourselves to stop?
I could see this morning that my brain was frantic, unable to settle and it was causing me to feel incredibly stressed and dysregulated.
So what did I do?
I allowed myself to sit and drink my coffee in quiet, I didn’t pick up my phone and start scrolling. I observed how fast my mind was running.
I then removed all the ‘shoulds’ from my day and allowed myself some space to breath. This included not doing my strength training session, which was hard, as not only my brain but society tells us how important strength training is but my body felt tired, my brain needed space and the gym wasn’t going to give me that today. In fact the gym was another way to punish and push myself – raising my cortisol levels even higher, not what I needed.
Instead I forced myself to slow down, showing my brain there was no emergency, no need to rush no need to panic.
Awareness
The feeling didn’t dissipate immediately, it lingered and I could feel my mind trying to find something to attach that feeling to. Dangerous territory, it went over old OCD thoughts trying to pull me into a spiral but for whatever reason today, I was detached enough and aware enough to observe this happening and was able to allow the thoughts to be and pass through.
Since I had my second bought of vertigo recently this is how my brain has felt, on high alert, definitely in fight or flight. I think my tendency in the past, when feeling like this, has been to push. Push into more, make myself busier, work harder, train harder, take on more, but all this does is create more dysregulation and less peace.
As I get older, I want the peace, the ability to slow down and let my busy brain take a breath is a superpower.
Have you experienced states like this? Have you been able to observe them?
I leave you with this wonderful quote to ponder:
‘The quieter you become the more you are able to hear’ -Rumi
As Always
Stay Strong xxx
Conquering OCD 