A simple question I ask myself.
The other day I caught myself worrying about when I was going to write my next blog post.
It almost feels ridiculous to admit that, but I like being consistent, creating a new one at least once a week.
I *normally* write Monday evenings, but I'd had a load of life admin so I bumped the blog writing to Wednesday, when both the girls were due to be nursery.
And then Tuesday evening, Matilda got sick.
And I felt this little worry pop up of "aaaaargh if she doesn't go to nursery tomorrow, when will I get my writing done?!"
Do you know that feeling?
When you feel like you have a massive to-do list and you know when you're going to get it all done but then something happens and it puts a spanner in the whole thing *holds face in hands*.
And then I remembered to ask myself the question that stops me worrying.
"Can I change this?"
Because if you can - do something productive and deal with it.
And if you can't - let it go.
So often the cause of our stress is trying to change things we can't actually change.
We *think* all the thinking is helping us problem-solve, helping us find a solution.
I could feel Old Me trying to kick into action, trying to plan "ok well if Matilda doesn't go to nursery, maybe I could write it when she naps, IF she's well enough to nap on her own in the cot".
But all that thinking only wears out your poor brain.
It spends a tonne of energy working out a solution to a 100 possible scenarios, and then doesn't have any energy left to actually deal with the one problem that does happen (IF it even happens).
I knew that if I ran it all over and over in my mind, I would feel SO stressed and wound up that even if she did go to nursery the next morning, I'd struggle to actually do anything productive anyway 🤦♂️
Mindfulness let's me see when I'm slipping into old habits that no longer serve me.
And here, it allowed me to remember the question "can I change this?".
And then I INSTANTLY relaxed.
I knew I couldn't change whether or not Matilda was still ill in the morning.
So now I needed to move on, let go and focus on the present moment.
And because I practise mindfulness regularly, my mind normally doesn't find it too difficult to do that, once it knows it's safe to do so.
So if you're someone that finds it hard to let go of the little things, give this question a try next time you're struggling.
See how it changes your perspective.
And if it's still feeling hard to let go, even once you know it can't be changed, maybe that's a motivator to practice a bit more mindfulness when times are easy, so you can rely it on it when times are more tricky 🙏
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