Do you know the warning signs of being mentally and emotionally exhausted?
Most of us are aware of the necessity to stop and heal when the body has been stressed and injured in some way.
But how many of us know the importance of, or take time out to heal the mind from overwhelming emotional stresses… How many of us proactively take pause daily mindfully counter or regroup from the ordinary everyday stresses that if left unchecked can turn into overwhelm?
And we know that what takes hold in the mind eventually affects the physical body.
That said, I came across this article and thought I’d share.
Eight Signs You Are Mentally And Emotionally Exhausted:
You Lack Motivation.
You Are Easily Upset.
You Cry At The Drop Of A Dime.
You Are Having Frequent Anxiety Attacks.
You Are Easily Irritated.
You Can’t Sleep.
You Frequently Feel Nauseated Or Dizzy.
You Start To Go Numb.
Remember to make space in your day for self love and wellness.
I read this story yesterday and was blown away by the author’s recounting of her experiences in dealing with random men on the street while going about her day to day life. The authenticity of her writing, the truth she speaks is awesome! So many women, myself included deal with on a regular basis. Her truth is my truth… It felt as if she were writing my own story.
Excellent writing ~♡
“Nobody tells young girls that men own the power of the gaze. My mother never told me that men may look at me but I may not look back. That if we do our look can be taken as an invitation. Men teach us that.” ~ Aminatta Forna
Thought provoking and so much truth in her writing. ~♡
When a well adjusted rational person is ignorant about certain things, there is a good chance that when their ignorance is brought to light or even better… their experience has enlightened them, they will learn… if they are open to the possibility.
Stupidity by contrast is the inability to be open to or failing to learn when your ignorance on a subject is brought to your attention. Or worse… you fail to heed the lessons or choose not to see the reality of the situation.
And no… I am not talking about reading, writing or arithmetic.
The past couple years we seem to have been inundated by a different kind of stupidity… A cruel kind of stupidity. And in some cases, this type of cruel stupidity is accompanied by fake ignorance.
This particular kind of stupidity and ignorance is used to hide a lack of compassion and empathy for others. A lack of compassion and empathy cloaked as ignorance in order to promote the agenda of The Stupid and The Cruel. Sometimes people feign ignorance about another person’s cruel stupidity to hold onto a way of life they fear is slipping away from them.
Are you picking up what I’m laying down? Haha
I know… That’s a lot of ignorance and stupidity to wrap your brain around. I know I for one have struggled to understand the times we are living in… especially these past two years. But stick with me… That is, only if you’re open to the possibility. ;- )
But if you’re feeling me… Please Vote!
And if you are among the faux ignorant or even the cruelly stupid, all I have to say to you is… Get Out And Mingle Dammit…! Meet some people other than the stupid ignorant people you’re used to dealing with!!
Now let me say this, ignorance and stupidity are not relegated to your social status, bank account, race, religion or your gender. We are all subject to being ignorant of certain things from time to time… and sometimes we may even be accused of being stupid. No one knows everything… Right.
But my hope is that inside of us all there is a capacity for compassion, empathy and the willingness to try and understand that we all are connected… that we are all in this together. But again, only if we are open to the possibility.
When I think about this time last year I don’t know where to focus my thoughts… They are like one of Picasso’s famous paintings… all disjointed and irregular.
If you’ve read my “ABOUT” page of this blog, you know that I live on an island… Beautiful St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. This past month of August makes it twenty three years we’ve lived here.
The Virgin Islands are a beautiful group of islands in the eastern Caribbean, St. Croix, St. Thomas, St. John and Water Island all make up the U.S. Virgins. We are right next door to the British Virgin Islands and a short twenty minute or so plane ride to Puerto Rico.
The beautiful photo of the double rainbow above was taken four days before the beginning of the most terrifying, unpredictable, emotionally draining and heartbreaking times in my life.
You see, this time last year preparations were underway for the coming of a major storm. The storm was days off but I had begun the process of taking things off the balcony when I looked up and noticed the overwhelmingly gorgeous day. It was one of those days that makes you drop whatever it is you’re doing and feel compelled to silently give thanks for witnessing it’s splendor. The bands of rain moving over the water and the double rainbow that was forming were awe inspiring. From past experience I knew we may not have another day like this for a while so I ran inside and grabbed my phone to capture on photo this most breathtakingly beautiful day.
After the Storm…
And as expected, a day later a picture taken at this very same spot off the balcony of our condo would be drastically different.
Four Days After Hurricane Maria.
The next day on September 6, 2018 we were hit dead on first by hurricane Irma and then two weeks later hurricane Maria struck. The most amazing thing about these events other than them taking almost the exact same route and hitting two weeks apart is that they were both unpresidented category five hurricanes. And I don’t care what you’ve heard after the fact… These were both monster storms that devastated not only the U. S. Virgin Islands but also flattened Puerto Rico, the British Virgin Islands and also almost every island in the lesser antilles.
The Morning After Hurricane Irma. The Driveway Into Our Condo and the View of Our Condo from Below
That was last September. After living through the devastation of these two history making storms and trying to salvage what was left of our lives I was hit with a third hurricane that came in the form of a phone call from my daughter in New York telling me that my sister Barbara in Cincinnati had died.
Barbara was my oldest sister.
Me and My Sister Barbara
My beautiful, intelligent, funny, trailblazing sister Barbara had been the family matriarch since our mother passed twenty two years before… a short five months after we moved here in August of 1995… That move, amazingly enough was only two weeks before our first initiation to hurricanes… when category three hurricane Marilyn hit the island and all but leveled it.
As I write this, re-living the pain of those times last year is almost too much to bear and I am still unable to articulate the immense feelings that are still so sharp at times they cut through the surface and bleed anew like it were only yesterday.
What I share here are but a few of the tramas we endured in the aftermath of the events of last year but they are by far the greatest. And so I will leave it right here.
That double rainbow in the photo I took days before the storm, as beautiful and awesome and powerful as it was, was still not strong enough to block Hurricane Irma or just two short weeks after that second monster storm (Maria) made its brutal landfall. It definitely was not strong enough to block the pain of losing my sister.
But then, we never know what The Universe has in store for us at any given moment. There are days that go by when I am as if none of this ever happened and I am thankful for them. But then the reality sweeps in just as those first bands of rain swept across the blue waters of the Caribbean Sea that day last year when I captured my life before last September… and I know I am forever changed.
But I am still here, shaken, battered and still afraid at times… But I am still here. One love~ ❤💕💞
I have a question. When you’re trying to accomplish something, whether it be personal, work related or whatever… do you find yourself taking waaaay too much time finishing it? Do you finally complete the task at hand only to see something just a little bit off and so you start tweaking at it trying to get it just right and in the process mess it up even more so you end up having to start all over again? URGGG!!
Photo by Kat Jayne on Pexels.com
Anyway, I know I do this at least once a day. And usually it some small non important thing that turns me into some overly obsessed nut job, ranting and raving at… opps… that’s just way too much info about me… more than I want to share right now dahlink’s. But you get the gist.
But I will share what I’ve learned to do when I get this way. When I get “this way” it’s usually because I am aiming for perfection. Yes, I admit it. I can be a bit of a perfectionist at times.
When I find myself needlessly stressing out about something so small it that barely registers in the broad scheme of it all I have learned that it’s best to stop and walk away. Just walk away. Breathe dammit! Move on to something else, take a walk, have a drink of water or wine, or bourbon, etc… ok just kidding (or am I?)
Perfection is something that I find is never quite obtainable because it is such a moving target, especially if when we make the mistake of striving to be perfect for the benefit of someone other than ourselves.
That’s used to be me being swallowed alive in a whirlpool of perfection!
I know that if I don’t stop and walk away from it there’s a strong possibility I’ll risk wasting precious time, energy and bits of my sanity manically searching the illusive goal of perfection.
I’ll find myself hours later not having completed anything I had intended for the day, and all because I got so sidetracked with trying to… I don’t know… trying to make the roll up blind in my bathroom window hang evenly.
In the past, for me perfection sometimes had its roots in what I felt would please others. But trying to achieve perfection for the approval of someone other than myself is a detriment to my own self worth and not in alignment with living my best life. I’ve learned that instead of aiming for perfection my goal is to aim for what makes me happy.
ELLAVATE 7 