Ebb and Flow

IYA LUVS!

It's Sunday, I'm feeling flat as a pancake and the ebbs and flows of this week have left me very tired. 

According to good old Wikipedia: Ebb and Flow are two phases of the tide or any similar movement of water. The ebb is the outgoing phase, when the tide drains away from the shore, and the flow is the incoming phase when water rises again. 

If we momentarily flip this phrase around to Flow and Ebb, that's what I've experienced multiple times this week. The water has risen within me, eventually overflowing out of my tear ducts for I couldn't hold it in, and then it's ebbed away, leaving me mentally and physically drained.

Making a choice to better your mental health is something I know I can and have done, but believing that that is ok is hard for me, because often there are varying factors that get in the way leaving me worried or doubtful. 

For example, I woke up on Wednesday feeling pure overwhelm and that feeling persisted and remained throughout the day up until the time I needed to leave for my regular job. Now I could have made the choice there and then to call work, explain the situation and do as much as I could for the remainder of the day to find and feel a sense of calm and reassurance within myself, but I didn't. 

I didn't because my anxiety said, "No, come on, you have to try." How admirable, ey? That my anxiety essentially wants me to put work above my mental health. When actually if I try to go in that state, it simply aggravates my emotions, mood and yes, anxiety, even more!

It's crazy, isn't it? I still struggle to accept that my mind is like that but worse still, I struggle to accept that taking time off work for the benefit of my mental health is, and I can't stress this enough, incredibly important, if it's needed.

I do think the effects of our fast-moving society and the amount that is asked of us, within any line of work we choose to take up, makes us believe we don't have time to stop. We have meetings, deadlines, schedules and endless to do lists simply clogging up our mental news feed when really, the main headline we should be paying attention to is the one saying, "TAKE A BREAK."

And it's so much more than watching a Disney film with a face mask on, it's so much more than taking a walk or drinking a cup of tea with no phone buzzing by your side. It's stepping bac; it's gaining the perspective you didn't have when you were running on empty and it's realising you get to choose how and you move forward. 

Notice how I didn't say if, 'if you move forward'... because we are all moving forward as we speak, this very second. It is one of the most inevitable experiences of life and so we owe it to ourselves to move forward in the way that best suits us and our wants, needs and desires. 

In the past, I've genuinely struggled to prioritise what's truly important to me. It's usually been the case because I've got too much going on and have limited time to complete the things on my to do list - I'm overwhelmed with what is expected of me and what I've come to expect from myself and suddenly EVERYTHING becomes important, but all of that is unnecessary pressure.

One person can only do so much.

Not only that but each person will work, digest information and live differently. So a job that may take me ten minutes to complete, may take someone else 30 minutes to complete and that's simply because our minds work in different ways.

If you hadn't guessed the point I'm trying to make, it's that these ebbs and flows will happen, but whilst those ebbs and flows happen we must prioritise ourselves, our bodies and minds, to be able to work and live with ease and efficiency. If we were able to prioritise ourselves every single day, who knows, we might every learn from the tides movement. We could figure out how to quash our triggers and inhibitions and potentially live with a little more calm and happiness in our day to day.

Ey up, look at me typing like I'm a philosopher come psychiatrist! I'm truly not and I don't profess to be. I'm just one person whose sensitivity sometimes gets the better of her. Sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. What's important is moving forward, having taken something from the experiences we've faced, so that we are better equipped to deal with them if they arise in future. 

Take care and speak soon.

Lots of love, 

Rebecca x