Part I: Honoring Your Mental Capacity 

Workin’ from home? Home schoolin’? Technology dealin’? Zoomin’? I pushed away from my desk one day and literally walked away. It was 10:45 in the morning. I was already over it. With this “new normal” of work and daily life, there is so much shift happening with our lives. Everything is on a tilt from family life to work life to social life. It’s so easy to discard our mental limitations. We’re staying up late, getting up early, all to adjust to these changes beyond our control. And all of this is happening with our minds on non-stop, being dragged along.

It’s. Too. Much! Where is the shut off button?!?!

Stop.

Take a moment with me. Breathe—none of that cute sipping air stuff. BREATHE. Let your chest rise. Hold it. Let all the chaos running around in your HeadSpace grab on to the air you’re holding in. Now let it out. Exhale hard. Try that again. This time, close your eyes. Hold the air in and let those stressful thoughts, out of control calendar reminders, errands that somehow still stay on your to-do list even during COVID-19 life, math homework we don’t even remember how to do with these children, phone calls that should have been emails, Zoom calls that should have been emails…whatever is taking up space in your mind, let it grab ahold of your inhaled breath. And push it out. 

Our HeadSpace, no matter how much we’ve been conditioned to take on, needs to be honored by not overworking it beyond it’s capacity. You’re one person with one mind and one body.

Say, “No.” Say, “Not right now.”  Say, “I need a minute.”

Press the “off” button on devices, conversations, people, or anything else that needs to be disconnected, even if only for a moment.

Breathe. 

Honor your HeadSpace. 

Honor your No. 

Honor your Not right now. 

The amount of pressure we are under to keep functioning beyond normal is so close to unrealistic. So it is up to you to remember to “clear your mind” regularly. Bathroom breaks are a perfect time to do a mental reset in the midst of a crazy day. Many of us miss the reset time we used to have sitting in our car on a ride home from work. Your car is still out there. Go sit in it at the end of your workday, even if for 10 minutes while the chicken is in the oven. Don’t allow the new normal to distract you from what you still have access to. 

Here are a few ways to rest and/or reset your HeadSpace: 

• Adult coloring books.
• Read a book in a genre you’ve never tried before.
• Use a free app to practice a new language. 
• Play with your plants.
• Go for a walk. 
• Have one scheduled video call with a friend or family member every week. (Doesn’t have to be the same person. Switch it up.)
• Sit in your car and listen to one song. Okay, two.

The power of positive thinking is on the cover of every book right now. We need it. But we must also honor the amount of overload we place on our minds. Your HeadSpace is just as sacred as your body, Wholy Grounders. Honor it. 

Until Part II of this month’s Wholy Word,

Journey On. 

– Brook B