3 Ways To Live More Intentionally And Reduce Your Stress
Photo by Lacie Slezak on Unsplash
Women - do you feel burnt out and overloaded?
I shared this article with a friend before the holidays and thought that it may help others who are going through similar feelings/emotions.
Some key highlights from the article:
"Yet the fact that stark inequalities in domestic tasks persisted during the pandemic, when most couples were trapped inside, and that many men continued to be oblivious of this imbalance, means this is not the full story."
“A man may simply observe dishes in a sink, or a half-empty fridge, but without perceiving the affordance or experiencing the corresponding mental "tug". Over time, these little differences add up to significant disparities in who does what.”
"This puts women in a catch-22 situation: either inequality of labor or inequality of cognitive load."
A friend the other day was so close to a breakdown. She shared with me her struggles with balancing everything in her life. The demands of taking care of aging parents, caretaking, work stress, holiday stress, family stress, and feeling like she has the world on her shoulders. All the same feelings and struggles that I’m sure a lot of us can relate to. She was telling me how all the little things just felt like big things as there is so much to do. How many of us can relate to that sentiment? When you are placed with so many demands, your body just doesn’t know what to do. I saw on IG that another popular blogger was feeling slow and just run down. She asked if others were feeling like this too or if it was just her. How many of us can relate to thinking that it’s just you? Maybe it’s not just you. Maybe it is a lot and perhaps that’s ok.
The little things such as taking out the garbage, doing some extra dishes or shovelling snow may not seem like a big deal on the surface. Underneath it, it’s challenging when others don’t see the context of how those dishes or garbage can be a big deal for you. What if the person is already stressed out from all the work demands and deliverables of working from home or hybrid working and just cannot deal with one more thing? Every email, every request, every task, and every to-do means that there is energy involved. We've often been told that we shouldn't make a big deal about things and just 'get on' with it. Is that really a solution or is it a cover-up so that others don't have to feel uncomfortable?
One more thing can be a deal breaker if we’re already beyond our capacity. It’s easy to judge if you don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. Even more challenging if you’re the one who’s doing the work behind the scenes and you don’t have the right support that you need.
Here are three ideas to live more intentionally and reduce stress:
Reduce the pressure on yourself. The cognitive load can be heavy, especially if you feel like you have to do it all and smile/be happy whilst you’re doing it. Perhaps you don’t have to smile and pretend to be happy if you’re struggling. Maybe you can just sit with those challenging feelings and emotions to let them be.
Let go of what others think of you. If others don’t understand or want to understand, do your best to let that go and do what you need to do for yourself.
Be more comfortable with alone time and being less busy. Spend more time with yourself and pay attention to your thoughts and feelings. If you're being too hard on yourself, how can you quickly shift your mindset to create more self-compassion? Break patterns of having to be 'busy' or 'on' all the time and see if you can give yourself some space to just be yourself.
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Thanks as always, for taking the time to read my articles.
