Not letting your grooves become ruts, and making time for yourself.

I have learned that from a healing perspective, my body does much better with routine. However from a mental perspective, I have a hard time being creative inside of a fixed paradigm. Obviously, right now, getting my body healthier is the priority and Christmas, as it is every year, is like a bomb blast going off in whatever your normal routine was. This year was no different. Since the 15^th of December, the healthy routine that I had going slowly started to fall victim to the events calendar and the shopping that comes with the holidays; granted we also have a 5 week old baby so I am sure that she has thrown a couple of wrenches into “routine life” as well. Don’t get me wrong, because I don’t beg for routine and so I am not being negative, but I seem to need it now more than ever.  From a psychological standpoint, I do enjoy less routine to more but I am learning more about that as well. Structure seems to help our bodies and minds run on auto pilot which can be a good thing for doing routine activities, however, the chipset that is our brain can get deep grooves of thought patterns that result from that repetitive life.  When we introduce new things regularly or randomly, our brains seem to set aside some “CPU time” for the just in case. Just in case it has to do something new, and as a result, we are better able to adapt and think sideways when we need to. Without the challenges that new situations create, our brains deepen the grooves of patterned thinking and I derive that it must make it harder to get out of those deep grooves when we need to. We all know that our brain is this incredible tool that is capable of far more than any of us request from it, but like a leg that you sit on for too long, it too will go to sleep, and when you want to get up and run with it, you might find yourself flat on your face. That is what happened to me.

The gift of my time in the hospital and at home, has been time – time to spend with my family and time to spend with myself. I’d love to say I’ve been hanging out with my friends a whole lot, but just because your life stops doesn’t mean that everyone else’s schedule opens up. I will say confidently however, that I have not been wasting the time, and although I likely take it for granted on some days, I have been trying my best at doing new things, and challenging myself mentally. This blog is a good example of that. Who would’ve known that I would enjoy writing so much and that it would prove to be such a healthy outlet for me – the professional athlete and perennial jock and salesman?  I suppose that I need to be jarred loose from my grooved patterns of thinking to push me to try some new things, and it has been very positive.  Getting back to the creative thinking aspect, I have found is that you can make time for creative thinking inside of a routine. Your life doesn’t need to be that of a mad scientist in order to be creative, you can set time aside to do or think about something new each day, and I dare say that you should. I have been doing a lot of meditation and now I can get very deep into thought and separate my mind from the body, and the spirit from the mind even, and I can do it fairly quickly now. Once I get to this place of free thinking and analysis of the present, It is like accessing a deep well of ideas and thoughts that you may have had briefly but never really looked at closely. The trick is to set the time aside to allow that bucket and rope to pull ideas up from your conscious and subconscious so that you can explore them. That requires setting aside some time for you and then to do it. Where does all the time come from? Do you need to be hospitalized to create this time and free yourself from the stresses of life? I don’t think so.

I can honestly say that there has been more stress in life since I became ill. There is more financial worry, and job concerns, etc, but I think my perspective has changed and now I look at things with a newly revived sense of priority. This seems to be the key factor in making time for yourself. You need to make yourself a priority in your life – whether you want to acknowledge it or not is your decision, but you need to be your best to make the people around you their best. You need to keep developing and you owe it to yourself to earn that mental and spiritual and physical health. To do this, you have to set aside time for yourself.  When you want to improve your physical health, you get a gym membership and you get on the treadmill or lift weights – not because you have to, but because you make it a priority. When was the last time you put your brain on the treadmill? When was the last time your spirit lifted weights? You might answer that you do it at work, but that doesn’t count. Doing it for someone else’s benefit is not as selfish as it needs to be. You need to take time to identify, and pursue things that stimulate you. Have a hobby, read books on a new subject, take a class, write a list of things and start chipping away at them. Get back to the goals and dreams that you had when you were a kid. Then you need to set time aside for yourself. You’re worth it and it is a priority, and making time for personal health, staying out of ruts and bumping your brain out of its groove.

I’ll finish with this one last thing. The wonderful part of children, aside from snuggling and saying hilarious things, is their imagination and their dreams. We all cherish and admire it in them. They wake up in the morning and tell us about their crazy dreams and we pray that at night they lay awake and think about these wonderful places that they will travel to and incredible things that they will do. Don’t you deserve to do the same? At what point are we supposed to forget entirely what it is to dream big outrageous dreams and travel in our mind to wonderful places. The upside to being an adult is that we are better able to make our dreams come true! We can make the money, we can make our own decisions and we don’t have to listen to adults who might tell us we are crazy. Take some time and go somewhere wonderful in your mind, and do it regularly, do something crazy and don’t allow your mental groove to become a rut.

The gift of my time in the hospital and at home, has been time. Time to spend with my family and time to spend with myself. I’d love to say I’ve been hanging out with my friends a whole lot, but just because your life stops doesn’t mean that everyone else’s schedule opens up. I will say confidently however, that I have not been wasting the time, and although I likely take it for granted on some days, I have been trying my best at doing new things, and challenging myself mentally. This blog is a good example of that, who would’ve known that I would enjoy writing so much and that it would prove such a healthy outlet for me? The Professional athlete and perennial jock and salesman?  I suppose that I need to be jarred loose from my grooved patterns of thinking to push me to try some new things, and it has been very positive.  Getting back to the creative thinking aspect, I have found is that you can make time for creative thinking inside of a routine. Your life doesn’t need to be that of a mad scientist in order to be creative, you can set time aside to do or think about something new each day, and I dare say that you should. I have been doing a lot of meditation and now I can get very deep into thought and separate my mind from the body, and the spirit from the mind even, and I can do it fairly quickly now. Once I get to this place of free thinking and analysis of the present, It is like accessing a deep well of ideas and thoughts that you may have had briefly but never really looked at closely. The trick is to set the time aside to allow that bucket and rope to pull ideas up from your conscious and subconscious so that you can explore them. That requires setting aside some time for you and then to do it. Where does all the time come from? Do you need to be hospitalized to create this time and free yourself from the stresses of life? I don’t think so.

I can honestly say that there has been more stress in life since being ill and that there is more financial worry, and job worry etc, but I think my perspective has changed and now I look at things with a newly revived sense of priority. This seems to be the key factor in making time for yourself. You are a priority in your life, whether you like it or not. You need to be your best to make the people around you their best. You need to keep developing and you owe it to yourself to earn that mental and spiritual and physical health. To do this you have to set aside time for yourself.  When you want to improve your physical health, you get a gym membership. You get on the treadmill or the Stairmaster. Not because you have to but because you elevate the priority of your own physical health. When was the last time you put your brain on the treadmill? When was the last time you put your spirit on the Stairmaster? You might answer that you do it at work, but that doesn’t count. Doing it for someone else’s benefit is not as selfish as it needs to be. You need to take time to identify, and pursue things that stimulate you. Have a hobby, read books on a new subject, take a class. Maybe write a list of things and start chipping away at them. Get back to the goals and dreams that you had when you were a kid. Then you need to set time aside for yourself, you are worth it and it is a priority, and make that time for making you healthy, staying out of ruts and bumping your brain out of its groove.

I’ll finish with this one last thing. The wonderful part of children, aside from snuggling and saying hilarious things, is their imagination and their dreams. We all cherish it in them and admire it. They wake up in the morning and tell us about their crazy dreams and we pray that at night they lay awake and think about these wonderful places that they will travel to and incredible things that they will do. Don’t you deserve to do the same? At what point are we supposed to forget entirely what it is to dream big outrageous dreams and travel in our mind to wonderful places. The upside to being an adult is that we are better able to make our dreams come true! We can make the money, make our own decisions and we don’t have to listen to adults who might tell us we are crazy. Make some time and go somewhere wonderful in your mind, and do it regularly, do something crazy and don’t allow your mental groove to become a rut.