Last week we went through the overview of how to create change and bring more of what you love into your life.
Today we’re going to go through the first steps – Recognising and Accepting.
Meet Cara
Cara is 34. She thinks of herself as being pretty healthy, but lately she’s aware that things have started to slip.
About five years ago Cara got her dream job with a company she adores. She also got married to the love of her life at about the same time. She and her husband recently bought their first home. Things couldn’t be better, right?
Well, two promotions later, with a fair amount of travelling for work and extended periods of working long hours, she’s noticed that her energy and focus levels are slipping. She’s been putting on a bit of weight and feels sluggish. When she’s tired, she grabs quick carbs. She’s often so busy that she eats at her desk, eats on the run or else skips lunch altogether. Dinner some nights is toast on the sofa.
When she goes to bed, she either crashes like a log or sleeps fitfully, half-focused on her tasks for the next day, waking exhausted.
She knows that this has become a spiral and it seems only to be increasing – in the wrong direction – but she doesn’t know where to start.
So, where should she start? Sell the house, move to the country and open a B&B? She’s considered that – more times than she cares to admit! But she loves her home, her job and her network of friends and family in the city.
So, the first thing to do? The first step is simple: just notice.
Step one: Recognising
In Step One, the aim is just to look. Simply see things for how they are.
Not how you wish they’d be, how they used to be or how other people are doing things.
It helps to write things down, and just simple statements. There’s no need to blame, judge, feel guilty or explain anything away.
Cara starts by looking at her working hours, and it branches off from there:
- I work 10-hour days, sometimes 12 when there’s a project on
- I find it hard to say no to my boss, so I often take on too much
- Sometimes the workload is fine, other times I get really stressed
- I don’t exercise before work
- I’m often too tired to exercise afterwards
- Some people at work use the in-house gym, but I don’t
- I often skip breakfast, sometimes having it on the bus or at work, other times not at all
- I either buy lunch or skip it
- I reach for chocolate more and more for an energy hit, and have started keeping it in my desk drawer
- When I’m travelling for work, I don’t eat well
- We’re often too tired and getting home too late to make a good dinner, so we just snack (and sometimes have too much wine…)
- We eat quite late and then stay up reading or watching movies until after 11
- I’m usually tired when the alarm goes off in the mornings
- On the weekends, when I can sleep a bit longer in the mornings, I feel a lot better
- I feel like work is taking over, like I’ve got no time for myself or hobbies
- If I earned less, I’d feel guilty about not paying my part of the mortgage
At this stage, Cara doesn’t need to figure out solutions. Just noticing the facts and simply stating them is the aim.
The next step is also simple, and it works best through experiencing it. So if you’ve already made your list from Step 1, you’ll feel the value of this next step as you’re doing it in practice.
Step 2: Accepting
There is something special about this step – it brings an energy that is gentle, humbling and forgiving.
If you’ve named the facts in Step 1 and are feeling a little overwhelmed at the scope of your situation, this next part may be all the more soothing and grounding.
It’s deceptively simple. If you use your own statements then you’ll feel the shift. You may also get a sense of it from reading Cara’s example, but if you’re curious then please go ahead and try this for yourself.
Start by writing “I accept that” and then finish the sentence with the first statement on your list.
Here are Cara’s statements:
- I accept that I work 10-hour days, sometimes 12 when there’s a project on
- I accept that I find it hard to say no to my boss, so I often take on too much
- I accept that sometimes the workload is fine, other times I get really stressed
- I accept that I don’t exercise before work
- I accept that I’m often too tired to exercise afterwards
- I accept that some people at work use the in-house gym, but I don’t
- I accept that I often skip breakfast, sometimes having it on the bus or at work, other times not at all
- I accept that I either buy lunch or skip it
- I accept that I reach for chocolate more and more for an energy hit, and have started keeping it in my desk drawer
- I accept that when I’m travelling for work, I don’t eat well
- I accept that we’re often too tired and getting home too late to make a good dinner, so we just snack (and sometimes have too much wine…)
- I accept that we eat quite late and then stay up reading or watching movies until after 11
- I accept that I’m usually tired when the alarm goes off in the mornings
- I accept that on the weekends, when I can sleep a bit longer in the mornings, I feel a lot better
- I accept that I feel like work is taking over, like I’ve got no time for myself or hobbies
- I accept that if I earned less, I’d feel guilty about not paying my part of the mortgage
Did you feel the change?
Going through this simple process now helps Cara to start identifying which areas of her situation can stay unchanged for now and which areas she can work on.
Before? She was tired, overwhelmed and had no idea how to break out of this cycle.
But now – she can get a sense of which aspects of her situation are amenable to change. She is also starting to feel which ones matter more to her.
We’ll cover the next two steps – Sorting and Releasing – next week.
