In my coaching practice I show people how to sustain their healthy choices by setting up personal environments. Environments are basically all the systems and routines you put in place around you (in every aspect of your life) that make life easier. Environments that are designed elegantly just for you provide a pull so that you don’t have to push.

When I get to feeling funky, I look at my personal environments and see which ones need tweaking.

Keep up the fabulous posts. I LOVE them. Cheryl

@ Lori – you are exactly right! “work through the pain” is a great phrase I should add to a follow up post.

Aaron

As you also pointed out, I tried to be proactive about solving the fatigue issue. I also tried yoga, meditation, breathing exercises, and so on. But I have to say, the best advice I ever received was from my acupuncturist and Chinese medicine doctor. I had been seeing him for my migraines on a regular basis and it was helping a bit, but I just wasn’t feeling better overall. I asked him if he could give me advice on how to relax and explained all the ways I was trying to get to that point. He looked at me (and sort of snorted) and said, “You shouldn’t work to relax, you should just do it.” I hadn’t realized that relaxing was becoming a job in and of itself (Way to add more stress.)

It sounds so funny that you should just let relaxation happen. Don’t you have to work for such things? I have been taught that nothing comes for free. One of the hardest things to do is to unlearn bad habits and reprogram yourself.

That is what I had to do with my fatigue. I had to learn to slow down, find my own pace, and accept that it is what it is. When I feel better, I need to stay with my natural pace and not push ( the first thing you want to do is to get everything done because you have been so tired and have become so behind…yada, yada, yada). Finally, remember to listen to your body and act accordingly. If you feel good, then bask in it. Feel how good it can be. I try hard not to rush, ever! I am not designed for it.

Pay attention to the “funky” feelings that you get. It may be the body sending you a gentle nudge before the pending smack down.

Blessings…Lori

As I’ve grown older, I’ve become better at identifying my feelings instead of just experiencing them. This doesn’t mean there’s no room for experience, just that I can now say, “Oh, this is just a phase and it doesn’t have to have a cause and it will pass and the world as I know if isn’t coming to an end.”

I happened to run into Aaron on the street last week and when I asked him how everything was going, he said he was in a funk. We talked about that for a while and I told him how much I admire that candor and truthfulness. Isn’t it great that we can be real with each other and that we don’t continually have to put a brave face forward?