TheSanityPlan

Solutions for finding balance in this crazy world

Healthy Eating Is a Journey

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healthy foodEating healthy seems to be a recurring theme among my family and friends recently:

My sister had a flareup of her major chronic stomach disorder. A friend of mine told me she’d heard that sugar might potentially be more damaging that fat (which I totally believe). Another friend and I were discussing the overwhelming amount of “food rules” we were hearing about: cutting down on dairy, avoiding certain nuts, going gluten-free, etc.

My mind swims with all of the healthy eating trends. I feel inundated by the constant barrage of “eat this” and “don’t eat that.” “This is good for you” and “this is terrible for you.” How do you eat that? Is _______ still a part of your diet?

I feel panicked that I need to stop everything and rethink my eating habits. But then I remember how far I’ve come. I remember how far we’ve come as a family.

Eating healthfully is about progress not perfection.

Over the past 10 years, I’ve been on a journey to improve my eating habits.

Soda & High Calorie Beverages

The first major change was cutting out soda. Between the high sugar content, calories, and the chemicals found in common sodas, I decided it had to go. I learned to substitute for seltzer when I still craved that bubbly taste. And even that evolved, when I switched from drinking seltzer with sodium and synthetic sweeteners to a brand with no sodium and natural flavoring.

Fast Food

Next to go was high calorie, super salty fast food. I realized that in order to make food as cheaply as they do, fast food chains must use pretty low quality ingredients. Plus, the very nature of fast food really encouraged me to eat on the run, which lead to unconscious eating and poor digestion. I make two exceptions, Panera Bread (although I am cutting back due to high calorie content) and a quick pre-packaged sandwich from places like Starbucks. I am also very likely to stop for a yogurt or a granola bar to tide me over until I can get home for a real meal.

Alcohol

Then we began drinking less. In addition to the useless calories, I was also turned off by the fact that alcohol turns into sugar in your body. And as I’ve aged, I have definitely become less tolerant of large quantities of alcohol. A second glass of wine has been known to give me a hangover, no matter how much water I drink.

Red Meat

Cutting back on red meat was tough, but all of the evidence was pointing to the fact that Americans eat way too much. I can go a few days without red meat, but my body really craves it if I go any longer than that. Even cutting back to 2 or 3 times a week is a huge improvement for our family. One added bonus was a reduction in our grocery bill as red meats can really add up.

Pre-Packaged Foods

We worked to reduce our consumption of pre-packaged foods. This one is hard to balance because it takes time to prepare foods from scratch. I am a SAHM now, but if I went back to work full time, we’d really need to figure out how to continue this habit. Occasional exceptions to the rule include: pre-made ravioli, baked beans, Kraft macaroni & cheese, etc.

Added Sugar

Sugar is EVERYWHERE! This was is really hard to do since it seems that most products have added sugar. And sometimes even switching to sugar free was difficult because we were so used the taste of certain things with sugar. Some of the big ones have been low sugar yogurt, sugar-free peanut butter, and sugar-free tomato sauce. If we choose a product that has sugar we opt for one that uses real sugar as opposed to high fructose corn syrup. We also avoid artificial sweeteners due to their high chemical content and questionable effects on the body.

Full Fat Dairy

I read a study review years ago that highlighted that the common recommendation of switching to low fat dairy products due to curb obesity concerns was actually having the opposite effect. The body does better consuming full fat products, because a) fat isn’t as bad as we thought, and b) consuming full fat allows us to feel fuller faster as opposed to being deceptively empty from reduced fat content. As a result, we’ve switched to full fat dairy wherever available (although some categories are difficult).

healthy dinnerProtein Portion

We realized we were eating way too much meat and that oftentimes meat was the main focus of the meal. Instead, we are making some vegetarian meals, as well as cutting back the meat to a much smaller percentage of the whole meal.

Organic Foods

As we’ve had more expendable incomes, we have slowly been able to switch to more and more organic products, especially meats, dairy, and produce. Not yet at 100% organic, our goal is to continue to improve in this area, especially as more products become available and the cost decreases with demand.

*****

Actually writing this list helps me realize just how far we’ve come. And I know that we will continue to adjust and make improvements over time. Eating right is an important theme in our lives and we will continue to learn from new research and trends.

It is important to consider that trends aren’t always right (as in the trend to eat sugar as opposed to fats) and that many people (and companies!) have an agenda when it comes to espousing food rules. They are trying to profit in some way by encouraging changes in your eating habits.

So, before I give up cheese (gasp!) or bread (gluten) or anything else, or allow myself to get stressed over the endless rules being tossed about, I will stop and remember how much progress I’ve made from the girl who used to live on Ramen noodles and the McDonald’s dollar menu.

It’s a journey, like most health related habits. It’s impractical, (virtually impossible) to expect to change everything at once.

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Why Our Coffee Habit Needed an Overhaul

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coffee beansThis is not a sponsored post.

We used to be very typical coffee consumers. With both my husband and I working from home, we easily consumed a 10-12 cup pot each day.

But my husband’s intense stomach pain put an end to that. He was having episodes of stomach spasms that were so bad he would throw up or not be able to eat. We finally sought help from a gastroenterologist, and it was determined that he’d need a scope so the doctor could see what was going on in my husband’s stomach.

And that’s when he found some serious damage in both the stomach and the esophagus caused by high acidity (and stress). And it was a major wake-up call for us.

Along with a dose of super strength Prilosec, we began to get an education on the types of foods and beverages that were contributing to an acidic diet. And coffee was high on the list.

We began looking into coffees with lower acidity and stumbled upon the concept of shade grown coffee. Coffee was typically a plant that flourished in the shade of other trees until the commercial coffee industry created strains that were able to withstand the heat of direct sunlight. This allowed for coffee to be grown at higher rates in order to keep up with increased consumption. But shade grown coffee has about half the acid compared with conventional coffee.

This led us to Camano Island Coffee Roasters. In addition to being shade grown and therefore having lower acidity, their coffee is also organic, fair-trade, and high quality (top 1%). I am willing to pay a little extra for beans that are fair-trade, putting the focus on sustainable farming and fair wages for growers.

Here is a referral link for this coffee – $20 off your first coffee club order!

coffeeWe recently made another change, and that was switching to half-caffeinated coffee. While we had already limited our coffee consumption to 2 cups each per day, we realized that we could lower our acid intake yet again by limiting the caffeine. I realize this is not for everyone, but I was also trying to remove the crutch of relying on caffeine to get me moving. I get much more out of a quick power nap that the rush and crash of drinking too much caffeine. I also want to be much more aware of my body’s needs than relying on a coffee to keep me stimulated.

You might ask ‘why not just give up coffee completely?’ Truth be told, we just aren’t ready yet. Coffee, for us, represents a chance to relax in the morning, collecting our thoughts and planning our days. So, maybe, one day we’ll give it up for good, but for now it’s still a really pleasant morning ritual.

Because we work from home, we like to grind and brew fresh coffee every morning. I love our coffee pot because it brews directly into a stainless steel carafe that keeps the coffee hot all day. For a special treat, I use a milk frother to make my favorite coffee drinks.


Coffee consumption is increasingly popular in our culture these days, demonstrated by the regularity of posts on the topic. I am curious to know if you are considering making changes to your coffee habit?

How Working Moms Can “Drop the Ball” – A Book Review

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taking notesI picked up Tiffany Dufu’s book “Drop the Ball” on a whim during my last trip to the library. With an endorsement on the front from Sheryl Sandberg and a foreword penned by Gloria Steinem, I figured this book was worth a read. And I am very glad I took the chance. This is the first book I’ve read in quite some time where I felt like I was learning something new on every page and it even inspired me to write pages of notes and reactions (like I was back in school all over again!).

Dufu utilizes her extensive background in the field of advancement for women, detailed scientific research, as well as her own personal experiences to send the message that working mothers can indeed learn to stop trying to do it all.

The Why

Drop the Ball seeks to address the following questions:

Why do working moms stall out when they reach middle management instead of joining the ranks of leadership in equal ratios to men?

Why are these women burning out, experiencing increased rates of crippling stress and depression?

According to Dufu, both questions point to the same answer. Women with families are taking on too much. Gender stereotyping to “own” the household, regardless of having a career, forces women to essentially work two full time jobs.

The Solution

drop the ball“Drop the Ball” is filled with practical advice on how to go about obtaining better balance between career and home life. I love how Dufu addresses the problem here, instead of blaming society or men for this problem, she focuses on how women need to be assertive to push back against these gender norms.

So, how can we learn to drop the ball?

  • Evaluate what is important to you and then decide if you are best utilizing your time and talents to meet those goals
  • Analyze the tasks needed to run your household (Dufu uses an excel spreadsheet) and work to balance them in a more equitable way, keeping in mind that some tasks can be dropped completely (if they don’t meet goals in first bullet)
  • Let go of tasks assigned to other people and you may be surprised at the result (Dufu calls this Home Control Disease or HCD and as long as we hold onto this habit, we will never be free to pursue more important things)

The Hidden Gems

The further I got into the book, the more impressed I became with how Dufu thinks. I want to highlight a couple of gems that I really appreciated in her work.

  • Do not take for granted the work our husbands already do to help support our households – Dufu shares an experience similar to my own when she sits down with her husband to list out all of the household tasks and is surprised by the things she was unaware that her husband handled. I imagine this is a common experience for women and enforces the need for this exercise to be done with an open mind (instead of accusations and anger).
  • Just because men do it differently than we would… doesn’t make it wrong. This is so important in terms of us learning how to let go of tasks. Dufu refers to detailed lists she left for her husband, expecting him to manage the kids exactly in the way that she would. I actually went through a similar mindset with my husband prior to having kids, when we worked together for his business. It was an eye opening experience for me to learn that my way of doing things was not the only way to get it done (and not even the optimal method at times!).
  • Men are suffering from gender stereotypes when it comes to family life as well. Dufu uses a personal example of being outraged that her husband was telling prospective employers that his wife was nagging him to spend more time at home. When she approached him, she learned that he was scared to be ridiculed (and not hired) if he truthfully explained his own commitment to his family. It was much more culturally acceptable for the wife to be forcing this change that for it to come from an internal desire. This experience highlights how we need to buck the trends that are not supportive of men being just as involved in family life and household management. One solution Dufu brings to light here is that companies can incorporate leave and flexible work policies for both men and women and adapt a culture that allows men to take advantages of such programs without stigma or penalty.

Overall, an enlightening read on a timely topic dear to many a working mother’s heart. I highly recommend “Drop the Ball” for all women who seek to find balance in their domestic lives, carving a more equitable future for generations to come.

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One Mental Trick that Helps Me Make Hard Decisions

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strategyAs long as I can remember, I have had a difficult time making decisions. I go back and forth, weigh the pros and cons, and sometimes even spend exhaustive amounts of time discussing my thought process with loved ones. My husband, who can make decisions in a split second, is easily irritated by my incessant rumination.

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out why I am this way and I think it comes down to part personality and part upbringing. Growing up, my father placed a high emphasis on thinking before you act and making the right decisions. When I messed up, I heard about it. As for my personality, being Type-A and a subsequent perfectionist, I worry very much about making the wrong choices. As a result, I tend to awfulize whatever negative impact I imagine will result from my decisions.

These factors create the perfect pressure cooker scenario where my anxiety runs so high that I try to think even harder to prevent something bad from happening. The kicker is, there are lots of decisions to make in life, and even the smaller ones will bog me down if I get stuck in this cyclical thinking.

Luckily, I’ve learned a few tricks in my 30 plus years and this one has been especially helpful in easing the pressure I feel when I comes to decision making.

I remember this one thing:

Very few decisions in life are permanent.

There, think about that for a moment.

It’s actually very simple.

 

What can you do in this life that cannot be undone? I can only think of a handful –

Having children, committing crimes, committing suicide…

But what can you “undo?” Almost everything.

Choose a major in college you no longer like? Change it.

Hate your job? Get a different one.

Regret deciding to stay home with the kids? Go back to work.

Even a marriage to the wrong person can be dissolved (not that I advocate taking marriage lightly).

I could go on.

 

When my sister was really stressed about making the very hard decision of whether to move across the country or not, I asked her to consider what would happen if she hated the place she chose. She realized that all she would have to do was move back. That’s not to say that it would be easy, there’s a ton of work and expense involved with relocating. But she could. Moving does not have to be permanent. And she did end up making that move.

Just knowing that I can unwind almost any decision makes it so much easier for me to drop all the back and forth and do it already. Sure, there are opportunity costs and potentially costs to change direction, but I know it can be done. Of course, I don’t recommend going to the other extreme, making rash decisions simply because you can always correct them later. I imagine this would lead to a very messy life.

But for me, knowing that I can always change my mind gives me the freedom to set my anxiety aside and move forward.

What about you? Do you get bogged down in trying to make the “perfect” decision? How do you get yourself unstuck?

Are You Making Progress On Your 2017 Resolutions?

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goalsI wonder how many people set goals and then completely forget about them? I am completely guilty of that this year. I actually had to look back at this post to remember the exact goals I committed to when we set them together as a family at the beginning of the year.

Over the weekend, I gathered the family to do a mid-year check in on our goals. And my husband and stepdaughter have really been doing a great job at focusing on each of their goals (as opposed to me).

Here is our update:

The toddler was going to be potty-trained… well, technically that’s a goal for me and it hasn’t happened yet. However, it has been on my mind to start now that our hectic spring/summer schedule has calmed down. I didn’t want to start training while we were traveling and had very few days at home in between.

The preschooler wanted to paint more and she has! I’ve streamlined the process by organizing all the supplies, making it much easier to get it out and put it away when we are done.

The teen had two goals: to “discover” and be true to herself. Talk about a difficult task. I am 37 and I still feel like I struggle with those goals. She has been doing a great job of this, to the point that we are even able to see this in her as her parents. She worked her way through some difficult friendships this year and even cut ties with a few people. She has been defining what activities interest her, making the decision to continue dancing as well as perhaps trying cheer-leading in high school. On a side note: we are very proud of her as parents because we’ve really gotten the chance to watch her blossom as she turned 14 and completed junior high.

My husband’s goals were: to clear out “stuff” and finish old projects. He has been getting rid of tons of old equipment he had laying around by selling it on specialized online forums. We opted not to do our annual neighborhood yard sale in May because we haven’t typically gotten what items are really worth. As for finishing old projects, we’ve been working on some filing/paperwork for his business, completing landscaping, and getting the house ready for sale.

stepsMy goals were: to transition to a career in writing and completely destress. Looking back at the past 6 months, I can definitely see how I’ve lost motivation when it comes to writing. First of all, I was sick until well into the second trimester, which really made it difficult to be creative and stay committed to writing. Secondarily, I am really up in the air about whether I actually want to have a freelance “career.” As I told my husband recently, I do see myself as a writer, I have always been a writer, and now that I’ve rediscovered the passion it will always be a part of my life. BUT, I am not sure it will be my everything. That said, I really do need to get in gear on my children’s book idea as well as fleshing out two new ideas I have for non-fiction books.

As for destressing… I would say I’ve done better at that than the writing. I feel as though I have been settling down more into this life of motherhood. I think getting pregnant again and launching back into that new baby cycle, I realized that there is not a whole lot I am going to have time for other than parenting. I have a lot less angst about my career and my goals than I used to. On top of that, I have been working hard to not overcommit and to take time for myself. One big change I made this year was to take an evening or two per week just to catch up on me-time by reading or watching my own TV shows or even just going to bed early. In the past, I felt so obligated to do more family time, but since I was with the kids all day, I was never really getting the chance to wind down myself.

So, how are you doing with your resolutions? How do you remind yourself of your goals throughout the year?

 

Do You Ever Really Let Yourself Go?

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And I don’t mean in the sense that you forego makeup and wear pajamas all day. What I mean is do you ever really just let loose, totally engross yourself in the moment, or forget about your stressors or to-do list?

I have been thinking about this a lot recently. I find that I am habitually tense. Without even realizing it, I hold my breath for extended periods of time. I sleep tucked in a protective ball and many nights I wake up sore from clenching my teeth and my fists. My mind is so cluttered that it takes constant effort to tune out my own mental soundtrack when someone else is talking to me. I mean, I try to catch the most important details, but I am often focused on what I have to do next.  Most of the time I am not even aware that I am doing it.

I am constantly evaluating what I should be doing: How can I multitask to get more done? How can I effectively fit all the pieces of my life together in the most optimized way?

The problem is I am never fully relaxed. Even when I’ve chosen to take the time to do something fun, I feel the pressures weighing me down, occupying my mental space. Stealing from the moment in present time.

It’s so easy for me to get into a mode of feeling like taking a break is a waste of time. My default setting is to just assume that I am machine-like, going and going and never needing a break because there is always just one more thing to do. And somehow if I just push harder, I can get it all done.

But I am not a machine. My mind and body get worn down from the constant pressure I heap on myself. And even though I do sit down to play a game with my family or watch a movie at the end of the night, I worry that I’m not fully letting myself enjoy the moment.

This topic was on my mind before we left for our babymoon, but being on vacation definitely highlighted the difference. It was so much easier to “let myself go” when I was not in my house surrounded by the visual to-do list and I didn’t have the constant work of minding the kids. I think that my personality has a lot to do with my tendency for seriousness and tension, but adding the responsibility of caring for my young children has definitely made it worse. It’s a combination of the constancy of paying attention to the kids as well as the endless tasks associated with their upkeep.

And then at my worst moments, I wonder what is it that I am so stressed about anyways? I lived a pretty charmed life. I am a stay at home mom. We have decent finances so I don’t feel pressured to go back to work. I get help with the kids for several hours per week (hired because we don’t have a support network). Our family life is going well (we get along and the kids are pretty well behaved). So, what’s with all the stress? I keep going back to the idea that it seems to be just my default reaction to all of the tasks I have to do. Even things that are not that big of a deal in the scheme of life (nobody would die if I didn’t do them) just feel stressful.

And holding onto this great big cloud of stress at all times is preventing me from truly relaxing when I do get the opportunity. Which in turn, feeds the stress monster, making it harder for me to ever let it go.

I wonder how many other people feel the same way? Have you found that parenthood has heaped a sizable amount of stress onto you? Are you able to compartmentalize your to-do list and really let yourself go when the opportunity arises?

Just being aware of it has helped a ton. Realizing my daily stressors aren’t that big in the scheme of things. And remembering that when I’m “off-duty,” everything else can wait.

 

Restoring Mornings by Waking Naturally

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Sometimes you don’t really know how much you miss something until it’s gone.

For me, I’ve missed the ability to wake up naturally. And guess who stole that ability from me? Both my babies, but especially my last child, my son. He has not been a good sleeper for most of his 2 years. In particular, for the first 20 months or so he would wake up between 5-5:30am. I joked at the inhumanity and indecency of being alive at that hour. Despite my valiant efforts, I was never truly able to recover from waking that early. I would almost always need a nap to get through my day, and even then, I still might not really feel “well” that day.

How do other people do it? I don’t know, but it’s not good for my body rhythm.

For the last couple weeks, I’ve finally begun to sleep in just a little longer now that my son is more self-sufficient. He can get himself out of his crib and entertain himself for a little bit. I can hear that he is awake as no amount of effort will turn off my “mom ears,” but I am afforded a much more gradual waking process.

I can wake slowly. Stretch. Lay there in bed with my eyes closed, letting my thoughts drift as they please. Those moments are so precious to me. I’d actually forgotten how much I needed them. It makes such a huge difference in how I feel throughout the day when I am able to awake on my own terms, as opposed to ripping myself out of bed to attend to a screaming baby.

I first realized the benefits of waking up naturally when I was doing my MBA. Due to my anxiety and panic attacks, I decided quit my full-time job, electing to work part time for my husband’s company. Because I didn’t have to be at work at a particular time, I stopped setting an alarm. I was a little worried that I would oversleep, but I actually didn’t. And waking up on my own helped me to feel the best I’ve felt in my entire adult life.

I believe being woken up by anything other than your own body is a potential disturbance to your sleep cycles. I found that I was getting very good sleep in the early morning hours, between 5-8am. I slept deeply and had intense dreams during these hours. I woke up after these sleep cycles feeling refreshed and well rested. My mind was clear and my energy was optimal.

I had to start setting an alarm again when I got a job after I completed my Master’s program. As long as I went to bed at a decent hour, this didn’t pose that much of a struggle. But, I was fortunate to be able to carry on this habit when my company allowed me to work from home after two years of working in the office. Again, this contrast allowed me to see how much better I felt by eliminating the alarm clock. Under this setup, I did still need to set my alarm just in case I didn’t wake up on time to be online by 9am. But it was very rare that I would not be up before I heard it’s familiar ring.

Very recently, my children are my alarms. I was spoiled by my daughter who would play quietly and wait for me to wake up beginning at around 1 year. I am truly grateful that my son is finally entering this stage as well. Waking up naturally makes such a positive impact on how I feel and my outlook on the day.

What about you? Do you allow yourself to wake naturally? If it’s not possible to do on a workday, would you consider trying to sleep in on the weekend, or taking turns with your partner?

How to Put Your Sanity Plan into Action

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Now that we have established the basis for our Sanity Plan, it is time to take some action. If you missed our first discussion, you can catch up here.

So far, we’ve covered the 10 Sanity Plan Principles and discussed setting Sanity Plan Goals for 5 areas of your life that need improvement. I highlighted the importance of not trying to change everything at once in order to avoid getting further overwhelmed. I am a huge proponent of making a plan that is simple and achievable, otherwise it is hard to stay motivated.

I will use my own goals as an example:

  1. Work on improving the kids’ behavior (limit meltdowns, create better routines)
  2. Strengthen my relationship with my husband (date nights, consistent co-parenting)
  3. Make personal care a priority (sleep, exercise schedule, self-care plan)
  4. Create organizational habits and routines (conquer my clutter bug)
  5. Balance my work & creative projects with home life (create effective systems)

Setting Specific & Timely Goals

Using the areas I’ve targeted above, I can now set specific goals that will help me take steps towards improvement.

Why is it important to be specific? General goals, as in the ones above, do not give a clear enough outline of the steps needed to achieve them. I have had these goals for quite some time, but without setting specific goals to accomplish, I have not improved as much as I’ve wanted to.

Why is it important to give yourself a timeline? I don’t know about you, but when I don’t have a timeline, it takes a long time for me to get to a task, if at all. Creating a deadline for myself helps me organize my schedule around certain tasks I know I need to do.

I’ve been thinking a lot about The Sanity Plan (can you tell?) and I’ve decided to set weekly goals each Monday. Here are my goals for this week and an explanation of my thought process for each:

  1. Kid’s routines: Strengthen the daily morning routine consisting of getting dressed, brushing teeth, eating breakfast, packing lunch, cleaning up from breakfast all before 8:30 am (in that order).

I am choosing this goal because we have a pretty good evening routine, but the mornings feel disorganized. And when it feels disorganized, I start my morning on the wrong foot: stressed and grumpy.

2. Quality hubby time: Watch a movie together after the kids go to bed.

Sounds like a simple goal, but for me, I always have so much catching up to do when the kids go to bed that I feel like I can’t take the time. But for my husband, watching a movie is a great wind down activity, and he especially enjoys when we do it together.

3. Personal care: Incorporate doorway pectoral stretches into my daily lunch routine.

Stress and working long hours in front of a computer are causing pain in my neck and back. I was recently shown some stretches that will help combat the heavy forward leaning while I work. I will do this midday as a reminder to pay attention to my posture.

4. Organization: Set up the kids’ artwork filing systems.

I made a decision on the organization system I want to use for my kids’ growing pile of artwork. Now, I need to put it all together and figure out an easily accessible home for it so I can add to it throughout the year. Don’t worry, I will write it up as a post coming soon!

5. Work/Life Balance: Finish setting my 2017 writing goals.

I am very lucky to be working with a writing coach this year and my first deliverable is a three-pronged plan for my writing. This actually fits very nicely into my overall plan of developing a freelance career while maintaining good balance with the rest of my responsibilities.

Reviewing Your Progress Regularly

This is often where I fall short when goal setting. Some goals fall by the wayside because I haven’t put a good system in place for reviewing my progress.

So, when I sit down to write my goals each week, I am adding a “review” of the prior week’s goals to the process. I will consider the following:

Did I complete them all?

Where did I fall short?

What barriers did I encounter?

Did I set the “right” goals?


The Secret Ingredient

What is the secret ingredient, you ask? Accountability. Yes, definitely, we must hold ourselves accountable, but our “selves” also provide a lot of reasons and excuses for not getting done what we need to. One idea is to share your goals with a friend who wants to work on a Sanity Plan together.

Or, follow along with me. Every Monday, I am going to post my weekly goals, as well as a review of how I did during the prior week.

I’m looking forward to a simpler, saner life.

Are you ready?

Making Resolutions As A Family

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Our teen put us on the spot this year, insisting that we share our New Year’s Resolutions as a family. She’d been preparing hers for about a week but we adults only got about a 10-minute heads up.

Luckily, it wasn’t very hard to come up with what we are going to focus on in 2017. Both my husband and I tend to always be working on improving and at any given time have several goals on our minds. In fact, I hadn’t really been focused on setting resolutions because my goals are set for the New Year with several already in motion.

What was especially nice is that we had one of those rare peaceful moments to sit around the kitchen table and have a “grown up” conversation. The little man was tired after getting up early and eating a nice big breakfast so he wandered off to play quietly in his room. And the 4 year old was unusually calm as well.

Our 4-year-old daughter wants to paint more (well, she is four…).

I set a goal for the 2-year-old boy that he will be potty trained this year; he had no objection.

My husband went next. His first goal is to clear out some of our stuff. This makes complete sense to me because despite having a modest Christmas this year, the piles of new presents are still cluttering our spaces. Between that and the Christmas decor, it is easy to see how that makes him feel overwhelmed. Having young kids, we have amassed a ton of bits and parts that often get scattered throughout the house. This is incredibly unsettling to his sense of order and the weight of it blocks him from being productive. His second goal was a huge relief for me, which is to make this year be the year of finishing projects. I tend to give him a lot of leeway in regards to this aspect of his personality (starting things and not finishing) because I can live with a lot and it’s not what I want to define our relationship (think: nagging wife). But the things around the house that are not quite finished do wear on me after a while.

Our 13-year-old daughter was a bit shy at first but it was clear she’d spent a good deal of time considering her goals. Her first was to be true to herself. She explained that she’d felt as though she had let a lot of other people influence her decisions throughout the year and she wanted to change that, becoming stronger in her own opinions. Her second goal was slightly different, which was to learn more about herself. Or “discover herself” as she put it. She expressed that she would like to learn more about her likes/dislikes, favorite subjects of study, etc. Of course, I found quite a bit of irony in her goals given that she is 13 and embarking on the teenage journey of defining herself as an individual. Her father made sure to add in a note that while it is important to know yourself, we must be careful to consider other people in our decisions as well. And I made the point that her goals were probably the beginning of a lifelong journey as I am often still working on the same things.

And my goals. Well, you’ll be hearing a lot about my goals as I work through my Sanity Plan, but I wanted to commit to a couple of them to my family. My first goal is to complete my transition to a career in writing. More specifically, I plan to publish my first children’s book this year. My second goal is find ways to completely destress. Because quite frankly, I am just way too wound up all of the time. I believe most of the work I accomplish in this area will be directly related to my sensory diet and finding the right formula for truly letting go in the moment. Similar to my step-daughter’s goals, this will likely be a lifelong journey.

I’m glad she brought it up because it provided us the perfect opportunity to have an honest conversation and bond as a family. We were each vulnerable in our explanations for our goals and supportive of each other in our efforts to make improvements. It gave me new insight into the things that she is thinking about and struggling with. And I will be making an effort to check in on our resolutions throughout the year.

What are your resolutions for 2017? Do you find it helpful to set resolutions?

 

Does My Anxiety Make Me a Weak Person?

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I am 36 years old. Looking back at my adult life, I can see these cycles I’ve gone through. The peaks and valleys of a roller coaster, without the speed or the rush.

I don’t live with anxiety every day. Instead, it seems to come and go, ultimately triggered by times when I am under a lot of pressure.
I can remember the panic attack that finally forced me to get help. Ten years ago, I was sitting in traffic leaving New York on a beautiful, fall day. The windows were down and I can still see the warm glow of sunlight illuminating the brightly colored fall leaves. Everything about it should have been wonderful, except it was anything but. I wasn’t in a particular hurry, yet my hands gripped the steering wheel. My chest was tight and it was hard to breathe. I felt my heart tighten and I was scared there was something wrong with it. It felt as though there were little worms crawling around inside my heart. It seemed so real that I couldn’t be sure that the worms weren’t really inside me. I was terrified.

I don’t remember anything else about that day. I don’t remember how I was able to drive home. But right after that, I researched local therapists and made an appointment to see one that specialized in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It was this therapist that helped me see that I’d had a panic attack and was also suffering from mild depression.

Looking back at that stressful time, it’s easy for me to see the events that led to my attack. I was working for a Big 4 accounting firm with high demands on all employees. I was in my first semester of a prestigious MBA program that I felt thoroughly unprepared for. I had been house hunting, trying to find the perfect first home. I was fostering two feral kittens that had been infested with roundworms (hence the worms hallucination).

Most of the things were just life, both good and bad. So many questions run through my mind: Why couldn’t I handle it? Am I so weak that I dissolve under pressure? Do I simply bite off more than I can chew?

Why can’t I handle things that other people seem to take in stride?

Looking back now, I can see how I have a tendency to go-go-go and push myself too hard, ending up crippled by sheer anxiety. Like the time when I was working at a bank as a head teller of a million-dollar branch and going to college full time. The day to day stress wore me down to the point that I had a panic attack at work and a coworker had to hold my hands and calm me down because I couldn’t breathe. I was only 22.

Or, during the second year of motherhood, I found myself unraveling. My daughter was entering a difficult stage of toddlerhood, I was pregnant with my son, and I was still working full time in Finance. It was a long drawn out period of feeling like I just couldn’t handle anything. I couldn’t handle being at home with my daughter, but I couldn’t handle the pressure at work either. Every ounce of me felt divided, pulled in endless different directions.

Some days it feels like the anxiety has really broken my spirit. I’ve become scared of change. I often feel weak and incompetent to handle the stressors of normal, everyday life. I wonder what is wrong with me that I cannot handle a normal career and be a mother? Why can’t I function like I see the rest of the world do every day?

Even as I write this, I know that the anxiety is not my fault. My anxiety is my reaction to the sum of the experiences in my life. Certain experiences have made me fragile. People have hurt me, with and without intention. I bear the scars of a troubled childhood.

I am trying to learn where my balance is. What am I capable of taking on before it becomes too much to bear? How can I structure my life in a way that includes the right amount of family and work and relaxation in order to keep myself in that healthy range?

I’m scared and I certainly don’t have all the answers. But, I am committed to this journey called life. I will look at this disease straight in the eye when it rears its ugly head. And maybe that fight is what makes me strong, after all.

 

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