Feeling Rested
Week 101 – February 20, 2022 – Feeling more grounded
I am surprised how long it has taken for me to feel rested, to feel grounded. I did not take the winter break to take a break. I was writing. I was not giving myself a break and kept forging forward like there would be an endpoint. The truth is, this is a “forever thing” at least for now as I am building a new career in academia. Yes, I acknowledge there will be up and down times, but I have to find a way to make this new way of being sustainable. I needed to prioritize sleep and rest as my first step.
It’s taken about 3-weeks of deliberate rest to get to this new place of being. In my first week, I may have slept 1-2 nights that week where one of them was most likely the Friday night, which is the end of the week and I had to learn that Saturday was a guilt free day. That was something to grapple with in my quest for rest. I mentioned earlier that a colleague and mentor said to me, “take Saturday to rest.” At the time I thought, how was that possible? How do you take a day off? I really did not get it. Now, my body demands that I take Saturday off and honestly, it’s been a blessing. So grateful.
By the second week of intentional rest, I had about 3-4 days of sleep where I went to bed and said to self, “work can wait.” That was hard to do. By this week, I think I had 6-7 nights of a good night’s sleep. Thursday night was always tricky because I taught all day on Friday and I have to plan and prep for that day. It takes time as I am juggling meetings during the day, so often I would stay up late. I slept guilt free this Friday and Saturday nights. Sleeping in. I have no problems with sleep. I had more problems with finding the intentional time to sleep. Now taking it, I feel great.
Ok. There is a consequence to rest and sleep. I’m not as productive. After listening to my colleague present in my class about time management, what I am realizing is, I have to use my time more wisely. I can see that. When I’m tired and working on a 24-hour clock, there are no boundaries. If I’m blocking out time to sleep and rest, I need to do the same for work and writing. The non-cognitive time or non-productive time need to be reassessed. I hope to adopt the first step of THE BIG THREE, the ideal week, and my daily routines. I am stoked to take the time to use my time more productively.
It’s amazing how good I feel and how receptive I am to doing some things and I need to re-evaluate about what I am not willing to do. I get a little overwhelmed sometimes about what people think and not trusting my intuition and expertise. I am practicing how to park some of those ideas and delve into the work of James Clear and Atomic Habits. What kind of person do I want to be? That’s the million dollar question. I look around and I do see qualities in others of whom I would like to be. These are #goals. In the meantime, part of who I would like to be is a well-rested person. I’m here.