I've over done it

Do you ever feel good, so wonderfully good that you think you can conquer the world?  You do too much in one big hit and then you pay for it, coming down with a resounding crash.  That's me, I've gone and over done it, again.  You would think I would have learnt by now to pace myself, but no, my enthusiasm gets the better of me and off I go doing goodness knows what. 

Perhaps I'm subconsciously making up for a long cold winter spell of achieving zilch and all the sunshine has gone to my head.  I feel like I'm coming out of hibernation when the sun shines and I need to go and fatten up for any lean times ahead, figuratively speaking.

I think tomorrow I'll be slowing down my mind and body, going about the business of housework slowly with many cups of tea in between the bathroom cleaning and the vacuuming.  Perhaps if I think calmly, I'll be calm and not worked up into a flurry.  Sometimes this works for me when I'm running a bit late.  I'll be driving in a highly anxious state and when I think about it, being anxious and uptight isn't going to get me to my destination any quicker so I might as well lower those shoulders that are hunched up around my chin, take a big breath and just breathe.  Easier said than done isn't it?  I'd love to know how others handle tendencies to over do things and how to slow down the mind and body.

I did it!

It's nice to sit down, take a big breath and say I did it.  I pulled off hosting a 50th birthday party which is something I certainly wanted to do but wondered how I would manage.  I had moments Thursday through Saturday when honestly I wanted to crawl into my bed and go to sleep.  I wondered how I would get through the organising, the cleaning, the timing, the baking and all the preparations that go into such an occasion.  I knew I was capable because in the past I organised my own 40th, did all the catering etc.  I've hosted 16th and 18th birthday parties too but perhaps at those times I was in a slightly different frame of mind.

So what did I do?  There was an incredible amount of self talk going on in my head.  You can do it, one step at a time, concentrate on doing one thing at a time, check your list.  The other thing I did was take regular small breaks, you might say it was a kind of reward I gave myself for achieving tasks on the list.  I had my laptop on so I could do a bit of a browse through blog land while I had a cuppa.  It seemed to do the trick.

Saturday morning was probably my most difficult time as I had such a lot to do.  There was a point where I felt myself teetering on the edge of extreme anxiety so I sat myself down on the bed (didn't crawl in, yay) and did my best to do some yoga breathing and meditation for ten minutes.  The small mental break was quite helpful and I was able to get on with it.

We all had a wonderful evening and I was so happy to see everyone enjoying themselves and my cooking.  :-)  Getting through those moments of anxiety was an achievement and gave me a bit of confidence that I can use strategies to get through.

In a future post I want to talk about anxiety and panic attacks as they seem to go hand in hand with my depressive episodes. I'm wondering if other people suffer this too and and how they handle it.  But right now it's time for some Zzzzzz.