Before I go to sleep, I often have a short talk with my parts that we call “day in review.” It’s a narrative of how the day went from start to finish. By taking between 5 to 15 minutes to discuss how the day went, it helps me feel mastery over what I learned, mistakes I made, and things I’d like to do better in the future. I often identify extremely tiny things I can do to make my life better by combing through what annoyed me during the day.
Even though they’re super tiny, over time, the things I notice add up to make my life easier. Things as dumb as noticing that it would be better for me to pop open my side-view mirror when I’m standing outside my car, rather than getting in the car, and then having to reach over to roll down the window to pop open the side-view mirror on the passenger side. We are talking super stupid, tiny things!
By taking every minute of my life seriously, and giving myself permission to notice what annoys me, and then fix it, over time my life gets slightly easier, and it trains me to give myself permission to honor myself in the tiniest of ways.
By giving myself permission to honor these very small annoyances and fix them, I think I also train myself to honor bigger things, like when people treat me rudely. I don’t let it go. During my day in review, if parts tell me, “That person was really mean to me!“ I take it seriously, and most of the time, I find a way to terminate my interactions with that person going forward in the future. As Maya Angelou says, “When someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time.“ By taking my feelings very seriously, I am able to act on them as quickly as possible, instead of denying or bargaining with the truth of what is arising in my reality field.
I love this focus on feeling “complete“ about tasks in a day, and I would add that paying attention to feeling “complete“ about what we emotionally experience during the day is also worth attending to.
For me, it is making sure I at least put something down in my bullet jounral and review it when I am away from the office. We are not writing as much as we did and that act of wiring the mind to remember more by using the writing function helps more than one might believe.
Of course, there is the issue of having the desire to do anything at all, but that is for another post I am sure.
I love the microstep idea! Yesterday (on my day off) I: Washed, dried, folded, 6 loads of laundry, and put away 5; took the cat (1 of 7) to the vet; medicated said cat; cleaned the fridge; cleaned the bathroom; changed the sheets; baked a batch of Italian bread; made a big pot of spaghetti sauce; unloaded, reloaded, and ran the dishwasher (twice); fed the horses (3 times); did some billing for a side-gig; made a bank deposit (thank gods for bank-deposit-by-phone)... And what did I focus on when I finally went to bed? That load of laundry I didn’t put away… Damn, I should be celebrating the fact that I actually put a bra on before I went to the vet!
In addition to the micro-steps, I’m going to start keeping a list of all the things I *did* get done during the day! But, then I’ll beat myself up on the days where there aren’t at least a dozen things that I managed to move from my to-do list to my ta-da list… *sigh*
OK, definitely trying this! I tend to have real trouble getting to sleep and when I do sleep, I typically dream so vividly and also so closely to what is troubling me in the real world, that I don't always wake up feeling rested. This simple step really does seem like it could help.
Just last night, exhausted, I had an unfinished email... I ended up making a bullet-pointed list of all the things I needed to say and thought, man my brain isn't working, those are not the right words, why can't I think of the right words, but after making the list, I put it away and then this morning, I got up and in a crunch of time, wrote out the email and all the words came to me!
But I hadn't framed the bullet-point list the night before as a small (but effective) step towards completing the task so I kinda tossed and turned still last night. Which is worth noting only to say that *you have to be kind to yourself and frame your small steps as effective and helpful for this to work.*
Yes, sometimes, not a default of course, you have to decide to not finish something. Just breathe deep, let it go and feel the space you just created. Then advance with the “microsteps” in other areas.
Before I go to sleep, I often have a short talk with my parts that we call “day in review.” It’s a narrative of how the day went from start to finish. By taking between 5 to 15 minutes to discuss how the day went, it helps me feel mastery over what I learned, mistakes I made, and things I’d like to do better in the future. I often identify extremely tiny things I can do to make my life better by combing through what annoyed me during the day.
Even though they’re super tiny, over time, the things I notice add up to make my life easier. Things as dumb as noticing that it would be better for me to pop open my side-view mirror when I’m standing outside my car, rather than getting in the car, and then having to reach over to roll down the window to pop open the side-view mirror on the passenger side. We are talking super stupid, tiny things!
By taking every minute of my life seriously, and giving myself permission to notice what annoys me, and then fix it, over time my life gets slightly easier, and it trains me to give myself permission to honor myself in the tiniest of ways.
By giving myself permission to honor these very small annoyances and fix them, I think I also train myself to honor bigger things, like when people treat me rudely. I don’t let it go. During my day in review, if parts tell me, “That person was really mean to me!“ I take it seriously, and most of the time, I find a way to terminate my interactions with that person going forward in the future. As Maya Angelou says, “When someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time.“ By taking my feelings very seriously, I am able to act on them as quickly as possible, instead of denying or bargaining with the truth of what is arising in my reality field.
I love this focus on feeling “complete“ about tasks in a day, and I would add that paying attention to feeling “complete“ about what we emotionally experience during the day is also worth attending to.
For me, it is making sure I at least put something down in my bullet jounral and review it when I am away from the office. We are not writing as much as we did and that act of wiring the mind to remember more by using the writing function helps more than one might believe.
Of course, there is the issue of having the desire to do anything at all, but that is for another post I am sure.
Write it down, make it happen.
I love the microstep idea! Yesterday (on my day off) I: Washed, dried, folded, 6 loads of laundry, and put away 5; took the cat (1 of 7) to the vet; medicated said cat; cleaned the fridge; cleaned the bathroom; changed the sheets; baked a batch of Italian bread; made a big pot of spaghetti sauce; unloaded, reloaded, and ran the dishwasher (twice); fed the horses (3 times); did some billing for a side-gig; made a bank deposit (thank gods for bank-deposit-by-phone)... And what did I focus on when I finally went to bed? That load of laundry I didn’t put away… Damn, I should be celebrating the fact that I actually put a bra on before I went to the vet!
In addition to the micro-steps, I’m going to start keeping a list of all the things I *did* get done during the day! But, then I’ll beat myself up on the days where there aren’t at least a dozen things that I managed to move from my to-do list to my ta-da list… *sigh*
OK, definitely trying this! I tend to have real trouble getting to sleep and when I do sleep, I typically dream so vividly and also so closely to what is troubling me in the real world, that I don't always wake up feeling rested. This simple step really does seem like it could help.
Just last night, exhausted, I had an unfinished email... I ended up making a bullet-pointed list of all the things I needed to say and thought, man my brain isn't working, those are not the right words, why can't I think of the right words, but after making the list, I put it away and then this morning, I got up and in a crunch of time, wrote out the email and all the words came to me!
But I hadn't framed the bullet-point list the night before as a small (but effective) step towards completing the task so I kinda tossed and turned still last night. Which is worth noting only to say that *you have to be kind to yourself and frame your small steps as effective and helpful for this to work.*
Yes, sometimes, not a default of course, you have to decide to not finish something. Just breathe deep, let it go and feel the space you just created. Then advance with the “microsteps” in other areas.
Forward
I like this a ton. Some great ideas that I am going to put to use.