Today we signed the closing documents to sell our home for the last seven years. On the flight to get a few days of rest with friends and family, I wrote this blog post.
Here’s a quick list of events with lots of uncertain outcomes recently:
-Selling a house (six month process with offers falling through and paying double housing expenses)
-insurance battle for full coverage of hail damage (took months to get about 60k not 6k)
-leaking new roof
-several surprise medical challenges that required thoughtful responses
-helping our 2e son navigate applying for a first job and getting a first apartment
There has been a lot up in the air and it’s easy for the what-if’s to eradicate any peace.
This is what I’ve done and, while I can’t claim zero loss of sleep nor zero anxiety, this has brought me much more tranquility through the process.
1. Self care every day (a lot)
2. Capturing next actions to a trusted system
3. Acknowledging the emotions with compassion. Letting them be felt and shared. And, letting them go.
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat…
Everyone has their own favorites, these are the self care practices I’ve been using:
-walks
-tapping
-meditation
-baths
-tea/cocoa favorites
-nature/sun sparkles
-gratitude practices
-singing
By nurturing myself, I both cherish the process and have the reserves to cope.
To have any hope of a tranquil mind during such times, I need to know everything I need to do is “captured” in a way that I can see it when I need to. That means I don’t need to keep thinking about it. I can respond to any reminder-thoughts by knowing that concern is already safely in my system or I can put it in my system if the thought is new. David Allen knows what he’s talking about when he says this fosters the peace and calm of a “mind like water”.
I personally like to do step 3 while doing self care. It feels so much better to talk about the anxiety after the latest insurance hoopla while walking in a park and talking with a friend. It feels so much better to allow the disappointment of rescinded house-offer pass through while reveling in a lavender Epsom salts bath. And when my dear child does something that makes his future prospects less bright, tapping and gratitude practices are so powerful for helping me with the sadness.
So, that’s my one, two, three. And, in this beautiful life there are many times of uncertainty 🥰
