Zen as a Frog

Something that I can’t talk about has happened in my life to turn it a little on its head in the last week. As most of you all know, I am a big planner, I am very organised and love to have my life in order. C is not usually like that, but lately even he has been coming to the party in terms of making lists and setting budgets and getting our life in order considering some of the big changes we’re planning at the end of the year.

Just 2 weeks ago we sat down and put a budget together and started to firm up our plans, making lists of all the things we need to do in a few short months, both fun social stuff and boring life-admin stuff.

Then, literally overnight, this thing happened and we were like, ‘whaaaaaaat?’ So all that planning and budgeting and organisation we did, just went out the window.

Usually, given my tendency to be anal and organised and have everything in order, I would be FREAKING out about this. Usually, I’d be really panicked and really scared and worried and be losing sleep. But guess what?? I’m not!

I’ve completely surprised myself with how zen I am being about it, how calm and considered I’m being, how chilled. That’s not to say I’m burying my head in the sand and shrugging my shoulders and not dealing with it, quite the opposite in fact. I am just tackling the challenge with a calm sense of purpose, motivation and positivity and my attitude has been ‘well, life throws these curve balls occasionally, and you just have to roll with it.’ (Who the hell am I and where did the real me go??)

Even at the start, when C first found out, he said to me ‘OK babe, we need to be positive and happy and motivated about it’ and I think he sensed that it was a high possibility that I would freak out like I’ve done in the past in other similar situations, and even in  situations that haven’t even been remotely worth worrying about. But I guess I showed him too!!

Anyway, I think it could be down to a number of things. It could be the fact that I just recently had a holiday, but I have had holidays in the past so I don’t think it’s that.

Rather, I think it is a combination of a few factors… my daily gratitude journal has definitely helped me be more appreciative of the smaller things and has helped put things into perspective for me.

Then there’s the fact that I got really sick last year and have since discovered that actually I’ve not been well for a LONG, LONG time. I overcame that challenge and I realised that I’d been living my life with about 40-60% of the energy a person of my age should have. I think this was a HUGE factor in me feeling so completely overwhelmed when things weren’t in order, and when things went wrong. But now I seem to have the energy to cope with it.

Then, there is of course the fact that C is very, very much the opposite of me and I have learned a great many lessons from him about attitudes to life. Although, I don’t want to give him too much credit for my hard work either!! 🙂

Speaking of my hard work, I’ve done a fair bit of growing up in the last few tears and I’ve put a LOT of work into developing some more self-confidence and belief in myself. This blog for one, my entry into the Biggest Baddest Bucket List Competition (something I NEVER would have done 12 months ago), doing things that are outside of my comfort zone at work, and learning how to recognise my own strengths and achievements rather than thinking of myself as a fraud – looking back and thinking, ‘oh shit, I did that’, or ‘I reached that goal’, or ‘I succeeded in that dream’ and actually recognising it in myself.

Anyway, I don’t want to go on about it (too much), but as I said, I’ve completely surprised myself. So this is really a ‘Yay Me’ moment and a post to acknowledge the fact that usually I identify so much with people who are manic and over-anxious and highly strung so much so I have accepted it as a part of who I am but I don’t know if I really am that person anymore, or at least, not completely. I think I am learning how NOT to be that person anyway.

Either that or the panic just hasn’t set in yet and I am about to get hit with a massive dose of it!!!

NB: I would just like to note here for C’s benefit that I still want my life in order and that includes the house, the cleaning, the planning of meals to ensure we’re only putting healthy food in our bodies, I am just going to be less of a dragon when things don’t quite go the way I like them to! 🙂