Apply Less Pressure Here

I'm pretty sure this has been one of the busiest/most eventful years of my life.  With all the blogging and sewing and playing music and homeschooling and just being a parent/friend/daughter/person in general, sometimes I feel like SuperWoman.  And sometimes I feel like I'm losing my mind.  I had what felt like a mini-breakdown in August.  It was a hard month.  There were more things going on than I felt like I could handle, paired with some heart-breaking family news and some more family drama on the other side, and I just decided that something(s) had to change.  The question for me was: How do you give up one of your "things" when you are passionate about all of them?  And that was tough.

First, I assessed all the things that were keeping me busy night and day.  What was I willing to let go of?  I think this is the part where I'm supposed to tell you that I took a deep breath and eliminated some things from my life... except, I mostly didn't.  All of the "work" things that keep me busy, I love those things.  Oh, yeah... and they also help pay the bills.  For me, cutting out half of what was going on wasn't really an option.  So, what next?

Johnny and I did a lot of talking about how we could change some things around to make life a little less stressful.  As we planned and planned and redistributed responsibility, I realized that the thing that really needed to change was the amount of pressure I was applying to myself.

*You don't have anything to blog about today?  Well, now the world is ending and everyone is disappointed in you.*
*You fell asleep instead of answering those emails?  Well, now you've offended everyone waiting in that Inbox.*
*You didn't finish that project within your self-inflicted deadline?  Well, now everything else is going to suffer while you try to make up the time you've wasted.*

Anyway, you get the general idea.  I was placing so much pressure on myself, that I was feeling more than overwhelmed.  Like, only sleeping 3 or 4 hours a night, just so I could get all the work stuff done and still be a great mother and friend.  The SuperWoman feeling had left and I was just spent.  So, where do we go from here?

At some point I had a moment of clarity.  "This is stupid.  I have to love myself better and forgive myself more.  Or, even better: stop beating myself up all the time, and then there's no need for forgiveness."  So, here's what I've been focusing on:

*MORE SELF LOVE.
*Patting myself on the back for a job well done instead of focusing on what I didn't accomplish for the week.
*This one is hard for me, but saying no to friends when my week is feeling too heavy.  I can't always be everything for everyone and that's okay.
*Making sure I have time to decompress everyday.

I get a lot of comments asking how I "manage it all" and I hope this gives a little insight.  No one has it together all of the time.  Sometimes I "manage it all" pretty well (like a badass, really) and sometimes juggling is a joke and I drop all the balls I have in the air.  The thing is, when that happens you just pick them up and give it another go.  It's all gonna be okay.  xo.