Good morning! I hope you all had a wonderful week last week. The weather is starting to turn here and my thoughts go to the projects we want to do for the landscaping and house. The spring cleaning vibe is hitting hard. I love to freshen up the house after a long winter. It's like turning the page or flipping the script which lead to the inspiration for today's post. I began thinking about a time when I had to mentally "flip the script"for myself.
Last June we took the time to completely disconnect from work with the exception of one meeting that I had to take but even with that meeting I joined via my phone for the 30 minutes needed and did not open my laptop. I knew that if I did I would get sucked into a rabbit hole of my own making and start working. Hang in here with me while I give you the backstory for this post.
Our plan was to do a "working" vacation week and build two pergolas which we have had the supplies for for two years but hadn't been able to do because each and every time we had time to do it it was either sweltering hot or raining. One to go over top of a small raised bed that needs more shade and one larger one between two of our large raised beds to grow vining flowers across. My husband and I enjoy working on projects like these together and the early forecasts looked perfect! Our 26th wedding anniversary was on Wednesday of that week so we were going to go out to dinner to celebrate.
It ended up raining 85% of the week that week. Monday was a complete washout. We couldn't even work in the garage with the door open it was raining so hard and blowing sideways. The rest of the days we worked in the garage and did what we could outside when we could. We were able to cut all the wood and preassemble several of the pieces but we only got one side of the smallest one installed. Instead of going out and fighting the weather on Wednesday we ordered in. Saturday morning was spent travelling 3.5 hours to my husband's family reunion. We stayed at his mother's whose air conditioning was on the fritz and the beds aren't the most comfortable then headed back home to on early Sunday afternoon to beat the next round of severe storms. Come Sunday evening I started feeling the dread that you get when you know you are heading back to work after being out. Did the week go well? I am going to have so much to clean out/up and catch up on. You know that feeling, right? When you start to tell yourself that sometimes it just isn't worth it to take the time away? My monkey mind started kicking in and dragging me into a place of worry and negativity but I caught it. I recognized it. I was mindful and aware of how I was feeling at that present moment and I stopped the process. I flipped the script.
"Last week was a dismal failure and I didn't complete anything I set out to accomplish" became "Look at how far we came on this project! We have everything cut and partially assembled so now we just have to install, stain, and seal. That's more than we completed in 2 whole years!"
"We didn't even properly celebrate our anniversary" became "I had a wonderful night in with my loving husband of 26 years enjoying a lovely dinner, a bottle of wine, and watching a movie that we have wanted to watch forever and we didn't even have to fight traffic or get drenched in the rain."
"We lost a whole day and a half of work for the reunion and it was hot and uncomfortable in that house" became "How lucky were we to be able to see everyone and take our grandson with us to the reunion. So many of the family are getting older and I don't know if we will have the chance to see them again next year. The house was hot but we were all together and because we were able to come in we were able to help diagnose the problem with the air-conditioner even if we weren't able to fix it for my mother in law. We had a lovely Sunday brunch with family who live across the nation and we rarely get to see. We were able to watch our grandson catch his first lightening bug in his great grandma's yard Saturday night. We are blessed with our family."
"Tomorrow is going to be so much work and there is so much I will have to catch up on that it wasn't even worth taking the time off" became "I earned and deserved to give myself this break. I have a wonderful team who is fully competent and a great covering manager who is fully capable of guiding them when needed. I can and will catch up in due time through out the day tomorrow. I encourage them to completely disconnect and I practiced what I preach. I should be and am proud of myself for that."
After taking the time to be grateful, to recognize my blessings and the positives of that week I felt so incredibly light and happy. Take time this week to watch for opportunities to practe fliping your own script and let me know in the comments below how it went for you and how you felt afterwards.
-A
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