Once in a session, my client was exploring strategies to prioritise daily tasks, so nothing is left unfinished, and everything goes smoothly. I could see them getting increasingly exhausted. “I don’t think I can get everything done the way I want to, I think I should just admit it and let it be,” chuckled my client. And I thought, what if that’s exactly what they needed to do, to stop trying so hard every day. We get so caught up in the struggle to find the ‘best’ way to get things done, that we often don’t recognise that we are already doing what we wanted to do, just not in the way we visualised it. We are probably already managing our priorities. So, why doesn’t it feel that way?
We may have the life we wanted to, but it feels different because we can’t experience a situation unless we are in it. It’s like looking at a five-star resort on the internet with all its amenities and having an ‘image’ of how we would feel once we are there. When we are physically in that place, the real sensations slowly seep in. It could be that it’s what we imagined it would be or we may find ourselves faced with a leaky faucet, no hot water or the swimming pool not being as big as it looked in the pics. But we can still find a way to have a good experience despite the little troubles. Perhaps by accepting the situation with all its flaws. We can always opt out of it but once we have made the choice, it may be telling us that that’s where we want to be at that moment. So, how does this relate to managing priorities?
If we allow ourselves to sit back and look at our situation, like getting a bird’s eye view, we might be able to identify that all we need is to stop what we are doing and just sit down. Take a few deep breaths and let the turmoil run its course. There will be mess, there will be used coffee cups on the kitchen counter and the laundry basket may never get empty. But what do these things tell us? Probably that we enjoyed the morning cuppa, our loved ones are going about their lives, and we are doing what needs to be done that day. This is what we wanted, and this is what is happening. But we often forget that we will get tired in the process, we will need to rest when we can and put a pause on the worries that don’t need our attention that day.
Some disarray every day is a great reminder that we are alive and thriving, isn’t it?