Creating space for the things we want to do never ends, we only get better at it. My last big push to create space to live better was for me to get better at managing expectations of both myself and others. There were some hard lessons learned but I’m alive and so are the people that went through it with me. Learning to create space for what we want isn’t a one time thing, its a lifetime thing.

See.. creating space, living better and thriving isn’t just about you, its about everyone in your life, too. Some choose to stay, some will go, and that’s okay. It’s also okay for them to be upset and never talk or communicate with you again. Don’t worry, they will quickly latch onto the next person they can bully or manipulate, just like the old version of yourself they want you to be. Gotta let these people go, they are not serving to further your cause, no matter what they tell you. Even if its the person that’s looking back at you in the mirror every morning, but that’s a different lesson.

When I was sick, I made three main goals for my life if/when I was ever to get healthy. I am simply crushing the first one and if I didn’t know any better, I’d probably live the rest of my life in this cycle and be totally fine with it, as its a huge improvement over where I was just two years ago, actually it’s a huge improvement over just a year ago, but I know better and how to live better. When we are sick, we have these unobtainable expectations we hold ourselves too. Then, when we can’t get to those goals we persecute ourselves and others for our failures. I did it for 25 years, and it will continue to destroy you, like it did me, until we decide to make a conscious effort to change. It starts with us.. no one else.

My original healing goals are/were as follows:

1. Live a life without physical pain.

2. Maintain an 18/6 work-life/rest balance (18 hours of living to every 6 hours of rest).

3. Enjoy every minute of it.

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Realigning goals and why they need to change to fit my new level of wellness and awareness.

Living without pain

This s the greatest gift I’ve ever given myself, but for me it came with self sabotaging repercussions like setting expectation so high I can’t possibly obtain them until I go through a few more healing steps. Things like maintaining an unreasonable work/life balance. Something I had to come to grips with last year is how severe this brain injury is. One of the things I’ve noticed is my inability to realize how cold I am until its too late. I won’t even start to think about being cold until my body is in a complete state of spasm and I can’t deny it any longer. The same thing seems to apply to exhaustion for me. I don’t really have the indicators I used to have. I don’t get tired much anymore, but I get cranky. Cranky IS my indicator.. but first there’s the brain fog. The brain fog comes on quickly when I’m getting worn down and that’s my new exhaustion indicator, otherwise I’ll just keep going until I “crash” and have to stop interacting and communicating with people for up to 72 hours sometimes.

Maintaining an 18/6 work/life balance

This has always been a source of pride (and failure) for me, this originates from learning that hard work and long hours would be enough to be successful. That was such a flawed way of thinking and in my journey the last couple years, it’s the reason I haven’t been able to obtain my second goal or my 3rd goal, and that needs to change, today. As a general rule I don’t require much sleep most of the time (probably from decades of getting up to pee every 10 min – 3 hours at night). 18 hour days are really easy to obtain, however, the quality of that 18 hours is where my focus now lies. In that unrealistic mindset I will push until I crash, fighting to get to that goal, whereby living in this state of 3 weeks working and pushing, only to crash for 3 days to a week and recover and admitting another “epic failure”. Which, is essentially the pattern of survival I needed when I was sick, but now that I’m well, I have more options and avenues of consistency to work with. I don’t know what the resolution looks like, but to start I understand that I may not need much sleep most of the time, but I do need more time to rest and recover without sleeping.

I’m going to lay in bed longer in the mornings and spend some more time in that grateful state before I start my days
I’m going to take actual full days off.
I’m going to stop pushing when pushing steals my joy
Enjoy every minute of it

This has proven to be impossible with different levels of exhaustion, muscle spasms due to cold and exhaustion as well as my steep learning curve in just about everything I am doing in moving my business online. One thing I’ve learned is not to change too many variables at once, or maintain old expectations as these variables shift. So with that being said, I’m looking forward to experiencing at least 10% more daily joy from making a simple shift in my rest schedule.

Conclusion

As you can see this remission thing isn’t a one stop shop, its a constant state of awareness that changes as we get better. Sometimes we have to adjust our expectations, often we are a single step from getting everything we want, but we are trying to take that step with both feet in the same pant leg and we continue to trip ourselves up. If you find yourself in this scenerio, take 60 seconds, look at yourself in the mirror, dead in your eyes and ask yourself if you’re living your best life. Then wait for the answer…..