Monday Motivation

I opened my diary this morning to find this amazing quote as the Daily Quote.

It is particularly poignant when my To Do list is excessively long and overwhelming.

As a teenager I used to suffer from not being able to sleep at night. I would have a million things going on, especially during my last two years while studying for A’Levels. I was also Head Girl of the school, Captain of Swimming, Captain of Hockey, leader of this club and that club, it was exhausting and overwhelming at times. I used to lie in bed at night and my brain refused to shut down and rest.

I tried everything everyone suggested:

• Counting sheep
• Keeping a notebook next to my bed to write stuff down (I never did)
• I would try reading for pleasure (not school textbooks)
• I was exercising regularly so it wasn’t that

Nothing helped.

This carried on for a while after I finished school, then it went away, I clearly de-stressed by living it up in London and partying a little too hard sometimes with minimal responsibility. (Maybe that was the key? lol)

After I met my future-husband we settled down to normal life and started ‘adulting’, we were planning a wedding, buying a house etc etc, and the stress started again. Sleepless nights, not able to switch off, wide-eyed restlessness.

One night I remember lying there and I suddenly thought to myself, “What is the point of this, you have gone over all of this a million times, there is absolutely NOTHING you can do about it right now. Go to sleep and when you wake up tomorrow you CAN do something about it.”

Now I don’t know if it was the power of positive thinking or what, but it worked.

Sometimes those sleepless thought-filled nights return, during my pregnancies, in the run-up to our big moves (UK to Zimbabwe, then Zimbabwe to SA etc). After a while I remember that little talking to I gave myself all those years ago, and it helps.

The key is to believe yourself; trust in yourself; and when you wake up the next day, DO something about it, whatever it might be.

Sometimes there is nothing you can do about whatever you are stressing or worrying about, things like the impending birth of your child … there really is very little you can do other than be prepared (i.e. bags packed and birth plan wish list at hand) and surrender yourself to time; you can’t control everything and NOTHING you do can stop that day from coming … you can’t slow time down. Lying there stressing about it is futile.

So this quote from Saint Francis is, as I said above, particularly poignant to my life right now. I hope my husband is reading this too. Love you ‘my love’.