How do I stay balanced when my life is spinning around me? It’s not really my life spinning but me, multi-tasking, turning, and twisting like a short-order cook managing multiple burners in a surround stove kitchen. On a daily basis, it’s the usual overwhelming mom stuff of the late-afternoon, just-arriving-home scenario: the kids are hungry NOW; the cats, MEOW, need food too; the groceries are still in the car and the ice cream is melting. It’s been pouring down rain for what seems like weeks and the cat litter box smells as if it hasn’t been cleaned in a month.
In the grand scheme of things, none of this matters, but I still have to pay rent, return a call to my ex-husband about finances and selling our house, call my accountant about the tax bill I didn’t pay last month, and figure out how to get through all the paperwork on my desk so that I can find and prioritize my work load to meet my deadlines. What’s mission critical? What do I need to do right now for the next step required?
How about get some balance? Some perspective? Eesh!
I remember when I was in graduate school at UC Santa Barbara. Then too I was sometimes overwhelmed with reading and projects—term papers and assignments—on top of working to get the means to make it all happen. But I had a friend that would call me from faraway and say, “Go for a run Sheila, you’ll feel better.”
“Oh no,” I’d say, “I can’t, not enough time, can’t fit it in. I have to meet these deadlines”
“Go for a run Sheila,” he’d encourage. “Just get out for fifteen or twenty minutes to clear your head. You’ll feel better.”
Reluctantly, I’d get my gear on and head out. As soon as I was out, from wherever I had been with my heavy load, my perspective would start to shift. The change of venue often does wonders. Then I’d warm up with a slow jog, just to be moving. With each pound of my foot to the ground, something would sort of get loose inside my brain. It was as if the grip I held on my stress and workload was so tight that I couldn’t manually ease up on it until a force, my body running, helped to release it. That release flooded my brain with such a sense of calm, that endorphin good feeling that made even the toughest job seem manageable and almost easy.
I hear that friend’s voice calling me in my head today, “Go for a run Sheila, you’ll feel better.” I’m grateful for that voice, and for the physical ability to go for a run and workout. I’d be a basket case if I couldn’t get this physical release. Some days it’s just my Stairmaster: I climb on it (in my garage) with reading glasses, my textbook, and a bright light overhead—set it for level 15, 45 minutes, and go. I’ll sweat like a pig (with water bottle ever present) and read a chapter or so, my brain clicking the whole time. It’s a creative place for me, serving a dual purpose.
But my favorite way to find balance, which I did the other day, is a bike run to the mountain. I live just a short distance from Mt. Tamalpais. So I hop on one of two bikes, depending on my starting plan. I like my mountain bike if I plan to ride the trails before running them. I’ll pedal the bike over to Phoenix Lake, ride Shaver Grade out and back, then park it for a run. Often I’ll climb Bald Mountain first for a little God talk at the top. It’s here I like to think I’m searching for answers and guidance that I hope to find from this expansive, 360-degree perspective of the Bay Area. But really it’s a meditation of sorts—a way to focus my mind on release, release as a way of letting go of all of that which I have no control over anyway. When I’m finally ready, then I go, running fast down the backside, looping around Yolanda trail, a single-track, varied-terrain path, up and down, sun to shade, rocks to roots to gravel. Fast is the key.
I liken running fast down a mountain trail to solving complex algebra problems. I get so focused that I forget everything else. Moving from one side of the trail to the other, or wherever I need to be, in a nonlinear fashion is like jumping around an equation in order to follow the order of operations. Click, click, click goes my brain as if magically all the files inside are resorting themselves, like optimizing the hard drive of a computer.
Bike, run, fixed. Period.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Great photos! Reminds me that I really need to get out of my house and go hiking soon.
What a great friend! Daily fitness and movement does more for our minds and hearts and souls than we give credit. Great pics – you’re blessed to have such a beautiful playground in your own backyard!
I need the same thing to destress. It is almost like an addiction. But a good, hard workout always makes me feel better!!!
I still haven’t figured it out..
Exercise will definitely do it and it is a wonderful way to put everything back in order! But ahhhh, Sheila you have hit on the ultimate Mommy dilemma. The other stuff still has to get done. Go to the gym, work out, shower, and then you still have to do all the other things that keeps the train on the tracks, and now you are doing it while the kids are wanting your attention and needing help with homework, and “NO, I don’t WANT to go to the grocery store”ing, and then all that familiar “yuck” comes right back.
Good advice! I laugh when people say they don’t have time to exercise. We all choose how we prioritize. I know no matter how overwhelmed I feel I always feel better after a workout. If I do it every morning I know I can handle the rest of the day-even if I don’t finish everything. I never regret taking that time for myself because I get so much back from it!