Marsha's Musings: Stress

Do you ever find yourself getting discouraged because you can't seem to get ahead? My to-do list never seems to get finished, so things end up getting pushed to the next day and my list just keeps getting longer and longer as each day passes. It's a big prescription for stress.

Recently, I picked up a magazine from the health food store that had an article on stress and a short quiz on how you handle stressful situations....I failed miserably. The article brought home some areas that I really need to work on. For instance, exercise...I have fallen off the wagon on this. But thankfully, I am getting back on that wagon. My goal is three times a week to either walk outside or jog on the mini tramp to Christian exercise music that has a trainer who walks you through it. I need this kind of motivation.

Another area I need to work on is not being so driven. I have so many things I feel like I have to do. I was telling my PT this week that I can't seem to sit still. No sooner does my bottom hit the couch, and I am up again because I just thought of another thing I needed to do. I can't seem to relax.

I am always multi-tasking. This is good time management, but it adds stress as well to one's life. Just learning to "be in the moment" is a real difficult thing for me to do.

I need to take God seriously and keep the Sabbath Day set aside for rest and worship. So, in persuit of that, this past Saturday evening, I took all the left over tasks from the week and moved them all to Monday and beyond so Sunday when I looked at my Pocket PC, there was nothing except feeding my family and the dog. It made for a restful Sunday and I plan to do this every week.

I want to cultivate the ability to just do what I can and not worry about the rest. The other day I was cleaning out my "to read" basket...it was liberating to just put most of the pile in the trash. It wasn't necessary reading anyway.

I am not going to be quite as driven about posting each day on my blog...it adds stress to my life. So if there are days when a new post doesn't go up....you'll know why. I will get here frequently, but I don't want to be as driven about it as I have been. The world will keep spinning if I don't have something to say every day of the week.

I hope some of these ideas help you if you have trouble being driven and never getting through your task list.