Reclaiming Simplicity in Our Lives

It feels clean. Life smells better and feels better too when it is simple and clean. There is no frustration in not being able to find somethin you need to complete a task. There is no stress. You can enjoy the moment. The noise, chaos, clutter and distractions are gone. It feels lighter, bigger, happier. If it feels this good in our home, that safe space we rest and make the best of for our family, then why can’t we create it in the rest of our lives too?

I get into this routine where it seems I just keep up with things. It’s not that the house is dirty because I do clean it regularly but sometimes it just needs that next level cleaning and organizing. The systems are no longer working and it’s time for a freshening up. How often I feel like this in a lot of areas of my life to be honest. I put it off though thinking it will self-fix itself and stop causing the stress in my life that it does regularly. The drama, chaos, noise will settle down and we can get back to normal. The weight I’m piling on will go away and my clothes will fit again. You would think after a while I would figure out nothing ever really fixes itself. From our health, jobs, family and homes there so much we just live with like that; hoping one day it just gets better and we can feel better finally.

My job had been relentless with stress and chaos for months. I am in the middle of another job hunt on top of dealing with garage in the job I have now while praying it lasts until l can leave it. By the end of the day or weekend I’m done. There’s nothing left in me except to go through the motions of making sure the laundry gets done, floors get a quick sweep and we have some food in the fridge. Everything else isn’t important because I have no energy to give it. Even things I love doing like making a new quilt, trying out a new recipe in the kitchen or just spending time with my family seems over the top. Let’s not even mention you know working out or seeing friends. I couldn’t even tell you who my friends were these days.

I recognize I no longer have the energy to do it too because I’m burned out from what’s going on in my life. That guilt sinks in that we know we should take care of that situation or we should have the energy like we used to and stop letting this bother us so much but that’s doesn’t work. I have scolded myself quite harshly for this over the years and even now I feel the brunt of those words that I’m just a loser come to mind. It’s all my fault right? We’re all responsible for our own lives so what mine looks like right now is surely my fault. All of it. The job, the asshole boss that screams, the back stabbing co-worker, the disorganization of my home, the bathroom I bought paint for a year ago and still needs to be painted. How about the 50 plus pounds I’ve packed on during it all? All of it my fault because it’s my responsibility and all I want to do is fall asleep on the couch Saturday afternoon lacking energy to deal with any of it anymore. Maybe some new Pinterest picks will give us some inspiration to do it.

I’m supposed to be able to do it all. That’s what women do right? We do the hard things and we keep going until we know for sure life is taken care of for those we love. We will eat, take a shower, workout, drink water and rest later. We push and push until we get this point of burnout like I find myself these days and even though I’m still pushing hard for those important things when it’s done I have nothing left for myself. Nothing but clothes that don’t fit me and a life that feels heavier too. It’s all for the right reasons though right? The reason I feel like this is for the greater good of my family and future right?

There was nothing about living naturally well or with simplicity going on in my life when I wrote this blog. I was so harsh on myself in the process of it too. We can use all the essential oils, natural herbs and supplements we want but until we also put in the work of detoxing in our lives there’s very little those products will do for us. I knew this too. Here I was writing this blog every day at 5AM telling people this works and lacking the living example of showing them my own life doing it myself. My life was and sometimes still is a hot mess. My job sucks the living life out of me regularly and I’m burned out from it. I sometimes forget to turn over the laundry and towels stink so I have to rewash them. I miss workouts and eat frozen pizza or cereal for dinner because I’m too tired to fix anything else. No wonder people think this using oils and living naturally is a crock. It can seem literally impossible to add one more thing to your life when it is in shambles you’re hanging on by your fingernails. I get it.

The problems we have in our life are usually the result of not feeling like we have control to change our circumstances. We are just literally hanging on. It’s just how life is sometimes right? We’ll get to feeling better one day after we can retire from our jobs and don’t have that stress in our lives every day. We’ll get to working out and eating better in a couple weeks three years from now when the current drama in our lives settles down again. We will get to the house and declutter it so we can think, create and find what we need later. We always think the better life is later, some day or in the future namely because we’re too tired to work on it today.

I didn’t have the energy to do it all and quite honestly I just wanted to take a nap. I wanted to self-soothe with some ice cream to help calm the burning feeling of indigestion in my stomach from stress. I wanted to not wake up in the middle of the night thinking about work problems I was going to face the next day. I wanted to cry, scream, sleep and curl up in a ball and give up. Maybe that was the most natural feeling in the world given my circumstances but it also felt like guilt and failure. It felt like the 50 plus pounds I now had on my body from it all where my clothes no longer fit and I was uncomfortable in my own skin. Living large had a new meaning it seemed.

So how do I get to that place where it smells clean and I can easily find what I need and life doesn’t feel like this? Where do we swing off the cliff from our fingernails and get some ground beneath us so we can figure out strategically what’s next? Where do we start with reclaiming our life back? The real life where we feel like ourselves again and not this overweight, stressed out exhausted mess?

I may not have it all figured out but here’s what I know. It smells good and we feel better when life is in our control. When we are not at the mercy of others for what we need in this life and we can actually have things like work-life balance. Quite frankly we have life. It feels different, better, happier, lighter and all of that helps us feel our best despite what is going on in our lives at the time. We remain in control of it. The natural simplicity living comes from us taking that bold step to detox our lives from the things, all the things, that are not adding to that too. It’s hard, emotional, challenging, scary and vulnerable.

If you’re ready to take that journey with me, let’s chat. I’m looking for fellow tired warriors like me that need know we deserve, need and are ready for our life to be our own. dragonspitapothecary.com