Are you beating yourself up for not “doing enough”? For not getting through everything on your to-do list? Are you giving 100% while mad at yourself that your 100% doesn’t look like even more?
Our bodies change daily, with cellular death and regeneration and the conditions of our lives and our environments change daily with so many variables influencing us including social, work, school, family, community, friends, and other variables.
It’s when we expect our 100% to be the same every day that we risk burnout, adrenal fatigue, and immune system depletion as we push past our 100% repeatedly.
It’s when we expect our 100% to be the same every day that we fall into states of depression from unrealistic expectations of self. When we don’t give ourselves the flexibility to change with the variables of our experience day-to-day and beat ourselves up for our experience that we ingrain our negative thoughts and our emotions into the tissues of our bodies. Over time, we notice increased inflammation, increased pain, lethargy, and a profound sadness as we carry the weight in our bodies of so much self-hostility and animosity.
From this place of negativity and self-devaluation, we open ourselves up to the negative thoughts of others and to, what we call in Qigong, foreign energy. We attract into our bodies, that which isn’t us or ours and the effect is we stop feeling like ourselves and find ourselves overshadowed by a dark cloud that obscures our own light and our own joy more and more each day.
So what does this look like – this allowance to give 100% daily (while recognizing our 100% changes daily)?
- For me, I make a plan the night before what I will do the next day. I re-evaluate that plan in the morning and adjust accordingly. If I had an awful sleep, I’m going to loosen how much I am completing. If I wake-up full of zest and vigor, I might increase how much I am scheduling myself to do.
- Schedules don’t work out the way we expect so that means that I work in buffer times to my to-do’s and downtime that I can use to regroup, meditate, dance, do yoga, play music, and/or recharge in whatever way is calling me that day which… Yep, it’s gonna change daily.
- I work to hold lightness and compassion for myself when I don’t finish something in the time I set out to do it or when I break from my schedule or change my plans mid-day. How? I ask myself why it didn’t happen and I adjust my schedule and expectations for that day accordingly. By taking the time to ask why our 100% changed, we learn from it and we gain self-compassion for our experience which means we don’t beat ourselves up and spiral ourselves into inflammation, self-abuse, and opening ourselves to foreign energy or the negativity of others. For example…
- Why did I not finish that blog post in the time I set out in my calendar? Was it because it was hard to be so vulnerable and it triggered me? If so, I need to provide some time into my schedule (ideally that day) to process. What a great experience to have, as I learn more about my triggers and unpeel another layer of my onion!
- Or was it because, I ran out of zest and vigor? And if so, why? Did I eat something that inflamed my body and my brain? I can integrate some anti-inflammatory herbs/foods into my day and make a plan to not do that again… And recognize that it was a learning experience and I’m going to have to loosen my expectations of myself for that day as I am inflamed. Or maybe I didn’t balance my blood sugar with the foods I chose and need to switch up what I eat, when I eat, or the ratio of protein, fats and carbs.
- Or did I procrastinate and do something else instead? If so, asking again, why? Oh I pushed-up against “fear of failure” or “fear of success”… Again, gentleness for my own experience and working in time to process. The more I can process those barriers I hit, the less often I will hit those walls and have it influence my 100%.
How about you?
What influences your 100%? When you push past your daily 100%, what have you noticed the effects are in your life, your body, your relationships? When you hold lightness for yourself in how things change, how does it affect you emotionally, physically and in your behaviors? Please share below…