Above Stress Community BlogsA short description about your blog
 How will I know when I’m Above stress?by: bakebunny on Saturday, April 30, 2011
Lately I’ve been feeling pretty calm in the face of difficult situations for me- I was late to several important meetings, meeting someone new in a completely new place for me, standing up to the ex-husband, looking at my dwindling finances. These are not new things that place stress on me, just ones that have been recurring. I’ve learned how to put them in their mental place; they are no longer things that stop me in my tracks, nor send me running and hiding. I can look at them for what they are, stepping stones to what I want. Some hurdles are bigger than others, some take longer to get around or over, but I know now that I WILL get past them. But are facing old stressors really making me above stress? Will meeting a new source of stress make me run, or will I be able to meet it and see it for the size it really is? Is reducing the amount of time it takes between that initial fight-or-flight instinct to look closely at it, to firmly put it in perspective an indicator of progression?
Talk therapy for stressby: bakebunny on Friday, April 08, 2011
I have a therapist that I see once a month, and I can’t say enough about having someone who is ‘outside my loop’ that will listen to my fears, concerns and plans and can see them objectively without the emotions I’ve attached to them. It seems that when I get a bump in life, it’s not a small one. Bad news comes in threes for some… comes in fives for me. Having someone help pick apart what is actually in my influence and what (if anything) I can do about it, or just listen to me and make sure I’m not over-reaching myself has been a blessing. In the same vein, I have friends via Facebook that I can privately gripe with, listen to theirs, and together we support each other despite the fact that the four of us live on three different continents.
The stress of clutterby: bakebunny on Monday, March 28, 2011
Searching in a pile of papers for a label for a box due to go out, discovering a piece of paper that should get mailed and realizing I need to find another piece of paper that gets sent with it or the first is worthless, searching for the overdue library books… My house is cluttered, and it stresses me out. The stuff I mentioned above happens all too often. It doesn’t help that my younger son is an avid reader and will have three books he’s trying to read at any one time, and my older boy is an ‘artist’ strewing papers filled with his drawings over every surface and none can be thrown out or filed without a meltdown of some sort. I’m working at reducing the messes – I’ve got a ‘sort-of’ system that I use for papers. Once a week I pick up all the papers in a room and sort them between whose they are, if it’s to be recycled, filed, or put aside for the boys. Nearly all the library books occupy the coffee table so I can get my hands on them. But still papers get lost or misplaced. Since I’m the only one that cleans up the papers I know what’s been thrown out, but still it means I have to sort through piles. I’ve borrowed a couple of books from the library on Organization and Clutter, and have found some good ones: Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat? and ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life. At this point I’m reducing surfaces that the clutter can reside, and trying to limit what comes in so I can limit what could potentially get lost. It helps but I have a long way to go. Now to find that label so I can ship out some of that clutter to someone who wants it…
‘Ex’ stressby: bakebunny on Saturday, March 19, 2011
My ex husband woke me this morning with a phone call. He’s stationed at an airbase in south Japan. He wanted to let me and the boys know that he was okay and that he’d be there for the duration of his assignment (about 1 1/2 more years). I was glad to hear that he was okay because we hadn’t heard from him since the day after the first quake. He’s distributing aid to people near one of the affected reactors. In a 10 minute call he couldn’t keep from making a few digs at me: telling me that his current wife refuses to leave so she can stay and take care of him, and informing me that I may not recieve the child support if military pay is disrupted because of an unsigned Defense bill. I am concerned for his health, and the effect of what happens reflecting on how he deals (or not) with his kids. I’m tired of him punishing me for doing what I needed to do in order to leave. I’m tired of making excuses to our children for why he reacts like a child when something doesn’t go his way. And I’m sick of him holding money over my head as a symbol of the power he had, and still has, over my life.
Schedules and Routinesby: bakebunny on Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Schedules and routines: love ’em or hate ’em? As a child of a family of seven kids, I grew up with schedules and routines. They helped to streamline the ordinaries of daily living: who was supposed to be setting the table which night, when each child was supposed to be brushing their teeth, who’s turn it was to get to sit at a window seat in the car. As an adult with ADD, and two kids on the Autism Spectrum, I have gone back to schedules and routines. I find them to be soothing on the one hand as I know what comes next, have an expectation about what needs to be done and when (and by who), and can easily return to ‘normal’ when something out of the ordinary happens. Don’t get me wrong, though. I don’t have a highly detailed schedule! It’s not always “9:35 Drink tea, 9:45 Put cup in sink…” It’s more like “Get kids to school, plan day, clean kitchen, do driving chores….” but I do things in certain sequences trying to make the transitions logical. And I do have spontaneity, too. When my autistic son was born and I learned he thrived on routines I built in “spontaneity hour”. Every day at the same time… we’d do something different. It sounds so odd when I say it, but every therapist we’ve worked with has exclaimed what a wonderful idea it is; to bring new things and experiences to a child that otherwise might refuse them. The downside I have found is that when something out of the ordinary does happen, I feel totally lost. The expectations I had, the plans that are tried and true can’t be carried out, all gone until the circumstances change and things settle back to an equilibrium. Schedules and routines: love ’em or hate ’em?
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