Following on from my post on The Basics this week, which was all about how I’ve learned to honour the essential components of my life, I’d love for you to take up the topic, to share and reflect with us all.
Take some time today or over the weekend to consider the following, then leave your answer in the comments. I’d love to build a thoughtful community here where we can hear each other’s stories.
What ‘basic’ do you not want to admit that you need but you really do?
What do you think is most out of balance in your life right now?
What could you do this weekend to honour that basic need, even if it’s a very small step in its direction?
Thank you Josie for writing such a thoughtful and relatable essay on this. Many of your basics are mine too: routine, a tidy home, writing. Since moving to rural Sweden, my main work has become taking care of the house and keeping things moving like a well-oiled machine; laundry (how is there so much of it?), ordering food, meal planning, cleaning, etc. Because it’s so baked into my routine, I feel out of sorts when things go awry. I’m happy to admit a clean and tidy home is a basic of mine - as a homebody with a need for order and control, it helps me feel safe and grounded. But it’s become trickily entwined with my self-worth, something which I am keen to unpick. I want acceptance - that my home can’t always be ship shape - to become a basic, too.
1) Time when I'm alone and not trying to organise everything
2) Keeping my flat as clean as I would like because of others. Having someone to help doesn't help because of wanting it done 'my way' because of allergies and suchlike...Oh dear!
3) Very gently seeing if I can make bath shine so I can have a short soak and then rest. And maybe, as Angela says, a gentle walk up and down the garden, as the sun is out for the first time in days.
First of all, I’d just like to say how much I love and appreciate your writing and the time and care you put into it.
This is a topic I’ve been thinking about a lot over the last few months.
I feel like learning to rest and relax, allowing my nervous system to find ways out of fight/flight is the thing I know I need to do but I struggle with the most.
If I’m given “health homework” and there’s something to do, I’m always all in. This feels more like a lack of doing. Years of pushing into adrenaline to cope (and yes, some natural tendencies) mean this is something, even with a toolbox to help me, that I keep putting off.
I had plans to focus on it very much yesterday - but something happened that upended the day that I have to deal with this weekend. That being said, I am going to focus on extremely light, gentle movement and meditation today and tomorrow. They’re habits that build up and always help me over time but are so hard to get back into when I stop them. I’m also going to gratitude journal for the same reason.
1. A clean home, a realistic routine to make this consistently the case.
2. Definitely what I eat. Love healthy, good, nourishing veggie stuff. Eating high fat, one-night-stand food; shame/ lethargy/ guilt vastly outweigh the short burst of feel-good.
Planning the week. That's how I make sure things get done, beds changed, washing, I still iron, meals, shopping...
It's how I make space for exercise, friends, family, creativity, noticing, being. Usually, even if it's a bit lopsided, it's more-or-less there. Not done this week? No worries - it's on next week's schedule too, or I'll ask someone else to do it if it's going to endanger our health, like cleaning the bathroom.
It's out of balance. Or feels it. That's because I'm not writing. It always gets squeezed out. I let it leak away...it's no one's fault.
Yesterday, I pulled out my daily journal. The one with the questions in that make you think. And I think I've found a space. Breakfast time. I might have to block out some noises, write in the midst of mess, be interrupted but maybe it will be a start...again. A Neil Armstrong moment. I'm not asking for the moon.
I need to build real rests into my day, where I'm not doing anything but resting. I find it hard to give up my Type A personality of do, do, do. I admit this is what's most out of balance in my life.
I had finally built a routine and reached acceptance as to where I was with ME/CFS, and then I got covid last April. I have less energy and stamina than I did pre-covid and more trouble with PEM and brain fog. I'm worried that this may be my new normal.
I will try to be more deliberate about my resting this weekend.
Good food, I resent how much time preparing good food takes out of my day but it does, I'm going to comit to ordering more lovely home cooked food from local meals on wheels service even though it costs,£7.50.
I'm in a canoe on a fast flowing river. I know deep in my soul that my destination is downstream and that the journey would be effortless, even joyful, if I would just turn the canoe round. Yet most days I am paddling upstream, too exhausted from the effort to remember that I could put the paddle down and let the river carry me. I desperately need a rest.
In my canoe is a companion who tells me in no uncertain terms that I can't trust the river, that I don't know how to put the paddle down, that if I stop paddling, the canoe will overturn, that my canoe is not a worthy vessel, that I'm doing something wrong, that I have to figure everything out myself, that I'm a failure, that the journey is meaningless. My companion challenges my every deed, and my every thought from the most trivial to the most significant.
For years, I have tried to rid myself of my companion - to push her out of the canoe, to ignore her, to defend myself against her unfair accusations, to drown her under a wave of affirmations, to focus on positive thoughts. But she is devoted to me and will not leave me.
I have come to realise that I need her and that I will have no balance in my life unless I am prepared to stop paddling for a moment and pay loving attention to her. When I welcome her, embrace her and listen to her, then I find out she is my ally, albeit one with a fiercely protective manner. Only then, can we turn the canoe round together and flow effortlessly and joyfully downstream.
I love these, I love reading other peoples comments and thinking about my own.
Time on my own is precious to me, I resist routine, but also need it. I’ve moved from being self employed back to a proper job, so my days have changed. I used to enjoy a pot of coffee in bed at the start of the day and that was my quiet time, thinking, planning the day, emailing my mum (looking at Twitter), but now that time is spent commuting. It put me out of sorts for ages, I kept trying to claw that back later in the day, but I’m starting to adapt now. I get up earlier and have a cup of tea, so I still feel like I get that little moment of quiet to myself.
Craft is my other necessity, at the moment it’s knitting, but it doesn’t really matter what it is, needle felting, sewing, I just like making a thing. I’m doing scrappy socks for advent this year and when I realised on the first I hadn’t started I nearly gave up, as I was tired, but I knew I would be sad and I would never catch up, so I lit my advent candle and cast them on and did a few rows.
Planning is important, meals, my time. I miss it if I don’t do it.
I like things to be tidy and clean, but they rarely are. I have a friend staying with me at the moment, so an extra persons things stuffed in my house is making it especially impossible. I’ve had to accept that any level of tidiness is going to be abandoned until January other than maybe my bedroom. So I’m compensating by planning all the lovely tidying I can do in January. My dream is to have a definitive list of where everything lives (I have a very poor memory and spend huge amounts of times looking for things I have misplaced) and to achieve some sort of tidy nirvana, where I put everything away at the end of each day. Almost certainly impossible, but I love thinking about it. No more ‘where are my keys’, ‘I’ll have to buy another 5mm crochet hook, even though I have at least 2 of them’, ‘I can’t find an AA battery’. Imagine the bliss.
This is lovely Josie! I love how you are calling others in to the honest places. Building the community of thoughts in our heads.
For me, I’d say:
1) Affirmation from others (probably not wrong in itself, but I’m conscious that it means the most when it’s about something I’ve done for others, how I’ve helped or been ‘dependable.’
2) I’d like to care less about how my actions serve others!
3) Create, write, be with people not as an act of service but just to enjoy it. And sing, I need to sing more!
1.Sleep. I have slept less than 3 hours a night for weeks. 2. I am supporting others but am pretty much at breaking point myself. 3. I need to schedule a nap.
Thank you Josie for writing such a thoughtful and relatable essay on this. Many of your basics are mine too: routine, a tidy home, writing. Since moving to rural Sweden, my main work has become taking care of the house and keeping things moving like a well-oiled machine; laundry (how is there so much of it?), ordering food, meal planning, cleaning, etc. Because it’s so baked into my routine, I feel out of sorts when things go awry. I’m happy to admit a clean and tidy home is a basic of mine - as a homebody with a need for order and control, it helps me feel safe and grounded. But it’s become trickily entwined with my self-worth, something which I am keen to unpick. I want acceptance - that my home can’t always be ship shape - to become a basic, too.
1) Time when I'm alone and not trying to organise everything
2) Keeping my flat as clean as I would like because of others. Having someone to help doesn't help because of wanting it done 'my way' because of allergies and suchlike...Oh dear!
3) Very gently seeing if I can make bath shine so I can have a short soak and then rest. And maybe, as Angela says, a gentle walk up and down the garden, as the sun is out for the first time in days.
Thank you Josie for these encouragements.
I'm committing to walking down and back up my garden path once daily. Who knows what adventure I'll have on that journey.
Thanks Josie.
Sending Angel blessings to You and the Bimbling Tribe.💚
Hi Josie,
First of all, I’d just like to say how much I love and appreciate your writing and the time and care you put into it.
This is a topic I’ve been thinking about a lot over the last few months.
I feel like learning to rest and relax, allowing my nervous system to find ways out of fight/flight is the thing I know I need to do but I struggle with the most.
If I’m given “health homework” and there’s something to do, I’m always all in. This feels more like a lack of doing. Years of pushing into adrenaline to cope (and yes, some natural tendencies) mean this is something, even with a toolbox to help me, that I keep putting off.
I had plans to focus on it very much yesterday - but something happened that upended the day that I have to deal with this weekend. That being said, I am going to focus on extremely light, gentle movement and meditation today and tomorrow. They’re habits that build up and always help me over time but are so hard to get back into when I stop them. I’m also going to gratitude journal for the same reason.
Thanks for this prompt.
1) sleep. And quiet time away from people.
2) my health.
3) meditate - if only for five minutes. Less passive screen time.
1. A clean home, a realistic routine to make this consistently the case.
2. Definitely what I eat. Love healthy, good, nourishing veggie stuff. Eating high fat, one-night-stand food; shame/ lethargy/ guilt vastly outweigh the short burst of feel-good.
3. Clean something. Anything.
Planning the week. That's how I make sure things get done, beds changed, washing, I still iron, meals, shopping...
It's how I make space for exercise, friends, family, creativity, noticing, being. Usually, even if it's a bit lopsided, it's more-or-less there. Not done this week? No worries - it's on next week's schedule too, or I'll ask someone else to do it if it's going to endanger our health, like cleaning the bathroom.
It's out of balance. Or feels it. That's because I'm not writing. It always gets squeezed out. I let it leak away...it's no one's fault.
Yesterday, I pulled out my daily journal. The one with the questions in that make you think. And I think I've found a space. Breakfast time. I might have to block out some noises, write in the midst of mess, be interrupted but maybe it will be a start...again. A Neil Armstrong moment. I'm not asking for the moon.
I need to build real rests into my day, where I'm not doing anything but resting. I find it hard to give up my Type A personality of do, do, do. I admit this is what's most out of balance in my life.
I had finally built a routine and reached acceptance as to where I was with ME/CFS, and then I got covid last April. I have less energy and stamina than I did pre-covid and more trouble with PEM and brain fog. I'm worried that this may be my new normal.
I will try to be more deliberate about my resting this weekend.
Thanks Josie. 💜
Good food, I resent how much time preparing good food takes out of my day but it does, I'm going to comit to ordering more lovely home cooked food from local meals on wheels service even though it costs,£7.50.
I'm in a canoe on a fast flowing river. I know deep in my soul that my destination is downstream and that the journey would be effortless, even joyful, if I would just turn the canoe round. Yet most days I am paddling upstream, too exhausted from the effort to remember that I could put the paddle down and let the river carry me. I desperately need a rest.
In my canoe is a companion who tells me in no uncertain terms that I can't trust the river, that I don't know how to put the paddle down, that if I stop paddling, the canoe will overturn, that my canoe is not a worthy vessel, that I'm doing something wrong, that I have to figure everything out myself, that I'm a failure, that the journey is meaningless. My companion challenges my every deed, and my every thought from the most trivial to the most significant.
For years, I have tried to rid myself of my companion - to push her out of the canoe, to ignore her, to defend myself against her unfair accusations, to drown her under a wave of affirmations, to focus on positive thoughts. But she is devoted to me and will not leave me.
I have come to realise that I need her and that I will have no balance in my life unless I am prepared to stop paddling for a moment and pay loving attention to her. When I welcome her, embrace her and listen to her, then I find out she is my ally, albeit one with a fiercely protective manner. Only then, can we turn the canoe round together and flow effortlessly and joyfully downstream.
I love these, I love reading other peoples comments and thinking about my own.
Time on my own is precious to me, I resist routine, but also need it. I’ve moved from being self employed back to a proper job, so my days have changed. I used to enjoy a pot of coffee in bed at the start of the day and that was my quiet time, thinking, planning the day, emailing my mum (looking at Twitter), but now that time is spent commuting. It put me out of sorts for ages, I kept trying to claw that back later in the day, but I’m starting to adapt now. I get up earlier and have a cup of tea, so I still feel like I get that little moment of quiet to myself.
Craft is my other necessity, at the moment it’s knitting, but it doesn’t really matter what it is, needle felting, sewing, I just like making a thing. I’m doing scrappy socks for advent this year and when I realised on the first I hadn’t started I nearly gave up, as I was tired, but I knew I would be sad and I would never catch up, so I lit my advent candle and cast them on and did a few rows.
Planning is important, meals, my time. I miss it if I don’t do it.
I like things to be tidy and clean, but they rarely are. I have a friend staying with me at the moment, so an extra persons things stuffed in my house is making it especially impossible. I’ve had to accept that any level of tidiness is going to be abandoned until January other than maybe my bedroom. So I’m compensating by planning all the lovely tidying I can do in January. My dream is to have a definitive list of where everything lives (I have a very poor memory and spend huge amounts of times looking for things I have misplaced) and to achieve some sort of tidy nirvana, where I put everything away at the end of each day. Almost certainly impossible, but I love thinking about it. No more ‘where are my keys’, ‘I’ll have to buy another 5mm crochet hook, even though I have at least 2 of them’, ‘I can’t find an AA battery’. Imagine the bliss.
About 50%success currently! Thanks so much for asking. Encourages me to keep trying til it's established.
Hi Josie, I can't tell you how inspired and moved I am by your writing and sharing of your vulnerability. Thank you so much. Blessings, Lisa
This is lovely Josie! I love how you are calling others in to the honest places. Building the community of thoughts in our heads.
For me, I’d say:
1) Affirmation from others (probably not wrong in itself, but I’m conscious that it means the most when it’s about something I’ve done for others, how I’ve helped or been ‘dependable.’
2) I’d like to care less about how my actions serve others!
3) Create, write, be with people not as an act of service but just to enjoy it. And sing, I need to sing more!
xxx
1.Sleep. I have slept less than 3 hours a night for weeks. 2. I am supporting others but am pretty much at breaking point myself. 3. I need to schedule a nap.
1.) Silent, still, unproductive time. Staring at sky or page.
2.) Creativity, something.
3.) Movement, deliberate mindful, stretching and rediscovering the full, possible, gentle range of it.
4.) Adding moisture & care to parched skin.
5.) Touching soil.
Thank you Josie for making me think about neglected basics ✨