Take care of yourself first, so you can take care of others. You hear it on airplanes when they go over the safety protocols. You hear it in therapy, and you hear it with family counseling. What if you are falling apart?

It happens to all of us at some point. Where life is too much, and you just aren’t enough. Everyone wants a piece of you, and all you want to do is run away. You want to quit. You want to start over. Worst part… running away and starting over doesn’t work. Your problems follow you.

Time does interesting things. It isn’t linear. We live in the past, the present, and the future all at once. Our memories haunt us, our present is too hard, and the future is daunting. How do you get to a point where you accept your past, enjoy the present, and look forward to the future? Where does it start?

Time is funny. You had a fight, or you handled a situation a certain way when you were younger. It didn’t get resolved. You made a mistake, said the wrong thing, whatever. Years later, you have another fight, and history repeats itself. We see it all the time in politics. Certain patterns that constantly repeat. Guess what, it’s in our day-to-day too. Problems you had with your ex will present itself again with your current partner. They will continue to present themselves until you actually make an active effort to change. Time is funny that way. It reminds you that it controls everything, and if you don’t address all your stuff, it will just come back. And typically, a little more harshly each time.

When life gets to be too much, it’s typically because you haven’t taken care of yourself. It’s your body, your mind, and your psyche screaming at you to pay attention. Self care. Be gentle with yourself. Allow yourself the time to heal wounds, and ask for support from the people closest to you.

When things get hard, just buckle down and get through it. It always gets better. There is always light at the end of the tunnel. That’s something I’ve learned in the last several years. I’ve noticed when it gets to the point where you don’t think you can handle any more, that’s when something changes. That’s when there’s a break in the storm, and you can see the sun through the clouds.

We are presented with pain and trauma for a reason. I always think it’s to teach us something. We are better people for what lessons we learn from our experiences. I’m trying to learn from this experience what I am supposed to learn. The universe is trying to tell me something. I have fallen from my spiritual routine, and have lost something. I don’t feel as connected as I usually do, and I struggle daily to be grounded. I try to find time every day to meditate, spend time with nature, and be thankful for what I do have. But it’s hard. Because I have a dream of what I want.

I want to minimalize as much as possible. I want to shed my material possessions, shed my burdens, and live with just enough. I don’t need a million dollars, or a big house, or lots of nice things. I just want enough space to live in peacefully, travel to interesting, fun places, and to enjoy life. The lifestyle I want is incredibly simple. So why does life have to be so complicated?

Kind of off topic, but it also brings up something I’ve been working on putting in place. Something I’ve been researching is how to have a simpler, stress-free lifestyle. And some commonalities I’m noticing are : Less stuff = more time to do what you want. This means less electronics, less toys, less stuff, less house, less busyness. Get rid of everything that causes stress. Clutter, electronics, cell phones, facebook, negative people, etc.

So, my plan is to move my business into a commercial building. Then, once I can call my house a home again, I fix it up, sell it. In the process, also selling much of our stuff so we have less to move. Move into smaller place, or even an RV/mobile home type thing. Pay in full. No mortgage payment. Less stuff to take care of. Less space to clean. More freedom to do what we want. We won’t need the income we had before, and I can work less. I can actually have hobbies. With work out of the home, decluttering finished, and more time on my hands, I feel I would be on my way to a much less stressful life. That’s what I want. Freedom to have a life.