lying on the couch may be a good thing

[markgreyblue]

hey -

i got completely derailed today -

i organized all of the work i needed to do - and having been upset by something last night that lingered into today - all of the work became overwhelming -

i slept on the couch after creating my schedule out of stress and exhaustion --overwhelmed feeling -

and after i woke i still did not have the will to move on - i did - i mean but it was painful and i continued to lie there - i had to get to work but i thought to myself - ok what am i doing here -?

what am i doing by lying on the couch?

in a sense i was taking care of myself - giving myself what i needed -
because in a sense that feeling of lying there was better and safer in a way - than the extreme chunk of work i have ahead of me -

it may seem a little bit of a stretch to say this - and i realized this many hours ago - so it may not be phrased so explicitly -

but i will say this - the realization - i think can be applied to a lot of 'rut' like situations -

in a very basic sense the safe route is a way of
being SELF PROTECTIVE -

to not break out of a depressive state may be
Self protective in a bizarre way as well - because it is a replay of the old tapes - it is familiar -

and WHAT on earth could be beyond the depression -would it be safe from recurrence of bad memories? or flashbacks???

probably not - a really painful prospect -

likewise doing what you want - to break beyond the
status quo of being a workhorse (me)is a frightening prospect -

what lies beyond - failure ?? unknowns?

and so self protection can be found in the status
quo or resting or nourishing things - but in realizing that idea what i was doing - or thoughts on my state of mind when things are all clogged and wall-like feeling -

like lying on the couch -

it is a nouturing, self protective act -

and i did do a lot of scheduling - i need to follow through tomorrow

- and besides the work time i had scheduled had been partially filled by this - work indeed-

- i then moved on to the next portion of my day -

-it would have been unreasonable to think i would achieve completely my major goals in one day - and so

i chipped away at it in the time alotted and moved on to the next activity -

so long winded as this may seem - lying on the couch - i realized was not such a bad thing -
in fact it helped me regroup and get a little
thinking done

hope this is a useful thought from me -

 

[markgreyblue]

It inspired me to get more done - in amounts
that i could ...

 

[markgreyblue]

amounts that i could without getting overwhelmed

and could actually enjoy and keep a stable healthy frame of mind -

a mental hygiene act - if that is a right use..

 

[Ken Singer LCSW]

Unfortunately, many of us have a measure of our success or failure by what we accomplish each day. We have lists of things to do. If we hit 5 out of 8 tasks, we might see it as a good day because we did the majority of what we set out to do. Others look at what wasn't done; what was the proportion less than 100%.

I think that it is better to hit 5 out of 8 than to do a list of 48 and hit only 12. Keep the lists reasonable. Don't be ashamed of "loafing" once in a while. Maybe because I'm getting older and closer to retirement age, I'm accepting the need to take a nap each afternoon (because I CAN), and to have a Sunday once in a while where I just read, watch a game on tv and vegatate.

Unless procrastination leads to financial or personal problems, give yourself a break once in a while. That's becoming my motto.
Ken