Sometimes you gotta pause to avoid a full stop

The last few weeks my schedule has been out of control…which I admit is totally my own fault because I had committed to do a bunch of things without realizing they were all happening at the same time. But believing I am Wonder Woman I decided I could handle it all and so I determined I would simply push through it and get everything handled. And for a few weeks my plan was working – I was running from one meeting to the next, from one flight to the next, from one speech to the next, from one black tie event to the next, and from one family outing to the next getting everything handled…until Tuesday afternoon while I was out in San Francisco and my body and mind simply started shutting down. I was so worn out I felt myself hitting a wall (figuratively, not literally, thank heavens). I stood up and left the conference I was attending, flagged a taxi and headed straight for the airport to grab the next available flight home. I could feel my body and mind were screaming at me that they were done…they had been pushed to their limit and they were hitting the pause button and for once in my life I knew that if I tried to fight them they might just force a full stop.

Hitting the pause button has always been difficult for me – I absolutely detest slowing down….it makes me feel like an animal trapped in a cage…I love moving at full speed and getting the possible done. In fact, my entire life people have teased me about being the Energizer Bunny and I have always taken that as a compliment because it means I am accomplishing a lot of things…but I realized this week that even the Energizer Bunny has to pause once in a while to recharge her batteries.

“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.” –Jim Rohn

Our bodies have limits and the older I get the more I am learning how important it is to take care of our body before it hits its limits. After all, we only get one body and we need it to last us a long time! And so as much as I genuinely hated to do it, I had to cancel all my plans for the rest of yesterday and today so I could put on my zipper blanket pajamas and crawl into my bed and sleep…and sleep…and sleep…And as soon as I post this blog I intend to go back to sleep so that with any luck I can awake tomorrow with my batteries fully recharged so I can go back to believing I am Wonder Woman again…after all, it’s so much more fun to be her 🙂

Make sure you are staying aware of when you need to hit the pause button in your own life and have a beautiful day everyone!

~Amy Rees Anderson

1 Comment

  • Jane Anderson says:

    When I read your post a few days ago about your back to back events, I wondered how do you keep up that pace? You are right to be good to yourself and sleep voluntarily so you are not forced to slow down due to illness. People at work used to call me the Energizer Bunny too. I had to have surgery and one of the women told everyone I was going in to have my batteries replaced. Life never slows down. We have to know when to stop the world and get off for a bit before jumping back on. You will no doubt be much more ready to take on your days again after some good rest.

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