Always feeling behind

I am lucky to be a parent to three beautiful children and self employed. For me, with neurodiversity and chronic illness to manage, I always feel behind.

Today I had to cancel my weekly yoga session. And it’s always a hit. It’s one of the few self care things I’m trying to integrate into my week but also regularly cancelled due to parenting responsibilities. Because health and family always come first. That feeling of “never being able to catch up plagues me. As much as I try to catch up I don’t ever feel I do.

Maybe it’s more about getting comfortable with that fact than fighting against it. The concept of letting go and surrendering is something that keeps coming up in my life. A recovering people pleaser and codependent, I’ve tried to stay sane in the past by controlling as much as possible and trying to focus on and fix and help other people’s problems rather than my own.

And since learning I live alongside my constant companions ADHD and Autism, I now realise why I find all these last minute changes to schedules and plans not just disruptive but disabling. Transitions and change are so difficult for me. I want life to flow in the way I intend it to, for the things I look forward to to always come to fruition. And I don’t think I’ll ever be able to change gears more smoothly and that’s ok.

I also feel Fibromyalgia who has changed from my captor and abuser now to my protector, waiting in the sidelines, to give me warning signals via my body to retreat even further before the pain becomes greater. I’m grateful for the role it plays in my life now that it’s not my enemy but my friend.

Learning how to care for myself is my most difficult and a lifelong lesson in realizing. I just watched Elizabeth Gilbert and Glennon Doyle two of my most admired mentors from afar and they are still learning. So maybe it’s just a day by day self discovery process. So instead of stressing, I’m going to accept today is slower. The week has to contract yet again. And I need to make even more space rather than gear up a level. To care for my daughter. And to care better for myself.

I’m going to rally against that “I’m not good enough” feeling that tries to come back to me again and again, remove all I can from today to get through the week easier. Do some yoga and stretching at home instead when I can. And retract and rest.