Live in Balance: Slowing down, because I had to

The fist in the stomach

Pencil drawing in process

Do you feel overwhelmed sometimes? To be honest, it doesn't actually happen to me. I know where I am going with my life, and I have faith that there is Someone in control of everything, including my life.
But sometimes the odd feeling of everything being too much pops into my head. It isn't something that I am comfortable with, and neither do I like it. But it is there, brooding in the subconsciousness of my thoughts. The difficulty of this subconscious awareness is how to deal with it.
It cannot be reasoned away. Or can it? I am not sure. Neither do I know what sparked this problem in the first place. Was it just the coming together of all the things in my life, or did something happen (even something I am unaware of) that started this downhill trend?
But my bigger issue is to deal with it because it could become too much or too big, or too something.

Retreat and reassess

It has taken me a while, becoming aware of this. You know how you talk to people and they ask you how you are? My answer usually depends on how well I know someone or how likely they are at gossiping. It would hardly be a good idea to confide in someone only to have one's personal issues traveling through the grapevine the next day.
Even this simple question 'how are you?' posed by a friend, didn't raise this matter in my mind. The niggling was there, and it wasn't until this past Friday that the niggle became an awareness at a higher conscious level.
I haven't been writing much, not even in my journal and I began to wonder if that was the reason for it? My writing, including my fiction projects, have been such a part of my life becoming so ingrained into the way I define myself as a human being.
Was the lack of words to be blamed for this feeling of too much? Did I put too much pressure on myself with my Live in Balance goals, that my creativity had dried up? Just the thought that it might be the case, makes my hair turn grey despite the exotic colour job.

Distract to conquer

I don't believe in writer's block, but something had to be done, and fast. I have a novel that I need to finish editing, and since I had to make a major change at the start of the story, there is some rewriting required as a result of this. Not writing is simply not on!
So I fell back into my comfort zone, my plan B if you like: I read. I read three full-length novels in two and a half days.
I really pulled my security blanket close on this one, foregoing several hours of sleep, to read three books by my favourite author, Maya Banks. Now, you have to understand, I stopped binge reading a long time ago, but this was an emergency to distract my brain and hopefully conquer this feeling of being overwhelmed.
I don't need a lot of sleep so I cannot forego even half an hour of that, because of the way it disrupts my life. But I did. And I am going to pay the price for that in the coming days.
But did it solve the problem? 

The glass may be half-empty, but there's space for vodka

I wouldn't lie and say to you that I am madly writing words in my journal or my novel, but there is a light in the distance. Reason for celebration? That's why the vodka. Or maybe I should have thought of another analogy, I rarely drink alcohol. It's early days yet.
What I do know is that my creative juices did not dry up. I started drawing and spent most of the weekend doing that. Pencil drawings require a lot of time and patience, but those hours of drawing brought a smile to my face and a lightness to my mind.
Art may be on my Live in Balance goals for this year, but I deliberately forewent the need to attach a target to it. And that was my saving grace, I think. Something I can do, spend time with and yet, just enjoy the process without adding more stress to myself.

I learned another lesson this week: I love writing, but I should stop putting so much pressure on myself to perform. I may not have had a block, but it would be good to remember that to Live in Balance requires more than the completion of a novel in record time.

Until next week!