MENTAL FRAZZLE

     I am uncomfortable when I am mentally scattered. A lack of focus makes me inefficient. I begin one thing, intending to have it be simple, and then it leads to something else and something else. What starts as sweeping the kitchen foor becomes a whole house overhaul- changing beds and doing volumes of laundry and dusting and decorating... and all the while, the plan I had for my time has gotten derailed and I feel frazzled for not doing what I had set out to do, and a bit of panic as I see the clock moving onward and the day wearing away. Re-grouping becomes difficult. Half-way through multiple projects,  it doesn't feel possible to just stop and start over. I have to finish what I began before I can move on.
     Maybe my error is in having the initial plan. Maybe I'd feel better if I could just let the unstructured time unfold itself instead of my having to impose structure all over it. Maybe that's the lesson and the hope for emotional restoration. I can pause in all the activity and take a deep breath. I can lie down and take a nap. I can sit in the sunshine for five minutes. I can shift the energy of scatter. I can re-group internally. That's probably the only place where things are as scattered as they feel anyway. The external stuff is just stuff. I've given it power and importance that it doesn't actually hold.
     I always have a choice for inner quiet, though it doesn't always feel like I have a choice. I am so good at creating little duststorms of flurried activity and mental anguish. I think I have to move faster to make it stop... that getting every single little thing done will make it stop... but the only thing is to stop me, to sit for five minutes and remember what I'm all about, and what matters. Then I can move on refreshed, and full of better, calmer, more stable energy; energy which is actually far more productive in the end.

I catch myself in an internally frantic mode and stop moving. I restore balance and perspective before I continue with my day.