Dealing with stress

I talked to my Mom last night, and her prognosis isn't as good as they initially thought. They thought she was in stage 1, but now they think she's in stage 2 or 3. There's a good chance she'll need a double mastectomy plus chemo and/or radiation.

I keep thinking life should slow down and stop sending me one stressor after another (car crash, mom has cancer, root canal, and so on). But the more I think about it, the more I realize that I can't count on life slowing down or stressors being reduced. Instead, I need to work on productive (rather than self-destructive) ways of coping with stress.

One of the things I'm doing is tracking self-care activities and looking at my patterns. I think I'm doing a fairly good job of self-care, especially on the weekends and on Monday. I find that I let some of my self-care tasks lapse during the middle of the week when I'm busy, and that I don't need as many on the weekends to feel reasonably calm. I have a set number of self-care tasks that seems the minimum number that's optimal for de-stressing, and I'm going to try to make sure I reach that most days of the week. I'm a better partner, friend, and daughter when I take care of myself. Beyond that, I have value and worth, and it's not self-indulgent or lazy to take some time out of each day to care for myself instead of running myself into the ground and ignoring my own needs.

One day at at time...