Day 5

Today was another big day…starting my exercises at the pool…on the road to recovery! It was nice to be back moving - even if 20minutes felt like I had just ran a marathon!! :) 

I gave quite a few compliments today, but as you'll see below, I thought the ability to laugh at yourself and pass on that laughter would be more of my focus today! :)

Day 5 photo: Port Fairy Folk Festival

I wanted to share this photo (even though I did not take it today) as I have a story to go along with it. The skirt that I am wearing is silk, and wraps around and is tied at the side. Yesterday I was meeting mum and dad for a cuppa and I was walking across the carpark. I stopped for a second to check my phone, and realised my skirt had slipped off!! I started chuckling to myself, as I stood in the carpark retying it. When I told mum and dad, we all had tears streaming down our face!! Oh I love the ability to be silly and laugh at yourself!!

 

Which got me onto thinking…When we are feeling stressed / grumpy / annoyed or "busy" we don't seem to take the time to stop and reflect on what is going on. It is important to see if it is in our power of control to do something about it…or if we need to let it go. This is something new to me since I've had the accident. I have learnt the importance of stopping to reflect on what has happened through the day, and also to do a 'check in' with your body. To assist with this I learnt a great exercise the other day, which taught me that we fight so hard to stop feeling emotions, that we never acknowledge or accept them. 

Feeling's happen - which may be out of our control, but by acknowledging it and recognising that it is there - the feeling may diminish but you will start to feel more in control. The exercise that I learnt was to stop, close your eyes and analyse the feeling as though you are a scientist. (This may sound strange to some of you, but give it a go…you never know unless you try something!! - Hey! Put it on your 100things list!! ;) )

- What shape does it take?

- What colour is it?

- Where does it sit in your body?

- Does it have smooth edges?

- Sharp edges?

- Does it move places?

I found by completing this exercise I was able to sit with the feeling (anxiety) which turned out to be a green, blob with no set shape, sitting predominately in my stomach, but would pulsate. I acknowledged that I was feeling anxious - it didn't matter what about - and that was it. My anxiety decreased a bit and the blob became slightly smaller. (I didn't identify why I was feeling that way). Now I'm no psychologist, but I am sure that there is a scientific reason that acknowledging and accepting your feelings, not trying to get rid of them, as a way to move forward works. 

I just found this website http://kalimunro.com/wp/articles-info/emotions-and-feelings/what-to-do-with-your-feelings which explains my above 'experiment' a little more concisely. 

I think sometimes in our 'hectic' world, we forget to laugh! We get focussed on fixing and doing and 'succeeding' that sometimes we forget to just simply to stop reflect and giggle at yourself! It will help you forget about some of the 'serious' stuff for awhile! That's why when something happens, which is out of our control we should laugh, or at the very least smile!! It is proven that laughing releases endorphins and makes you feel good…but aside from the science we all know how AWESOME it is to have a huge belly laugh, so much that it hurts!!! http://www.helpguide.org/life/humor_laughter_health.htm

So a little something to help you on your way to laughing your way through life…

…Until Tomorrow xox