This past weekend was going to be great. I planned a trip out of town to see family and attend my niece’s dance performance on Saturday. I had a few big projects going on, and by returning home on Sunday, I would have Monday and Tuesday to get all my work done by the time everything was due.
All went as planned…until it didn’t. I did thoroughly enjoy my niece’s performance—a ballet version of The Little Mermaid, where at the end the prince chooses to become a merman and live happily ever after with said mermaid in HER 'hood, under water. However, upon arriving back at my brother’s house after the show, I felt physically horrible. Cue the start of a nasty virus that kept me up all night and sent me to the ER the next day to get fluids. Yeah, that was the day I was supposed to return home and then get to work.
I wasn’t physically able to return to NYC until Tuesday night, and definitely wasn’t able to do work prior to that. So what happened? I got very, very frustrated and overwhelmed yesterday because I’m so behind (including being “late” on this blog which I strive to post every Wednesday).
Do you always need things to go as planned, like me? Freak out when they don’t? Welcome to the club. Here are three things I realized can help when life happens:
Be grateful. This is the most powerful thing you can do when life throws you for a loop. In the midst of feeling like a physical train wreck, I was grateful it happened when I was with my family, who are great at taking care of me. (Shout-out to my mom who was consistently there with TLC, crackers, and apple juice.)
Prioritize yourself. Yes, you have responsibilities, but you can’t fulfill them until you take care of yourself. It’s the old put-the-oxygen-mask-on-yourself-before-you-help-others philosophy. I wanted to do work while sick, and I wanted to take an earlier train home, but that would have prolonged my recovery, plus my body was saying "no way."
Lean on your support network—even if it’s just to vent. Two fellow animal communicators texted me separately to see if I was ok because they had a “feeling” something was wrong. That super psychic support meant everything. I was able to vent about the ER and my screwed-up schedule…And they came back with all the compassion I needed. That was some psychic magic.
So when life doesn’t go as expected, know it’s not always a reason to freak out. Sometimes you realize important things during the hard times. And sometimes the unexpected can turn out really cool—I mean…a merman?!
It’s all about the magic. 🙌