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Two of my favorite poets are T. S. Elliot and Seamus Heaney.
I was talking the other day with a couple of friends one of whom has lupus (yes it can be lupus) and the other has fibromyalgia and the season change plays havoc with her and her ability to do anything.
We were talking about personal energy to do a task. I learned about spoons at that point and how they counted out what they could do in a day based on how many spoons they had to use and how many they could spare. They were using their spare spoons to spend sometime with me for which I was grateful.
I have read over and over again that to manage a big task you should break it into smaller manageable pieces and work through the pieces or steps or spoons since each takes some energy to complete.
There are days that I have more spoons at my disposal and others days there are less. Part of it depends on the day and night before. And if the night before sucks then the day is a little harder to get through. My nights have been a mixed bag recently. Some of them are fine and I have enough spoons to get through what I need to and some. Some aren’t and I have limited spoons that I have to spread around to the tasks that need doing.
I have found myself being less hard on myself after I started breaking things down to spoons. I don’t beat myself up when I find myself out of spoons and not getting everything done that I need to get done. When I get up in the morning I mentally make a list of “THINGS THAT MUST HAPPEN TODAY” and then do a mental check of things I would like to do today and work out my spoons for the day. I can pretty much tell when I get up how the day is going to go. On bad days I push through as far as I can and get the essentials done. On the good days I have the time/energy for the other things I enjoy doing.
Right now this is what I need to do to keep myself on track and sane.
So on today’s docket are food shopping, hardware store, and pet store. Then put everything away and move onto the laundry and the living room the next corner (it is sort of a horror show with a nice ending).
I hope to get some creative stuff going this afternoon but I will have to see how many spoons I have left for the day.
I am grateful for ways to look at things that make sense to me.
I was talking the other day with a couple of friends one of whom has lupus (yes it can be lupus) and the other has fibromyalgia and the season change plays havoc with her and her ability to do anything.
We were talking about personal energy to do a task. I learned about spoons at that point and how they counted out what they could do in a day based on how many spoons they had to use and how many they could spare. They were using their spare spoons to spend sometime with me for which I was grateful.
I have read over and over again that to manage a big task you should break it into smaller manageable pieces and work through the pieces or steps or spoons since each takes some energy to complete.
There are days that I have more spoons at my disposal and others days there are less. Part of it depends on the day and night before. And if the night before sucks then the day is a little harder to get through. My nights have been a mixed bag recently. Some of them are fine and I have enough spoons to get through what I need to and some. Some aren’t and I have limited spoons that I have to spread around to the tasks that need doing.
I have found myself being less hard on myself after I started breaking things down to spoons. I don’t beat myself up when I find myself out of spoons and not getting everything done that I need to get done. When I get up in the morning I mentally make a list of “THINGS THAT MUST HAPPEN TODAY” and then do a mental check of things I would like to do today and work out my spoons for the day. I can pretty much tell when I get up how the day is going to go. On bad days I push through as far as I can and get the essentials done. On the good days I have the time/energy for the other things I enjoy doing.
Right now this is what I need to do to keep myself on track and sane.
So on today’s docket are food shopping, hardware store, and pet store. Then put everything away and move onto the laundry and the living room the next corner (it is sort of a horror show with a nice ending).
I hope to get some creative stuff going this afternoon but I will have to see how many spoons I have left for the day.
I am grateful for ways to look at things that make sense to me.
