I had a cold or something last week. As my mom pointed out, you know I’m not feeling well when I take a two-hour nap on a Thursday morning. Yeah, not normally a thing.
As sicks go, it was a pretty great one. While my sweetie had full-blown flu nastiness, I had a little congestion, a tiny bit of ache, and a whole lot of tired. I’ll take it. And though I don’t like cancelling meetings, I did. Then, I binged on Dear White People, ate soup, and got a bunch of extra sleep.
I rested.
Our bodies have a way of making us rest when we’re not being proactive enough about it. (Guilty as charged on that one.) When we try to push through that physical exhaustion, we tend to compound the issues. That’s when we turn a cold into walking pneumonia or twist an ankle because we’re too tired to manage a staircase safely.
Our emotional selves are a bit different, though.
Like the afternoon I had a few weeks ago when I let one of my less wise inner voices talk me into a bag of kettle corn. Which I then ate.
Every.
Single.
Kernel.
My funk went into a downward spiral as the sugar did whatever nefarious thing sugar does in our bodies and before I knew it, I was nearing puddle status as part of me begged to just get in bed and wallow.
Instead, I took a walk. And as I walked, I felt the panic fade back into run-of-the-mill emotional day. And then ease up a touch beyond that. And that easing allowed me to get a clearer perspective on my underlying feelings rather than being wrapped up in my reactivity.
The walk allowed me to get closer to the magic of the Pause.
Physiological and emotional exhaustion can feel very similar and yet they require opposite treatments.