I said I was taking a week off – three weeks ago.

Not posting for three weeks was absolutely not the plan; I honestly planned to take ONE WEEK and then be back to it the next. But in true-to-me fashion I vastly overestimated my own capacity for handling some rather time-consuming and unpredictable situations.  And it wasn’t just my blog that had to take a backseat – it was pretty much anything non-essential.

Until last week I hadn’t done any workout that wasn’t demoing in a class in well over a month.  My plans to start adding some running kilometers back into the routine again was put on hold.  Meal prep hasn’t been a thing I’ve even remotely considered.  If it wasn’t a very official social commitment then I couldn’t do it.  My Christmas decorations that are usually up the middle of November still aren’t completely up.

Does it bother me?  Oh good lord does it ever.

Following through on what I say I’m going to do is something that matters A LOT to me.  Being someone who shows up for myself and takes care of myself and practices what I preach is a cornerstone of what I’ve built my life on now.  Eating healthy and exercising is how I stay feeling good.  And I LOVE Christmas…so yeah, it feels a little uncomfortable to be the person who’s flying by the seat of my pants, in a house full of clutter, without pretty sparkly lights all around me…but the reality is, lately, I have been and the fact is that sometimes, we just cannot do everything we WANT to be able to do.  We have to make tough calls about what gets done and what has to wait. 

Life is unpredictable, no matter how much you do to regulate your surroundings there is just always going to be ‘stuff’ you can’t control; things that come out of left field and need to be dealt with RIGHT NOW, whether we want to, like to or even have the capacity to.  I cannot tell you how often I use the phrase “if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” So even though my workouts and meal prep are non-negotiable, sometimes I have to compromise on what that looks like…not for everyday stuff, but when the chips are down and there is a life/family crisis with a tight timeline and somethings gotta give.

So how do we decide what to do without (temporarily) when everything feels like the most important thing and like skipping any of it will be some sort of moral failure?  Well for me I ask myself, is this the hill I want to die on?  

Imagine, if you will, that you’re climbing a hill that’s densely covered with bush and trees.  To make progress up the hill you have to hack away at the vegetation to make a path…you have various tools to do this and you carry them with you; you have learned to manage the weight of your tools and how to balance them with the work you have to do.  But you get word that your family needs you on their own hill; they fell and are hurt and they need you.  Of course you’re going to go, but do you take all those heavy tools with you?  You can…maybe you’ll need to cut a path there too…but more than likely, it’s just extra weight.  You’re going to another hill, you might have to carry that injured person, so it’s better to take the bare minimum so that you can focus on what’s going on THERE.  You can’t make progress on both hills at once and if you take all your baggage when you’re going to help on that other hill…the one you don’t live on, the one that you are just visiting…then you might just end up dropping dead of exhaustion, or injured and unable to even get back to your own hill. 

Sure, I could have dug my heels in the past six or so weeks and said no, workouts and food first…but everything else going on would still have been there, not going any slower, needing just as much time…digging my heels in and expecting the same standards I usually hold myself to would just have left me to drown in my own tidal wave of self-inflicted pressure.

I am not going to “lose my progress” in a few weeks or a month of slacking off on workouts…bearing in mind that physical activity is a stress reliever so fitting in whatever little bit I can, when I can.

I won’t die living off of easier food to make (pasta, oatmeal, eggs, toast with peanut butter and banana…and yes, a lot more takeout than usual.)

It will not actually kill me to not have a clean and tidy house for a minute (sometimes it literally makes my chest feel tight but I know I won’t actually stop breathing).

By insisting that I kept up with all those things I know what would have happened…I wouldn’t have been able to and I would have burnt out and then getting back on track with ANY of it would have been that much more difficult.  Whereas now, we’re not completely out of the woods with the “extra” stuff, but as things level out I am just naturally getting back to my groove…it’s far from perfect but I know that none of those hills were ones I wanted to die on.

At the end of the day I want to spend my life helping people; but the fact is that if you have nothing to give, then you’re not going to be able to help anyone, so if I don’t take care of myself first, set boundaries, deal with the things that are most important to ME first, then I’m not going to be very helpful.  It took a few decades of being beaten over the head with that lesson but I have finally learned it…most of the time 😉

So as we approach Christmas and get deeper into the thick of social commitments, and expectations from family and friends, you may find yourself frazzled and wondering why you’re doing something.  And if you do, maybe ask yourself, is it worth it?  Is this thing something you NEED to do?  Is the outcome worth what you have to put in to get it? 

Is this the hill you want to die on?  Cause if it’s not, let go of whatever is nailing you down there and live to fight another day, on another hill.