Y’all. It’s the end of the line. Time has almost run out.

 

My board certification exam is next month, on October 31st (I’m not sure who decided it was a good idea to have an exam on a kid’s holiday, but that’s when it is). Somehow, I had gotten into my head that I was supposed to bring the proof of the coursework I’d done with me to the exam. However, the proof actually has to be uploaded for review 30 days prior to the test, which means I’m out of time. The documents are due Monday. So I’m pretty much out of time.

But thousands of dollars and MANY hours of work later, not finishing is not an option. So I’ve been hustling – up early working on the education hours, working through lunch, cutting out every possible free or recreational moment I hadn’t already committed to being part of (and some that I had).

I also restarted some bad habits along the way. Isn’t is funny how when you get pressed by a deadline, you fall back into doing what worked in the past, even if it wasn’t all that good for you and you paid for it later? Well, I found a new plant based creamer I liked and started having a cup of coffee every morning. I pulled out my trusty old percolator, bought some regular coffee and started adding it to the decaf I had been having occasionally. And I’m telling you, that hot creamy morning comfort made me feel like all was good in the morning, even though I had that little voice in the back of my head that said the coffee was only going to help me for a little while. I knew that after awhile, it wouldn’t give me that little jump start in the morning and I’d start feeling sluggish when I woke up, like I needed coffee to start the day.

 

 

Then that occasional glass of wine in the evening started to seem like a good idea every night. I mean, I was working hard, so a friendly glass of wine before I got back into the grind for the evening hours was a nice reset, right? Even though I tried to ignore her, that little voice piped right up to remind me that one small glass for stress starts to look like a big glass is better, then a little extra splash after the first glass, then maybe here or there two glasses is okay and then all of a sudden it’s a habit that I never planned on in the first place. For a lot of people, a glass of wine a day isn’t a big deal. But for me, with the family history I have, a habit of any substance (wine, coffee or otherwise) isn’t a good idea. So when I see myself sliding into habitual anything, I have to put on the brakes, quickly!

 

Besides, when I get on the roller coaster of caffeine and alcohol, even though it’s not a lot, my body does not like it. At all. After a couple of weeks of doing this (all in the name of getting the work done of course!), I started feeling off. I started retaining water like crazy, a really good sign that I’m inflamed. My rings got tight and the scale started jumping up. My pants started leaving marks around my calves where they were touching. Even though I was going to bed close to the right time for me, I didn’t feel so great when the alarm went off in the morning. When my PMS (which is generally mild to nonexistent) was so uncomfortable I could hardly hug my kiddos because of the tenderness, I knew I’d done enough damage. Time for a reset!

 

 

As soon as I decided to get back on track, my mind started arguing with me. Have you ever noticed that when you want to do something good for yourself that might be hard, your mind wants to offer up all the reasons why you shouldn’t do it? My mind wanted me to know that this was probably just hormones and it would be over soon, that the coffee in the mornings tasted really good, that a glass of wine once or twice a week isn’t a big deal (even though that wasn’t what I was doing), and eating more raw and alkaline was going to be a lot of work and i really didn’t have the time to do all that right now. And if I thought that I had time for walking a labyrinth or any other way to keep my spiritual practice strong, well I had another think coming because I just didn’t have time for all that right now, not if I was going to get the work done. I’m exhausted just writing out that stream of consciousness. But my busy mind does this. All. The. Time. It feels like a full time job trying to manage my mind!

The truth is, my mind isn’t wrong. I do have a ton of work to do, and my experience from years of school and exams says that massive effort is required to be successful. My mind is just offering up the files from that past as evidence of what worked. But I have newer files that aren’t as used to being accessed and I have to remind my mind of the newer way of thinking. Not easy, but necessary. I plan to get the work done and be peaceful through the process, so I’m going to have to do this differently. So I reminded myself that I have other options, and made plans for other ways to manage my stress and still get the work done. Here’s what I’m doing:

 

Eat raw.

I’m not doing a full raw vegan diet this week, but I can eat mostly salads and water. Even if I don’t have time to do the full raw meal prep, I can rip open and toss premade salads. I had a watermelon in the frig that needed to get eaten, so I made a watermelon-lime-mint juice and had that instead of coffee. Eating raw immediately moves my body away from the inflammation and starts dumping the excess fluid, which always makes me feel better. So maybe it’s not the hard core purist approach – but it’ll do for now.

 

 

Yoga

When I get crazy like this, I need my mind and body connected more than ever. But exercising is usually the first thing I let slide. Then my right hip starts to get tight, my neck starts hurting, and I don’t feel as good in my skin. When I looked back, it had been weeks since I’d done yoga because I’d been taking short walks with puppy Riley for her training. The fresh air was good for my mind, but it wasn’t enough for my body. Walks alone work well for me, but walks with the puppy are for her, at least until she gets better at walking on the leash. So I found a 15 minute yoga stretch class on my yoga website and started doing that in the mornings. That’s been better than the coffee!

 

 

Thought Management

Meditation in the morning has been my routine for awhile. But recently it’s been more and more that my mind is cloudy and unruly during my meditation time, and while I knew something was off, I hadn’t done anything about it. Last week, I started back listening to a podcast called Weight Loss for Busy Physicians which talks mostly about mind management. The topic of using thought downloads as the primary way to manage the thoughts in our heads kept coming up over and over.  So I finally decided to try it, which meant immediately my mind told me a bunch of reasons why I couldn’t do it. But I’m wise to that approach, so I just started asking my mind to find ways that it could work. When I gave her constructive work, she actually came through! I started taking five minutes in the mornings to write down all the junk that was swirling around in my head and worrying me. Even though I haven’t spent as much time unpacking it as I’d like, just emptying out my mind has been calming. I can see the thought errors more clearly. And there’s more space for what I need to focus on getting done!

 

 

How do you manage when you’re under the gun? How do you take care of you and still get the work done? Please share in the comments below!

And please pray for me, you wonderful ladies. By the next post, the requirements will have been submitted and the last few weeks of exam prep will be upon me!