It’s day two of sharing my journey towards move 43. I know that yesterday I had said I would share items we have for sale, and I will do so. However, today’s blog post will include a little therapeutic use of self, ie some of my personal journey. I have been grappling with how honest to be and in the end decided that truth is important. So here we go. Time to share a little of my own stress management techniques. I’d like to point out that stress management, relaxation skills and improving relaxation are part of occupational therapy which is my profession. In a further post or in my newsletter, I am to explain the connection and how a task such as moving is important from an occupational therapy perspective.
Before I continue with the post of today, we all go through challenges. My personal challenge is an upcoming move which happens to be the 43rd in my lifetime. For another a challenge can be finding the right partner to marry, or how to care for a special needs child or how to care for an aging parent. We all have challenges and the techniques I am using to help me through my journey of my 43rd move can apply to anyone experiencing a challenge.
Preparing Items for Sale
I have a list of my mother’s items for sale and need to add my own items. Last night I spent some time praying, contemplating and doing one of my special abstract drawings to help me decide whether to sell my OT equipment or to keep it. The thinking is that with so many moves, if I lighten my load it will be less to pack, move and reduce cost for the move. I’m finding this decision surprisingly hard to make.
Decisions to make in preparing what we will sell
On the one hand I am discovering a number of ways to use my OT background in order to educate others online. I am also working steadily on developing my freelance writing service. My research indicates that freelance writing in the area of health, occupational therapy, life style, parenting all has the potential for a better income. It does take time to build up. The hard question is what will be once income has improved to the level that I need it to.
If I had the financial freedom, I would keep my OT equipment and allow myself the freedom to make that decision once my writing business is at the level I want it to be. Then I can make a far better decision.
Personal wish
The hard part is that my rental contract is soon coming to an end and our landlord tends to increase rent every year. Plus he has other hidden expenses to pay. With the re-branding I have been doing and breaking into a new avenue to use my skills, my income has suffered, hence the need for moving. I really wish that housing were more reasonable in Israel. I am not the only one to want that.
Dreams aside, let’s get back to reality. So I have this move looming and decisions to make which are rather difficult. With all the stress that is aggravated by high noise levels from both neighbours and the school at the end of our street, lets just say it’s a really hard process. I can not believe I have reached 43 moves. I wonder how many moves makes it into the Guiness Book of Records.
Being human
So today has been a little bit of a hard start. I admit I allowed the tears to flow this morning. The reason I am sharing that is because you know what? Crying is healthy. It is normal. I am a human being not a robot and I do believe it is important for people to stop expecting someone going through any kind of challenge to just smile and pretend everything is wonderful. Yes, G-d has His plan, but as the person going through this, it is rather hard. So what am I doing about it?
Time for Some Stress Management
Well, when the noise at the school got too loud, I went to the park for a little bit of time taking in the beauty of nature. I allowed myself to drink in the beauty of the nature and then took some photographs. In a little I need to examine the photographs with a critical eye, decide what I can learn from them and which are good enough for sale.
When I got back, after having something to drink I decided to go onto google for some inspiration of what to draw. Yes the park has lots that I can draw, but I wanted to try once more to see if I can master drawing tortoises and turtles. After all, if I can improve my drawing, then I can draw the illustrations for my workbook to accompany “Tuvia Finds His Freedom” myself. That will save my having to outsource for this art work. I just did about 15 minutes of drawing. I do need a little practice but I was happy with two of the sketches.
I now have a new task with my stress release which will be to gather enough drawings of tortoises and turtles to complete my workbook. At least that was a positive discovery.
Last on the list for managing my stress was about 12 minutes of exercise along with Jessica Smith on her YouTube Chanel. I really love her range of fitness training. Today I allowed myself to do some gentle exercise rather than strengthening or heavy aerobic as that is what I needed.
As I write this, the loud music from the school has started up again. I was just about to spend an hour apartment hunting followed by some time pitching for freelance writing. With the unhealthy noise level, I think I need to gather something together and head back to the park.
Oh dear, this move is not an easy one.
What do you enjoy doing to release your stress?
