Wipeout

Have you ever been riding your bike (or running, or walking) and you hit a patch of gravel (or water or mud) and next think you know, you are on all fours, dirty, bleeding, and wondering what just happened?  (Please say I'm not the only one this graceful!).

I mean, intellectually, you know exactly what happened, but its taking a few minutes for your brain to catch up with your new muddy reality.

So, my life has been like that the past 3 weeks or so: buffeted by some very unexpected stressors (small, fairly significant, medium-ish) in rapid succession, I'm just now feeling that maybe my mind is beginning to catch up.  For the past 3 weeks nothing has been processed, I've just gone through the motions of day to day living.

But I do remember that I committed to making some efforts at stress reduction.  I don't even remember what they were.  Good thing I blog: I'll have to go back and look. :-)  In any case, you can imagine how successful they've been.

This morning I went downstairs and did a cardio video, then popped in a yoga video (I've done my stretching video a couple of times, but this was my first attmept at yoga in 3 or so weeks).  I made it 5 minutes.  Seriously, I was unable to be that mentally quiet more than 5 minutes.  I turned off the tape and went on with my day.

It's not that all my good habits have been abandoned - they haven't.  But bad ones have crept back in.  And mainly its just been rough - remember me writing about the fact that my resilience is broken?  So when stuff happens it isn't pretty.

Last time I took a pretty good spill on  my bike I was a couple miles out on a trail that goes several miles straight into the Everglades.  After I stood up and was scared and bleeding, I didn't have any real choice except to get back on the bike and ride it back to the car.  Life is like that sometimes, whether you are prepared or not, cooping well or poorly, time marches on.  And you have to go on.

I'm beginning to think again of changes I'd like to make to reduce my stress.  Maybe this time I will get a chance to work on them. :-)