Recognizing Stress in Myself and Working On It

Every year at this time, my stress level climbs to extreme levels. It is entirely due to my involvement in the Online Conference for Music Therapy, and it is a labor of love that I know will take over my life for some time and then be done for another year. Let me make this clear - IT IS MY CHOICE TO DO THIS JOB AND TAKE ON THIS STRESS! It is also the time of year when everything has to happen all at once, so I end up getting more stress because I have to fit all this in with everything else that is going on.

Again, this is MY CHOICE and MY CHOICE only.

Due to this scheduled stress ramp-up every single year, I know that it is time for a bit of self-care and over consideration for myself. I can't PROVE a correlation between my level of health and my overly stressed week, but it happens that I get sick every time this conference comes around - bronchitis, allergy stuff, fevers, etc. It seems pretty close to being a correlation, but I cannot prove it.

This year, when my throat started getting scratchy and my mind started getting foggy, I started my medication early. There is NO way I can get through this time without help, and this has been allergy stuff so far - no bronchitis yet. I am praying that it stays allergy stuff only. If I slip into a fever, it is going into infection, and I need to stop to get to the doctor. Something else I might need to do. Ugh.

There are times in all of our lives when we get overwhelmed with things. It might be lack of clients or too many things happening all at once or even just the every day events that hit us at once. It happens. So, we have to plan for it.

When I know that things are going to be stressful, I take time for myself. I set firm limits. I have had to ask people to respect my boundaries and then I've had to show them those boundaries. I also have to keep reminding others of my boundaries - over and over and over again. This in itself is stressful, but it is the only way that I can survive this week.

Boundaries - step one. Structure - step two.

My life is charted out for the next several days. Registration for the Online Conference of Music Therapy closes today at 6pm my time. Then, I will move into crowd control as I start to field complaints, questions, and lots of people who don't read the information that I carefully place in front of them. I always get a bit disillusioned with humans during this week.

TIP: READ THE INFORMATION THOROUGHLY BEFORE YOU ASK QUESTIONS!!

I will continue in crowd control until 6pm on Friday night when I will be part of the official group of people running the conference. I will hang out for a bit and then I'm going to go to bed so I can take over the early morning shift. I will need to hit the Dollar Tree before then for some snacks and ginger ale. I'll add it to my list of errands.

On a completely unrelated note, I went past the car dealership and saw my old car sitting there. This comes up because I'll have to go past the dealership again and again to complete my errands. I'll make sure that I have lots of tissues within reach as I see the machine that I've abandoned. I blame Disney and the cartoon with the old coupe.

Anyway, blogging may not be regular in the next seven days because of all the stuff that I am going to be doing. The last thing that I may want to do is to sit and look at a blinking cursor on my computer. Don't be concerned if I disappear for a bit - I'll be doing lots of other things!! See you when I see you.

And, please...READ THE INFORMATION THOROUGHLY BEFORE YOU ASK QUESTIONS!!!!!!