Restoring Balance To Your Life After A Stressful Time

 Life can be a rollercoaster, especially during our late teens and early twenties. Whether it’s the pressure of school, work, relationships, or simply navigating the complexities of growing up, stress can sneak up and throw us off balance. After a particularly stressful period, it’s essential to take intentional steps to restore equilibrium in your life. Here’s how you can reclaim your sense of calm and well-being:

Acknowledge Your Feelings

The first step in restoring balance is recognizing that it’s okay to feel overwhelmed. Ignoring your emotions or pushing them aside might seem like the easiest route, but it only delays the healing process. Take a moment to reflect on what caused the stress and how it has affected you. Journaling can be a helpful way to process these emotions. Sometimes just writing down your thoughts allows you to see things more clearly and can be the first step towards resolving them.

Practice Mindfulness and Meditation

Mindfulness is about being present in the moment, and acknowledging your thoughts and feelings without judgment. When stress dominates your life, it's easy to get caught up in worries about the future or regrets about the past. Mindfulness practices like meditation, deep breathing exercises, or even mindful walking can help ground you in the present. These practices don’t require much time and can be done anywhere, making them an accessible way to start restoring balance. Apps like Headspace or Calm offer guided sessions that are particularly useful for beginners.

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Engage With Coping Skills Worksheets

One practical tool for managing stress and regaining balance is using coping skills worksheets. These worksheets are designed to help you identify stressors, understand your reactions, and develop strategies to cope effectively. They often include exercises like listing your triggers, rating your stress levels, and identifying positive coping mechanisms. For instance, you might be asked to write down situations that make you anxious and then brainstorm ways to handle them in a healthier way. These worksheets can be a valuable resource, giving you structured guidance as you work through your stress. You can find them online, through counseling services, or even apps focused on mental health.

Reconnect With Yourself

During stressful times, it's common to lose sight of who you are and what makes you happy. Reconnecting with yourself means rediscovering the things you love—whether it’s a hobby you’ve neglected, music that lifts your spirits, or simply spending time in nature. This reconnection can help restore your inner balance. Take some time each day to do something that brings you joy, no matter how small it seems. It could be as simple as cooking a favorite meal, drawing, or going for a walk. 

Stay Active

Physical activity is one of the most effective ways to manage stress and restore balance in your life. Exercise releases endorphins, the body's natural mood elevators, which can help you feel more positive and energized. Staying active doesn’t necessarily mean hitting the gym for hours on end. It could be anything from dancing in your room to your favorite tunes, going for a run, or joining a local sports team. The important thing is to find a form of exercise you enjoy, so it becomes a regular and enjoyable part of your routine. 

Set Realistic Goals and Prioritize

After a stressful time, it’s crucial to set realistic goals and prioritize what’s truly important. You may feel the need to catch up on everything at once, but this can lead to further overwhelm. Break down tasks into smaller, manageable steps and focus on one thing at a time. Prioritization also involves learning to say no when necessary. It’s okay to decline invitations or requests that add unnecessary stress to your life. 

Strengthen Your Support System

Never underestimate the power of a strong support system. Surround yourself with people who understand what you’re going through and can offer encouragement and advice. This might be friends, family, or even a counselor. Sometimes just talking about your stress with someone you trust can make a huge difference. They can offer a different perspective or simply provide a listening ear. If you feel isolated, consider joining a support group, either in person or online.

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Restoring balance after a stressful time is a journey, not a quick fix. It requires patience, self-compassion, and a willingness to take small, consistent steps toward well-being. By acknowledging your feelings, using tools like coping skills worksheets, staying active, and building a strong support system, you can regain your sense of balance and move forward with resilience. Remember, it’s okay to take your time—what matters most is that you’re making progress, one day at a time.

How To Make A Plan For Your Future

 While living in the present moment is really important for your happiness, it is equally as important to make a plan for your future. Making a plan for your future will enable you to take steps and reach goals and dreams that you have for yourself. Many people will make the mistake of thinking about their dreams and how they wish their life to unfold, but not take any action towards reaching them. This means that many people get older and live with regrets. It also results in not having the career you wished for, and reaching retirement without any plans or finances in place for yourself. 

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To prevent this from happening, you can take steps to prepare yourself. When you make a plan, you will live with more clarity and happiness, and you can rest knowing that your life will unfold the way you want it to. Of course, you can update your goals and plans at any point in your life, but it is a great way to get thinking about what you want so you don’t miss out on any opportunities, it will keep you motivated and moving forward, help you to have more control over your life, and you can live and retire with peace. A plan is also extremely helpful in helping you to think ahead with your finances so you are able to do the things that you want to do. Here are some steps to help you get started.

Think about your goals

The first and most important thing that you need to do, is to think about your goals. This might take some time. There might be some goals that you know you want to achieve in life, but there may also be some that you need to think about and discover. Make sure you think about all kinds of goals. There are going to be serious ones you must think about, like your finances, your investments, your career, whether you want to get married and have children, etc. Some of these serious goals may also include your retirement, your wills, and what happens after your passing. You can find helpful information online to help you craft goals and plans at www.Memorials.com and other sites online.  You also want to include some fun goals in there, like adventures that you want to go on. 

Think about what steps you need to take to get there

The next part of the plan making process is to think about what steps you need to get there. Be realistic and consider the small actions, as well as the big ones you need to achieve your goals. SMART goal setting is a good framework to follow, as it will ensure your goals are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timebound. 

Think about how you can finance it 

Make sure you consider your finances when planning your goals. There is nothing worse than wanting to achieve your goals but not having the means to do it. A plan will help you pull all this together. Think about the costs related to your goals, and how you can save towards being in a position to make it happen. 

Write it out 

The last step you should take when it comes to making a plan, is writing it out. This makes it more permanent and holds you accountable. When you write it down, you will also be able to remind yourself what you need to do to get to your goals. Make a tracker, schedule reviews and reminders, and make sure you go after those goals. 

Making a plan for your future is a great way to ensure you can look back at your life and accomplish everything you wanted to. 

Letters To No One

Letters to no one
and letters to nowhere

screaming into the void

Is anyone there?

words and letters
sounds and silence

living amongst
invisible

memories

wash over me
wash all of my sins away
the heat of the water

reminds me 
to breathe

in 

and 

out

as my sins
swirl around 
the drain
and fall into 
nowhere

I feel the void
pressing in
reaching out to me
because of

my letters to no one
that finally reached
nowhere.

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Regrets? I have a few...

Whoever said that you should live your life with no regrets is full of donkeysnot.

Seriously.

Who in this entire universe doesn't regret something in their life?

No, go ahead to The Google. I'll wait.

That's what I thought.

If you are able to make it through an entire lifetime without regretting anything, I want to know what alternate reality that you lived in during that lifetime.

Now, I don't regret things that happened that were out of my control. There was nothing I could do to change the situation so I don't beat myself up too much for those. However, the ones that I could have actively done something about and didn't...absolutely, I regret them!

I regret not being a better friend. I regret not being a better mother. I regret not being a better wife, daughter, sister, etc. 

Those wear on my heart intensely.

I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Whenever someone says that they have no regrets, I automatically assume that they are lying through their teeth. Maybe they truly do have no regrets, but I don't believe it for a second.

To live an entire lifetime and never want a do over on ANYTHING? 
Hmmm.

I think that you should have regrets in your life. I really do. How are you supposed to learn anything if everything in your life is perfect all of the time? It's disingenuous to say that you have no regrets because as human beings, we all are always striving to do better, be better. I'm sure there is something you regret doing knowing you could have done it better or been better in that situation, right? 

There is no perfect person in this world.
NONE.

So, unless you have a time machine to go back and change what you feel is a regret, then you are going to have to live with it. It's not a bad thing, it's just life. It is what it is. Life has twists, turns, complications, and yes, regrets.

It just shows that you are normal. 

Whatever normal is, anyway.

The saying, "Live your life with no regrets" has always annoyed me beyond reason. I'm going to take my regrets and learn from them. That, at its core, is what life is about.

How about you? Do you have regrets? How do you deal with them?

Back And Forth And Around Again

Around this time last year, I was in the process of moving. And so it goes, I'm getting ready to move again.

City life is not for me.

We have been looking all over in quiet little towns to find our perfect place. Where I'm from and where I am right now, the noise never stops. I thoroughly enjoy our trips to the mountains because it's so very peaceful...

Yes, yes I am a little cliche...you know, a writer and shady forest hideaway...

Anyway, I think we have found our perfect little place, but I don't want to say it's ours for sure yet because I did that last year and we ended up in our current terrible apartment.

I lovingly refer to it as "The Box In Rat City."

It was hard for us to decide what we were going to do after my husband retired from the Navy. We want to convert a bus into a camper, we want to travel all around, we want to find land, we want to buy a house...

We ended up in the city where my daughter is attending college. It's her first year so we wanted to make sure she was all set. I thought it was going to be weird for her at first, but it worked out. Her best friend from back home got accepted and they are going to room together next year. So, now...

I will officially be an empty nester. All of my butterflies have grown up and flown away. 

My point is, it's gonna be weird.

Therefore, I am going to need to be busy.

All of the time.

No time to miss my sweet babies, busy busy busy.

I have been thinking about those goals a lot more seriously lately. 

I think my husband and I are finally in fairly stable financial shape. Well, better than we have ever been in our lives.

So, maybe we will convert a skoolie, maybe we'll get an RV instead (I've found some nice new campers for sale in PA). Maybe we'll buy a house on a giant piece of land or maybe we'll find something better. I have definitely been spending A LOT of time on living room design websites, that's for sure!

Who knows? It could all change by next week.

What kind of goals or plans do you have? Have they changed as life changed? 

Time Marches On..

Having grown up children, one who is living on his own, has been....different.

I say different because I still feel like mom, I still talk like mom, I still act like mom, but I'm not cleaning noses, or yelling about cleaning rooms, or taking inedible things out of toddlers' hands.

Those are the things I used to fret over. Some accident or random thing was going to happen to my children so I had to watch them every single second of every single day. 

The things I fret over today, however, are very different. I still fear accidents and randoms, but mostly it's I hope they're wearing their seatbelt, I hope work/school went ok, are they eating enough? Is everything ok in their personal life? Are they struggling quietly and privately (just like good ole mom) and too proud to tell me? 

And on..and on...and on....

You never really stop being mom, it just changes. 

And now, with my second child about to free fall into the world, I am beginning to feel the wind of the empty nest storm moving in.

Worry and pacing the floors at all hours of the night has always been part of my job, so to speak, but now I can't just crack the door open and look at the most wonderful part of my life, laying there sleeping soundly.

I feel a tornado, a hurricane, a tsunami coming. I already know I am going to be a mess, so I just embrace it. It's part of life, right?

To remind myself, and because I have more money now (one of the perks of kids growing up), I have been treating myself to little trinkets here and there. Things I probably would have bought for myself when I was younger but was funneling all of my money into diapers, clothes, and toys. 

I found this necklace on Soul Soup Treasures for a reminder to stay strong, that the weather isn't always going to go my way, and tomorrow is another day and I want to be around to see it. 

Parenting is never easy, regardless of your child's age, but if you can hold on while the wind whips around you, when the rain just keeps coming down, when you feel like everything has been washed away and you're drowning in the sea of worry, just remind yourself that the sun will come back and the rain clouds will retreat... 

It's just a matter of time.