I just finished my first session with my peer coach! If I sound excited, it’s because I am - excited for having some guidance down the road to being un-crazy. OK, calling myself “crazy” is a bit harsh, but it sometimes feels like I’m living a crazy life before I’m constantly going, going, going - and when I stop going my mind is still racing, and I feel guilty for not being “productive” every single day. I have a To Do list 3 pages long, with many tasks that have been transfered from one To Do list to another for months upon months. It leads to me just feeling overwhelmed all the time.

I know that I have to “put myself first”, but that always seemed so selfish to me. Putting myself first made me feel scared that I was going to morph into this egomaniacal monster that people - gasp! - might not like. When Joanne told me that by placing my needs first, I was being selfless and putting myself into a better position to help others, I was skeptical. It wasn’t until she asked me, “If a car runs out of gas, is it going anywhere at all?” that I just got it. I thought back to last weekend, where my boyfriend and I went to Staples to buy a shredder. We walked the 4 blocks home in sweltering heat, I set the thing up, and it didn’t even come close to working. I was livid - we dragged the shredder home, and brought it upstairs, and now I have to repack it and drag it back, AND wait on the customer service line AND drag another one back home. I was freaking out about it - it seemed like such a waste of time and effort to me - but my boyfriend, meanwhile, looked at me and said “These things happen, babe.” I saw how I was acting through his eyes, and I thought, “I don’t want to be with me right now, why should he want to be with me? Why should we waste a whole Sunday together on me acting like a ridiculous baby?” So, my car ran out of gas, and not only wasn’t I going anywhere, but I was making everyone else push me.

Another great analogy that Joanne gave me was to think about what the flight attendants tell you before you take off - if you’re in an emergency situation, put the oxygen mask on yourself before putting it on the child next to you. Because what good are you to the child beside you if you’re dead in the aisle? No good! So if I don’t take care of myself, my stress and tension just snowballs and effects everyone around me.

I also loved that Joanne picked up on me saying “should” when I talked about the tasks that I had to do. Not that I “want” to do, or even “had” to do, but “should” do. Having her point out to me that that’s how I was phrasing it made me realize that maybe my To Do List isn’t that important after all.

So, my Coach Request this week was to do something for myself this week that is very self-indulgent, and not to multi-task while I do it. I love this homework! I’m also going to utilize Joanne’s suggestion that I make my To Do List into a What Matters Most list. While I don’t know if I could force myself to get rid of all of those nagging tasks (sew the hole in my sweater, file that box of papers, sell that pile of stuff on eBay), I’ll highlight the Ones That Matter and make sure that it includes putting myself first.