Finding My "Breathing" Room

There is not much to report this week. I’m still smoking less than a half a pack a day. From my last blog, I chose to focus on this outcome as progress rather than a total defeat. And I gave myself some small rewards: a cup of frozen yogurt from TCBY, a membership to the YMCA, and I also started re-organizing my catch-all guest room into a meditation and workout room.

My mom is coming into town from St. Louis for a visit this weekend. I’m excited to see her and am going to take the weekend with her as an opportunity to limit my smoking even further. I know she’ll be a great cheerleader!

I think one culprit impeding my progress is my stress levels. I’ve been reading a great book called, Stress Less by Dr. Don Colbert. He offers practical tips on how to lower one’s stress levels through nutrition, proper sleep, exercise, and mindset. He sprinkles in various biblical scripture as it relates to his medical tips. It’s a mind, body, and spirit approach.

I get so caught up in the business of the life that I often find myself ignoring the impact that stress is having on my physical, spiritual, and emotional health. I know I’m hitting stress overload when my body starts having itchiness all over with no source, such as dry skin or an allergic reaction to my laundry soap. And tons of lotion, drinking water, and hydrocortisone provide little relief. Over the last two weeks, my legs, arms, and back have started the “phantom” itching, so I know it’s time to pay attention to my stress levels.

One section of his book, “Building ‘Margin’ Into Your Life”, is of particular interest to me. Dr. Colbert states that a person has little or no margin in his or her life when the person has crammed too many obligations into his or her schedule. Consequently, this depletes a person’s energy to engage in the goals that really do matter to him or her. And, thus, stress rises. Reversely, building margin means evaluating my goals, re-prioritizing, and eliminating the tasks that really aren’t relevant to my objectives.

Stress is what keeps me smoking that remaining half pack of cigarettes. By taking the approach of building some more margin into my life (a difficult feat for my type A personality!), my hope is that I can lower my stress levels by creating “room” to breathe. This will be my mission as I do some inner reflection and get some insight this weekend from my favorite mentor—my mom!