What. Just. Happened?

Ever been through a season of life that leaves you a little disoriented? And a lot exhausted?

It doesn’t have to be a difficult season; even the really fun activities of life can throw us out of our routine and leave us not knowing where to begin getting back to “normal” (whatever that is).

Sometimes the things we go through change us in ways that cause us to redefine “normal” for ourselves. I have shared before that my favorite definition of resilience involves bouncing forward into something new (1). Bouncing forward requires us to embrace the unknown, make changes, and that is almost always hard for us.

Sometimes the difficult seasons of life involve loss or trauma, or even just transition. All of these scenarios involve rearranging our lives, our thoughts.

And they all have big feelings attached.

If you are like me, you really want to get back to a routine, and you know you need to get back to your healthy habits.

This can feel overwhelming.

So, How Do You Get Back To Normal?

In my last blog post, I wrote about things you can do during a hard season.

Doing these things during the hard/high energy/different season can make the time period as you are emerging from said season much easier.

For the sake of clarity, since this blog post is not just addressing hard seasons, but any season that throws you out of your routine and requires a lot of energy, let’s just call it “The Season” so it can mean all of the above.

Give yourself some time to rest.

Even if The Season wasn’t physically grueling, you are probably exhausted.

Your body was likely on overdrive, in a constant state of fight/flight. You’d be surprised how easily we can get stuck in fight or flight and start feeling like it is normal to function on a high level of energy all the time.

Even if it starts to feel normal, it takes a toll on the body.

If you can give yourself a day or two to just rest when The Season lets up, your body will likely thank you.

Personally, when I finish something big (even if it was fun!) I tend to get sick. I can remember this happening as far back as high school; every time a play I was in finished up, it seems I promptly came down with something.

(I am not speaking from science here, this is just personal experience, mind you.)

I don’t know if my body is saying “ENOUGH! If you don’t take a break we will force one!” or if extended time in a high energy state depleted the resources in my immune system. I have learned to be extra careful about getting vitamins, getting rest, and avoiding germs as I am emerging from A Season.

Make lists

When regular life has been on pause to navigate A Season, we get behind on the daily stuff.

If you took my advice from the last post, you prioritized what things had to be done and what things could be dropped. It can feel very overwhelming be confronted with all the things you want to get done, now that The Season has changed.

Making lists lets your brain know you are on it. Otherwise, your brain, always trying to be helpful, is going to keep throwing all of those things at you on repeat.

If you can organize those things into lists, your brain will likely settle down.

Better yet, assign a (reasonable) time frame to those tasks and plot them into your calendar.

Trust me, you will feel less like you have to do everything all at once if you do that.

Decide where to start

This may seem like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised at how often we can start with something that triggers something else, which triggers something else and you are off on multiple rabbit trails and nothing gets done.

Have you ever read the book about “If you give a mouse a cookie?” by Laura Numeroff (2)? Here’s a read-aloud of it if you want a perfect illustration of how this happens. For me, it can look like wanting to sit down to write a blog post but thinking I should put a load of laundry in first. As I am in the laundry room, I see that the litterbox needs to be changed, so I stop and do that, but when I take the trash from that out to the garage, the dog gets excited that I went outside, so I pause to let him go out and run around and scroll Facebook while I am waiting for him to come back. And so on and so forth…

Choose a priority of the day. You can pick a couple if you must, but try to limit it to 3 or less. You want to increase your chances of feeling successful and reduce your chances of feeling overwhelmed.

You can check out my article on overwhelm for some additional ideas on how to prioritize what to do next.

Personally, I like to tackle my physical environment first.

It helps me to feel on top of things if my home is reasonably in order, I am caught up on laundry, and have a plan for feeding the people in my home.

With those basics squared away, then I think about the tasks that have fallen by the wayside.

The ones that haven’t dropped off can just keep going; I don’t need a plan to work those back into my daily life.

Start small

Getting back into a routine is similar to going through the habit formation process all over again.

Of course, everyone is different, but for me, this hits me the most with exercise. I may need to start with some very small, do-able goals to get back into the habit of exercising.

I have to suspend self-judgement, because that critical part of me will want to say, “That’s ridiculous! That’s not enough exercise!”

Part of suspending self-judgment involves giving myself grace for the fact that I haven’t done any exercise lately, and this small, seemingly ridiculous goal is better than nothing. It involves accessing the encouraging part of myself that knows that the slow and steady tortoise will win the race against the impulsively fast hare. So I only took a 15 minute walk today. It’s better than nothing, which is what I had been doing lately.

Pay attention to the rest of your self-care needs

It can be tempting to launch into only the needs that have been ignored during The Season…at the expense of other daily self-care needs.

Remember, the idea is to restore balance, not just to do all the things on the to do list.

(I have to admit that as I write this I have done nothing but write blog posts all day. I am going to take a break now and get some exercise so I am practicing what I preach!)

Identify your new needs

Like I said, the things we go through can change us. They can change our circumstances, they can change our surroundings, or they can change our perspective on life.

Even if you are not adapting to loss or trauma, you may find that the way you had to bend and flex during The Season worked for you. You might want to keep it going.

For example, last year after such A Season, I put my business social media on pause. It was a lot of work to generate content, and even more, to make sure I was keeping up with anyone who decided to engage. After that break, I re-evaluated my social media use, and decided it just wasn’t worth it to keep it going.

Similarly, you might find that if you stop doing some of the things in your life, the world keeps turning!

Don’t feel like you need to pick those things back up again (unless those are roles/tasks that you really value and want to make space for them in your life.).

Ask yourself what you want to stop doing? Start doing? Keep doing? Why or why not?

Transition times are good times to get curious about what works and what doesn’t, and our motives underneath our actions.

Reflect

How have you grown and changed?

What strengths did you find that you didn’t know you had?
What strengths did you develop as a result of that season?
What do you wish you had done differently? (This could come in handy for a future Season)
What can you appreciate about The Season?
What areas of growth came to light as a result of this Season? What steps can you take to move towards growth in those areas?

You may be in the thick of A Season. I would encourage you to read my last post, and if you do nothing else, find someone supportive to help you walk through it, whether that is a good friend, or a professional counselor.

It’s so important to not tackle these things alone.

If you are coming out of A Season, I hope this helps!

As you reflect on how you navigated your Season, you may find that you want some help shoring up some self-care or boundaries in your life. You may want to lean into some of those preventative practices that can increase resilience.

Feel free to give me a call or reach out on my website if you want help with any of this!

References:

(1) Walsh, F. (2002). Bouncing forward: Resilience in the aftermath of September 11. Family Process, 41(1), 34. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1545-5300.2002.40102000034.x

(2) Numeroff, L. (2000). If you give a mouse a cookie. Harper Collins

Jennie Sheffe is a National Certified Counselor ™ who helps women find freedom from anxiety and peace in their chaos. She sees clients virtually in the state of Pennsylvania, or in her Carlisle, PA office. She offers Christian counseling and EMDR Therapy.

How to Get Back to Normal After a Difficult Season