Some bloggers like to do a 31-day challenge during the month of October, blogging about one topic every day of the month. I found out about it from my good friend’s sister’s blog, Only From Scratch; she typically writes about really encouraging spiritual things.

Since I am just starting up the old bloggy blog again, I thought I would do the challenge, too, to ensure that I keep up the good blogging habit of regularity.

One of my goals in writing a blog again is to record my thoughts and my life. I adore reading about other people’s lives on their blogs, and I often think of interesting topics that I should write down, and then never do. So my “topic” for the 31-day challenge will be to blog my thoughts for that day – whatever topic(s) that might include!

So, onward we go for today:

Hmm. *Thoughts running through my brain.* I was thinking about making this a series, so maybe I’ll just start with this and we’ll see where it goes…

I wanted to share about my experiences with health and the life changes I’ve made over the past few years. A lot went on in my life, so it will definitely take more than one post. I wanted to start with the idea of decluttering my life and schedule.

One of the health problems that arose during an onslaught of health issues in March 2012 was adrenal fatigue. If you’re unfamiliar with the situation, like most people probably are, it simply means that your adrenal glands, the hormones regulating stress, are fatigued – aka exhausted and worn out. I knew that I had to reduce the stress in my life, but I didn’t feel outwardly what I would refer to as “stressed” very frequently. Looking back, I was stressed frequently, but to me it wasn’t all day every day. Anyways, I knew that to get better, I would have to commit to making big lifestyle changes.

I took on the New Year’s Resolution and motto of “Stop the Glorification of Busy.” I wanted to create space in my life by paring down the myriad of hobbies I was interested in and even roles I was doing in my job, and stop stressing myself out by my to-do list – even the fun stuff!

It was really hard to do because I love having interests. The problem was that I never let any of my interests go, I just added them one on top of the other! So in my spare time, I thought I had to DO everything. Instead of letting my leisure activities give me rest, they caused me anxiety. In a given night, I felt compelled to accomplish all of the following: read some of a book, read blogs online, check Facebook, check email, write on my blog, work on a photo album, play with the cat, watch a movie, practice the bass, etc, etc. It was WAY. TOO. MUCH.

After months of using my new motto, repeated failures, and counseling from Whit and my mom, I started forming a new habit of just being. I would come home, close my computer, and just sit. Then maybe I would do something else, maybe not. One night I might read a book. The next night I might watch a movie. I re-trained myself to not be controlled by pleasure and leisure.

I think that wanting to do too much will always be a struggle for me. On my long-term to-do list right now is: study vocabulary daily for the GRE, read books frequently, make new recipes, make photo albums I have been putting off, write new blogs, etc. The difference is that now I have a much better grasp on balance, and I’m not letting “fun” things cause me stress, if I can help it. 🙂

Feel free to ask me questions if you want to know more! I’m sure I’ll share more about this topic in the future too.