When I was growing up, my Nana was adamant that any more water in the bath than the height of your hand was too much. That was probably more to do with having 5 grandchildren come to stay than her principles. But it stayed with me! When I have a bath now, the "right" amount of water is so that if I move it sloshes over the sides. But that overflow stresses me out! I hate it when the water splashes out and creates a mess! It can be like this with the levels of stress we get used to in our lives. If we had a stress bathtub, every day it would get filled up by the stresses and strains of our life. When we relax and unwind we hope to keep the water at "just right" so it doesn’t cause a mess. But often we get so used to having the water sloshing near the very edge that we forget what it feels like to be able to just lie back and enjoy the bath! Oh the bliss of getting your bath to be "just right" so you can enjoy life and do what matters!
Managing your load
If you want to manage how much water is in the tub, you have two variables:
how much water is coming in
how much water is flowing out
That's it. It's that simple. If there's more water coming in to the bath than leaving the bath, pretty soon it will overflow. Water will pour all over the floor and eventually soak through the floor and maybe the whole darn thing will come crashing down!
But what about enjoying the bath?
Of course, there's no use having a cold bath (or one with no bubbles, am I right??). We also need to pay attention to the water coming in and make sure it's mostly warm. That way we can enjoy the bath too, otherwise what's the point??? Have you ever got the mix of water wrong and sat in a not-quite-warm-enough bath but resolutely decided to stay in it anyway "because I've spent this long running it"? Yeah, me too!
When your stress bathtub overflows...
The same principles apply when we think about our stress load. Just as it's simple really to manage the levels of water in our bath tub, it can be simple to manage our stress and overwhelm too. Not easy, but simple. I'd love to show you some simple ways that you can change how stress and overwhelm impacts you. Not by finding heaps of extra time in your day, but by harnessing the power of the pause.
You're invited...
Come and join me and my community for a FREE powerful workshop where we'll explore exactly this. You can expect to come away feeling calmer but also with tools to help you right now (that actually work). You can sign up for your FREE spot here. Know someone else who could do with ditching stress and overwhelm? Please pass it on...let's start a new way of being that doesn't involve breaking yourself to keep it all together. See you there
Laura @ Be. x
"A woman who lives with the stress of an overwhelmed schedule will often ache with the sadness of an underwhelmed soul." — Lysa Terkeurst