Learning to Say No...

Yes, it's another unflattering picture, but it's real and it has significance...two things I love. I have become an early riser. I love the quiet as I sip my coffee, daydream and organize my thoughts. The hour to myself before the kids wake is such therapy! Lately, my early morning thoughts have gone toward my emotional progess. I am very much a person who fixes. There was a time I struggled ...with a saviour mentality. Hard times? World poverty? Second cousin twice removed had surgery? Emilie to the rescue! My thoughts and behaviours, trying to be everything to everyone, running ragged to solve problems as big as maternal death in the Phillipines and as small as a friend's rocky marriage left me exhausted mentally and physically. Burnout after burnout left me in shambles. So I stopped. I am able to recognize my level of energy reserves. I am able to recognize my abilities in a realistic way.
I have the desire to take care of everything and everyone, but I now have the sense to say no and feel okay with it. Saying no to some responsibilities has given me the ability to do well in others. For the New Year, choose one task that is suited to you and do it well. If you hate cooking and crowds make you anxious, don't volunteer in a soup kitchen. Let that be another's blessing. Perhaps you'd be better suited to helping the soup kitchen by doing administrative work or cleaning the hall after events. Don't fight who you are. We've all been made differently not to compete, but to compliment each other.