Bringing it down a notch

In the interests of reducing stress to livable levels, I took this early retirement.  It has worked, to a large degree.  But since my stress originates within, I can still find plenty of opportunities to practice.

Stressors du jour:

> Waking up in the middle of the night to do mental budget planning.  My income has plunged dramatically, somewhat akin to that first, breathless dive on the giant roller coasters.  Saving money is never far from my calculating mind.  So this morning, at 3:55, I was mentally strategizing the food, medicines and veterinarian parts of the budget.  I must have come up with something satisfying, since that's the last thing I remember before 9:30 this morning.  I wonder what I decided.

> Exercise.  I'm spending hours upon hours with a computer on my lap.  Very comfy. Too comfy.  So what seems reasonable and possible, for starters, is a three-pronged approach.  Walk the dogs. Use the elliptical machine in the back room. Wii Fit Plus, which is getting dusty.  This morning, that led to -----

>Walking the dogs.  There are plenty of things in this world that I'm good at, but walking two dogs at the same time is not one of them.  That's especially true when one is an energetic puppy and the other is about 85 years old.  When I was still teaching in my Montessori classroom, I was able to keep track of 21 kids, address several questions and problems at once, and still sit on the floor with a small group who were practicing their math works.  But I can't walk two dogs without getting the leashes tangled, or tripping them, or tripping myself, or dragging the slow one while keeping the little one out of the street.  I won't be doing that again.  I'll get more exercise by walking them one at a time, anyway!

>Keeping my mouth shut.  I went to a recovery meeting today.  It's the first time I've gone to a daytime meeting since official retirement.  You know how when you buy a car, suddenly you see the same car everywhere?  I'd never noticed, in these meetings, how many of the people are OLD and RETIRED.  Duh.  I picked one I'd been to before that's convenient to my house.  It started well, then got hijacked off topic into territory that was going places it didn't need to go.  I've been in recovery a long time.  30 years, in fact.  I'm one of those "old timers" or as they used to be called when I was starting out "senior saints".  But I sat there evaluating whether I had enough investment in this situation to state my thoughts and decided not to.  Instead I walked out.  I think that's only the second time I've ever walked out of a meeting because of content.  I decided I didn't want to expose myself to the stress of getting involved in it, and that I had better things to do with my time.  I hope that's personal progress.  I hope I didn't simply turn my back on a responsibility.

So the stressors are there, but I'm looking at them differently and acknowledging my own part, at least part of the time.  Progress, not perfection.

Tip of the day, from my sister, the massage therapist:

If you touch the tip of your tongue to the back of your front top teeth, you will not be able to clench your jaw. 

(Jaw clenching is one of my major ways of somatizing stress --- and keeping my dentist in his beach house.)