When losing control is just what you need.
A personal story of making plans for self-care, then learning to surrender to the reality that even our best laid self-care plans need to be let go of, for us to truly take care of ourselves.
This is me ready for work this morning.
I am happy, and calm, and ready.
And yet, this morning panned out differently than I had expected.
It had every potential to turn into a stressful, cranky morning, but I turned it around…
Friday is typically a busy working day for me, and today is no exception. But I didn’t have a 9am appointment today - On the Fridays when my first appointment is at 10am, I often earmark those mornings for one of my favourite forms of self-care: a swim.
I write a lot about self-care, about how important is for me, and how I need to prioritise it, especially since realising I was in perimenopause (for example, see this blog post I wrote recently about what I mean when I talk about self-care, or this Substack post about how my self-care needed to change when I hit perimenopause ).
So I did everything I could to get to swimming today - I got my bag packed yesterday, I went to bed early enough, turning off my phone and all other electronic screens at about 9pm. I told my partner about my plans for a swim in the morning, so he knew he would be on primary parent duty for the morning routine. I was primed for my swim.
But it turns out that I could not account for all the factors that might upend this plan…
My son woke at 3am, and called out to me. I woke from such a deep sleep that I was disorientated for a minute or so. I went to him, and I was cross with him that I have been woken at this time - I don’t yell, but I am also not very warm towards him in this 3am interaction. I tend to his needs, give him a quick kiss, and I return to bed.
But now my perimenopausal brain and body are awake.
Like for so many women, 3am is the witching hour in perimenopause, when so many of us wake from our sleep, even without any external disruptions, to lie there feeling wired and worried with a racing brain (that ironically we struggled to get online to do all this thinking, throughout the daylight hours).
I lie there worried I was just too cross with my son, not warm enough. I have some intrusive thoughts about something potentially happening to him, between now and the morning, and I sit with the guilt and shame that bubbles up that if this (nebulous, nonsensical, imaginary ‘something’) does occur, then his last experience of me would have been a terse, cranky kiss on the cheek as I silently cursed him for waking me.
And now my partner is snoring too.
I am more awake than ever, and even more cross.
I go to lie down with my son - he has a double mattress on the floor precisely so we can lie with him if and when he needs us (a strategy which we have found maximises the chances of all of us getting back to sleep as quickly as possible).
Last night, I went to lie with my son at 3:20am, to kill two birds with one stone - one: I get away from my snoring partner, perhaps I can sleep better here, and two: I am calmer now, more resigned to being awake, less triggered - so I can give him a more kind loving kiss and repair my earlier crossness with him … a superstitious reaction perhaps, to my intrusive thoughts, but when I am awake at 3am I will try pretty much anything to calm my nervous system, and relieve my anxiety, in the hope I will be able to get back to sleep.
It does not work - My son’s room is above the boiler, and the heating comes on. All I can hear is the whirring of this. Then my mind turns to the thing that I’ve been ruminating on for days, weeks, months and my whole career, particularly since beginning private practice - “Who am I? What do I offer? What is my value? How do I communicate all that in my marketing?”
Oh good, so it’s is only the really easy questions that my brain sees fit to try to tackle right now…
I look at the clock, it is now 3:46am. I am entirely awake. And I am furious.
This is the last time I look at the clock, I know that watching it tick over does not help me get back to sleep. I try to take deep, nasal breaths - I consciously try to ‘let go’ of my night, and how it has panned out. My logical brain is furious it has lost control of my plans to have a good night’s sleep - ‘why did my son have to wake up tonight?!’ it rants, and ‘if it’s not my son, it’s perimenopause, when will I catch a break and just have a good night’s sleep for once?!’
I try to come back to my body, to the idea that I will feel more soothed, more relaxed, and more close to sleep if I just ‘let go’, surrender to the reality of this night, and breathe deeply and slowly.
My mind stops ranting about my son waking me, but continues to try and answer the multitude of existential questions about my work, coursing though my being right now. By now I am wondering if I should get up and write down some of these thoughts? I decide against it, again trying to let go of the need to ‘do’ anything right now, and again trying to surrender to the reality of it being 4am, and me being awake, and allow myself to at least play with the idea that all of this might be perfectly okay, and not catastrophic, even though I didn’t choose it.
At some point it works - I only know this because I am woken after 7am by my partner, so I must have eventually got back to sleep. But I am tired, and I am running late - my alarm (in my bedroom of course, not where I am now) went off at 6:45am.
I try to be kind myself, to remind myself that I can move at my pace. I try to consciously accept that I have now lost some control over my morning as well as my night, and again I experiment with the idea that I do not need to panic about that.
My son and partner go downstairs. I move around upstairs, doing my morning routine of opening all of our shutters, and trickle vents, and wiping down the condensation from the windows. But I hear lots of big emotions from downstairs, and come down to try to resolve the conflict. I go back up and get into my swimming costume - I am still committed to the swim.
At some point, I see the sunrise out of a window:
And I immediately switch up my priorities - it is no longer my priority to get to the pool, to be under the harsh fluorescent lighting of the leisure centre, and do a swim. No, it is suddenly my priority to get outside and let some of this beautiful red sunrise light into my eyes - I believe that getting sunrise light into my eyes sets up my circadian rhythm for the day, so this also feels like self-care. ‘There will still be time for a swim’, I think.
I make a cup of tea, rug up, and head outside. I take a notebook, and while I’m soaking up this glorious, sooting sight, and hearing the birds chirp in the hedge near my house, I jot down some of the thoughts that were swirling around my head last night. It seems that some sense was made by my swirling brain, despite it being 4am, and I am making connections in my notes that I had not made previously. This feels useful.
I finish my tea and head back inside. I then seem to lose time.
Before I know it, and I have no idea how, my son is leaving for nursery before I am leaving for my swim. I have no idea what I have done with the whole 85 minutes since I woke up, but I did think I’d be swimming lengths by now, and instead I am still at home.
I am also full of cold today. But then I think that going for a sauna and steam room after the pool might help that.
But now it's 8:27am. I pause and do the maths - 5 min drive to the pool; 5-10 mins getting ready, finding a locker, etc.; 15-20 minute swim; 10-15 mins sauna and steam room; 10-15 minutes getting dried and ready after that - so that’ll be about 9:35am by the time I get home. Then I would need time to make my breakfast, and a coffee before work, and consume those, and send zoom links for the day, and check my email, and…..
‘Stop’, I think to myself.
I realise - It is a fact that I lost control of my night, and that I have lost some control of my morning plans too. If I try to stick with my initial plan, and if I try to go for swim now, then I remind myself that I will absolutely be cursing myself at 9:57am as I scramble to shove breakfast into my face, and get my computer loaded up, to be ready for 10am. I know this, because I have done this - many, many times. And so I know - racing around, and running late, and trying to do it all, does not set my nervous system up for a calm, regulated morning, even when it’s done in the name of ‘self-care’.
I put my swimming bag down, and hang up the car keys. I am resigned - the plan is to be abandoned.
I go for walk in the local woods instead, for 30 minutes. It is still self-care, it is still movement. I am disappointed not to swim, and not to get a sauna, but at the same time, this option feels even more like self-care - because I get to move slowly, more mindfully, and at my own pace. I get to surrender to the morning, instead of fight it - I consciously choose to opt out of fighting another losing battle against time, and this feel like real self-care.
I return home, and I make my breakfast and a coffee - Not only do I have plenty of time to make these, but I even get to sit down outside and enjoy them.
I am not harassed, I am not rushed. I move slowly throughout the morning and I am ready a few minutes early for my call at 10am. I am starting the working day with a sense of calm and control.
And I think about how ironic it all feels - that it was my acceptance, my resignation, my surrender to the fact that I had lost control of my plans for the morning, which ultimately brought me back to a place of feeling more calm and in control in the end.
Self-care can be tricky like that. So often we can adopt self-care practices as another thing for us to ‘perfect’, ‘control’ and to ‘push through’ on. When actually, sometimes, letting go of our fixed ideas and plans for our self-care can be exactly the medicine we are needing in that moment.
Ultimately, in my experience, creativity and flexibility with self-care, along with a healthy practice of ‘letting go’ and ‘slowing down’, are absolutely the secret to a sustainable self-care practice.
Jenny X
Thank you so much for reading!
I am Dr. Jenny Turner, Clinical Psychologist and founder of Mind Body Soul Psychology - a private psychology practice in which I offer face-to-face psychology assessment and intervention to individuals and couples in Ripon, Yorkshire (UK), as well as UK-wide online psychology services, via Zoom.
I am passionate about assisting people to alleviate their suffering, by helping them to better understand, embrace and honour their human needs, their humanity and to work out with them what gets in the way of them taking good care of themselves.
And I wholeheartedly practice what I preach.
You can find out more about the psychology services I offer via my website.
