Energy Fatigue?

I sat at the kitchen table today with a big fat spring InStyle magazine and a cup of tea and my brain went crazy. The overwhelming feeling of guilt for “wasting” time was almost too much to bear.
When did it become so that I can’t sit still for fifteen minutes to enjoy a hot beverage without feeling like I’m cheating?

I’ve spent the last few months feeling like a fraud. I am starting this business where I’m supposed to be coaching people toward wellness and I feel like crap.  I’m tired all the time, even though I’m eating right, exercising regularly and getting enough sleep.  All I want to do is sleep and lately that’s what I have been doing because it is the only time I let myself slow down without beating myself up.

It took my own Health Counselor to point out to me today that no, I probably wasn’t dying of some mysterious disease, I probably just needed to cut myself some slack. She said when your energy is being pulled in so many different directions (school, work, kids, home, family) you can’t possibly eat enough greens or run enough miles to stop feeling fatigued. The only way to restore your energy is to use some on yourself.

Huh, there’s the rub-taking time for yourself.

That is not something that I allow myself very often, at least not guilt free. Even when I got my hair cut a few weeks ago I had a kid with me and I spent the entire time tapping my foot because I knew I had ten other things to get done in those precious minutes. I wasn’t even conscious of it until now. I don’t want martyr status and have thought I was taking pretty good care of myself lately-that’s why I was sure I was actually housing a deadly disease because for sure this wasn’t my doing.

Crazy right? Apparently part of wellness coaching is taking care of the coach. At least I can stop worrying about my mysterious illness. Now I just have to concentrate on guilt-free tea drinking.

Well, back to my InStyle.