Pleasant Activities Are a Priority
When it comes to planning pleasant activities, it can seem like an unrealistic goal. Here’s an example:
I recently had a girlfriend, who I’ll call Jasmine, text me a little after 10 in the evening.
One thing I love about Jasmine is that she keeps an active list of friends to call on when she is in distress. I happened to be asleep when she messaged me, and when I saw her text the next morning, I was pretty confident that she’d found someone to help her in the moment.
Even so, we hadn’t connected in a little bit, and I invited her to lunch. I’m glad I did. She needed some serious friend time.
As we chatted about what was going on with her, a theme emerged: Her husband, an alcoholic, was working really hard at maintaining his sobriety and making the tough calls necessary to keep him on his desired path.
For him, that meant nightly AA meetings, meeting his sponsor regularly, and a few other activities he uses as distraction techniques.
Jasmine is thrilled by this progress. It’s been a long road for her husband to get to this place, and she loves and supports him in his decisions.
But there are consequences to these choices, no matter how positive they are.
In this case, it meant that Jasmine was going to work, taking care of the kids, and managing the household every day, primarily on her own. No matter how supportive she is of her husband, that’s a lot for anyone to handle on their own.
She felt as though there was no room for Jasmine and her needs in the marriage.
On top of this, Jasmine is a member of the bipolar disorder tribe. The additional demands on her time and attention naturally meant that her time was squeezed for self-care and that her increased stress levels caused her symptoms to become more exaggerated.
She felt as though there was no room for Jasmine and her needs in the marriage.
While the details may differ, I know too many people who are in similar situations. Stress levels are high, time is crunched, and emotional states are strained. When we live with a mental illness on top of these already tricky challenges, it often feels like we are drowning.
Learning how to change the tide and coming up for air feels impossible. Fortunately, there are some simple ways we can build a life vest for ourselves, starting with planning pleasant activities.
When we are already feeling crunched for time, the idea of planning pleasant activities may feel overwhelming. “How am I supposed to fit one more thing into my day?” is a common response, as is “I’ll feel guilty and stressed out instead of enjoying myself.”
Here’s the deal: Doing enjoyable activities is a vital part of our self-care. Ignoring this piece of ourselves denies a fundamental, basic need. Additionally, the more we take care of ourselves with these smaller details, the easier it becomes to handle everything else we have going on.
There are some simple ways we can build a life vest for ourselves.
Practicing good self-care by taking time for ourselves – even five minutes a day – grows our capacity to handle daily stress and mess. We become better parents, better friends, more productive at work, and build more resilience for managing the challenges around us.
Best yet, planning pleasant activities doesn’t have to be stressful. It can be as simple as taking 5 minutes in the morning and walking through the garden or clearing a small space in the house and just sitting there and reading for ten minutes.
One of the best tips I got was to clear off a small table and set a chair by it that faces the wall. Place a flower or a scented candle (which you can get at the dollar store) on it. By having it face the wall, all you see is the beauty in front of you, not the mess in the rest of the room. It’s a simple way to give yourself a place to breathe and relax.
Of course, we can always plan more elaborate pleasant activities, such as taking a walk (maybe while the kids are riding bikes?), or going to the zoo or visiting a museum or joining a knitting group.
For my girlfriend, her passion is dance. She will never be a professional dancer, but we have a local dance studio that offers classes for adults. It’s an hour a week that she can take to do something just for herself, to do something that feeds her spirit.
Planning pleasant activities doesn’t have to be stressful.
Beyond that, she recognized that she takes the dogs for a walk every day, but doesn’t think of that time as a pleasant activity. Yet, as she talked about it with me, it dawned on her that it is a moment of peace that she’s built into her days. She just needs to think about it that way.
Intentionality is the key to planning our pleasant activities. Without intentionality, it becomes too easy to “skip just for today,” or to “be too busy” to follow through on what we’ve planned for ourselves.
You are important. Your self-care is important. Pleasant activities are a vital component of a self-care plan.
If you need permission to take some time for yourself today, consider it granted. In fact, I’m asking you to take just five minutes for yourself. Do something – just one small thing – that will bring you joy. Better yet, report back to me what you’ve done and how it made you feel in the Comments below or by emailing me directly at teresa@woundedbirdsministry.com.
What did you do for yourself today? Share in the Comments section below!
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