Over the Hump
Surviving my holiday season
I made it over the hump, barely. I’m now at the bottom of the slope and looking forward to calmer days and relaxation.
What is this hump I speak of? It is the holiday craft shows I do, selling the many and varied items I make throughout the year. My holiday season starts early, in mid-November and goes until mid-December. Then I can sit back and recuperate. Mostly.
This weekend is my last craft show, the only two-day affair in my schedule. I like finishing the season with this venue. There is a good variety of unique vendors, crafters I don’t see at the other shows I do. The boutique, as they call it, is held in a nice residential enclave, in their clubhouse that is reminiscent of a lodge with its open beam ceiling and walls of windows.
The guests that come through are of a higher economic level than the folks at our town’s craft fair. They are an interesting mix of ethnicities and a wide range of ages. My people-watching skills get lots of exercise. One visitor, an older gent from the Soviet Union (Russia) said he has been here 44 years, but his accent is still so thick I could hardly understand him.
Fascinating man. He is a retired bridge engineer and he listed the number of area bridges he helped design. People amaze me. I never know what is hidden beneath the veneer of the public persona. Each person is like a treasure chest and all we have to do is lift the lid and a whole universe opens up for us to exlore..
The drawback is being in a large room with a lot of people. The noise, the moods, the scents . . . Four weekends in a row, all day in a room of random people. It takes work to shake it off and let it all go at the end of the day. The second show was the toughest because I was somewhat sick on top of being “on” the whole time.
When I finally climbed in the van as my daughter loaded our boxes, I could feel the intensity drain out of me. It was like lifting the plunger on a sink full of water. When it all ran out of me I felt so empty. Part of that was being ill, I’m sure, but it is always interesting when I feel what’s happening in such a visceral way.
In all honesty, it’s been a rough few weeks. I have not always been successful at coping and at one point regressed to how I was 10 years ago! I got into a place of high anxiety, fretting over every little thing. The anxiety was persistent, in spite of my trying to apply the coping skills I have learned. I practiced deep breathing and it helped a little, but at times the stress got so intense it made me physically ill. How could I have gone back to this point of inability to cope?
The answer, of course, resides in my ignoring what I know works and what doesn’t. I know myself and what I can tolerate. I have had to learn to decrease what I think I can put up with because of the fibromyalgia that flares when I am stressed. Ignoring my internal limits of reasonableness in order to sprint through this season and push myself far too hard caused an almost complete breakdown of my health and well-being.
My body was very clear that it was not going to play along. It is okay to push a little for a short period of time, but not for weeks on end.
One of the big lessons is that I need to plan way ahead and spread out the preparation over twice the time I used to take. I need to set shorter term goals and let that sense of achievement carry me through my next task.
Another lesson is to not divide myself over too many arenas. When I attended my women’s group’s fundraiser luncheon tea I thought it would be manageable because I thought I was only in charge of three things: 1) being hostess to my own table and guests, 2) keeping an eye on the teen girls and their tasks, and 3) leading our prayer reflection at the beginning of the event.
I forgot about the fact that I am an officer of the group and I am in charge of the money. Ladies were bringing me money in payment of their tables and I am the only one who knows how to use Square to take debit and credit payments. Sellers of tickets for the door prize drawings were coming to me for change and thankfully I had made packets of change that I could hand to them. That helped alleviate some of the activity.
We also had a silent auction and as Financial Secretary I am in charge of receiving all monies. Auction winners were bringing me checks and cash and I had to be diligent to mark the appropriate sheets as paid.
Our leader was busy managing the food and other logistical issues and asked me to be in charge of announcements, as well as supervising the girls doing the drawings. And there was something like 30 prizes to draw for! Once they got in a rhythm, the girls did very well, and I was extremely proud of them as they had to do some problem solving in front of the room full of guests.
The way things worked out, I didn’t get as much time to chat with my guests as I would have liked, but that is what comes from having a position of responsibility. I should have calculated that in. I think I was engaged in wishful thinking that I would have a relaxing time. Perhaps because I needed to have a nice social time, but it was what it was and overall the event was a great success. I had little bits of one-on-one conversations with my guests and in the end I felt satisfied.
My life in general has me too divided as well and that contributed to my overall feelings of stress and anxiety. I thought I had been keeping life simple, but when I stop compartmentalizing and lay it all out in front of me, I realize that I am dealing with a lot. There is my leadership position with my women’s group, as well as leading the teen girls’ group. There is normal household management and assisting my daughter in her activities and goals. There is my complex medical management and the debilitation that my fibromyalgia has delivered to me.
In this season of holiday busyness, not only do I have four craft shows and my women’s luncheon, I’m also in charge of our women’s groups’ Christmas party this week. And if that isn’t enough, (sorry, I know I’m repeating) the kids’ dad comes in tonight and my mother-in-law tomorrow night. Yikes!!
The visitors are not that big of a stressor because they are with us frequently. It is the confluence of the end of craft show season, visitors arriving, the Christmas party and the regular Christmas duties of decorating, writing a Christmas letter (which may be short this year. Ha! Think I can do short? Probably not.) and getting the cards sent out. I dropped the ball on getting a family picture to include in the cards.
In the past, I would have stressed about not having the picture and I would be kicking myself for not remembering. I would be sad to not have one to include and feel disappointed about my imposed change in how I do Christmas cards. After battling fibromyalgia flares this year, it has become much easier to let go of things I can’t control. Note that this is a HUGE lesson!
Letting go for any of us is difficult, but for HSPs it seems the expectations are so much higher because we think and feel so much more deeply. We get an idea formed in our minds and if reality doesn’t fit that image it can be hard to accept. Some of us, I know, will have a lot of negative self-talk, feeling like we failed and aren’t good enough.
Somehow, I don’t have that. I feel disappointment and sadness. I critique my performance. I see what I could have done differently, but that doesn’t affect my characterization of myself. I don’t see myself as having failed. I see that I fell short or wasn’t adequately prepared. I can only imagine how crushing it must be for those HSPs who take it as an indication of their worth.
One of the key coping strategies I used during this stressful time was to let go of unnecessary activities and responsibilities. That included but was not limited to ignoring my kids’ lack of attendance to their chores and other tasks I asked them do to prepare for our guests. On days I was crunched for time I did not do some of my normal daily fun activities, whether online or at home. Like skipping TV time in order to get items ready for the craft show.
I still maintained my evening winddown, which I know is critical to my sleep quality. I have noticed that if I get home much after 8 pm it is difficult to have adequate winddown, often because I have come from some highly stimulating situation and that requires more not less winddown. Some lifestyle adjustments have helped me in my overall challenge of maintaining wellness and good pacing. Choosing to go to the movies in the afternoon rather than evening has made a big difference. I don’t like losing my afternoon productive time, but it is worse to lose my sleep quality, so on balance it is the better choice to lose an afternoon than to lose an entire day due to fatigue.
While my fibromyalgia has been very difficult to accept and cope with, it gives me very graphic information about what my body needs and when I’m crossing into overdoing it. I was already well on my way to tuning into my body, but now instead of searching for the right channel, I am automatically dialed right in. That feeling of the overstimulation draining from me that I mentioned earlier is one prime example.
It has gotten to the point where I ignore a lot of the signals when I have little control over my situation, like during a craft show, but when I have myself to myself I can sit and get an almost instant read of what I need. I have noticed that when I respect what my body is asking of me I can stay closer to optimal functioning. I can also recover more quickly when I don’t unnecessarily push myself.
For example, if I get home and sit down and realize I do not have the energy to even walk across the house for a snack or water, I stay where I am and go into a deep rest. I have been utilizing sound at certain wave lengths to help restore me or make me alert in the morning. Works better than a cup of coffee! I am not affected by caffeine, so anything works better than coffee, but it is amazing that at the end of my 17 minutes of listening to a couple of tracks my mind is alert and firing, warming up for the day.
Learning the technique to have deep rest has been extremely helpful. I have been helped along by the Calm app, which is where I listen to the specific frequencies to meet my needs of the moment. During my midday rest, I listen to a “guided” meditation that is much different from what I have tried in the past. The leader does a very brief talk about an aspect of life and then guides us into the meditation.
It is guided in the sense that he coaches us to find a “home base,” which is what we will focus on during our meditation. It might be a physical sensation or a sound in the room, like a refrigerator or heater blowing. We close our eyes and just focus on whatever we chose. A few minutes into the meditation he will speak and remind us that when our mind wanders simply refocus on home base. When we are almost done he coaches us to just rest or float, letting go of home base and just being. When 15 minutes have passed he lets us know we can open our eyes. And that is that.
I like the intro, bringing us out of the world and into the meditation space. It is a good transition and what I learned to do in working with children. The same is true of working with adults. We’re all familiar with ice breakers in a group setting. The purpose is to help us transition from the outside world to the world in the room and in ourselves.
I’ve never really applied myself to meditation before. For a period of time I did enjoy contemplation, which is more about focusing on a scene or particular thought or philosophy. But my attempts at meditation, especially guided meditation, usually put me to sleep or I paid zero attention to what was being said getting so distracted by my own thoughts.
This new way of entering meditation has shown some progress. At first my mind wandered like crazy. When he’d pop in to remind us about home base I would feel embarrassed because in the silence I forgot I was meditating. In a way, he is teaching a hybrid of meditation and contemplation because the emphasis is on focusing on that home base we’ve chosen. That’s contemplative, not release of the mind. It is intensifying our focus. It is still brain training and it still takes me away from my mental busyness, giving me a breather for a few minutes.
I am slowly improving and am able to remain focused on my home base for longer periods of time. Now I have the problem of not knowing what to do when he tells us to release the focus and float. That is the real meditation part. The fact that these sessions are only 15 minutes in length helps me keep coming back. I can handle 15 minutes. If I ever feel I’ve conquered this method I will try to expand, but for now this is a good way for me to disengage.
On these active days with too much to do, I’ve found that even just that 15 minutes makes a big difference. It’s not a full refresh, but it is a break. On days when I can take the time to have recuperation, the meditation time sets me up to be able to go into a deep rest. For my deep rest time I have been turning to tracks of singing bowls that Calm has put together. It’s funny, like the sound of wind chimes, these metallic sounds really vibrate within me and calm me down.
It’s ironic because I dislike high pitch sounds. I listen to male singers almost exclusively. I could never stand the sound of screeching little girls and hoped mine never did anything like that. As it turns out, my daughter was not into the high pitch noises so many girls produce. I am forever grateful for that! So, how is it that in my dislike of high pitch noises I enjoy wind chimes and singing bowls? My guess is that there is something vibrational about the sounds coming from metal. Just a guess, but it would be fun to see some research on it!
When this season of craft shows began I dreaded it. I was not looking forward to the long days at the venues and the long days of preparation. I think the fibromyalgia had really gotten me down and I didn’t realize it. Mid-way was so hard and getting sick on top of it all really had me dragging bottom. So many times I felt like I could even move and would do without food and water because I simply did not have the energy to walk across the house. How sad is that?
Now that I am over my illness and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel I am in much better spirits. Of course, I wish I had felt more positive at the beginning, but I am so practiced in faking-it-til-I-could-make-it I just put on a happy face and pretended life was grand. I was at the point of questioning why I even do these shows and if it is even worth it.
Here at the end of the journey I think it is worth it. Being a high sensation seeker I do enjoy talking with the other crafters and seeing the trends of what interests shoppers. I did a lot of experimenting with how to attract buyers using several different techniques and have chucked what wasn’t working and have found much that does. To the point that many items I have displayed over the last three years have sold this year.
I think turning my mind to how to attract buyers gave me a different perspective on my items and selling. I’m less focused on simply making money and more focused on giving shoppers lovely items at a reasonable price. For the first time this year I walked back to my table after a cruise around the room and saw that it was pleasing.
This is another huge lesson for me. My strength is in how I see things and in how I process. My ability to observe and make leaps from those observations is something I can easily do which helps offset the reality that I am a poor judge of what people will want to buy. So much of my success this year I chalk up to selling smarter, not harder. By simply making items stand out in some way I have sold maybe three or four times what I’ve sold the last two years.
Seeing this success, I feel more encouraged to do more throughout the year to get ready for next year’s season. Focusing on my thinking superpower and my love of crafting helps offset the despair I sometimes feel in dealing with the challenges my body faces. This is good. This is a good way to see my strengths and weaknesses. It gives me hope and helps me to not feel so helpless.
There are things I can still do and feel like I am adding to the world. I have my purpose in my women’s group and working with the teen girls, but here I also add value to my family and to my friends by the work of my hands and the thought power of my brain. Herein lies the greatest lesson of all ~ to constantly seek that which we CAN do and focus less on what we can’t. A lesson I keep learning over and over and over again.