My Mindfulness Challenge This Week: Dealing with a Broken Water Heater without Losing My Sh*t
Do you ever feel like some days you’re barely keeping it together and if one thing goes wrong, it would completely derail your day (or week… or month)?
Do you ever feel like your plate is so full you absolutely could not handle one. more. thing.??
Do you ever reflect on the past and notice how small challenges sometimes seemed like huge mountains in the moment???
I can identify. I navigate all of these days myself.
Let me tell you about Sunday and how my water heater broke and nearly derailed life for the foreseeable future (sarcasm intended). I know, I know, I know. Woe is me, first-world problems, insert eye-rolling emoji, click the x box to close this blog (no really, don’t do that!), yada yada yada.. Stay with me, I promise there’s some real meaning coming.
One of my absolute most favorite things to do in this world is shower. It is not something I put off or feel obligated to do. Rather, it truly is something I look forward to doing as often as possible. Like 2-3 times a day.. Maybe 4 depending on how many fitness classes I teach and how far they’re spaced apart. A hot shower holds the same comfort and excitement as a piece of chocolate, glass of wine, snuggle, conversation with someone special, or episode of my favorite TV show. It’s also where I do my best brainstorming, trouble-shooting, and COPING.
It’s a big part of my self-care routine in preparing for the day and it is the catalyst for unwinding after my work is done.
As you can see, showering is a mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual NECESSITY for your girl. It gets me on all of my levels.
In the spiritual medicine of Ayurveda, a large part of establishing harmony in your daily life is by integrating healthy habits into your routine.
This process is called Dinacharya. It is the ultimate act of self-love and has 9 components, one of which is bathing (especially with a quick self-massage beforehand, if there’s time!). Over the years I’ve noticed people find my love of showering to be a really interesting (and perhaps odd) fact about me. Really? Is it that odd? Thankfully, since beginning to study Ayurveda, I’ve come to learn I’m not odd and there are scientific reasons for why I find so much comfort in showering. (Take that, critics!) There is a comfort in the ritual of washing away impurities, especially for me, since I feel the cleansing goes way deeper than the surface of the skin. It’s invigorating and grounding all at the same time. I could go on and on, but I won’t. Stick with me.
On Sunday, I woke up to cold water running from the showerhead despite leaving the water to warm up for a couple of minutes. When my husband, Matt, went to check the pilot light, he found water in the basement and a wet mess of belongings. The water heater was broken. I’ll be honest, the few days before weren’t good ones and I had been looking forward to washing off that grime to start the week anew. Well, the Universe had other plans for me.
SO not funny, Universe.
I am a creature of habit and establish control by crossing things off of my to-do list.
The day wasn’t going according to plan, the conversation inside my head was already in such a negative space, and the sun had just barely risen. Ugh. It’s at this point that the day, the week, heck, let’s face it, the entire upcoming holiday season could have gone down hill.
Talk about mindfulness and self-care flying out the window.
Seriously. Here’s a short list of the frustration I was feeling:
Having to bail water out of the basement at 7am
Throwing out our stuff (why were they in cardboard boxes anyway?!)
Missing church (I especially needed to sit in the Lord’s house that day)
Having to pay for a new water heater (Seriously?! The timing is never right for this)
Using time I didn’t have to get on the phone to make plans for the new one to be installed
Rearranging my schedule so I could be home for the installation
Just plain old having one more challenge to navigate
And the list goes on...
This could have easily caused an avalanche of memories from the past to bubble up to the surface from similar times when things went wrong as well as debilitating financial worries about the future. All of that would have heightened the stress around the present situation. Not help it, that’s for sure.
Have you been there? Maybe not in this exact scenario but can you relate? Please tell me it’s not just me.
What’s incredible is that right after that list of frustrations played through my head, I felt a shift happen. Quickly. And I was aware of it as the shift happened. Somehow, I shut off all the negativity, found myself breathing deeply, going into damage-control and chuckling sarcastically at the game I realized the Universe was playing with me. I didn’t yell at anyone, I didn’t cry, I didn’t spiral out of control into a messy conversation about how things never go right, etc. I just got to work dealing with the basement.
Wow. This was HUGE for me because I wasn’t always able to respond to difficulty in this manner.
Mindfulness for the win!
Normally I’d have a significantly ugly reaction to the stress and then have to deal with the fallout before I could even begin to address the problem at hand. But that didn’t happen this time. What an awesome reminder it was that a regular practice of breathing techniques, meditation, and various self-love rituals really can heal previous hurts and frustrations and prepare you for future challenges.
And while I continued some deep breathing (especially exhaling) to keep my cool in the moment, I focused on the silver lining:
We have a home, it was not damaged, and we still had heat
I exercise regularly to keep my body strong and was capable of cleaning up the basement
Matt was home to help me
No items of huge significance were damaged
Thankfully I mostly refrained from buying new Fall sweaters and boots (emphasis on mostly) the last few weeks… we have the money for the new water heater
So the boys may get less Christmas presents this year... remember, Steff, you always say Christmas isn’t about the presents anyway.
My parents live around the corner and a hot shower wasn’t far away
This list truly could go on and on and on. Thankfully.
So despite all of the different challenges this episode caused, I worked hard to keep all of my blessings in mind. I made sure to bring in some other self-care rituals during that day and a half period to keep filling my cup so I could navigate this extra challenge on top of the regular mountain of work that Sunday and Monday present every week. This was the only way I could make sure I didn’t spiral from the added stress.
My friends, the greatest lesson from this whole experience is that we can learn to be resilient, adaptable, and even kind in the face of challenge.
We can learn to leave past occurrences in the past and not have them play a part in our actions (or reactions) in the present. We can stay grounded in the present, handle problems with a clear mind, and not worry unnecessarily about the days to come. And we can find other ways to fill up our cup when our preferred method isn’t possible.
Take it from me, a naturally hot-headed worry wart:
If you put in the work, a regular practice of breathing techniques, meditation and self-care rituals really does help with navigating stress and challenges.
I promise you.
