Saturday, August 30, 2014

Saving My Sanity (or Ma Santé Mentale)

I discovered something that has been saving my sanity lately.

Some days I am so busy and things are so crazy at work, I don't know how to slow down when I get off work.  In fact, sometimes I am genuinely surprised at how overwhelmingly busy work can be.  Sometimes I look at the clock and it's 3 pm and it feels like it should be 10 am and I am slightly panicked about how much I still need to accomplish before the end of my day.  I never end my day having accomplished everything I set out to do in the morning.  My job will always have a never ending task list that I will never actually reach the end of.  I  have accepted that but it does make my brain a little crazy.

Once I leave work I generally probably have some sort of school work I should attend to.  If it's not reading it's a paper, or articles, or presentations or a test.  You get the idea.  I read and write all day at work and then I read an write at home and if I have free time I am always trying to squeeze in either more reading that is also in relation to school and I feel will just help me be a better counselor OR I collapse on the couch and stare at The Real Housewives of Orange County for a hour while my brain does almost nothing.

It feels like I am either in full academic/psychology/behavioral health mode or my brain needs to completely escape.  And this is frequently a problem.  Because I find that my brain does not want to turn off.  Sometimes I literally cannot sit still for a whole episode of the Housewives just because my brain is still too engaged.

My other thing I have been experiencing lately is this feeling that this schedule is relentless and never ending.  Sometimes it really doesn't seem there will ever be a time in my life again that will involve free time of the sort of would like to find.  Or vacations.  I can't find the time to do so many things I would like to do because at least for the next year and 1/2, the time to do those things just doesn't exist.  I know I will get through it.

Saving my mind right now is Duo Lingo.


What the heck is Duolingo you may ask.  Well it's a phone app on which you can practice language skills in several other languages and the best part is, it's free.  

I learned some french in high school and college but I have never been proficient.  I LOOOOOOOVE this app.  When my brain can't turn off I just flip open this app and start practicing French and feel myself just completely in some sort of fantastic zen space.  Sometimes I can't stop and I have to force myself to move on to other tasks.  My french is getting so much better.  Yesterday on NPR there was a press conference in french which they translated - but I understood well over 50% of it before the translation.  It's awesome.  

If you want to brush up on a language you once kinda sorta learned a little of or if you want to learn one you've never tried I highly recommend it. It's like playing a video game but it's not a waste of time. 


Also.  I really want to go to France when I have a different situation wherein I can actually leave my house for an extended vacation at some point in the future.  My goal is to go the year I turn 50.  So learning French better feels like it is increasing my likelihood of having a better vacation. 

Which brings me to my one other sanity saver which I've discussed before.  Pinterest images of the places I'd like to go in France. 

Provence

French Riviera

Monmartre

Cannes

Neptune Fountain - Versailles

French Riviera

Provence 

Versailles

Burgundy

  


But for now it's back to two papers I need to write.

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