Seed Bearing Fruit: the payoff of pacing

While Victorians are fighting bush fires today, defending their homes or evacuating with their loved ones, I am reminded of just how precious life is. Life is to be lived and lived to the fullest.

What my life looks like, however, will look different to yours. My hopes, my dreams, my desires for my life are unique, as are yours. My duties, my responsibilities, my commitments are relevant for me, as yours are for you. I have learnt to be content with where my life is, even if it looks different to everyone else's. Unfortunately, there are many voices in this world that tell us how and what we should live, look and love, and if you listen too long it just creates confusion. And you end up suffering from the deadly affliction of comparisonitis!

Since I've been back home from my European adventure my energy levels have been lower than normal and I've had to reassess my priorities in order to keep moving forward. So, I remind myself to slow down. I remember to just breathe. And I let myself be cradled by the rhythm of my self-care routine. One thing in particular I practice is pacing, which stabilises the activity in my life so that I can maximise how I use my time and my energy.

Pacing is a technique used to stabilise activity, which aims to balance your physical and cognitive activity with rest, exercise and socialising. Or anything else that may make up your life. The idea is to bear in mind the intensity and duration of your daily tasks, and buffer the harder tasks with the easier or more moderate ones. By using this technique you can accomplish more and minimise the impact that it may have on depleting your energy levels. It's a way to help those living with chronic illness to live a fuller life and to necessitate healing by allowing the body to rest in amongst the movement of living.

A simple way to implement pacing is to look at your activity and plan out your week using an activity diary. And if you too are on a journey to recovery I want to remind us to be kind to ourselves, to slow down and just breathe. And I encourage you to use pacing to help you move forward, one step a time, one day at time.