Personal "Overwhelm-ment" or, "It's darkest before the dawn."

I'm having to tell myself that old "darkest before the dawn" story a lot these days. Not sure it helps, but it means that I feel a little less alone in my panic :-)

Basically, in trying to get "congruent" in my life, I am doing a LOT of things. And right now, there is no chance there are enough hours in the day to get it all done. Or days in the week.

I think that this is probably not unusual. That when you decide to change your life, you wind up with a full "old life" (because you can't transition out of it in one quick "abra-ca-dabra") and then bits and pieces of this "new life" you're trying to fit in.

For me, this means that my "old life" of trying to get to the gym, see my horses, have a law practice, keep a house clean, take care of a dog and 4 cats (2 "babysitted" for a friend -- for I think it's been 1.5 years now -- she's coming back to American presently though), have a few massage clients, etc. balanced against a "new life" of trying to move out of my house and into my fiance's house (which is 110% full and therefore this is NOT easy and makes me short of breath), start a realtor practice (because my fiance and I need to find our "optimal living situation" -- and it's not staying at his place, though that's a good "staging" house), renting my house (e.g., trying not to panic too much that it's a disaster because I have no time to keep it clean, and then trying to "defend my price" for it), fix water leaks in the drip irrigation, write the blog, go through my clothes, try to lose the 10 lbs I have put on since February (while spending each evening eating crap watching Oprah on Tivo).........oy veh.

So, in the upcoming month, I have 2 weeks of "realtor training" (9-5), will need to try to "work in" the law stuff on the "non-school" hours, my James wants me to go on a fact-finding trip with him to Austin (I want to go, it's just making me short of breath with logistics), then we have a "fun" trip to Yosemite planned a few weeks later, then going away end of the year -- how did the end of the year sneak up so fast???

Also trying to somehow "tactfully" tell my James that it's time to take his (24 year old) daughter's room -- which is literally just a thrashed "storage spot" for the stuff she didn't take with her to her apartment -- and get her to go through it and pack it up and store it in the attic -- because I need a staging area. I'm already moving out of my beloved home into his (110% full) house -- it's stupid that I can't use this area, and it's also stupid that I have to pussy-foot around. I think she moved out (again) now about 8 months ago -- and the room hasn't "changed" since -- from the clothes on the floor on up. He just shuts the door -- now's the time to change that.

I'm b*tching here, which is not good, because (as I have said many times), that just draws that "energy" towards you. But my overwhelm-ment is to explosive right now, I feel really stuck and short of breath.

I do think it IS "darkest before the dawn." I think that if you're planning to "change your life," you have to know that this sort of stuff will happen. That even if you are taking "baby steps," at some point you reach the "tipping point" where you still have a lot of your old life and responsibilities going on that you're trying to transition out of -- PLUS the new stuff you're aiming towards. In my situation, I worked on things like going through my clothes, makeup, drawers, and the like and got that "congruent" -- but I am now freaking out a bit because I don't have any "new clothes" to take the place of what I pitched...and the 2 week class I have to go to is somewhat of a 'fashion exercise' (e.g., can't wear jeans, even "nice ones" etc.) My life for the past 12 years has been "casual" clothing...hence, why I got rid of so many of the "biz type" clothes -- they are wildly outdated! But I haven't replaced them.

I am also spending $ hand over fist in this new venture of real estate -- without really knowing whether it will pan out. I guess that's part of the deal here -- I had this happen with massage, with the passion parties, etc. I had to spend $$ to get my certification, products, etc. -- and "ultimately" I made that money back. In those cases for some reason I didn't sweat it. I think that's part of the key though -- that things come to you when you're not really that attached to the outcome. I have preached that for forever, but then in application everything always looks a little tougher, huh? (laugh)

The real estate thing is the first time in over a decade I'm considering "changing my career" -- the other things I have done are, in reality, hobbies where I have made enough to pay for my expenses of "doing" that hobby. I mean -- I wanted to get the massage training -- and then got a super good table, etc. I was committed to making back that $ (for school, the table, etc.) -- which I have, a few times over. The Passion Parties stuff was to be an entree into people's lives and homes for the Double Oh! business -- now that it's turned out that it's really too tough to run the seminars, etc. myself (filling classes is just NOT my cup of tea), I have to get some parties back going on, so that I can divest myself of some of the product -- I also need to sell some product that Allison (who also thought this would be a good Double Oh schtick and that didn't quite work) gave to me -- in short, I have to start booking THOSE parties, and I feel like I have so much else going on right now, that there isn't enough hours in the day.

The move...then moving the horses...new job...moving in with my fiance...money worries...yeah, I think I gotta just believe it's darkest before the dawn!

And now I'm going to get my butt out of bed and to the gym. If I'm actually going to get together at the end of this week, as planned, with Allison to try to get some clothes together for a "biz persona," I gotta get rid of at LEAST 5 lbs of the extra 10 at my belly. I actually LIKE going to the gym -- but I hate when it feels like a frantic, pressured "thing" that I'm trying to wedge into my day. I hate that!!!!

I think that if I would take my own advice and get my commitments out on the "desk blotter calendar" it would be a lot easier to just "stop the madness" in some of these respects. OK, that's what I'm going to do -- I'm going to go do that right now and put it up on the wall -- even if I'm not here all the time, at least it will make me feel like I'm not going to "miss something" because I don't know it's coming until it's suddenly upon me.

Ack!