Monkey on a Wire
A few years ago, I took a trip to Costa Rica. Understandably, the monkeys really stood out to me. What I remember most is how they tightroped along telephone wires, like balancing on a half-inch cable was as easy as breathing.
My life feels like a constant balancing act. Work life, family life, personal life, and self-care seem to collide in a mishmash of kaleidoscope colors, often leaving me drained and very much unbalanced. I find myself thinking about those monkeys and wishing I could balance as well as they do.
One of the roughest balancing acts is my transition between work and home. Shifting my body and mind out of work mode and into family time is rough.
Especially when I come home after a day in the office and find myself greeted in the doorway by 3 cats, my newly widowed mother, and my teenage daughter. Each of them needs a different form of nurturing from me, while I’m still in the process of unraveling myself from my workday.
Lately, I’ve begun to dread going home, which is not a good place to be. And it’s not because I don’t love and adore my family. (And it’s not because I want to stay at the office.) It’s because I feel the strain of being pulled in too many directions at once.
Does anyone else share this challenge of transitioning from work to home?
When I took a step back and observed how my stress goes from 5 to 10 in the same hour every day, I realized I needed to make some changes.
Easy Work-Family Transition Ritual
I’m a big fan of rituals. Ones that take under sixty seconds are a bonus!
I came up with this under-sixty-second ritual to help me transition in the evening. I do it in the car during my evening commute. It’s a simple breathing exercise that looks like this:
Inhale - Breathe in family time.
Exhale - Breathe out the workday.
I repeat this exercise 3 - 7 times, saying the words above in my head. It helps me to enact the intention to leave office stress where it belongs—at work.
It also helps me shift my energy where it’s needed next—to my family. We have quite a few things we do as a family in the evening from cooking, to family mealtime, to homework and other adulting things, like calendar planning and kitchen clean-up.
Making a conscious effort to leave work at work has been very helpful in reducing the stress associated with my evening transition. It helps me to feel almost as balanced as those Costa Rican monkeys—although I am sure there are still a few things I could learn from those beautiful creatures.
The breathing exercise above was inspired by the mindfulness exercises taught by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. If you haven’t read any of his books, I highly recommend his Mindfulness Essentials series. The books are short and pack a profound punch.
How do you support your transition between work and home? Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments. Or you can hit reply if you’re reading the email format. I’d love to hear from you!
Essential Oil Integration Cards
I’m experimenting with the idea of creating essential oil flash cards to help integrate the lessons of the plants. What do you think of my first prototype?
Thanks for Reading!
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Keep Alchemizing,
Camille Marie
I love your ritual and the cards. I remember those monkeys too! What a blessing to remember!
🤩 the cards!