Running Out of Gas

Have you had the misfortune of running out of gas? Recently, my husband and I were coming home from a neighboring city and ran into many issues, delaying us a full hour from when we would have arrived. The air was sticky hot with extreme humidity, and temperatures were in the high nineties. I was thankful we had plenty of gasoline in the car. It would have been easy to exhaust it quickly in the two separate events of bumper to bumper traffic we endured. We felt no guilt about keeping the air conditioning going. We knew we had plenty of fuel. If we had not, our stress levels would have been maxed out.

n our lives, how often do we refill our tanks? For many, especially if you tend to be a giver, not very often. Instead, we may take short periods of time for ourselves and then be back in action helping others. This means we never run on a full tank of gas. We are always in jeopardy of depleting our inner strength. I am as guilty of this as anyone could be!

Severe traffic problems on that day made me rethink boundaries once more. How am I taking time to refill my well? Do I prioritize or simply try to fit it in somewhere? Let’s face it, we are living in a world where many of us have numerous responsibilities to help others. Somehow, we must also take time and care for ourselves, making those around us understand this is essential to being able to continue assisting or giving to them. Something to think about!

An article on psychcentral.com sums up things nicely for us.

Of note: see “When to say no” toward the bottom of the article.

https://psychcentral.com/lib/learning-to-say-no#when-to-say-it