By Lindy Earl
Are you just tired sometimes? Not sleepy. Sleepy is how you feel when you first wake, and your body isn’t ready to get up yet. You can’t claim tired, as you just slept for six or seven, maybe more, hours. But you’re sleepy. Other times we are tired. Sometimes it’s physical exhaustion, maybe from never- ending physical work: building walls, mowing a yard, cleaning a house, and organizing closets all exhausting physical labor.
Sometimes it’s mental. Remember when you took your SAT, GRE, GMAT, LSAT, or MCAT tests? Your brain is just tired afterwards. Completing a coherent sentence was difficult.
Emotional exhaustion is enough to make you cry, let alone rest. Sometimes resting and sleeping aren’t enough. After an emotionally exhausting day, which may be caused by good news such as a new baby, or bad news, such as the death of a loved one, you can be so emotionally drained you just need a good cry. A catharsis.
Whatever life is throwing at you, has thrown at you, or will throw at you; no matter if you have physical, spiritual, mental, or emotional exhaustion; whether you brought it on yourself through questionable decisions or just because bad things can happen to good people . . . No matter what you are experiencing, I have two words for you: Rise Above!
As I watch employees get frustrated due to poor managers, or Managers get irritated due to lazy employees, or political candidates do nothing wrong but are intentionally misquoted, or parents who are challenged in simple conversations with children, or children who are confused by the generation above them, or teachers who really, really try – there are too many examples as you’re probably compiling your own list as you read.
Whatever and whomever and wherever you find your challenges, Rise Above! When you feel overwhelmed, take the view of the eagle. Eagles don’t run from storms, or fight the storms, they rise above the storms. When facing your challenges, and you will always be coming out of a challenge, in the middle of one, or about to enter one (I’m not being negative, just realistic), then you need to think, now, ahead of time, about how you will Rise Above.
When people make comments, smile and nod. When people put you in a bad position, determine to not respond in kind. If you find yourself unjustly accused, trust that your reputation will hold up. A quick aside, once upon a time, someone where I worked told others I had come to work high. Instead of starting a deleterious rumor, people laughed! Nobody was willing to believe it because they knew me too well. I didn’t get mad at the, well, let’s call it a prank. I laughed with the rest, confident those who knew me would know the truth and scoff at the idea, which is exactly what happened. I managed to Rise Above.
So, make your decision now to not get dragged down by negative thoughts or discussions or bad circumstances or even accidents. Decide to Rise Above where you can Soar!
Lindy is a Speaker, Columnist, Author, and Consultant.
* Contact her at Ask@LindySpeaks.com to submit a question for her Advice Column.
* Find her on Face Book and join the group, Single Again: From Devastation to Dating, on FB.
* Purchase her latest book, Surviving Holidays and Events After Divorce at
http://www.lindyspeaks.com/Products.html for $8.00 (half off Amazon’s price).
