What's for Dinner? Plan Ahead!

Life can get busy some times.  Have you ever been so busy, so overloaded that you realize that you've almost forgotten to breathe?  We can get so stressed managing the work, the home, the kids, the pets, the errands, the exercise, oh - and the fun too, that we start breathing in the "fight or flight" style.  What's that?  It's barely breathing at all.  It's the tight shallow chest breaths that are deeply wired into our instinctual brain.  Breathing like that means it's time to take a break and time to start managing our time better.

How can we slow down enough to not just smell the roses, but enjoy the beauty of them as well?  It takes practice - practice in noticing, practice in recognizing our stress patterns, and practice in redirecting stress away from our minds and bodies.  No, it's not easy.  No new behaviors are.  But, it's possible.

How do I know that this situation needs addressing?  Because I find myself feeling chased by a tiger these days as I have a full time job, run my own business as well, and have a household of responsibilitites after that.  Being super productive/busy is exhilarating for days on end, until that moment when I realize that it's just way too much.  Felt that before?  Perhaps the holidays were when this feeling hit big time.  Or planning for a long trip.  Or sending a kid off to college and making sure that they have enough socks and laundry quarters to last a few weeks.  When you hit overload, it's time to organize your time and breathe.

Planning ahead is a skill that requires that we stop to think, strategize and plan.  Make a list.  Look at the list.  Start at the top of the list and do just one thing on the list.  Then check that item off the list.  It seems so easy, so obvious.  But, when we get into overload, sometimes the easiest behaviors get forgotten.  Our brain is worried about being chased by a tiger and our core is in self-protection mode.  

Let's start with dinner.  Of course, I'm going to talk about food.  What do we do about dinner when we have other 5,000 things to do?  

Plan:  What do you want to eat tonight, or even for the week?  Check out recipes in your cookbooks, online, or go with your tried and true easy favorites.

Make a grocery list:  You have to have the foods around in order to make the recipes.  You can't eat it if you don't have it.  Yes, this is a basic idea, but it takes planning ahead to orchestrate the meal and make life easier for yourself.

Grocery shop:  Take the list to the store and buy only those items.  Remember - no impulse buys, so you can avoid those chips, two-for-one cookies at the end of the aisle, etc.

Plan when you're going to cook:  Many of us find that making a double recipe is helpful so that we have LOD (left-over dinner) for another night, or even can freeze a second meal for those future rushed days.

Cook:  Plan how long it will take and when you need to start the dinner process.

If you don't care to cook, then plan what you can do to RELAX at a meal.  When we get super busy, overstressed and overtired, we start reaching for the craziest "high octane" food choices around.  And, as we gulp these foods down over the sink, at the computer, or in the car, we don't even remember to taste our foods.  It becomes a mindless, frantic event - not mindful, not calm and not enjoyable.

So, what's for dinner tonight?  Start thinking now, because the evening is coming soon enough.  When we plan ahead, we are in control of our lives, or choices and our stress level.

Breathe.  Plan.  Shop.  Cook.  Then, aaah, dinner is a delight.  Have a lovely dinner tonight.