A US-based photographer and professional encourager I follow on Facebook and Instagram, Josh, posted this blog on Sunday.  It sparked a conversation on Facebook, which began with these words from one of his friends:

“Often I (and maybe you) subsconsciously feel that it’s not ok to be happy right now because there are so many things that are wrong with my life. But whether we are where we want to be in life, whether we have everything we need, or not, life is still moving on. It’s ticking by one second at a time. We can’t stop it, we can only live it wholeheartedly, in this moment. And, if I’ve learned anything in the last decade or so, it’s that it’s all those small moments, often fleeting and ignored, that end up adding up to be your life.  Joy is a choice. A daily, hourly, every-single-second, choice. Trying to get back to that today. What about you?”

A beautiful discussion followed, in which a commenter mentioned that she had always been a ‘glass-half-full’ kind of person, but that recently life seemed to have decided that she needed a taste of the other side.

I can totally relate to this.  I’ve always considered myself to be a pretty positive and optimistic kind of person, but even I’m not immune to getting worn down when negative thing after negative thing after negative thing happens.  Recently I’ve definitely been feeling more ‘glass-half-empty’.

In response to her comment Josh posted this:

“I recently heard that the glass is neither half full nor half empty.  It’s refillable.”

That simple sentence stopped me in my tracks.

What if I decided that was true?

What if I didn’t have to be one thing or the other? Positive vs negative.  What if it didn’t have to be so black and white?

What if all that’s going on right now is that I’ve given more of myself than I had to give, and now my cup needs re-filling?

I am a giver by nature – I give and give and give, without expecting, wanting or needing anything in return.  That’s just who I am, and who I always have been.  My husband, my girls, my family, my friends and my clients – I give as much as I can as often as I can.  And now I’ve simply run out of things to give.  I’ve stopped feeling any good feelings and have been alternating between angry, sad and numb.  It doesn’t feel good.

Josh’s words have helped me to realise that what’s actually happened is that I’ve run out of everything that I need to sustain myself.  I haven’t stopped caring, or loving or wanting to give.  I’ve just run out of the things I need to help me continue to do that.

I feel like I’m running on empty – I am physically exhausted, mentally overwhelmed and emotionally empty.

Thankfully, today has been the last day of school.  It is now officially the summer holidays – yay!  No more packed lunches to make or school uniforms to iron for SEVEN WHOLE WEEKS!  And plenty of time with the girls to play and explore and adventure together.

A few months ago I decided that I wanted to work less this summer than I have done before – the girls are getting older and it’ll only be a few years before they are off out with their friends every day instead of spending their summers with me.  I want to make the most of the time I still get to have with them.  So I made the choice to only send them to Holiday Cub one day per week this year.  And they get a day with their Daddy on a Wednesday while I’m in London.  And that’s it.  The rest of the time they will be with me.  Next year it’s my intention to be able to take the whole summer off.

It’s now time for me to recharge my batteries (and for the girls to recharge theirs – we are all on our knees with exhaustion right now after crawling towards the end-of-term finish line for what feels like weeks).

I need to refill my cup (and, where appropriate, ask people to help me fill it up) so that I can continue to fill the girl’s cups with the love they deserve, instead of the grumpiness I’ve been handing out so freely and abundantly in recent weeks.

With this in mind I’ve made a list (of course!) of the things that fill me up and, alongside the fun stuff I’ll be doing with the girls, I plan (hope!) to include elements of as many of them as I can every single day:

~  Cuddles with my girls…

~  Capturing magical moments with my camera…

~  Laughing…

~  Time on my own (even if the only time I get to myself is five minutes in the shower before the rest of the house wakes up)…

~  Meaningful adult conversation (beyond the usual “How was your day?”)…

~  Consciously unplugging from social media and switching off from work-related stuff…

~  Sunshine…

~  Walking in the fresh air and exploring new places…

~  Fresh flowers

I’d love to hear about the things that you do to fill yourself up, and how they help you move from feeling glass-half-empty to glass-half-full.  So please do leave a comment below with your thoughts, and feel free to share this post with anyone you love who’s cup might need refilling.

Thank you for reading 🙂

 

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