Three months of time off

Wow has time just flown by, its been three months of time off from work and I've felt incredibly thankful for the time. Something I told myself as I left work was that I wasn't going to go seek work until three months were up and it just so turns out I had the universe, god, angels (whatever you believe) working in my favour because a friend reached out with a job and I got it. I'll be going back to work around mid August and I'm looking forward to it!

But what did I do with my time off? What have I learned? I've learned a handful of things so far. Things I didn't expect and some things I did. Here's my roundup:

Work is not the only stress in life

I think lots of people around me thought I'd take time off work and quickly find the stress isn't entirely gone. I didn't really expect all the stress in my life to go away the momeny I left work, stress is not entirely gone, it's still around once in a while and I'm okay with that. But the major stress in my life did dissipate. I have taken the time to feel relaxed, understand what gives me anxiety/stress and now that I'm at a good baseline with my stress/anxiety its up to me to maintain that. I've done that by 1) Choosing a good team/manager to work for. 2) I'll set expectations on what I can/cannot do. 3) The expectation isn't to work constantly when I do go back, its to be sustainable over time.

Prioritizing things you want to do today

If you want to start doing yoga daily, then you need to start doing yoga daily, regardless of anything else going on in your life. Without work I did have a lot of time to do what I wanted, time to relax, nap in the afternoons, read books etc. But my idea of who I was going to be was this ultra healthy, sculpted and lean version of myself. Things take time, that doesn't happen in a week and yes I worked out but it was the same as it was when I worked. If you need to rest and relax, you still need to dedicate time to that daily. Not working doesn't let you magically go to that yoga class and meditate in the morning, you need to build those habits into your daily life.

Get away from your phone

No work means lots of time to look at social media, update linkedin, text friends, instant message, etc. It got my eyes all weird always looking at my phone. Going outside, taking time for a walk around the park, baking things, cooking things, reading books, gardening all helped me get away from screens and it was the best choice. Relaxing those eyes, which is funny givin here I am on my computer screen writing this out but you know what I mean. Limit phone time, read a book, listen to music/pod casts, look at things far away!

Give time to things that matter to you

Time off for me meant I had time to be there for friends and family. A lot happened while I've been off, I had friends needing me for important things which I had all the time to help with. Family visited and I had the time to explore and go on adventures, I had time to renovate, call my mom whenever I wanted to, train the dog. It was nice being able to walk with my pup Teddy every single day, take him on walks and train him. It was really nice to have the time to do all the things that mattered to me. Taking a break from work gave me the time back to do other things, sometimes those things included taking a nap here and there.

Time off does not solve all your problems

This one kind of relates to the first point but it has more to do with the things going on in your life. Time off didn't mean all my childhood trauma was dealt with and thought about. It was thought of sure but it didn't solve it. Time off didn't stop my emotions from being emotions, instead it brought out some things I hadn't been thinking of as much and brought them to the forefront of my mind. Why? Because I finally had the time to think about them. This is a pro and con, it helps me focus on them and figure out what I need to do to work through them but it doesn't actually make them magically go away. Which is a good and bad thing.

That's about all I got this time around. I'll think about this one and add more if I think of more things I've gone through during my time off.