Students must have the key to keeping the equilibrium balanced! The amount of things we balance as one person is too high to count! From creating time for our family, to homework, tests, maintaining friendships, and making sure we don’t fall asleep early and miss dinner at the cafe. We are the kings and queens of the balancing scale. Things can get very stressful! Being stressed is not a good feeling and I am sure many of us can relate. When it comes down to being a student a lot of energy is exerted everyday. Whether it be on other people or simply just running after the metro. It’s easy to slip into ”worry mode” when it comes to deadlines, let alone trying to enjoy the present while simultaneously overthinking the future. With getting lost in the everyday life routine oftending to others, working hard, and keeping our lives balanced: burnout becomes real!
Sometimes out of all the things we take care of we completely neglect ourselves! We mind everyone but our own. Minding your own consists of; learning what you can and cannot control, radical acceptance, meditation (or mindfulness practice) as well as solo time. When I first started minding my own it took a lot of practice. I am still learning, but here are just a few
ways I put these tools into practice. Learning What You Can and Cannot Control We have all had the one situation that really inconvenienced us. A personal experience I had was when I missed the metro and I really had to be somewhere on time. I was walking from my apartment to the bus stop assuming I had time to stop at the store. I got to the store and picked out my things. I looked at the checkout line which looked a little too long, but decided to stay. As I stepped up to the register for my turn the cashier happened to be moving at a slow pace. As the cashier finally handed me my receipt I looked out the glass doors and saw the metro leaving! At that moment I was absolutely distraught. I sulked outside and couldn’t help but blame the cashier for my missing the metro.
Looking back at this moment, I can truly evaluate the situation. Yes it was true that the cashier was very slow, and yes, and I did in fact miss the metro. But another metro was about to
be on its way! Even though this meant I had to wait another 30 minutes, I was still going to get to my destination on time!
Things are not always going to go as planned or the way you want them to go. Even so, some things just can’t be controlled. I was so upset about the fact that I missed the metro because of the cashier but in all reality, she did not know that I had a metro to catch. Getting mad and angry with the cashier wouldn’t have changed the fact that I missed the metro.
Accepting what you cannot change will save you from the exhaustion of worrying, stress and even anger. Thinking about what you can control in every situation will help you be more at peace in your mind, emotions and body.
Radical Acceptance
As a busy student in school it’s hard to go through major life changes. Sometimes they can be inconvenient, painful, and even stressful. The tool of radical acceptance has been one of the keys to my impactful life events that have happened to me during college.
Although radical acceptance and accepting what you can’t control goes hand in hand, Radical acceptance is something that tends to be used in situations that involve sadness and grief. Radical acceptance is also a good tool to use for hard life changes, a death in your family, a break up, even an injury. It is all about making a conscious decision to accept that this situation is happening but consciously remembering the good things that are here for you and use those things to help you do what you need to do to get through the hard time. Things such as people who love you, a place to live and food to eat. With radical acceptance we are able to choose our reality by being more radical in the way we look at our tough situation. We accept it for how it is and respond to it with less aggressive and impulsive emotions. Instead be able to evaluate the situation and look at it consciously from a different perspective.Radical acceptance is a tool that can prevent anger from turning into rage, sadness into misery, and pain into suffering.
Meditation (or Mindfulness Practice)
Meditation and mindfulness are buddhist practices that have been another key to my triumphant journey in college as well. I use it to gather my thoughts and take the time to be with myself and my thoughts. Meditation is known to bring about self awareness by sitting in silence with self and one’s one thoughts. Self awareness is very important because it helps us know what we want in life, figure out how we feel versus what others feel, and it also gives us more awareness of our emotions. Meditation can also help you reduce stress by focusing on the thoughts that are stressing you and watching them instead of interacting with them. Easier said than done, but it can be accomplished. It can also help you to relax by giving you something calm to focus on such as your breathing, or the sound of slow rain drops. Meditation is important when it comes to minding your own because your mind is its key component. Solo Time
I believe that everyone needs a break from people every once in a while. We normally spend most of our time tending to friends, family and professors. Yes we sometimes have to be in a classroom full of people everyday,spend time at home ,and go out and have fun with friends, but you cannot forget the importance of solo time.
Solo time is not only your time to have to yourself, but its a time to connect with yourself. It’s a timeo figure out what it is you want for yourself, to do things that only you like to do;o have that alone time to watch your favorite show that no one else likes like you do. Just to be away from all the protecting, perceptions, and judgements. This has been the most beneficial for myself as a student because I am benefiting from being able to figure out what it is I want from life and break down my thoughts and feelings as well.
Solo time doesn’t mean cutting people out. It just mean making a boundary with the world so that you can check in with yourself to make sure that you are at peace mentally and physically. Checking in with all areas of your life and nourishing that part of you that may even need to recharge.
Overall I believe that the tools of minding your own are very useful and supportive tools to use when you realize that burnout is beginning to occur and you got lost in the busy life of being a student. Not only would I say that minding your own tools are supportive but I can also say that I’d have to give 50% of the credit to these tools for helping me get through my senior year of college.