Back to work I go…

…Lucky for me I love my work! And I feel fortunate to be able to gradually head back to work.

When we head back to work on Monday, it will be 76 days since I last worked in The Runner’s Academy clinic on St. Clair. Two and a half months of working from home, trying to make virtual chiropractic care a reasonable alternative, which I believe it is for the right patients and cases, and spending time working on some passion projects I would likely not have been able to accomplish had I been working full time.

I feel that I used my time wisely. I finished all of my continuing education requirements for chiro and NSCA while watching many webinars and trying to be able to come back a better practitioner.

Obviously when you start out your career you do not plan for a pandemic that can steal months of work and had someone warned me of this, I am sure I would not have taken them seriously. I recognize I am fortunate to have been able to take the time away from the clinic and work on other endeavors from my couch.

I wanted to reflect on the past 2.5 months. What I have learned, what I have learned to appreciate more and what I want to take away from this and use for the rest of my life.

TIME—This is the biggest change since being away from the clinic. Even working from home I am still amazed at how fast time goes by, but I really appreciated slowing down the pace of my life. It was beyond refreshing. I tend to schedule my life down to the minute so being able to go through my day and not be stressed about what is next on the schedule has been great! I cannot even express how much I enjoyed sitting and eating a leisurely breakfast, taking a break to make lunch and cooking dinner with my husband. It truly brought me so much joy.

SLEEP—8-9hrs each and every night…what a dream. I think I am still working on catching up from my terrible sleep habits resulting from my overly packed schedule. But this is something I want to keep up for sure!

PETS— I didn’t grow up with pets and never figured I would have one even though my husband always suggests getting a dog. We compromised and got a kitten. Who knew I could love an animal so much. I have been smitten with the kitten…Even if she loves Mike more.

I trained super hard for the first 8 weeks and injured myself. Since taking some time to recover I have determined all of the sitting has likely been a contributing factor. Who would have thought there was risk involved with sitting on your couch too much?! But I am proud of the training I got in and the mindset I maintained when I had to ease off (*the second time).

I read two books while I was at home. One is called F*ck No by Sarah Knight and the other is called Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke. Both are about decision making. I hope I can put some of their teachings in to action, day to day.

I went to a workshop earlier this year about goal setting and living your best life. While I am so proud of everything I have created, I sometimes let my workaholic tendency negatively impact my joy by focusing on the next thing on the list instead of embracing what I am doing at the moment. And this is something I aim to work on, having gained a better appreciation for my time.

It is crazy because as I set my ‘gradual start’ hours that I hope will continue going forward. I already feel guilty about not going back as much as possible in order to try to make up for lost time. But at the same time the new schedule makes me super excited to be at work when I am there! My dad always used to say is ‘it’s just money, nobody has enough of it’. And I hope I can better live that.

I resurrected my blog which I am not really sure if it is a good use of my time but I enjoy the thoughtful reflection it requires. I hope to keep on top of it and write when inspired to do so. THANK YOU for reading BTW.

Is there more things I think/wish I could have done? ABSOLUTELY. And I did have a few points in time when I had a mild freak out of all the things I ‘should’ be getting done. But I must be okay/proud with what I was able to accomplish.

So, what am I going to do going forward? I am going to try giving myself more space and more time, in order to appreciate and fully embrace the things I do.

-give myself time
-sleep more
-find joy in the simple things

I hope you have been able to find some silver linings in these uncertain times. After everything that has gone on and how awful the situation is for many people, I am so happy to have found so many positives.

And I hope you have too.