How to create mental space, rest, relax and recover

Do you ever feel like you can’t see the wood for the trees? Like you are lost in a forest and can’t find your way out? Is there so much going on in your life, a massive To-Do list of tasks and you can’t get near the things you want to do for yourself?

I know exactly how it feels to be overwhelmed by everything on my mental To-Do list – and that is exactly the problem, the To-Do list being held ‘in my head’. It swirls around somewhere between mild panic and the 2am cold sweats of “Oh no I forgot to ….”

Sound familiar? The panic, the guilt, the beating yourself up for not getting everything done. Arghhh!

But one thing I do know for sure is that we will never get everything done, we will never be perfectly finished or have everything neatly organised – because life is just not like that.

So how can you escape the mental forest?

One escape route I can give you (and I know it works because I use it myself) is something called FREE PARKING.

All you need to do is; take an A3 piece of paper and write at the top ‘Free Parking’. The idea is that you are creating a place that you can PARK all of your good ideas and less urgent things you need to do in the future.

Once you have your sheet, every time you have a good idea, or something you need to remember for later, take a post it note, write down the thing you want to remember and stick it on the sheet. Then once a day/week/month take a look at the sheet and remove the post it note(s) you want to work on.

What happens is your mental chatter dies down because you have written your idea in a safe place, and you know you will look at it again – it’s not going to be lost. It provides a visual depository for all the ‘great ideas’ you have. And once completed it feels really good to see space appear in your FREE PARKING area.

Plus sometimes you remove ideas which seemed great at the time, but which are now not so relevant, without having wasted mental space on them.

I believe this original idea came from Jen Lee – and I have been using it with my clients for over 8 years. Honestly it really works.

If you give this a go, let me know how it works for you? Maybe you have an idea to improve on this?

In the meantime, create that free space in your mind and allow your brain to rest, relax and recover.

Sending zen your way!

Much Love

Angela x