The banished lentils

I took a long, hard look at some things this weekend.

Specifically raisins, peanut butter, and some legumes.

I’m sad to say none of them passed muster, and they ended up in the trash.

On Sunday, I spent about an hour sorting through my pantry.

It was about as exciting as it sounds– discarding expired food, wiping down the shelves, and trying to put things in some sort of order.

I found all manner of interesting things—ingredients for dishes I’d never had the courage to try, “good intention” food that was never eaten, and a few duplicates of things I’d forgotten I had.

It was an odd sort of treasure hunt, reclaiming things I wanted and trashing the rest.

But something occurred to me while the raisins and I were having a staring contest…two months to go before they’ve officially gone bad, but should I just chuck them now? do raisins even go bad? how “bad” can a raisin get and how would I know? (It was an intense conversation.)

When’s the last time you took an honest inventory of your own mental habits? A job that big in scope is pretty overwhelming, so let’s narrow it down.

When’s the last time you took stock of how you cope with stress?

It’s a few months early for spring cleaning, but I say we do a little bit of early tidying.

All it takes is a list of 5 things on a piece of paper. Try it out with me.

Making the list

How do you deal with disappointing days? Days when you feel stuck. Wrong side of the bed days. I’m sure you know the kind.

Take a minute to reflect. What do you do when you need to feel better?

Take two minutes, grab a scrap of paper, and write down the first 5 things that come to mind.

Don’t think about it too much—don’t worry about how it sounds, just write it down.

Welcome to your coping menu.  How’s it look to you? Were you surprised by what you wrote? Was it hard to come up with ideas?

You may be unhappy with some of the items on your list. Or you may be staring at a blank page. Let’s look at that.

Troubling item #3

If you were really honest with yourself in your inventory, you didn’t just write down the coping methods that sound good.

You probably wrote down all kinds of things.

There may be a few things on the list that you don’t feel good about.

It might be something you do that gets out of hand—a glass of wine to unwind becomes a bottle by the end of the night.

It may be a problem with moderation.

Or you might be doing things that are destructive plain and simple.

For each item that you feel “ick” about, cross a line through it and write down another option you can feel good about.

The blank page

Some of you may be staring at a blank page right now.

For some of us, it can be really hard to come up with a list at all. We draw a blank. We may feel at the mercy of our feelings.

If you’re staring at a blank page, imagine someone you admire and look up to. Imagine what their list would look like, and write it down. Now, pick items off the list that you think might be a good fit for your personality, or that you’d be willing to try.

How did it go?

Refreshing your menu

One of my favorite methods of coping

Perhaps you found some tried and true options on your list.

Things that have stood the test of time.

Stuff you’ll always turn to when things get rough.

While it’s always good to have these on your list, perhaps you want to do some updating.

Professional chefs design and update menus periodically, to reflect the change in season and to keep people interested.

Do you have anything new on your list that you’d like to try?

And you may have a few items on your list with an expiration date.

Has the time for those things come and gone?

A cornucopia of coping

Stress is a part of life. But we have so much freedom in how we choose to respond to it. Our methods of coping can offer us comfort and healing, or they can stress us out even more.

There’s no one right way to solve this puzzle. But solve it we must!—over and over and over again.

Because our lives will always have stress. That’s not a life sentence. Instead, it’s an opportunity to tend kindly to ourselves.

Keep your list close and update it often.  And best of luck with your stress-busting!