I work and get to see a lot of people in a day as a chiropractor. I often don’t get home until 6:30 or 7 pm. My wife works in the day and then can be done to pick up the kids from school. Then she’s not really “off” work, it’s just different “work.” During different times of the year our families schedule is jam-packed with activities.

I admire my wife because of this ability to maintain her sanity with our super busy weeks. During the week after school, with three kids there can be upwards of 11 practices/activities and homework to boot!

Once I asked my wife, “Are you okay, how do you keep everything in control?” She calmly replied, “Oh, that’s not possible to keep everything under control, but I try to remain gathered.” Something clicked for both of us right then. She smiled and repeated “gathered, gathered, gathered.” Now, maybe she was on the verge of an “out of control” breakdown, but she fooled me. I smiled at her and was like, WOW!

I realized how many of us feel stress weighing us down because we don’t have things under control. We have multiple responsibilities, deadlines, appointments, errands, to-do’s, project lists, on and on…

While some may say, “You just need to find a way to simplify things, take some things off your plate, don’t schedule so many things, stop saying, “Yes” so much,” that isn’t exactly all there is to it.

I’ve observed people I care for with significantly trimmed schedules and guess what, they will totally STRESS over one to two appointments in a day, if it’s outside of an “expected” and controlled routine.

In other words, it’s all a matter of perception.

If you tell yourself you must have everything in control and under the pulse of your radar, you’ll set yourself up for truckloads of stress. If you tell yourself you’re okay and you’re “gathered,” then you might feel a little different, a little less pressure.

Don’t take ownership of what you can’t control. 

Adapt and remain, “Gathered” instead.