{"id":7264,"date":"2013-11-06T05:00:22","date_gmt":"2013-11-06T13:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/?p=7264"},"modified":"2013-11-15T18:31:17","modified_gmt":"2013-11-16T02:31:17","slug":"energy-a-little-break","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/?p=7264","title":{"rendered":"Energy + A little break"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"tea-time\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I recently had tea with a friend who is always inspirational. We were talking about how we make choices, especially when it comes to career decisions, and how she always asks herself, “Does this energize me?” I love that. We compared notes on various crossroads points in our lives, when we opted for choices that didn’t seem to outwardly make sense but ended up being the best decision in the long run. I thought of how I moved out to Seattle to be with M – all my friends declared me crazy.\u00a0I<\/em>\u00a0declared myself crazy. I had a fabulous job and a great life in San Francisco and knew no one other than M in the Pacific Northwest. It was a very risky move, but being with M energized me and it felt right. And I thought of sewing and starting this blog, but you know all about that from my endless yammerings.<\/p>\n

The topic of “saying no” also came up. I’m a chronic yea-sayer and will say yes to everything, and bend over backwards and people-please until kingdom come. Most of the time, this has led to amazing<\/em> opportunities that would have otherwise been unavailable to me. But every so often, I end up depleted and exhausted and sick from saying yes to things that don’t energize me at all. They frequently look and sound and smell exactly like the kinds of things I should be doing, but the main difference is that I feel<\/em> no joy or even a sense of purpose while doing them. I’m so busy saying yes and being flattered and grateful that I forget to pay attention to my well-being. The kicker is how difficult it is to tell when I should be saying no, and there’s always that fear of, “What if I’m missing out?” but I’m slowly and continually learning how to pay better attention.<\/p>\n

I’m making small strides, in fact. A little while ago, a woman asked me to reproduce a top for her daughters (I get these requests from time to time). She offered to pay, and I was incredibly honored that she thought my sewing skills were good enough for her to part with cold hard cash, but I don’t know, I felt “off” about it. Normally, I would have hemmed and hawed, would have felt guilty about charging money (who do I think I am?) and would have sewn up the top (plus a few extra) for free. Instead, I politely said no. It was awkward and uncomfortable, but you know what? I felt so<\/em> much better.<\/p>\n

On another note: there is a dearth of energy in our household these days. I keep mentioning that K is sick off and on, and it took a turn for the worse two nights ago. She is prone to seasonal asthma ever since she fell ill with RSV as a six-month-old baby, and though we’ve been fortunate enough not to see any symptoms the last three years, it’s come back full-force this week.\u00a0She coughs. And coughs and coughs through the night. Rattling, body-wracking, wheezy coughs. Nothing seems to help. I won’t go into details, but I am zonked and full of worry.<\/p>\n

So I will be scarce around here for a few days. I hope to be back next Monday, re-charged and re-fueled but no promises. Be well, my friends.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently had tea with a friend who is always inspirational. We were talking about how we make choices, especially when it comes to career decisions, and how she always asks herself, “Does this energize me?” I love that. We compared notes on various crossroads points in our lives, when we opted for choices that didn’t seem to outwardly make sense but ended up being the best decision in the long run. I thought of how I moved out to Seattle to be with M – all my friends declared me crazy.\u00a0I\u00a0declared myself crazy. I had a fabulous job and a great life in San Francisco and knew no one other than M in the Pacific Northwest. It was a very risky move, but being with M energized me and it felt right. And I thought of sewing and starting this blog, but you know all about that from my endless yammerings. The topic of “saying no” also came up. I’m a chronic yea-sayer and will say yes to everything, and bend over backwards and people-please until kingdom come. Most of the time, this has led to amazing opportunities that would have otherwise been unavailable to me. But every so often, I end up depleted and exhausted and sick from saying yes to things that don’t energize me at all. They frequently look and sound and smell exactly like the kinds of things I should be doing, but the main difference is that I feel no joy or even a sense of purpose while doing them. I’m so busy saying yes and being flattered and grateful that I forget to pay attention to my well-being. The kicker is how difficult it is to tell when I should be saying no, and there’s always that fear of, “What if I’m missing out?” but I’m slowly and continually learning how to pay better attention. I’m making small strides, in fact. A little while ago, a woman asked me to reproduce a top for her daughters (I get these requests from time to time). She offered to pay, and I was incredibly honored that she thought my sewing skills were good enough for her to part with cold hard cash, but I don’t know, I felt “off” about it. Normally, I would have hemmed and hawed, would have felt guilty about charging money (who do I think I am?) and would have sewn up the top (plus a few extra) for free. Instead, I politely said no. It was awkward and uncomfortable, but you know what? I felt so much better. On another note: there is a dearth of energy in our household these days. I keep mentioning that K is sick off and on, and it took a turn for the worse two nights ago. She is prone to seasonal asthma ever since she fell ill with RSV as a six-month-old baby, and though we’ve been fortunate enough not to see any symptoms the last three years, it’s come back full-force this week.\u00a0She coughs. And coughs and coughs through the night. Rattling, body-wracking, wheezy coughs. Nothing seems to help. I won’t go into details, but I am zonked and full of worry. So I will be scarce around here for a few days. I hope to be back next Monday, re-charged and re-fueled but no promises. Be well, my friends.   \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7264","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-life","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7264"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7389,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7264\/revisions\/7389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}