Amanda Bristow

How to stay calm in the storm…

 

As a full-time student, wife, and full-time counselor life gets pretty crazy. I would like to share with y’all some of my tips to stay calm in our daily hectic lives.

 

Prioritize. My marriage of course is my main priority, and with busy schedules and deadlines it can be pushed aside. Being sure you prioritize your life, and your schedules will truly be the best thing for you. For us, we be sure to prioritize our faith and our marriage at the top of our schedules. What this looks like for each of you may look different, for us we be sure to have date night weekly and have our bible time together daily. Believe me we are not perfect, we miss nights, some weeks we don’t have date night, but, the main thing is we tried our best to prioritize our marriage and our faith as top priorities in our lives.

 

Organize. Y’all if you do not have an Erin Condren planner then you are truly missing out. This planner makes me sane, truly. Organization is a vital component to living a hectic life. Being a doctoral student I have an immense amount of research to do, paper deadlines, exams, etc. and working full time and wanting to have a social life I tend to forget EVERYTHING. Having a planner, and especially the Condren planner allows you to stay on time with all of your responsibilities. Also, they are so cute and they have so many options to choose from.

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Self-Care. As a counselor I throughly understand the concept of self-care, however, I feel like we all never actually do it. Though in this season, I am starting to understand the importance of self-care. So girl, take the bubble bath, have that glass of wine, go to yoga, go cycle, enjoy that piece of chocolate. Whatever it may be for you, do it. Your future self will thank you! I recently joined Pure Barre here in Charlotte, and I kid you not first class fell in love. It is the perfect mixture of yoga, ballet, and pilates in one, and gives you the best workout. For me, having this hour to myself to clear my head, not think about deadlines, or work, or any responsibilities allows me to then go home 1. Happy and 2. Focused and ready to get things done.

 

I wanted to share these 3 helpful tips because life gets crazy and especially with social media everyone wants that perfect instagram and the perfect picture, and life is not perfect. And that is okay! We won’t always have it together, our lives may be insanely busy at times, but, if we add these tips into our daily lives we can manage the busy schedules, and yet still take the time to do the things we love. I understand how stressful all of our lives can be, but, I want to help! If anyone has specific questions on how to manage stress, or want to know of devotionals, self-care ideas, etc. please let me know I would love to help friend!

 

Xo