Exercising the demons out

With every job comes stress, no matter in what form.  I remember feeling stressed as a student in high school, college, and graduate school.  As a working professional, the stress changes but is still there.  It makes worrying about grades seem simple.

As a parent, the stress yet again changes.  You stress over the growth and development of your children.  The doctor's visits have milestones which your little one should be accomplishing.  You know the milestones are more guidelines because every child develops differently.  Although the argument makes perfect sense, for some reason, we still stress about them.  Once our child meets all the milestones, there's always another set or something else they need to learn as they develop.  It's a never ending cycle.
I will acknowledge my guilt in this.  I unconsciously and consciously worry about my child's development compared to the milestones and other children.  It's silly and does no good.  The only thing I get out of it is additional stress to which I really don't need.

This brings me to the entire point of my rant, stress management.  Every person copes differently with stress.  I use exercise as stress management.  Being a former fitness professional, it's no surprise.  I enjoy working out and working up a sweat (gasp!).  Contrary to popular belief, working up a good sweat makes me feel like I accomplished something positive in my day.

Exercising my demons out, as the saying goes.  Yes, stress is a negative in my life.  I would prefer to live without it.  Unfortunately, I don't live in utopia so that's not going to happen.  Carving out a little time for myself at least three days out of the week de-stresses me.   Taking a little time to myself amongst the chaos of my life is not selfish but self preservation.  A positive!  WooHoo!

With Cullen's one year well check appointment coming up, I'm going to make an effort not to stress about his development.  He's a healthy almost one year old boy who is discovering and learning something new every day.  I can't ask for anything better!