man im tired

Man I’m Tired

These three words come as a surprise and they usually come out of nowhere in particular when I utter them but the three words I say that scare me the most are, “Man I’m tired.”

I think for most people that may seem like a reasonable thing to say, and if you are someone close to me in my life and know all that I have going on all the time, you might expect me to say it quite a lot… but I don’t.

When I say “Man I’m tired…” It typically means that something is wrong.

It means that I have not been taking care of myself. I have allowed myself to be caught up in life’s details to the point that I no longer feel or experience the joy of everyday living. It is a wake up call of sorts when I hear myself say those words.

It means that life is now out of balance more that it means I am physically tired… Perhaps I am taking it all too seriously and have forgotten to laugh at a few things along the way. Most importantly, it may mean that I have forgotten to laugh at the antics of my favorite clown… and that would be me.

Sometimes it might even mean that something is truly bothering me and eating away at me that I am ignoring or not paying attention to as I should. The feeling of “tiredness” could actually be some form of dread around dealing with some unpleasantness or the other.

Regardless of the reasons or the timing, the shock that I receive when I say those three words always brings me to attention to focus on not only what is going on my outer world but what is also going on in my inner one as well.

It is a sign that I might need to practice better self-care. Eat better. Maybe make sure I get more sleep than I have been getting. It could also mean that maybe I need to stop being so critical of myself and or to stop worrying about the things that I have no control over.

Those are words that I don’t say a lot and hopefully you don’t either. But when you do hear yourself say them, check in with yourself to see if it is because you are really tired or if there is something else going on under the surface that you are not quite aware of yet.

Life is not a spectator sport and to play it right, you have to play it hard and with a lot of energy and enthusiasm. Sure… some days you are going to be fatigued, you will get tired but when you notice it pay attention to your internal cues and figure out what is really going on.

Of course, tomorrow morning I am starting a 100 mile running race, and I can guarantee that I will say “man I’m tired” a lot during the 25-30 hours it is going to take me to finish… but that’s different… That’s a good kind of tired!

Andy Wooten M.A. Counseling – Certified Life Coach – Aspen, Colorado