I’ve done everything wrong this week. Drank less water. Added caffeinated, carbonated drinks daily. Ate sugar with little restraint. My sleep schedule has been less than ideal. And Thursday night proved to be a fitful, anxiety-riddled, sleepless night followed by pickleball Friday morning where I ran around like a crazy person.

Then, as I was showering after pickleball, my heart finally shot up close to 180 and stayed there for a while. After two weeks of creating scenarios favorable to a tachycardic episode, finally here it was, recorded on my heart monitor.

I finished showering and kept a close check on my heart. I’ve had enough of these racing spells over the years to know when the beating stays too high for too long and what I need to do to fix it. But this time instead of going back to my normal 60 beats a minute, my heart rate rested at 120 and stayed there for about an hour. Then it fell down to 100ish and stayed there for over three hours. Even by bedtime, my heart rate was still in the 80s. Needless to say, I had a full day of recorded craziness and my body was left weary and exhausted.

But I learned some things about my body. Many of the twinges and pains that I often neglected were actually associated with this full day episode. I’ve probably had more of this type of issue for longer than I realized, but I’ve stayed too busy to recognize the symptoms.

Busyness drowns out an abundance of symptoms. Full weeks. Full days. Full hours. Full minutes. We may be accomplishing tons of goals, but to what demise? Our families? Our friendships? Our spiritual well-being? Our health?

If this season of forced rest has taught me anything, I’ve learned to examine areas more deeply. “Small” symptoms, whether related to my physical heart or emotional one, are actually not small at all. Every “little” area needs attention if it’s not behaving correctly.

So, doing everything wrong on purpose paid of this week. But I also learned that I’ve been doing other things wrong accidentally for a long while and some habits need to change. I need to slow down enough to pay attention to the small details that I often push aside. The “small” things aren’t always all that small.

Do you have any “small” things that keep rising up that need your attention this week?

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