Are you feeling it? Are you feeling the pull of your time and energy in so many different directions? Caring for family, work responsibilities, social media engagements – have you responded to that email? Text? Are pets up on their care? Issues with house or car care and repairs? Kids to lessons on time? Taking the circle a little wider, there’s extended family obligations, volunteering, and we haven’t even gotten to exercise! The complex world we live in requires excellent time and stress management skills to stay balanced and well, and while self-care is a buzz word these days, what does it really mean? Surely it’s more than a mani/pedi, (though that isn’t a terrible start!).
To me, the truest for of self-care is the very precious gift we can give ourselves – the gift of time. It is a conscious, purposeful, and even bold action, to carve out time for ourselves. In my mind’s eye I see our energy and attention splintered out across dozens of different areas; the above mentioned demands and more. And while those might be necessary to some degree, we require a balancing practice to come to a quiet space and allow those fractured pieces of ourselves to return to center and recharge. Splintered energy leaves us feeling overwhelmed, unfocused, exhausted, and running around like our hair’s on fire.
Now don’t get me wrong, connecting with friends for a night out can be a form of self-care, or doing a really challenging workout can be a wonderful form of stress relief, yet to truly experience peace, and to touch that peaceful, joyful place within each of us, quiet time is needed. Quiet time that includes no screens of any sort. No notification tones, calls or text alerts.
We cannot be peaceful if we are perpetually being distracted by our phones and devices.
So how much time is required for this self-care? Not much. It doesn’t have to be an entire day or even an entire hour (though occasionally that is amazing). But the more we prioritize our personal well-being by protecting, like a tigress, those windows of quiet, the greater the benefit. And what might those benefits include? First and foremost is simply more peace. It’s not living life in a reactionary mode and recognizing that not everything merits DefCon 1 status.
What you do with your quiet time is a very personal choice. Do you enjoy flopping on the bed with your ear buds, listening to your favorite playlist? Is it getting lost in a well-crafted novel? Or is it just sitting in silence. Relaxing. No to-do lists swirling around your head, no meal planning or problem solving, just BEing. It’s funny that that sounds radical, but it is oh so necessary to jump off the treadmill of our busy lives and just disengage.
My own personal break is to picture jumping out of the queue of busy doing we are in and ducking behind a giant redwood tree. Hiding. Just sitting at the base of the tree and breathing in the earthy scent of the soil and moss while the rest of Life marches steadfastly by for the moment. Feeling the rough bark at my back and reveling in the deep quiet of the forest, with the delightful feeling like I’ve succeeded in sneaking away from the hamster wheel of doing for a brief respite.
I invite you to carve out some time in your day, or at least your week for the ultimate in self-care: Time. The blessings of that gift are vaster than you might imagine.
