Get off the couch and start relaxing!
My life is a blur. I have a hard time slowing down. Sometimes it’s my body. Usually it’s my mind.
I spend most of my days racing from one urgent project to another (why do I add so many projects to my life in the first place?). When my day “ends” I flop in the wonderful power recliner/loveseat I share with Victor and watch mindless TV for a couple of hours. Often, I fall
asleep in the middle of a tense drama. Thank god for DVR or I’d never see the end of those shows. Then I drag myself to bed and repeat the pattern the next day.
Not a good regimen, frankly. Flopping in front of the TV isn’t really relaxing. It doesn’t nourish me or fill me with peace. It merely allows me to escape into someone else’s problems instead of my own. Bad guys toting sub machine guns don’t chase me down narrow side streets. I’m not on the FBI’s Most Wanted List (that I know of). Relieved that I don’t have to solve those well-scripted problems (where good usually triumphs over evil), my brain shuts down, but it doesn’t reboot. Even sleep doesn’t restore my soul.
I suspect what I really need is something a little less tension-inducing and a lot more serene. Something that allows me to reconnect to the Real Me. Think meditation or yoga or staring at the night sky. It always sounds like a good idea, but I rarely take the bait. Instead, I find the remote and flop.
This is a clear sign I need some time off from my life. I need more than Downward Dog or Child’s Pose (although I do love Child’s Pose…). I need a break. Far from my office, my refrigerator, my retreat house and even my dogs. I crave solitude. And where do I get it?
At the beach where I walk the edge of the ocean (especially Emerald Isle). In my garden where I lose myself in caring for plants that respond enthusiastically to my kindness. At a bookstore with no time constraints so I can lose myself in browsing.
Even the thought of those places makes my breathing more measured and relaxed. But it’s not enough. I have to get out there and find myself again. I procrastinate in this exercise for my soul just as I procrastinate about exercise for my body. And yet, when I get there…when the ocean waves tease my bare toes … when the weeds disappear one by one from the garden…when I settle into a comfy chair engrossed in a new novel, I return to myself. I know who I am to my very core.
That’s a lovely moment of alignment, one I plan to seek out more often. All I have to do is get off the couch! So if you’ll excuse me, I’m late for a date with a few green bean plants.
Where do you recharge and renew? Do you take care of YOU regularly or do you forget that you are the most important person in your life? Let me hear from you
Awwww jeeeeezzzeee, my whole response disappeared
🙁
I think I may be an un-diagnosed soon to be diagnosed ADDiva.
My question is: growing up in school my symptoms were never hyperactive but I was always a bit spacey and tuned out. Usually missed instructions and if I did hear them my brain seemed to bypass the important parts.
When I read aloud I can rarely re-call what I read.
I can be quite impulsive in conversations and I find work situations balancing work difficult.
I think I may have this, it’s caused me some difficulty in life… curious for feedback, Thank-you!
Thanks! and sure, if I remember, I can combat “hurry sickness” and actually drive the speed limit, mask the clock display on my dash, and give my nervous system (ha) a break.
Ever since last year I have planned on coming to the Retreat. Have it on my calendar, but didn’t do anything about it, register. Now others have taken my retreat time. Nobodys fault, but mine.
Okay to stop this problem from happening again I would like to have the dates for 2014 and I will send a deposit as soon as I get the dates.
Then when people ask for my time I can say, “I am going to a retreat at the beach, sorry”.
I love it! A ‘garage retreat!” And there is validity to snatching moments here and there, even if it’s driving around town IF we notice that we’re slowing down our brains. For me, it’s the mindlessness of errands with no conscious awareness of breathing slower or noticing the roses as I pass by that makes the difference. We are so time stressed that perhaps little snippets of respite are all we can manage right now. And that’s a gorgeous thing,,,enjoy your garage!!
Sometimes I tell myself I have “me” time while driving around in my car between errands–to take Mom shopping, to go play with my granddaughter, to get our groceries, or go to work. But tooling around town is Not relaxing, even with my music on. Sometimes I treat myself to the luxury of parking in the lot or my garage, relaxing, breathing, and finishing the (flute solo, symphony, string quartet, etc.) that is playing on the radio, before I carry on with not-so-vital business.