Taking Time Off

Recently I’ve been learning a lesson that in some ways I wish I had learned at a younger age. But perhaps I wouldn’t have appreciated it so joyfully if that had been the case. You’ve heard the expression, “We are Human Beings, not Human Doings”.

I’m talking about stepping away from the pace of work, shutting down, doing nothing.  It’s a gift we so rarely give ourselves.

If you are like me, you grew up being taught that being productive and busy and fast and quick to respond and always having a project on the go was what we should aspire to achieve continuously.

I was that way for so much of my life and in fact built my professional reputation on those very attributes.  What I’m learning, sometimes the hard way, is that ‘doing’ all of the time can take a toll on our health- our emotional, physical and spiritual health.

I used to equate “not doing” with being lazy. Not so much anymore. A number of life situations have invited me to make the choice to shift my paradigm, change my self- talk and embrace the act of doing nothing.

It’s a highly under-rated skill and speaking from personal experience, one worth cultivating.

So how do we give ourselves permission to do nothing?
Here are a few suggestions, but I encourage you to use your imagination and find what feels right for you.

• Focus on your breathing
• Meditate-if you don’t know how, take a class or ask a friend or get a tape or a book or webinar
• Do some yoga
• Sit and daydream while looking out the window
• Watch a Ted Talk

So next time you find yourself going fast and being busy all the time consider what it would take to be kind to yourself. Cultivate self kindness and experience what a few minutes of doing nothing can bring you.