Listening to Yourself
courtesy freedigitalphotos.com
I love yoga. I’ve been practicing it for over 20 years. Now that I’m older I do what some call ‘chair yoga’, designed for seniors and for people with a disability. For the past year the instructor I work with has offered her classes online. It couldn’t be more convenient, and yet my ‘attendance’ has been erratic. Some days I’m just not up to it. I miss the fellowship of the in-person class so I find myself avoiding showing up online.
Yesterday, however, I pushed myself. I tuned in and was surprised at how much I enjoyed the moves–maybe because I had been absent for a few weeks.
Why am I telling you this? Because I realized that when I take some time off from an activity that is part of my routine, and listen to myself, I return to it with new vigor and with fresh enthusiasm.
Most of my life I have created a routine and stuck to it no matter what, often driving myself to complete a task regardless of what my mind and body were telling me.
But things have changed during the Covid shut-down. I have more time on my hands, as you probably do, too. Routine is not as important as it once was and I’ve given myself a ‘break,’ something my pastor spoke about a few weeks ago. He encouraged us to take bits of time each week for seclusion (a walk in nature, for example), for meditation (short quiet prayers that turn our hearts to God) and communication (a phone call or email to a friend) in order to balance our lives during this time when it could be easy to dive into emotional overwhelm or self-pity or even despair.
So here I am today returning little by little, to some semblance of routine but with the balance that seclusion, meditation, and communication bring.
Please share with us how you are gradually restoring balance to your life.
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven…” Ecc. 3:1 ESV
Beautiful, Karen. Yes, as I re-enter life with others, I have to remember to not get into overwhelm by doing too much. I want so much to get back to life that now, I am over committing!!
Thanks, Heidi. I certainly relate to what you shared.
I too am understanding that the quiet and no planning days of COVID have given me the insight into a real enjoyment of that mode. One I never experienced before as most of the time prior to COVID I just kept on going with a full calendar and just about every day there was something to be taken care of!
Now that I am accepting invitations again and making plans for being with friends and groups I feel a bit anxious about the planning taking over my life again. Thank you Karen for opening up this discussion.
You are giving me more food for thought on making commitments and I certainly do not want that feeling of being overwhelmed ever again!
BEing in the moment appeals to me. Bless you dear friend 🙏🏻🌟❤️
Thanks, Kathleen. I totally agree with you. Let’s take it easy and continue to enjoy the time we have with ourselves.
Good for you, Karen, I hope you will “keep on keeping on” as long as you can. I used to walk a lot and loved it but my walking days ended more than 10 years ago but I am not complaining as I am so blessed I CAN walk with a walker and have absolutely NO pain and I think that is a real blessing. When one can no longer exercise their body we have to keep exercising our brains!
I am so thankful my brain still works! BIG HA! I work one or two Suduko puzzels each morning the first thing to get my brain working~ha! It works! After that and breakfast I take time to exercise my mind with reading spiritual things and prayer and I try to follow that routine each day. Isn’t God good to let us stay brain active. keep on Keep on all of you wonderful friends. Life is good! Love you, Margaret
Yes, life is good as long as we stay spiritually fit and do the best we can with what we have.
Like many people, we experienced set-backs, changes and loss last year. As we work to re-integrate, re-group and redirect our goals and passions, we have agreed to take one project, issue or crisis at a time.
It has help our perspective to accept things as they are and do what we can as we can.
Thanks, for sharing your view on this.
Smiles, BRC
Thanks for your insights, Beth. I’m with you on this.
I follow daily the advice given by an old Indian guru::
He said that man is a house with 4 rooms: the spiritual, physical, mental, emotional.The problem is that he spends all of his time in only of those rooms whereas he should be visiting all four.
I make sure that I go to each of those rooms EVERY DAY!
Thanks, Chloe. What great advice from the old Indian guru. I’ve been visiting those four rooms each day but didn’t know I was doing what he suggested. 😊
I found myself very busy when I first moved to Central Valley. Getting acquainted and finding a church. I simply almosi over did it.Then came covid. Shutdown…I had a chance to regroup and think about the four rooms.
Hi Joan. Thanks for your comment. It seems Covid offered us a few gifts along the way–how surprising. We have time to quiet ourselves and visit the four rooms.
Such a timely word.