Day 189: You Don’t Need to Earn Your Quiet Time

Looking around to see what still needs to be done next or what I can multi-task while I'm listening to a Zoom, I realize I don't need to justify the fact I enjoy being.

I have come to terms with all the stuff still piled outside while I unpack container after container as time permits inside.

It's not so much the unpacking, but figuring out in such limited space where to put the things that still feel essential. Mostly, kitchen things.

I don't have to look too far to see where this drive to stay busy came from. Watching generations of women who from what I saw never sat down for long. There was always something else to be done.

For a very long time I've also tempered that go, go, go with lots of quiet time.

Meditation, walking in nature, cooking, baking, reading. The things that calm my soul and take me out of my head and into my heart.

Thankfully, I learned the importance of quiet time in my twenties when I started reading books like, Think and Grow Rich, and other books about how our subconscious works.

It was a different type of work hard/play hard.

It was being in the world of business, finance, or science and then having a deep spiritual practice, even if they called it 'napping'.

Great men, from philosophers to inventors, would take quiet time and rest or nap and come up with ideas.

They would also engage in things that would take their minds somewhere else, like being in nature.

So I learned to do the same.

Not naps, but walks in nature, spending time at the beach. I would spend Sunday mornings on the almost empty beaches of Sanibel or Captiva when I lived in Florida during those years.

The peace that came from watching the waves go in and out, the shore birds, the dolphins. That was like my church.

Not much different than what I do almost 50 years later.

All of those things that we do that take us away to a quieter place in our minds, they can all be looked at as a form of mindfulness, meditation, or prayer.

Because when we detach our brains from the chatter of of what's going on, what needs to be done, or fixed, and go to what we call our happy place, doing whatever gets us there, that is a form of transcendence.

It slows our breathing, relaxing our body, and gives us that moment of peace.

So, while we don't need to justify our strong work ethic or our love for being busy, we do need to carve out time to give ourselves the peace to balance it.

I'm still learning this in real time.

The containers and piles outside can wait.

The part of me that needs stillness, quiet, beauty, and connection to Source cannot being pushed to the end of the list.

Being, rather than doing is not wasting time. It's how I come back to myself.

And when I come back to myself, everything I do afterward carries a different energy.

Today's Gentle Practice

Notice one moment today when you feel the urge to justify resting, pausing, or simply being.

Instead of explaining it to yourself, take a breath and let yourself have the moment.

No guilt.

No productivity required.

Just a few minutes to come back to yourself.

With you,

Lynn