#TruthBooking: Is it hard for you to unplug? Can you stop the spinning of your life long enough to be still? When is the last time you put down your to-do list and walked away without guilt or that all too familiar undercurrent of anxiety?
I’m unplugging this week. Looking my kids in the faces for as long as they want to look back. Having spontaneous dance parties and adventures that don’t have a time limit because we’re not rushing to the next thing on our calendar or list. This is real work for me these days.
As a working mom, I straddle the worlds of business and personal all day long, jumping from one planet to the other- not so much with ease, but I have obtained a wee bit of agility in the last seven years. It’s a kind of flexibility, really. We see just how far we can stretch ourselves. What are we made of, really? Sometimes I know I’ve gone too far when I snap. That’s a problem I’m still solving as I go. I learn to adjust the more I learn where my capacities end.
A friend recently challenged my beliefs around work-life balance. I will admit that I have long ago abandoned the idea to the realm of unicorns. But she insists it’s a thing, and a small seldom heard from part of me wants to believe her.
This week I’m getting reacquainted with the me that can play, the me that can stop, the me that can sleep, the me that can say “no” to distractions and shoulds and stand arms wide open to welcome the joy. These are not muscles I flex very often. Real life doesn’t allow me this luxury in this particular season.
I’m grateful for the reminder that these are not only skills I have, but options available to me when I need them. Self care is less about making your world halt to a stop and more about being able to stop and find calm within when the world around us is still whizzing by like the predictable tilt-a-whirl that it is.
How do you stop? How do you self-care?