We live in a society that’s on the go. There’s always something more to do, something else to cram into our limited hours. We short ourselves on sleep and relaxation to get things done. Even our games can be made to schedule one more thing into our lives that we feel we must rush to.
But why do we rush so much? Do we need to get done all of the things we push on ourselves? Probably not.
While some things are critical (basic safety, our health, keeping our families fed and housed), some things aren’t. When we start organizing our day around recreational activities that only give us more stress, we’ve forgotten the point of relaxing. When we try to shove as many “relaxing activities” into a day as possible, to the point that we never actually enjoy them, we’ve forgotten the purpose of relaxing.
It’s easy to believe we need to get things done. Our culture is based in a long tradition of getting work done, and that idle hands are a bad thing. We want to keep going and going. But we can’t. And when we don’t need to, forcing ourselves to keep going beyond the point of collapse only hurts us.
We’re allowed to be idle. There is nothing wrong with taking time to think, to relax, to introspect. We cannot spend all our time this way, but we should spend some. We need to replenish ourselves, and that cannot be done when we are rushing from one activity to the next. Even if it needs to be scheduled in, we need to give ourselves time to be ourselves. Because if we don’t, the cost is much higher than the cost of whatever it is we neglect to do in nurturing ourselves.
Questions:
What do you do that’s “you time”? Does it relax you?
Do you schedule such time for yourself? Or have it regularly without a schedule?
What happens to you when you don’t try to find this time? Do you like what you see?
There comes a time in everyone’s life when they just feel empty. You want something, but you don’t know what. Life isn’t what you want it to be, but were you asked what to change to make it better, there aren’t any words. What do you do when you find this place?
Clearly, I’m assuming here we’re not talking about depression. If it’s full depression (and the symptoms are VERY similar!), go to a doctor. But sometimes you just feel that way for a little while, or it comes and goes when you stop to think. The answer isn’t to avoid stopping and thinking, though, even though that seems like the easy answer.
Sometimes you just need to take a step back and look at what you do have. It’s easy to feel overloaded and like you’re using all your life for other people, and there’s nothing left for yourself. And sometimes we spend our flame too freely and forget that we need to nurture ourselves, too. We need to look at what we enjoy for ourselves and take time to do that. To read a book, or make a craft, or take a run – whatever you enjoy just for you.
That emptiness can expand until it eats up your life, if you avoid it or ignore it. There’s always something else that needs doing, someone else that needs caring for, one more thing on the to-do list. I keep turning myself into a workaholic when I’m not careful – and while I love writing, it is WORK and it takes a lot out of me. It isn’t rejuvenating. Reading other people’s fiction and escaping to a different world is (at least when it’s well-written). And I need to remember to take time out to read – not for work, not for some purpose, but just to nurture my soul. We all need to nurture our souls sometimes.
Questions:
What do you do to nurture your soul?
How often do you actually remember to do it? Or is it something that’s more in concept than in actuality?
Do you think you do soul-nurturing activities often enough?
There are many kinds of pain. Here I’m talking about the physical kind.
We all end up in pain sometimes. We stub our toes, something’s dropped on our foot, maybe even a broken bone. But such pain is temporary. It hurts a lot then, but you can see an end to it. But sometimes there’s pain that isn’t temporary. Sometimes it’s better and sometimes it’s worse, but it’s pain that won’t go away. That kind of pain saps at the strength, at faith, at everything.
So how do you live and keep faith when you ache? It’s hard. It’s easy to get mad at the world and the gods for letting this happen to you. It seems unfair. And it’s true – it isn’t fair. But reality often isn’t fair.
So how do you cope? How do you hold faith when everything hurts?
Part of it is simply accepting. Yes, it hurts. Yes, it’s not fair. It’s miserable. But that doesn’t mean life is miserable. There’s life beyond the pain, if you can find it. You have to focus outside the pain, even though it’s hard. You have to seek out and cherish the things that make life wonderful.
I’ve been in a lot of pain lately because of my eye problem. And sometimes it’s really hard. But I have a child that needs me, and when I cuddle him I see all the love in the universe. There are problems in my life. But there’s also life to cherish, and I can’t forget that. I haven’t been abandoned by the Divine. Nor have I abandoned the Divine. I just have another obstacle to get through to find the Divine I know is there.
Questions:
How do you cope with pain? Why?
How do you find reason to keep going even when you hurt?
How can you find the Divine even past the pain?
Sometimes, no matter how much one plans and tries to take care of things, one’s life falls apart. Keeping up with all one’s responsibilities becomes impossible, and all you can do is keep up with what’s absolutely crucial and let everything else go.
It’s hard when that happens. It’s hard to not feel like a failure or to have guilt for the things you let go. But at the same time, we all go through times like this. No amount of faith or planning or anything else can keep reality from intruding. What’s important is that when it falls apart, you put it back together.
As I’m sure people have noticed, this blog went silent for a while. My life went sideways, and it’s taken me some time to get back on my feet. But now that I am getting back together, I’m picking up the pieces, including this blog. Because it’s okay to let things go for a while, but not to let them go forever.
It’s hard, when everything’s falling apart, to believe in things. I knew the universe was there, of course. It’s hard to miss. But it’s also hard to feel connected and loved when my own body started to betray me. It’s easy to believe when things are good. It’s harder, but more meaningful, to believe when things are falling apart and you want to hate everything outside yourself for not hurting like you do.
We are all part of the Divine Universe – even when things fall apart. We might feel separated, but there is no separation from all that is. And when we start to put things back together, we can feel that connection again. Sometimes there’s nothing to do but take that connection on faith. But when we find ourselves again, we find that connection, too. It’s something you have to search for, just like putting things back together is something you have to do on purpose. The world doesn’t just stop and put you back together for you. You have to do it yourself.
Questions:
How do you respond when it all falls apart? How do you put yourself back together?
How do you find faith when everything’s falling apart?
Why is faith most important when it’s hardest to find?