When we experience change in our private or social lives we will likely experience a soulshift. We may lose our enthusiasm or suddenly become energized.  We may find our capacity for patience to be very thin or we may feel very forgiving and open-hearted.  These soulshifts are very real and can be quite disturbing to ourselves and others.

When we are entering a soulshift the same wisdom applies as we have used for changes in body and mind.  Change what we can, accept what we cannot, and have the wisdom to know the difference.  Many will argue that emotions happen to us and we have no control over them.  This may be true on the surface, but when we feel a “seismic” shift in our emotional state, we do have some things we can do to shape their intensity and depth.  Our control may be limited by external circumstances and internal dynamics.  But, many times we can redirect the energy created by these shifts in ways that helps us to endure and even grow through the experience.

One morning we wake up and our legs just refuse to move.  We feel empty inside as if someone came in the night and drained our “battery” and our “gas tank.”  We acknowledge that we have been under a lot of stress.  We have dealt with several disappointments.  We tossed and turned most of the night.  We have awoken to a soulshift.

Rather than lay there, we decide that we do not want to waste the day.  We get up and get moving.  Before long, the spring in our step starts to return and our soul begins to rebound.  We could have wasted a whole day of PTO on a bad morning.  Instead we have learned just how resilient we are and that not every bad morning creates a bad day.

Soulshifts, when approached as an opportunity for self-care, can lead us to a greater sense of self.  When they persist, we may discover the triggers to our own sadness or anger.  When we can move through them, we discover the power we have for our lives and health.  Self-care during the soulshifts can be profound moments of learning and growth.

Discern a Soulshift – Be present to your state of soul and do not simply accept it as inevitable.  Realize the change that has occurred in your soul and name it.  By naming you assert some measure of control over it.

Accept it for what it is -- Recognize that today may not be the day to make a big decision, but you do not have to allow it to ruin your day.  A soulshift is a change within.  Recognize that it will limit some of your capacities but it may enhance others. 

Invest in a little TLC to ease the struggle – Treat yourself to some time for the things that give you energy.  Some people like to be with people whiles others prefer solitude.  Everyone is different.  Do not expect miracles, but you can likely count on a brief respite from the discomfort.

Make peace with your soul – By accepting this as part of your life at this time you are free to let it teach you a little more self-awareness and show you the way in the future.

Resilience – Give yourself permission to bounce and ride the wave of the moment.  We cannot choose how we feel but we do have the power to choose how we live our day.  Honor the feeling but do not allow it to steal away your daily life. 

I strongly encourage you to review the links below.  They have some excellent information about dealing with the soulshifts in our lives.

The Emotions of Change

Finding Your Bounce in Times of Change

Self-Care and the Soul

While grief may touch the body and soul, it is felt most profoundly within the soul.  The soul, as the seat of emotion and will, can completely shut down when grief strikes.  In the immediate aftermath of a big loss, it is quite common for the soul to feel numb or nothing!  The soul is protecting itself from the shock and the mind follows suit with denying that the death even happened.  The body gears up to fight or run away.  But, they are all serving our human will that is unable to process the experience of loss that we have just experienced.

With time, however, the soul becomes better able to accept that the loss has, in fact, happened.  50 years ago Elisabeth Kubler-Ross identified several common experiences of grief with dying patients.  (People later misidentified these as stages.)  Kubler-Ross listed them as denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.  These common experiences occur and reoccur in a seemingly random order throughout a person’s grief experience which may last much longer than they anticipated.

When these common experiences come on suddenly, they are called “griefquakes.”  These may be triggered by a smell or sight that reminds you of the person.  It could come in the middle of the night or in the middle of a meeting.  While they are more common early in grief, they can occur at any time, even years later.  They remind us that we have been touched by the unwelcome loss of someone we loved deeply.  We may begin to worry that we are crazy and find great comfort in knowing that we are just grieving.

How long does our grief last?  It is over when it is over.  Even when we are able to return to our daily routine and our first thought in the morning is no longer about the one we have lost, there may still be that lingering sense of loss and longing.  It is not unusual for that feeling to become an undercurrent for the rest of our lives.

If we love, it is very likely that we will grieve.  Grieving is our spirit’s response to the unwelcome changes brought by the loss of someone we love very deeply.  (BTW, we also grieve the loss of situations and things to the extent that we invest ourselves in them.)  When the soul is caught in grief, it is essential that we take care of ourselves.  Grief will not be ignored.  We can bury it but it will rise again.  Take care of your soul when it is grieving.

I have two suggestions for those whose soul is struggling with grief.

First, lower your expectations of “getting over it” and allow yourself to feel your hurt.  As the old song tells us, that lonesome valley must be walked.  The only way to deal with the pain is to walk through it, coping as best you can.  Some days will be easier than others which is where the “Roller Coaster Rule” kicks in.  I do not like roller coasters.  I do not like going high, fast, or in circles.  However, there have been times when the ride was unavoidable.  I have learned that when I am climbing up and getting ready to “fall off the world” I tell myself “Ain’t gonna last long.  Ain’t gonna last long!”  And, when I reach the bottom, I breathe and say, “Ahhhh….”  When the griefquakes come remember that it is still grief and that it will pass.  And on the good days, breathe and feel gratitude for the day.  Do not expect these moments to stop until they do.  Be patient with your grief.

Second, find ways to stay connected to the person you have lost.  For some this may mean having a conversation with a picture of your beloved.  Others may have a pillow case sewn out of an article of clothing worn by your loved one.  Some folks light a candle on the loved ones’ birthday and send in a donation to a favorite charity in their honor. 

My mother died in 1997.  One of the things I miss most were our late night/early morning conversations around her old dining room table where we both drank iced Lipton’s Instant Sweet Tea with lemon.  From time to time, even 20 years later, I will order some sweet tea and add some lemon and just remember.  In the most important ways she remains with me and always will.

Find ways to stay connected with the person you have lost.  Because they are not really lost.  They remain with you in the most important way.  They continue to speak to your soul!

Grief and the Soul

Coping with Grief

Grief, Bereavement, and Mourning

It has been over twenty years since I lived up north but there is one experience that lingers with me.  The air is cold and still.  The snow begins to fall.  There are only a few flakes at first but gradually the air becomes filled with gently swirling crystals of ice.  And as the snowfall increases, the quiet stillness grows.  Sounds disappear and a wondrous silence surrounds me with a mystical stillness.  I found those quiet Mid-winter snows to be a time to listen to silence and hear its’ voice in the stillness.

During the harried, hurried holidays, silence is an elusive quality.  The noise invades our inner thoughts and our besieged souls hunger for quiet.  Our souls skip across the rushing river of tasks by leaping from anxiety to frustration to outright anger.  The howling winds of expectations and desires try to knock us into that swiftly flowing stream.  We discover that the “hurriedier we go, the behinder we get!”  Our souls cry out, “Stop!”

The one gift that each of us needs to unwrap this holiday season is the gift of that inner faith that keeps us going.  That quiet core of beliefs that reminds us that life is indeed worthwhile.  We need to unwrap the place where hope and joy, trust and love reside. 

Spend some quiet time where you can listen to the silence so that even that inner voice is stilled.   Allow the quiet to renew your spirit and remind you of the reason for your holiday season.

Happy Holidays to you all!

It sounds strange to say that we need to listen to the silence.  After all, listening is for sound.  Silence is the absence of sound, right?

But silence is always around us.  Listening to it is just a matter of focusing our attention on it.  For us, silence is less about what is going on around us as it is about finding stillness within us.  That stillness comes when we let go of attending to every bump and thump of the day.  Stillness comes to us when we no longer give our random thoughts the attention they demand.  Instead we focus on the spaces between the noise.  Every sentence that has ever been spoken included silence.  Every piece of music you hear includes at least fleeting moments of silence.  Every relationship sooner or later falls quiet while wrapped in one another’s arms.  We are surrounded by silence. 

When you are ready for a little silence, close your eyes and find a comfortable position.  Release your attention on your thoughts by acknowledging them and moving on.  Attend to your own breathing, lingering on those moments when your breath is still.  When noise from outside intrudes, acknowledge it and move on.  Return to your breathing, especially those moments of stillness between breaths.  Allow that stillness to seep into your core so that it can release the aromas of love and trust, joy and hope into your soul.  Allow yourself to receive the true gift of these holy, holidays! 

Finding Stillness

Seeking Stillness

Online Free Meditation Aids

In the first Self-Care Note on relationships I asked about how our remembering someone makes us feel?  Sounds rather straight forward, doesn’t it! Our feelings about someone seem to be a basic bit of information.  We should be able to answer that question off the top of our head. Unfortunately, feelings have very little to do with any part of our head.  Feelings live and breathe and fill our soul, not our head.  And this makes feelings much more complicated than we generally want to admit.

The head tries to boil our feelings down to descriptive words like mad, sad, glad.  But the vocabulary of feelings takes many pages of three columned, tiny, single-spaced words and short phrases.  For most of us, that vocabulary is very limited.   Yet we all experience multihued feelings that leaves us shrugging our shoulders when we try to describe them.  Therapist are talking more and more about “Emotional Intelligence” (in my opinion a poor description of the study) to describe this struggle we have with feelings.  (See the link below for a Wikipedia article on the topic.)  I prefer the term, InSoul to describe our ability to identify and address the feelings that rise from deep within our soul.

InSoul, or Soul Awareness, is a skill that takes time to learn.  We all feel our feelings.  But to be able to identify and acknowledge them requires an intimate contact with our inner lives.  We may tell ourselves that we feel a particular way because others expect us to feel that way.  We may convince ourselves that we are experiencing a feeling because it is in our best interest to do so.  Or we may refuse to admit that we are feeling anything at all because to do so would make us vulnerable to others and perhaps open us to a flood of uncontrollable emotions.  It takes more than feeling our feelings.  We need to be able to accept responsibility for them.  We need to be InSoul.

There is a great deal that needs to be said about being InSoul but my space is limited.  I will leave you with three brief thoughts to help you consider your own ability to be InSoul. 

First, your feelings belong to you.  No one gave them to you.  No one caused them.  They rose within your soul because of who you are, who you were, and who you are becoming.  Own your authentic feelings.  They are your most human side.

Second, recognize that you do not control your feelings.  You cannot make them or make them go away.  They are a fact of your very being.  Feelings happen and there is nothing we can do about them.  Ignoring them will not make them go away.  They are still there waiting for an opportunity to express themselves.

Third, we can control how we respond to our feelings.  We cannot stop the anger, but we can control how we express it.  By accepting the responsibility for how we express them, we can minimize the damage that they can cause and maximize the benefits they bring to a healthy, well- lived life.

To be InSoul in a relationship is to be able to identify and respond appropriately to the feelings that are stirred within us during a relationship.  Healthy, life-giving relationships can only develop when we are InSoul.

Have you ever sat with someone who was deeply upset and you began to feel you stomach tighten?  Have you ever shared tears with someone who lost someone deeply important to them?  It is an unstated fact that many times emotions are contagious.  We begin to experience the sensations and emotional states of other people’s feelings when we have a close, empathic relationship.  This sharing of feelings is a key to the closest relationships we have but can also be shared with others to whom we relate in a meaningful way.  This soul-to-soul communication makes it imperative that we develop a keen awareness of our own internal state.  It leads to a better understanding of ourselves and of those around us.  It promotes meaningful relationships and helps us to avoid destructive relationships.  Our tips this week will offer ways to get in touch with our own feelings and the waves of feelings that come out of empathetic relationships.

Developing Soul Awareness  

What is my body saying?

Next time you are surprised by your reaction to someone or something, do a quick body check.

Is my face or neck flushed and hot?  Are my fists clenched?  Am I leaning into or out of the conversation?  Is my mouth dry? Are my eyes leaking?  Am I standing slumped or fully erect?  Is my breathing increased?  Is my stomach tight?  Am I smiling? 

What might these physical facts say about my emotional state?  Am I surprised by what I thought I was feeling and what my body is suggesting?

Developing Empathy

Watch a TV drama with the sound turned off.  Pay attention to the story and observe the actor’s physical actions. Silently name the emotions you are observing.  Pay attention to how your body is reacting to these actors and the conversation taking place in your own mind.

For some people empathy is second nature.  For others, it is an acquired skill.  If you find yourself struggling to empathize with others return to the exercise on developing your own soul awareness and seek to better understand your own emotions.

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Body Language

Developing Empathy

When I was growing up, we had a large pecan tree that grew next to the steps of the back porch.  It had a small limb that grew out over the steps and anyone over five feet tall had to dodge it.  My Mom wanted it gone so I found a saw and started working on it.  Being easily distracted, I turned my eyes off the sawing and watched the dogs playing in the backyard.  Not one of my finer moments.  In a couple minutes I felt something warm running down my thumb.  When I looked back, I had sawed into the top of my thumb, nail and all.  The strangest part of the moment was that I did not feel the pain until I saw the wound.  Until that moment, my thumb was numb.

Soul weariness is much like sawing into our lives and not feeling the pain.  There are times when our soul comes under attack by so many emotions, that it simply shuts down.  We become numb to the world around us and to the world within us.

The feelings are turned off.  Anger, shame, guilt, embarrassment, sadness, as well as more positive emotions do not happen.  We enter a trance like state and lose the lively inner dialogue that enriches our lives.  And, because our energy flows out of our soul and its emotional responses to the world, we go to sleep.  No emotions.  No energy.  Just sleep.

There is something within us that shuts down these emotions when they become too much to bear.  It is especially true for those experiencing powerful emotions like those that come with deep grief.  (But, they can also occur in moments of overwhelming joy.)  Something within us does not want to “feel” anymore.  Our lives may go on auto-pilot and we see ourselves from outside. It is as if we are observing a movie of our life.  We watch but have no influence over person we see or the circumstances we are watching.

Soul-weariness is a natural part of our inner lives.  It offers us a break from overwhelming emotions and circumstances.  But, if it goes on too long, it can be as debilitating as a stroke.  When we feel the warm essence of our life pouring out of some unknown wound, focus on the pain and locate the wound.  For only then will we be able to stop the bleeding and find ways to heal.  

Soul weariness has been likened to sleep-walking.  Waking a sleep walker can be very dangerous.  They may startle and fall or otherwise injure themselves.  The same applies to dealing with soul weariness.  We need to become mindful of our pain, but we need to do so in ways that prevent us from hurting ourselves. We should not do on our own.  The goal is to locate the wound and finding ways to provide “first aid” and then longer-term healing.  A companion can help us do so safely.

First, sit with a trusted companion, someone who knows you well enough to have a good understanding of what is going on inside of you.  Share your experiences with them.   Listen carefully as they respond to you.  (They may be the only one who can get you out of bed.)

Second, give your pain or joy its day while you sit with your companion.  Tears are okay.  Allow your companion to sit quietly without any expectations of them other than their presence.  Give yourself the time you need to move through those initial feelings.

Third, surround yourself with people you trust and who remind you of the better parts of yourselves.  Open your senses to the world around you.  Allow yourself to respond to those experiences.

Lastly, as your soul begins to engage the world, allow your life to flow through your spirit once again.  Allow the inner dialogue to resume.  As you awaken to yourself and the world around you, there may be moments of relapse.  But that is okay.  Return to your companion.  Give the feelings their day.  Open yourself to the world beyond and within.  Live with the love and trust, joy and hope that will bring meaning and contentment back into your life.

(If you are troubled by how long your soul weariness has taken and it has severely disrupted your life, it may be time to seek professional support.  Find a professional that you trust and allow them to be your companion through this wilderness.)

Some Causes of Soul Weariness

A Forum on Feeling Numb

Soul Numbing and PTSD

This is the fourth in our discussions of self-care when all is well.  We have explored ways to care for the body and the mind.  This week I want to explore ways that we can take care of our soul, the deepest, inner experiences that we have of our ourselves and the world around us.  This is the realm of the “lions, tigers, and bears” of life.

The key to soul care is to stay open to the mystery and the awe it evokes in the human spirit.  Writers have referred to this as the great unknowing or that which both draws us in and causes us to tremble.  It may be the moment when we held our child for the first time.  It may be a moment when the sunset swept through your soul with a wave of sudden stillness.  It could be a moment when you became lost in the eyes of your beloved.  Such moments offer our soul a brief respite from the day to day bumps and bruises of life.  They soothe the savage beast  within and bring peace and wholeness to a life being pulled apart.

Unfortunately, we lose our of sense of mystery in the day-to-day business of living.  We learn to stop asking questions that do not serve our daily necessities.  We avoid looking at the margins or into the shadows because there is too much to deal with that has no apparent practical implications for living.  We have little time for art, music, or poetry because we have a “life to live.”

But, when things are going well and life is running on a more or less even keel, you may want to spend a little time rediscovering mystery in your life.  Pay attention to the world on the periphery of your daily living.  Listen to the music rather than use it to cover up the silence.  Allow the colors of the sunset to resonate with the deep chords of your life.  Look into the eyes of the one who walks at your side and feel the stirrings of re-belonging that rises up from the depths.

Such moments not only allow us to lay aside the worries and fears of the day, but reawaken the desire live deeply, meaningfully, and fully.  They draw us in and lead us out into a world where wonder, awe, and mystery become companions in our daily walk.  Re-discover mystery!

Just as our mind and body need regular rest in sleep, our soul needs time to step back from the fray of daily living.  We need a regular time to listen to the inner synphony and allow the soul to rest calmly in the unknowing, the mystery.

Traditionally, this is called meditation.  If you already have a meditative practice that works for you, use it regularly, daily if possible.  Let it help you to find that inner sense of peace and calm.  If you do not, here is an idea you can use.


Go to   12 Steps to Meditation at Mindbodygreen.com

Why Meditate?

MindBodyGreen.com

6 Steps to Meditation

Have you ever found yourself feeling lost and having no clue how to find your way?  This is the classic lost soul.  We are not lost in the world around us.  Rather, we are lost in our inner world, the realm of our deepest lives.  We may be able to find our way to work and home, but may we no longer feel any joy or purpose in making the journey.  We may continue to enjoy relationships with family and friends, but we may hear a voice within calling us a fraud or unworthy of such relationships.  Such lostness becomes a barrier to moving forward.  It prevents us from investing ourselves in ourselves or our daily living.  We find ourselves stranded on the deep shoals of pain.  We simply try and ride out the storms. 

We may feel “Lost in a Fog.”  The clouds of uncertainty or doubt surround our will.

We may feel “Lost at Sea.”  The crashing waves of emotion lead to losing hope of charting a new course.

We may feel “Lost in Space.”   We are overwhelmed by the stars that are supposed to guide us. We give up trying to read the charts.

The path ahead has disappeared.  We are dis-oriented.  We cannot make up our mind about which way to go or if we should “go” at all. 

Regardless of how and where we experience our inner lostness, it turns us away from taking care of the precious inner experiences of ourselves.  We may become abusive to the child within. We may give up on the inner voice that has always talked us through such moments. We may even hold a funeral for the life we have lost.  

I don’t know about you but I am a little depressed.  All this talk of being lost and funeral-holding is not very uplifting.  But then, that is precisely the point.  This soul lostness only becomes a barrier when we give it that power. 

Each of us carries a pouch full of charts.  Some are old and dusty while others are crisp and new.  They offer us guidance and waypoints that tell us we are on the “right” path. 

These charts go by the name of expectations.  They are the expected paths.  They are the paths we have charted and those charted for us by others.  The problem is that these maps grow out-of-date very quickly, especially when our lives become more and more complicated.  These expectations grow cold as we move away from the circumstances that created them. 

Allow yourself to wander.  As an old friend of mine used to say, “We ain’t lost, we got a half tank of gas!”  As long as there is gas in the tank, we are not lost.  We are on an unexpected adventure.

Throwing away the chart allows us to let go of the energy we have invested in a particular path and use it to see the opportunities that surround us.

This week’s tip offers you a way to set aside the expectations for a few days. 

Take a few moments each day and list your hopes and dreams for tomorrow on a 4X6 card.

At the end of the next day, look back at your cards.   Note any opportunities that arose that you used to meet that hope or dream.  Then note the opportunities that you let slip through your fingers.

After a few days, spend time with your cards and affirm the intuition that allowed you to claim and use the opportunities that led you to your hopes and dreams.  Repeat this tip until you learn to trust your inner sense of direction more than the dusty old charts (expectations) in your memory.

By staying open to the many paths and opportunities that lead to where you want to end up, you will feel the adventure and find the joy. 

The adventure awaits!

Symptoms of a Lost Soul

Feeling Lost

Finding Ourselves

Everyone goes through stressful times in the life.  There may be too much to do and too little time to do it.  There are days when we are asked to stretch and bend our lives beyond what we believe is possible.  During such times we simply do our best to survive.

Unfortunately, when the stressful time passes our soul is often very low in energy.  We have used up everything we have just to get by and now we find ourselves struggling to get out of bed.  In such moments we need to be on the lookout for one of three signs of a stressed soul.

The first is Soul Weariness.  When our soul is filled with weariness we find ourselves say, “I don’t care!”  We have trouble mustering the energy to deal with the stuff that comes up.  We may let a phone call go unreturned.  We may throw a frozen dinner in the microwave rather than cook a nourishing meal.  “Not caring” is seldom caused by laziness or a lack of concern.  In such moments we may feel guilty for taking the short-cut.  But we do it anyway.  We just don’t have the energy to do anything else.  Soul weariness can destroy lives and careers when it is not addressed.  When it gets to this level we call it burnout!

A second sign of soul stress is Soul Sadness.  It is not simply that we do not care, but a growing feeling that “It doesn’t matter.”  No matter what we do, it will not change the outcome.  We may even keep on doing what we are supposed to do but we put no energy into it.  We “go through the motions.”  As hope wanes, our sense of despair may grow.  Our ability to be engaged in our life in a meaningful way disappears.  We may feel that we would rather lay in bed and pull the covers over our head.  Soul Sadness does destroy lives.  When it gets into the most extreme range it is called depression.  It can then become a leading cause of suicide.

A third and final sign of soul stress is the Soulquake.  Like the name suggests, this occurs when frustration or anger, or envy trigger a seismic event in our soul.  It is usually a sudden outburst that surprises everyone involved, including ourselves.  It could be a lashing out at someone who just happened to be in the way, or a deep burning anger that will not go away.  It can also show itself as a panic attack when all we want to do is run and keep on running.  Soulquakes occur when the soul feels confounded and confused.  It will drain away the last remaining energy the spirit has and then explode.  These events destroy relationships and lives.  When it reaches its most extreme it can lead to violence against others and ourselves.

These signs of soul stress should not be ignored.   Very few who experience them move into burnout, depression or murderous rage.  But even in the lesser levels they lead to broken lives, broken hearts, and broken relationships.

A soul besieged by stress will find itself in trouble.  Sometimes it forces us into an unintentional time of rest in a hospital or on the unemployment line.  But there is a better way.  It begins by dealing with it when you first notice the signs.

The ancient wisdom for addressing soul stress is simply “stillness.”  This is a stillness of mind, body, and soul.  Such stillness allows the energy to flow back into our spirit rather than being burned up in worry, empty busyness, and anxiety.  It breaks the cycle that causes soul stress to spiral down into the more serious experiences of burnout, depression, and violence.  There are three simple steps to developing a discipline for stillness.

Step One – Plug the Leak.  Try to get out of the environment that is causing you to dwell on the source of your stress.  This may mean breaking a routine or finding a quiet place in your home or neighborhood.  One of the people I assisted put a light in a large closet and put a sign of the door that read “Occupied!”  It became her retreat.  Others may find a quiet spot in a park or spot on the beach.  It is important to plug the leaking energy that the soul stress is draining away.  This will allow your soul to use that energy to bring healing.

Step Two – Quiet the Body and Mind.  Many will tell me that they have to be active to relax.  I can appreciate their belief.  I to do not sit still very well either.  But to adequately address the soul weariness, stillness of mind and body allows the soul to draw upon all the energy it has available.  To cope with negative thoughts, the soul needs all the energy it can muster to allow hope to blossom.  To cope with anger and bitterness, the soul needs a great deal of energy to be able explore the positive feelings that are being starved.  Some may use meditation.  Others may us a contemplative practice.  But if you can find a place apart from the source of stress and bring quiet to your mind and body, your soul will begin to heal itself.

Step Three – Allow the Soul to Heal – In those moments, the soul will begin to rebuild lost connections between your yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  It will refill the reserves of love and trust.  It will begin to restore your ability to experience joy and feel hope.  You will begin to feel like yourself once again. 

It is better to do this for 15 - 30 minutes a day than it is to put it off until you can take a day or a week.  Stillness is a skill that is learned by disciplined practice.  So that, when you find yourself experiencing soul stress, your mind-body-soul will know what to do to renew your spirit.

Chronic Stress

Paths to Stillness

Seeking Stillness

We are, by nature, doers.  We are what we do.  Many carry names that described what one of our ancestors did for a living.  Fisher, Smith, Taylor are all surnames that grew out of someone’s doing.  When asked to describe ourselves, most will start by giving our “doing” label like mother, mechanic, nurse, or student.

We know ourselves by our doing.  We use our mind to plan and organize our doing.  We then engage our body to do the doing.  We will spend the bulk of our day doing something.  We will use the largest portion of our energy doing this or that.  We work, play games, read, travel, or write.  The most common way that we get to know ourselves is by our doing!

However, if we only see ourselves as “doing of life” we can easily ignore the most unique and precious part of ourselves, our soul.  Our souls do not “do”, they “be.”  To ignore our being leads to an exhaustion that goes beyond words.  We do, and do, and do until we feel empty and worn out.  We drag ourselves to bed and collapse.  Our spiritual energy has been used up.  We feel drained.  This is especially true when our doing feels pointless. 

Doing requires energy and motivation.  As we become tired and the motivation ebbs, the doing becomes harder.  What we need is a break, a time to simply “be”.  To rest and renew.  To restore and recover our motivation.  To ignore this time of being is to drain the joy from our living and place ourselves on the edge of burnout. 

Take care of your soul.  Give it time to simply be.  Allow yourself the emotional space to step back from the doing and spend time with you without the need to do anything.  Give yourself permission to just be who you are and let your soul come out to play!

Bob

Today’s tip is the mini-vacation, a short period of time when you enjoy just being who you are without the need to do or achieve anything.  It is a time when you become mindful of who you are apart from all your activity.  It is an opportunity to get in touch with you.

There are several ways to take this vacation.  It may involve:

1)    Setting aside 10 – 15 minutes in your day.  This should be a time when you are least likely to be disturbed.  (I have known folks who hid in the closet after supper.)

2)    Find a comfortable sitting position with your head fully supported on your spinal column and your arms uncrossed.  You may sit in a chair or on the floor.

3)    Allow yourself to let go of all the things you have to do at the moment.  If you are really anxious about them, write them down on a slip of paper and put it in your pocket and then forget about them, for now.  If a thought comes up, acknowledge it and set it aside.

4)    Close your eyes and become accustomed to the inside of your eyelids.  Allow yourself to get lost in that world.

5)    Focus your attention on your breathing.  Follow the rhythm.  Feel the sensations that each breath makes in your mouth or nose.  Listen to its sound.  Imagine each exhale carrying a little bit of tension or concern with it as you release it into the air.

6)    Finally, focus your attention on the quiet that is rising within.  When an external sound intrudes, acknowledge it and let it go.  Do not do anything.  Focus on the silence with in.

7)    When you are ready, open your eyes slowly and allow the world back into your life.  Take a deep breath and exhale very slowly.  Savor the calm.

Again, there are multiple ways to take this mini-vacation.  Find what works best for you.  There are Apps for your phone that can assist you by providing music, nature sounds, and a timer.  However, the “how you do this” is not nearly as important as making the space for it in your life.  Make it fun and something you look forward to.  Enjoy the time you take to just be with yourself.  Enjoy the journey!

5 Mini Meditations

Mini Moments of Calm

Apps for Meditation

More Apps for Meditation