Take time for healing rest “Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a spring day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.” – John Lubbock, British statesman (1834-1913) We often get so caught up in the necessary duties we’ve assigned to ourselves in our recovery journey, important tasks such as going to 12-step meetings, working on the Twelve Steps with our sponsor, making lists of goals and constructing action plans on how to achieve them, taking care of our body, spending time with family, going to work or school or minding the home or home-based business, that we overlook another key element in our healing process. This is taking time for healing rest. This is more than just making sure we get an appropriate amount of sleep each night, although that is very much part of healing rest. No, what we’re referring to here is the kind of down-time that we allow ourselves to have to simply stare up at the sky, to close our eyes and listen to music or the sound of birds or children at play, to walk through the woods or by a lake or to frolic in the water with our children. Seemingly, this may be idle time, precious minutes and hours that we could be doing something more in line with our recovery tasks. But is this really frivolous? By all accounts, it is not only time well-spent, it is also an important part of our overall healing process. We all need respite from schedules and deadlines and things we absolutely have to get done. Whether it is a self-imposed deadline or one that we have to adhere to because of work or home or school, we can, nonetheless, become so preoccupied with these details and to-do lists that we fail to take time for ourselves. This is a mistake. It is also shooting ourselves in the foot. What will likely happen if we keep on at our current pace is that we will burn ourselves out, lose enthusiasm, be tempted to cut corners, give up on certain goals as unworkable or requiring too much effort, maybe even begin to doubt our commitment to sobriety. Some call this kind of spending time doing mostly nothing but dreaming meditation. It can be this, or it could be a way to get in touch with our inner selves. It could be a spiritual journey or pursuit or it could just be relaxing with nothing else on our minds. No matter which way we look at it, taking time for healing rest should certainly be part of our everyday lives. It doesn’t really take that much to qualify. Maybe we take a short 10 minutes to sit back and allow our thoughts to drift – preferably in an environment that’s free of jangling phones and people sliding documents in front of us to sign or take action on, away from homework and housework and paying the bills, totally separate from grocery shopping or running errands or taking out the trash. Think of someplace close by or otherwise accessible. Carve out some time to go and do nothing except relax and let the mind wander where it will. Be attentive to the sense of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. Really soak in the present. All the duties, tasks, assignments, projects and challenges will still be there when we get back. The difference is that we will be more able to deal with them, having cleared our mind and lightened the weight of all that tension and stress. We may even have arrived at some clever solution to a problem we’ve been wrestling with for some time. This often happens because our mind works in the background, even when we’re not concentrating on problem-solving, and it somehow makes things less convoluted so that the way around a difficulty is clearer and less difficult than we thought. Even if all we do is take the time to rest, we’re doing something incredibly valuable for our recovery. We’re giving ourselves time to heal. ~iPromises~ Jen
Posted on: Tue, 23 Jul 2013 11:56:16 +0000
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