After a bit of soul searching (guilt?) I gave my daughter off from school yesterday. She was dragging for various reasons, had a test ahead of her, and a big first event at her accepted college coming up, and I just knew that she couldn’t give her best without some R&R. That same morning I received my daily Note from the Universe, Mike Dooley’s awesome, witty, wise and humorous emails I find in my in-box (I always wonder how he has been able to come up with them for all these years…). It read, “What if it was your downtime, your lounging-in-bed-too-long time, your walkabout time, and your blow-Friday-off time, that made possible your greatest achievements? Would they still make you feel guilty? Or would you allow yourself to enjoy them?” It was a confirmation that I had made the right decision.
We need in between downtime, not the big vacation time, but instead boring time, nothing time, rest time, decompression time, staring-in-the-air time, sleep time, meditation time, a walk in the woods, a day off, or doing-something-creative time. This time serves as a germination period, time to collect yourself, time to reboot. It settles down the mental dust, reshuffles our outlook on priorities, and gives us back our energy.
Nature has its wintertime to begin the growth cycle from scratch again each spring. We can’t wait that long, and we can’t take off that long (although it sure sounds enticing). And please enjoy that down time before you get worn down, that way you can truly savor it instead of nursing your cold in bed feeling lousy. Here an earlier post along those lines.