Empty Time

Greetings all,

Here we are the last week of the first month of the new year.  We're just about 1/12 of the way through the year.  Time flies right?

This week has been about making it easy for myself.  The flu has been circulating around the gym where I teach and I had been feeling under the weather.  I made the call to not swim and not strain myself.  So most of my activity this week has been due to my Tai Chi classes and Qi Gong workshop.  It is winter after all and January through February tends to be when my personal rhythms are the slowest.  Trying to keep moving and productive often results in burnout and depression.  If I do get sick during this time frame I start thinking that I am probably dying.  When that happens  I just remind myself it's late January, I always think I'm dying in late January.

Structure tends to help with moods in the darker seasons, but since I am mostly self employed it is up to me to provide it.  I sometimes make the mistake over scheduling myself in a way that in the summer might be just fine, but in the winter leaves me exhausted.  There are times when people ask me if I want to do something and I am tempted to make up some other obligation so I can just stay in and relax with a book.  It's actually good for me to have some of that empty time, particularly in these  low ebb months.  I like company and people to a point.  After that point, well I remember one time I threw someone out of my friend's house because I was done with people for the night.  (My friend thanked me for it later).

Society treats people like mechanisms rather than biological organisms.  We have to be responsive to the environmental conditions we find ourselves in.  We are not clockwork automatons, but living creatures with needs that vary from one season to the next.  We have been brought up to believe in the myth of the "busy", idle hands and all that nonsense.  There is a time for doing and a time for being.  If you cut out or cut short the being time, the doing is not going to be done quite so well.

So why am I telling you this?  Well you may be trying to barrel full steam ahead against the needs of your body and mind.  Now while you may have little control over your work schedule, you certainly have much more over your personal life.  It may require you to disappoint some folks, but you never know they may take a page out of your playbook and give themselves permission to just be.  Other than your true obligations (work, caregiving, etc...) you really have a lot more leeway than you think. So I say don't plan anything if you don't feel like it. If people press you because you have that sudden opening just say you have an appointment.  The appointment could be you, the couch, and a warm blanket, but that's your business not theirs.  Take care of yourself and your time.  If you don't no one else will.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle