CARVE some time for yourself

"You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection." – Buddha

Please note that the strong proactive word of “carve” is an intentional replacement of the word take in the all too familiar phrase of “take time for yourself.” I don’t know about you, but that phrase always make me cringe a bit. (Although you will continue to find me using it throughout the course of this blog.) But here is what goes through my head when I read or hear the phrase, “Like I don’t have enough to do already without adding one more thing. I can hardly keep up with all that I’ve created in my life already.” Anyway… if you aren’t taking time to care of yourself — body, mind. heart and soul — chances are you are actually losing time, health, and energy.

Finding time that you didn’t have before to take better care of yourself can be difficult but it is important for so many reasons. I’m sure you can think of a few yourself! Let’s come back to that idea of "carving." Imagine a fine Renaissance sculpture… think Michaelangelo’s David perhaps. Now consider the skill, and planning, and time that must have gone into this sculpture. To carve you have to take away from one thing to create something new and potentially more beautiful or satisfying. There’s no going back either. You can’t just glue on what you took off. (Here you might think of the Venus di Milo — sans arms.) So, feel free to create time for yourself a small bit at a time. The breathing exercise from yesterday is a fantastic start.

I mentioned in the beginning of this blog that I am not encouraging New Year’s resolutions. I am however encouraging a time of reflection. Perhaps you can think of one or more unhealthy habits or experiences that are using up your time without giving you anything meaningful in return. Take time to observe. What energizes you? What drains you? What can you release so that you will have time to do something more meaningful or beneficial for yourself or others?

By the way… me?... I’m a “piddler.” I take forever to decide what I’ll do next and what order I should do it in. Then I second guess it all. I’m working on being more spontaneous and efficient in my decision-making and not worrying “too” much about each and every detail. Right now I'm resisting the urge to re-read this more than twice. So for all you detail oriented people please forgive the typos and grammar errors;-) Sometimes you just gotta’ flow. Or so I suspect?????

Carve time today…  peel away one little thing that drains you to make space for something that makes you feel alive and HAPPY. If you aren’t ready for the carving yet… plan it.