Cherry Tree Swing, Japan
People focus on doing things differently and plunging into new habits or regimens with the New Year. However, there’s something lush and delightful in taking a step back. In all the rushing that we do throughout the year lots of things we would like to do or used to do get set aside for “later.” You know, life dictates that we need to do this instead of that, we stop having a lot of free time, we spend all of our free time being exhausted from all of our doing and rest just enough to get up and start doing again… So New Year resolutions tend to be a means of forcing ourselves to do yet one more thing instead of a way to heal and course correct from the corner we’re painting ourselves into.
It’s funny and seems counter productive, but taking time out to not push ahead, not force a new way of being into being, not trying to wind ourselves around one more artificial way of being which is “good for us” can help us leap ahead effortlessly. The key is in allowing ourselves to take time out and retrieve some of what we’ve set aside. Taking a step back from the rhythm of the road and allowing ourselves free time to just be. I find that we instinctively know what we actually need if we allow ourselves to not make schedules or plan. Taking the pressure off of life and granting large tracts of unstructured time can turn someone who lives in chronic clutter and mess into someone who feels a creative urge which turns their space into an artistic wonder. Having free time that is more than just the triage that heal exhaustion can help us remember who we used to be and the dreams we used to have.
Most people complain that all they do when they have free time is sleep and possibly read. What I would point out is that this isn’t free time at all. This is a huge lie we tell ourselves. This time is required healing from the exertions we have made throughout the day, week, month, year and is not free to us. In fact, we owe ourselves much more of it than we allow and it’s not who we are when we’re not pushing ourselves to be productive, it’s who we are when we have been mistreated, over used and a bit abused. It is who we are when we are healing. Our true nature lies beyond this. It lies in the actual free time that happens after we’ve given ourselves enough healing time to begin recovery. It’s the us that awakens when we have our energy back and we’re not slamming it into another task or project or requirement. It’s the us that refuses to perform on demand, that only peeks out in the quiet moments, that can change the world in an hour and reawaken us to wonder and bliss.
If we just allow ourselves to have a bit of free time, we can remember what we used to do, who we used to be, what we used to like, and when we do we open the door to new discoveries because that was then…who we are now is the yet to be explored.
