Maybe this is not your cup of tea, but that’s just fine, skip the Sunday posts :)
What’s it about? Well we all know there is a connection between our mind, body and soul. When we are sad, we cry; when something good or funny happens, we smile; when we exhaust ourselves we also exhaust our mind and our soul. In hectic times it gets pretty easy to ignore our needs. Why sleep 7 or 8 hours when your body can also function on much less; why eat healthy when there is junk food just a phone call away; why exercise when your body seems to function well enough without it ? The answers are simple, because you and your body need it! So join me on this journey, get on the train and enjoy the ride.
Everybody needs a safe haven
All of us need a place to unwind, spend some time alone, chill out and reflect. Being alone helps us to find inner peace, encourages thought and gives us time to revitalize so we can resurface with the energy to handle any problem that lies ahead. So here is the first step on your journey: Find or create a safe haven. Spend some time exploring your neighbourhood or your home and look for a recuperative place where you can be alone with yourself and your thoughts. Be creative; a park bench can be your place, the bathtub or shower can be too, that sunny spot in your living room/garden or how about a quiet place near water. It doesn’t have to be a grand place, it’s just has to be comfortable and free of distractions. That means no phone, no (or nearly no people), no computer and no TV. You are looking for a place that will recharge your batteries and not a place that will drain them.
I actually have several places and my favourite place is the shower. The reason for this is more practical than anything else. No matter where you go there most likely will be a shower :) My second place is that sunny corner in my bedroom and I have a little quiet place by the river which is deserted most of the time.
Once you found your place, spend 10 minutes there and do absolutely nothing. Just sit there quietly, notice what it feels like to be still. What do you hear, what do smell? Enjoy your time alone, try to relax and let go of your problems and hectic activities. They will still be there when you leave your newly discovered sanctuary. Forget about them for a moment. Now that you have found a secluded area for yourself you know you always have a place to go to when your batteries need recharging. No matter where you are, you’ll know that you have a tranquil place waiting for you.
“Seek a sanctuary,
Respect it, as it is holy,
Walk into it with a bare mind, bare feet and plain clothing,
Nurture your body, mind and spirit,
Leave it with a pure heart until you find your way to it again.”
Master Jin Kwon
Reasons to be cheerful:
1. Trying new things.
2. The smell of coffee in the morning
3. Invitations to Birthday parties.
14 comments:
This is a great idea! I'm going to follow your sunday post with excitment. This one has been a good start.
But take care of you and don't exaggerate using the shower as your special place, I don't want to hear in the news, that they found an enormous raisin in a shower in Spijkenisse ;-)
Whahahahaha….. an enormous raisin. LOL! Wanderingthinker. You know that would be a very small raisin….. of course ;) I don’t stand under a hot shower the whole time. Never heard of alternating hot and cold showers? :) But seriously, I only use the shower as my special place when I can’t find peace elsewhere or when I am away from home.
Thanks for following this; I hope it will help you on your quest :)
I tried it Dakota, but I think I'm going to have to practice doing nothing...I only made it to six minutes!
great advice. i have a purple sanctuary & i currently share it with a bootiful man. thanks for these wonderful reminders {{Dakota}}
Don’t give up Zoom!. This might sound strange, but doing absolutely nothing takes some practice. Maybe these few tips will help: Set a (kitchen) timer or your alarm for ten minutes, so you don’t have to check your watch or clock. If that does not work, start out with doing nothing for 5 minutes, make it 6 the next day and so on and so on. If you get distracted, close your eyes. You can do this, just practice and don’t be too hard on yourself when it’s tough at first……every minute of rest and relaxation you can get still is bonus :)
You’re welcome Boo. A purple sanctuary ……wow, now I am jealous ;)
I have trouble doing that but I do try to observe different things everyday (or the same things differently) It is surely worth a try. Now that summer is here and the pool is warming up. I hope to get back to floating on my back gazing at the stars
(nekkid of course because it's my pool ;-)
It is one of my favorite peaceful things to do
Even a very small women of around 1,50 m height would make a really big raisin after beeing watered for hours ;-) compared to an original raisin.
Silly me! And I've always thought, that it's the water that makes me crumpling and not the temperature ...
So, I'm not fully convinced and I'm still seeing some dangers involved in this practice. Besides I'm too wimpy for warm and cold showers...
Wow, Phil I want to float on my back gazing at the stars too. It sounds like such a great place to have as a little sanctuary. I hope you can enjoy your pool a lot this summer :) Keep watching those stars!
Oops,Wanderingthinker I thought you meant I would start to look like a raisin all shrivelled up, but you meant all swelled up like a soaked raisin :) Silly me!
I don’t know if it is the heat or the water, in my opinion it’s a combination of the two. Either way staying to long under a hot shower or in a hot bath is never a great idea. Your skin will dry out too much :) But I’ll promise you, I won’t stay in the shower for hours :)
This is a lovely idea - I look forward to Sundays. I cleared out my study yesterday and banned the children from using it for a week. (They use the computer for homework if they need the internet). I think my sanctuary is my bed. I made an autohypnosis CD called 'Sanctuary' where you make your own internal sanctuary space - it's very powerful for deep relaxation. The CD only lasts 10 minutes and one of my chronic pain clients said it was 'better than morphine'!!
Wow, that must be one powerful CD Snowqueen. Maybe you should sell it or made it available for download (with directions for use of course)or something. A lot of people, like chronic pain patients, could really use something like that :)
You're doing a lot better than me on all the happy stuff.
I'm struggling at the moment, but a lot of your words are wise and little havens are something I had long forgotten about. I used to have many places when I was younger, but stuff like that faded out over the years! :(
I have good and bad days too, DoGGa. I am a born pessimist, so being happy and optimistic is kind of a tough job for me, but I’ve learned that I can choose to be happy and optimistic.
I’ve been very depressed for quite a long time and at one point I had two choices: either I could hope to die soon or I could get out of bed and start living again. I choose the latter and changed my whole life around. Nowadays I’ve a lot of reasons to be depressed about (according to others) but I “simply” refuse to let the darkness back into my life. I worked too hard for this.
I sincerely hope that things will improve for you soon. I know what it’s like to be depressed, down, walking in the shadows, lonely, stressed, unhappy, sad or whatever……it’s ghastly (and that’s a big understatement). Feel better soon {{DoGGa}}!
Wow... Thanks for sharing that Dakota, as I'm a natural born pessimist too and find it really hard to change and when I think I've got the hang of the optimistic stuff and feel great, it just slips away again and I have to start from scratch.
A very laborious cycling process, but as you say, you just have to start living again.
Cheers Dakota! xxx
No problem, DoGGa.
I was like that too. The moment you feel better, you start to forget all the things you have just learned because you think you don’t need them anymore. WRONG! But I guess it’s like the song says “You live, You learn”
Take care and if there is anything I can do to help, please let me know :)
xoxo
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