In our 24/7 paradigm, most of us are overstimulated without even trying to be. The amount of noise, obstacles, emails, calls, traffic, conversations, requests and tasks we tend to each day can leave our nervous systems with little reserve.
We may not even fully realize how the way marketers fear, scarcity and urgency tactics coming at us from all directions impacts our psyches. Nor how the 24 hour news cycle covering the humanitarian and environmental crisis that we face impacts our state of mind.
Having kept our wits about us and put our best foot forward throughout the day, we come home in the evening, head into the weekend or leave for that hard-earned vacation at our wit’s end.
Without thinking about it we tend to check-out when what would benefit us most is to check-in.
Most of us unconsciously lean into coping strategies that are closely tied to our nature (natural attributes and characteristics) and our nurture (our internalization or resistance to the things that are modeled to us).
The main question is whether we are mindful of the choices we are making and clear on what they give rise to with respect to our physical, emotional, mental wellbeing and the quality of our relationships.
With the Sun in Pisces illuminating the Half Moon in Sagittarius, it is the perfect time to consider how we can bring balance to our lives in terms of taking time to be still, quiet, feel and explore internally (Pisces) AND extend, connect, expand, seek and enjoy external pleasure (Sagittarius).
Between now and the Full Moon in Pisces, I invite you to join me in a fact finding mission. And, then, join me in a Free Self-Mastery Session to reflect upon your data to learn about what it would mean to put in place a reasonable doable game plan to support you to check-in more and check-out less.
The aim is to identify the ways we check-out and learn about what we actually are needing and how we can lean into the things that help us to check-in. This will allow us to actually meet the needs that our unconscious patterns fail to address. With mindfulness and awareness, we can more effectively tend to our bodies, minds and nervous systems to give us what we need to maintain equilibrium.
From here we can make conscious choices that contribute to our relaxing, rejuvenating and unwinding in ways that prepare us to take more pleasure in our free time and connect more meaningfully with the people our love.
If you are in, I invite you to make a commitment to track how you spend your free time over the next week. Imagine that you are a documentarian just looking to document a week in the life of this fascinating creature that is you.
No judgment, just curiosity.
Get a small journal or, even better, take time this weekend to make one with some cardboard and some copy paper and collage it with images and words that reflect how you desire to feel in your free time.
Write on a blank page an intention for this exploration, list a few things you would like to learn.
Write a statement of commitment to see it through, to enter data into it at least once a day from Monday the 10th through Sunday the 17th.
Each day take a few moments to chronicle your activities considering the following questions:
When, where and what you eat and how it makes you feel.
How much time and in what ways you are on your screens and how it makes you feel.
How much alcohol or other substances you consume, how do you feel as you take it in, before you go to bed and in the morning?
Where, how, what and how much you watch TV? Are you alone or with someone?
When, where and how much you engage in movement and how you feel before, during and after?
What media outlets you consume and how it makes you feel?
Do you have news programming on as you do other things and how does it impact you?
When do you engage with friends or family, what is the quality of the engagement and how you feel?
What time do you engage in hobbies, outings or things that allow you to express creativity or just for your own pleasure and how you feel?