Breathe in rest

This gentle sunset over Kinbane at Ballycastle makes me feel that my every breath while I look at it is more soothing. Bringing rest to my mind.

That's it for now.

Nics

Salt & Sparkle = life remarkable

Cows siesta

Today I am linking up with Darcy's P52 - theme of Siesta.  I took this picture from my hotel window in County Clare.  Why don't you join us here?

That's it for now ...

Nics

Salt & Sparkle = Life Remarkable

How to put your to do list on ice?

Yesterday, I made the choice to put my to do list on ice.  If you are anything like me, then your to-do list is long and heavy.  There's a lot to do, to just live life and it can take up a lot of time. 

Know that I am not complaining about my 'to do list' in fact I am thankful for it, and the ability to engage with it.  But I am also aware of the time I need to step back from it, to take a break.  This space to breathe, allows me to come back to the list with fresh eyes, and often a new perspective.  THings that seemed to be a problem at 9pm on a Friday night, no longer are an issue, because I have found a new way to look at them.

This past week, a pal challenged me to see who had the busier week.  Her or I?  She sent me a text message with her schedule and the words -beat that.  It was a crazy busy week for her.  But as I began to text back my week, I thought, 'gosh it is a crazy busy week for me too.'

I am not sure this exercise, did much for either of us, except possibly, make us sigh rather loudly and get back to it. 

The essentials of my week looked something like this -

Sunday - walk dogs, upload to ebay, 1pm choir performance at Titanic Belfast, 2.45pm take photographs of shipyard & docks, 3.30pm swim 1km, 5pm cook dinner, prepare for the incoming week

Monday - 6.45am spin, 9-5 work, 5.30 - 7pm interview for article, 7.30-10 choir practice - sleep

Tuesday - 9-5 work, 5.30-6.30pm meeting, 7pm emails, 7.30-9pm gym, home for some reading

Wednesday - 7am swim, 9-5 work, 1-2.30pm working lunch, 6pm soundcheck, 7-9 working dinner, 9.30pm choir performance - 11pm prepare papers for next day

Thursday - 9-5 work, 5.45-6.30pm spin, 6.45pm take Mum swimming (her first time back in the pool since her knee replacement, exercise is an essential part of her recovery), 7.30pm shopping, 8.30pm cook dinner, 9pm read articles, watch tv programme for work, 10.30pm pack for tomorrow

Friday - 6.45 gym, 9-5 work, lunch hour, finish article, 5.15pm buy a red top (I'd packed a pink one in my choir uniform bag, as my bedroom light had blown the night before), 6pm soundcheck for choir performance, 7.30-10pm choir concert, 11pm home and sleep

Saturday - sleep in until 9am, do household stuff, 10.30 pilates, 1230 take mums shopping, 3.30pm make a chocolate cake, 4pm help my sister to install some computer programmes, 5pm shopping for birthday party, 6.30pm ice chocolate cake, 7.30pm go to friends to cook her dinner for her birthday, 1230am bed

Hers was something similar but with more travel time.

In and around all of this, I was writing, praying, keeping on top of my to do list, answering and writing emails, reading and commenting on blogs, taking photographs, uploading my own blog posts, interacting with friends and family, writing & planning articles, researching future projects, as well as driving everywhere I needed to go, learning new music, and thinking, thinking, thinking etc etc etc

This is a fairly typical week for me, with the exception of the three choir performances.  Come Saturday evening, when I climbed into bed I was bushwacked.  Absolutely exhausted.  I knew I needed to take some time out the next day, which was Sunday.

My to-do list peaked out of my diary, shot me glances, willing me to start ticking it off. 

I chose to put it on ice it I made an intentional decision to rest.  To take a Sunday, or a Sabbath.  To connect with family and friends, to eat yummy food.  To watch tv.  To read the papers, to talk, to take a short walk, and to be in the moment. 

This was a conscious decision to rest.  To be aware that I had a million and one things to do, but to decide for my own peace of mind not to do them.

I decided to take time away from my computer, emails, social networking.  To not continuously check my phone, to not reply to emails.  To not constantly update my status or twitter.

To simply switch off

I know I need time out.  Time to breathe, and sit in the quiet.  I need to operate from a place of rest, to have the energy required to get through everything that needs to be done.

I know that if I do not make it a priority to move from a place of rest, that everything very quickly becomes too much.  I know I have to make an intentional decision to rest, to switch off.

But what about all those things that you needed to do?

They waited.  Like food that we keep cool so it doesn't spoil.  I kept them cool by putting them on ice.  We took a break my to do list and I.

Guess what?

The 'to do list' didn't have a nervous breakdown.  I didn't have a nervous breakdown. 

Those things that needed done, where still important but this morning they got my full attention.  I ticked them off the list, and moved on.  There wasn't a crisis.  My world didn't fall apart because I took some time out.  Instead, when I woke up this morning I felt like my mind had had a break.  I felt fresher, more energised and ready to face the week a head.

How to put your to do list on ice?

1. Make it intentional - decide when you are taking a break, write it down if you need to and stick to it
2. Tell people you won't be taking calls, or answering emails - set up an out of office
3. Decide not to care what is going on on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media site for the period of your break - turn off your notifications (in fact keep them off all the time)
4. Remember that there is nothing more important than operating from a place of rest - your body, soul, mind and spirit, all need rest and replenishment.  No matter how often you clean your inbox tomorrow it will always be full
5. Know that you don't have to go away to do this, you can take a break any time any place
6. Remember to breathe, and actually be conscious of your breath, this free life gift, that none of us did anything to earn, achieve or own - we simply have it, a free gift
7. Remember ice melts, this is a break it is not forever, and when you go back to your 'to do list' everything will be ready and waiting for you, just as if you never left it

Tell me, is rest important to you?  How do you rest, is it intentional?

What ways do you put your to do list on ice?

That's it for now ...

Nics

Salt & Sparkle = Life Remarkable

morning

My body is tired, it fights for breath.  I wake, reaching for the orange inhaler, that will ease the burning in my chest.  Two maybe three puffs, and I sink back into the pillows.  Breath comes easier now, not as jarred.  What time is it?  I reach for my phone, and bleary eyed try to focus on the small screen.  10.30am, I haven't overslept that much, but I am still tired. Yet not sleepy.  

Shafts of sunlight peer through my curtains.  Bright light, that makes me want to get up and run.  But not yet, I am still ill.

My morning pattern is disrupted.  My brain feels heavy, my mind anything but mindful. 

And, I am not happy.  

I know illness cannot be overcome without rest.  In the jumble that has become my morning,  nothing is quite what it seems or what I feel it should be.  Yet, I have to come to a place of acceptance, that without rest, I will not get better. 

I long to return to the time of up, and out on the road.  My breath hard and sharp again, but this time, because I am pushing, I am striding out.  Several miles later, I return.  I am free.  I am ready for interaction.  I can face my day.

In my head I am running.  

In the dawn's early light, when the only other souls up are farmer's or doctors returning bleary eyed from nightshifts.  My feet beat a rhytmn, my mind feels free, I am connected.  I am within nature.  A big sky stretches to the hills, clouds rest on her.

Several weeks now, without a run.  Several weeks of weak breath, and tiredness.  Of continual meds and higher doese.  Several weeks of weakness.  Several weeks please end today.

I slump back against the pillows, and dream for my morning's, my running, my freedom -  to return to me.

Soon.

What are you up to this morning?

I've hooked up with the write practice this morning, pondering on their prompt morning, I'd love to know what morning means to you?

That's it for now ...

Nics

Salt and Sparkle = Life Remarkable

WINNER & Winter Solstice

I am delighted to annouce the winner of my Giveaway for the BCGC cd 'FEEL THE JOY' is Jen - @jendropbucket - check out her fantastic blog here. Congratulations Jen, please drop me an email with your address, and your copy of 'Feel the Joy' will be on its way to you.

Keep your eyes peeled folks for a BRILLIANT giveaway that I have for January from Knitwits, a fantastic company I came across in Canada.

The Shortest Day – 21^st December

Importance of rest

December has been a whirlwind of activity and for many life has been so busy the words ‘stand still’ are an oxymoron.  Tiredness is beginning to set in, we still haven’t reached Christmas Day and all we want to do is snuggle up by the fire and snooze, waking up in time for spring. But Spring like Christmas day, and the birth of a baby that will change the world is coming, and the time of waiting is nearly over.

Today is the Winter Solstice – when the sun snuggles closer to the horizon than at any other time of the year.  Making this the darkest and shortest day - a day that has so little light we feel our energy dripping away in the gloom.   But it is also a day of hope because on the bright side the Winter Solstice is also the beginning of lengthening of days that lead to the summer solstice in June.  “Solstice" comes from Latin and means, "the sun stands still." After a month of madness, and a year that for some has been wonderful and others full of pain, maybe it is time for to stand still - to follow our natural inclination to hibernation and rest.

Rest – something we talk a lot about doing, or taking, but something especially at Christmas, that we feel guilty having because we feel we are too busy, and there is always something that needs to be done.  Yet without rest, we become weary, we become burdened, we become stressed, and in some cases we burn out.

So on this the darkest of days when we wait in hope for renewed light remember the words of that little baby we celebrate at Christmas, a man who knew about the importance of rest – Jesus -  ‘Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’  Don’t let Christmas come and go without taking a real rest – go on switch the blackberry off and do nothing, have forty winks, chillax and remember rest isn’t self-indulgent it’s essential.

Nicky Cahill November 2010 - the script above was written for me and broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster in December 2010.

That's it for now ...

Nics

Salt and Sparkle = Life Remarkable

31 days of Space - Rest - Five Minute Friday

Today I am linking up with The Gypsy Mama for Five Minute Friday, and with My3boybarians for 31 days of - hope you'll join me on both sites.

Five minute Friday

Go

Rest - someething we definitely don't get enough of.  We demand more and more and more, of our bodies, and when they protest, or get sick, or even - break down, we get angry, and will them to be instantly better, without much thought for them.  Or the fact that they do heal themselves, but the way they do this is through rest.

Sometimes, all we think about is what is happening inside our heads.  And, anything at all that gets in the way of what we have to do, is instantly shot to pieces.  We are busy, busy, busy people who lead increasingly packed lives, and the internet, that doesn't make it much better.  Hanging out on Facebook, typing on our phones, checking our twitter, or Google circle, or other social networks, none of those are restful, they engage, our minds, and our thumbs.

As do our endless to do lists, those telephone calls that just won't wait, those letters we have to write, things we have to pick up from the store, the house that needs tidied, the dinner that has to be cooked, that book that we so desperately want to read, the funeral, the wedding, the meeting, the briefing paper, the photographs, the dreams, the hopes, the journalling.  There is always so much to do, always.  And, you know what, let me, let you into a little secret, there always will be an endless amount of things to do.  Our inbox, even when we are dead will still be full.

We have to make a decision then to rest.  Like the one I am making now.  I haven't been very well for the past ten days, physically.  So I haven't been able to exercise, actually it was the last thing that was on my mind, but today I felt a bit better, and one of the first things that entered my head was, let's go for a run!

Seriously, have you ever heard of anything so silly or deluded.  A run, when for the past several days I have been seriously dehydrated.  Come on.  Needless to say, I took that thought and waved it farewell.

Rest is absolutely crucial to life.  

I think that God knew that, and he new that the the greatest temptation in our lives would be for us not to stop, to always want to fit that one last little thing in, for us not to rest. And, instead, always to be doing, going, being, busy, busy, busy.

But he put a premium on rest. He took a rest.  The creation story tells us that - God worked for seven days then he took a break, he signed out, he closed down his blackberry - he chillaxed!  Think about it, the first thing God did after He created man was rest, the first thing man did after he was created was rest.  I think a pretty important precedent was set here.  I think its a good example for us to follow.  

But I also think God showed us that it takes work to create rest.  And, that sometimes we have to work to take a rest, in that we have to make a compess mentus decision to rest.  To physically write down in our diaries - rest day!  To turn off our phones, to let the emails come in and not be answered for 24 hours.

Make rest something you schedule, and something you schedule daily, as well as weekly.  Make it a part of you day, a part of your life.  All however, long you set aside to recharge you, and to give you the energy you need for everything else you have to do.  It might be an hour, it might be a day, it might be five minutes - but write it down, make it something that you do, because trust me no matter how much you have to get done, you will get done what you need to in the time that you have.  

Tell your pals 'hurry and worry' they aren't invited, that this time, is to rest.

Stop

31 DAYS OF REST

What a great topic to write on today - REST  - because today I want to tell you what my blog will be doing for some of the Autumn.

For the month of October I am joining Darcy, The Nester, Emily, and a group of other fantastic bloggers as we write for 31 days on a choosen topic.  

31 days of SPACE @ Salt and Sparkle

Why Space -

Well, because I know what its like to be so busy, that you just don't know where to look, or when that to do list will ever finish.  I know what it is like to keep going until you are forced to stop.  I know what happens when we don't take time to have space in our lives.  

Over my life, I have accummulated a lot of good wisdom about making sure we make time to find space in our daily lives, and throughout October, I am going to share with you some of the things that I have learnt and ask you to tell me about the things you have learnt, about the importance of space in our daily lives.  Are you ready to find some SPACE?  I hope so.

Why don't you join us, and write on your blog for 31 days on your choosen subject?

That's it for now...

Nics

Salt and Sparkle  = Life Remarkable