I recently discovered a blog called Zen Habits: http://zenhabits.net/ that I really like and find inspiring. It's written by Leo Babauta and his theme throughout is, simply put, "Simplify". In every area. This is something I long to do but am having difficulty making it happen. I have a picture in my head of how I want my life to look and my house to look (think Country Living magazine) and the reality is a far cry from this which produces huge amounts of frustration for me. My life as it is now seems to be one long, mad, blurry rush from dawn to dark. Where is the time to stop and smell the roses and to really live "consciously" and "in the moment" before I collapse from exhaustion at 8:30 pm? And it's not even like we get a real weekend here that is net relaxation/recreation.
I don't know what the answer is but I think the starting point is Living Slow. Saying "no" more often to the committments/perceived obligations that prohibit us from living consciously, prayerfully, contemplatively, centeredly and contentedly.
I remember that when I was still married to my ex, we lived for a year and a half on a yishuv (settelement) in the Shomron along with 120 other families. It was a custom on this yishuv that all the women took it in turns on a rotating basis to make cakes for the soldiers who guarded the settlement on Shabbat. Eventually, the committee of women who organized this came knocking on my door to coordinate this with me as it was my week to make the cakes. I was in a bad marriage, I was young, I had a small baby and I do not enjoy cooking and the thought of doing this was so totally overwhelming that had I gone ahead and done it I would have felt totally off center, out of whack, frazzled and fragmented - not whole. I told the women I was very sorry but, no. Just "no" without any explanations or excuses and they were probably appalled and/or offended but I couldn't really worry about that. It was hard but it felt good at the same time and I knew I'd made the right choice in the moment.
Some time ago now, a book came to me (I believe certain books come to us when we most need them) called In Praise of Slowness by Carl Honore. (You can read a synposis and reviews here: http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?isbn=006054578x and view a 20 minute talk by the author about the book here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhXiHJ8vfuk.) This book has become my bible and I have read it many times. It's inspiring and motivating and well-written and the statistics he presents are, at times, shocking. In the book the author also talks about the worldwide Slow Movement which I'd never heard of but their website can be found here: http://www.slowmovement.com/. Apparently, there are enough people around the world who feel the need to slow down and live connectedly to their land and cities, to their food, to their families and neighbors, to their educations and to their money to create a movement. Who knew? Unfortunately, this movement has yet to hit Israel, as far as I can tell, but when it does, I'll be the first to join.
One step I just took to help me slow down and center myself is that I started doing yoga with a friend last night. My Mom had lots of yoga videos that DH copied onto DVD for me ages ago and it's been on my "To Do" list for an eternity but it's no fun alone so I talked to a friend about it and she agreed to do it with me once a week. It felt SO GOOD to slow down, shut every thought and worry out for an hour and just BREATHE deeply and relaxedly. It's so basic but none of us do it.
I am addicted to Facebook. I admit it. But more than once it has gotten me into hot water with one family member or another and finally this week I made another Slow Choice by sitting and deleting all of my "I-don't-really-care-how-many-times-a-day-you-sneeze" FB friends. You know what I mean? Anyone who I do not consider to be a close friend and who I accepted as a contact at some point because.....well, because I could....rather than that I really want a FB relationship with them. It felt good to do some virtual FB "housecleaning" and maybe this will cut down on how much time I spend on FB as there won't be so many statuses to read or people to chat with.
Now to figure out how to find the time and energy at the same time for some real housecleaning........sigh.
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