Last week, I wrote about my conscious decision to finish 2023 soft but as we all know, there’s a big difference between wanting things to be soft and actually making them that way.
Here’s how it’s going so far:
Intention
Even though my intention to finish soft is just the first step in the process, it is an important one.
Knowing that I want to steer toward a particular feeling, to aim for more rest and relaxation, takes a lot of pressure off and helps me avoid that vague, looming sense that I *should* be working harder.
Delegation
I had to make some tough decisions about what I could actually get done, what could wait, and what I could delegate. And I had to make sure that I didn’t wear myself down with the process of decision-making.
My solution was pick the things that loomed the largest and make those decisions first. I decided to schedule some of the other decisions for this week. And others will wait until the relevant situations arise.
Active Rest
I know all about active rest as part of a fitness routine but I only recently thought to apply it to regular old resting. I’m not claiming this as a brand new idea or anything but it has been a useful framework this past week so bear with me.
I’ve written before about how just ‘doing nothing’ is not very restful for me and I knew that I would have to make some clear choices about what rest and relaxation were going to look like for me.
I also knew that really resting, actually letting my nervous system relax, was going to involve more than dialing back my activities. Instead I would have to consciously choose active rest – activities that would quiet my mind, slow my heart rate, let me shed some of the ambient stress of this year.
Yoga and meditation are obvious choices here and I have been choosing videos and audio practices that emphasize the feelings I’m looking for. My search fields are now autogenerating words like ‘reset’, ‘soothing’, and ‘restful.’
Drawing – especially repetitive patterns – can also fall into the active rest category and I have been doing a fair bit of that.
And I have been doing a bit more reading (mystery stories!) and listening to cello music both of which bring a lovely sense of overall calm.
And I think that doing jigsaw puzzles will help, too, but I haven’t gotten around to those. I’ll let you know how that goes.
Softening
Obviously, I can’t say that I’m soft yet, it’s only been a week.
I think, though, that I am softening, at least a little.
And that feels pretty good.
