I’m writing this on the start of my vacation. That might seem a little mundane, but for me it’s a Big Deal. Five months ago I started a new, permanent job, returning to an industry I had left behind to have kids and go to school. The past six years or so, I have been working interesting and fun, but unstable (and underpaid!) jobs on contracts. It is not lost on me that having paid time off (PTO in the business world) is a tremendous privilege, and I am thinking about how to best take advantage of this privilege.
Truth is, I’m really tired, after throwing myself head-long back into a career I had left twenty years ago. It has been awesome and it has been intense.
Happily, I am having a pretty relaxed vacation and excited to have my whole family come visit me in Ontario from British Columbia. We will spend a lot of time at southwest Ontario’s beautiful beaches and do some city-tourism.
A lo-fi photo of my meditation spot in my garden. Gardening always makes me happy so it was the perfect place for me to start!
I am thinking that this vacation is also an opportunity to re-start a regular meditation practice. I started meditating out of necessity (for my mental health!) early in the COVID crisis, when I was really struggling. I found peace by doing simple meditations with an app, in my beautiful vegetable garden.
I subscribed to the app so I had more choices, and I meditated regularly and even followed a few “courses.”
These days, though, “post” COVID as we seem to say, I haven’t taken the time to meditate. I miss it. So I am declaring here that I’m going to restart! Hold me to it, if you are so inclined readers. I can use the accountability :). Really though, I am ready for it.
I have been doing a short meditation (less than 5 mins) every day for almost 3 months now.
After each session, my app (Insight Timer) prompts me to journal about it and even though I haven’t gone back to read what each journal entry says, I know that today’s entry was a pretty typical one.
It went something like this “Hard to focus, kept getting distracted. Still worth the effort though.”
I’m not judging myself for not being “good” at meditation.
I know that bringing myself back to my breath over and over is good for me.
I know that the practice is the point.
Also, holding onto the habit of meditating, no matter how “successful” I have been, has been extremely helpful amid the emotional challenges of the past two months.
So, I was going to forge ahead with short practices and see what happened.
Khalee also does mindful meditation sessions but she doesn’t overthink them like I do. Image description: a photo of a Khalee, a medium-sized, light-haired dog sitting peacefully under a tree on a green lawn. Patches of sunlight are here and there across the grass. She is peaceful but alert with all of her paws folded under her body. This position is often described ‘being a loaf’ or ‘loaf dog’
Then I came across a program that involves longer meditations led by an instructor I enjoy.
And even though I was hesitant about my ability to do longer meditations, I decided to go for it and I started last week.
And here’s where we get to the mystery:
It is just as hard for me to convince myself to start a 12 minute meditation as it is for me to start a 2 minute one but once I get started…
It is WAAAAAAAAY easier to meditate for 12 minutes than for 2 minutes.
Not only do I feel better afterwards, I feel better DURING the 12 minute practices.
Mysterious, right?
Shouldn’t my ADHD brain be getting bored?
Shouldn’t it be HARDER to do a longer session than a shorter one?
Why doesn’t my brain want to peek at the timer every 30 seconds during a long meditation the way it does during a short one?
If the 12 minute sessions were guided meditations, my relative ease might make more sense but they aren’t guided, they just have some specific instructions for when thoughts arise. And those instructions don’t seem all that different than most standard advice about meditating.
Perhaps my brain likes the opportunity to try focusing over and over again in a longer time frame. Maybe my subconscious doesn’t think it is worth the effort to focus for just two minutes?
As spring turns the corner around to summer, and my work-from-home job is feeling more normal, I am turning my own thoughts away from my professional goals and back to my goals related to my health.
In the lead-up to starting my new job in March, I had spent an intensive year looking for a job I felt really good about. For quite some time now, my professional goals have taken priority for me. I’m thrilled about my return to a career in insurance claims, but I am also needing to find balance. Work is intense and I am sometimes finding it hard to turn off my brain. Much to my consternation, I am having some mild low back pain, a totally new thing to me.
So this week I snuck away from my desk for an 8:30am aquafit class offered by in a public City pool. I went because I was feeling achy and stressed and wasn’t really feeling focused.
Much to my surprise, I had a GREAT time even though I hadn’t been in the water in quite a few weeks. Even more joyous for me, my brain was completely cleared. What a cool thing that was. I had a productive, enjoyable work day. Wahoo!
I like aquafit and find deep-water classes the perfect amount of fun versus challenging. When I started attending aquafit intermittently, almost 20 years ago, I was usually the youngest person in the pool. Often, I still am. I’ve often written here about my struggles with exercise here – how fun to get to say something that feels purely positive.
My “home” pool – an older and modest pool that I love!
I’m writing this at the end of the week and my back got achy again. Clearly I need to set myself a schedule for self care – that is not something I’m good at. In fact, I’m writing this as a way to keep myself accountable, and to also create some more positive brain waves.
I’d love recommendations for exercise planning if you have any. I am thinking I need a balance of aquafit, weekly yoga and meditation. My gosh, when I write that, honestly, I’m a bit dazzled. Who even am I? Not the kid who used to literally quiver walking into the school gym for PE class.
In last week’s post, I told you I was starting a meditation experiment. The plan was to try reframing my meditation as if it were one of my medications – something I ‘take’ regularly that provides benefits over time. And, hence, to anchor my meditation practice to taking my other meds each morning.
How did that go?
Let’s say results were mixed.
The reframing part, the *idea* of meditation as medication is a good approach for me.
Considering meditation as a necessary component for my well-being is really helpful. With this approach, embracing meditation as a self-prescribed medication, the practice becomes less of a ‘task to get done’ and more part of the foundation of my daily life.
Yes, it has only been a week but I can feel the shift in my own perception and it feels good.
I’m not feeling a lot of the ‘give myself some extra brainspace’ benefits yet but it has only been a week.
I am, however, finding that it is much easier to actually start a meditation than it was at the beginning of last week. AND my meditation itself feels a bit better, a little more breath-focused, a little less scattered.
So, from that perspective, my experiment results are very encouraging.
However, the second aspect of my experiment?
Not so much.
In fact, trying to link the practice with my tangible medications was an abject failure.
As I had guessed, that part of overall my day is a little too unpredictable to include meditation.
And in attempting to link my meds to my med, I found myself taking my doctor-prescribed meds a bit later. Taking them later is not only less-than-ideal for my health and concentration, it increases the risk that I will forget them entirely.
After 3 days, I reassessed and decided that the link in timing was not all that important to me, but the change in perspective was vital.
So, I abandoned the idea and just included my meditation whenever felt best each day.
In fact, after a very busy day on Friday, I ended my meditation at 11:59PM. Just under the wire for a planned ‘daily’ practice, but it still counted!
Overall, this approach is working – it’s easier to start meditating each day and the practices themselves feel pretty good. I know the mental-space-at-other-times part will arrive whenever it gets here, so I’m not trying to rush it.
And I’m actually pretty proud of myself for not stressing about the ‘failed’ part of this experiment.
There was a time when I would have had to scrap the whole thing, convinced that I was missing some key piece of information and hence doing the whole thing wrong.
That instinct still pops up for me from time to time but it rarely details me any more. Apparently, the work I have done on that sort of stuff is really paying off. 😉
I’m struggling to figure out how to keep myself sufficiently active these days. I have a new, intellectually stimulating job that I’m generally really happy with. But it’s working from home, and although you just can’t beat the commute, I find myself far less active than I was in my previous university administration job.
I can’t say I actually miss the 5 flights of stairs I walked up each morning going into work, but I kind of do miss the energy of rushing myself out the door and up to my office for the start of the day.
I get that I have the power within me to go for a start-of-day walk to get me going, but oh my gosh, when I’m learning a WHOLE bunch of stuff for an intense job, I really have been wanting to take advantage of that extra time in my day for sleep or just getting to my desk early.
Sigh.
Last month I wrote asking for suggestions for how to keep active while working from home and I got some great advice – thanks! It boiled down to self-discipline though in some ways.
That is an ongoing challenge for me, in terms of exercise (see: Wait, I Like Exercising?) However, I also am thinking I need to give myself a little space here. I have been at my new job 6 weeks now, and although it’s awesome it’s A LOT. I am back in a career (claims adjusting) I haven’t done in almost 20 years, and I am handling complex commercial losses that are far outside of the kind of work I did previously. Honestly, it’s cool. But it’s also intellectually demanding.
How I feel after a long day reading policies and claims
Maybe I just need to let my brain be my exercise for a month or so? I don’t think that I want a sedentary lifestyle long term, but perhaps it’s ok for a short term? I have been taking time in the day to meditate pretty often. I need it.
I will say, I also have continued to go to weekly yoga at my former workplace. I even got my own yoga mat (thanks colleagues who loaned me theirs!). Even though it’s only once a week, it’s made a HUGE difference to my comfort in my hips. Ideally I would like to be doing that twice a week, but the course teacher only teaches once a week.
At least, though, the yoga helps with my hips and my physical balance. I just walk so few steps in a day…
Of course the other thing that is stealing all the free time I might have had for aquafit and dog walking is my KIDS. It is the end of the year music season for them, and as high school kids they have had SO MANY activities to be driven to and from, and also witnessed. My husband and I share that work, but ultimately it’s really interrupted any sense of rhythm I can develop in my new life.
So that’s me this month: not super active and feeling concerned about needing more balance. Your advice last month was great! How have you worked through crunch times in your life?
(This is a little stream-of-consciousness because I’m not really finished thinking this through. Please bear with me.)
So, I’ve been carrying around some ambient stress again.
I’m not feeling stressed about anything in particular. There’s no overwhelmingly stressful thing going on.
In fact, my *brain* doesn’t feel stressed at all.
My body, however, is telling me otherwise.
My first response to recognizing that stressed out feeling was ‘I need to meditate.’
And meditation does help me release that feeling in the moment, which is great, but reactive meditation is not nearly as helpful as regular (preventative) meditation would be.
See, I know that when I meditate regularly, I get a little more space in my brain.
And that space helps me make better choices about how to spend my time and my energy.
Last fall, I had a month or so when I meditated daily and I really found it beneficial. But then something came up, I couldn’t meditate at my regular time and I got off track. I’ve had a few short streaks of practice since then but it hasn’t really stuck.
However, once again, I am determined to find my way back to that daily practice.
On Monday, I was trying to figure out a good time for my practice when I (once again?) made the connection that meditation is similar in one way to my ADHD medication – it gives me a little space between my thought and my action so I can choose to be more effective, to be kinder to myself.
So then I thought ‘What if I put meditation in the same category as my meds?’ – that is, something that needs to happen daily, at the same time, in order to have the best effect.
And then I considered whether I could meditate right after I medicate.
I went back and forth on that for a few minutes because mornings can be a tricky time to find quiet minutes to myself but maybe I can take my meditation and my medications at the same time and it will work out just fine.
I’m going to give it a week and see how it goes.
I’ll report back next Tuesday with the results of this utterly unscientific experiment.
I’ll even take notes.
What does this have to do with meditation? Absolutely nothing. But it does make me feel calm so that’s kind of tangentially connected, right? image description: Khalee, my light-haired dog, is curled up in a red leather armchair next to a white pillow with gold stars on it. In the background, there is a patch of sunlight on the wall, a tower fan, and the rear wheel of a bicycle.
Here we are at the last day of 2022, the last day of December, the last day of my Making Space posts.
I hope that you have found these posts useful and that you have found your own ways to make space for yourselves in your days this month. I also hope that you have found (or are starting to find) ways to continue making space for yourselves in the days that follow.
And speaking of the days that follow – tomorrow, I start a series of ‘Go Team!’ posts that encourage you to be kind to yourself as you figure out the habits, systems, and practices you want to take on in the year ahead.
But before we get to that, I have one more thing to say about creating space for your future self and it goes like this:
New Year’s Day may be a symbolic time to start but you can add new ideas, habits and practices to your life at ANY TIME.
And, you can create your own symbolism or meaning around the time that you choose.
For example, even though I like the symbolism of starting new practices in a new year, I had a bit of sideways December so I couldn’t give a lot of thought to things I wanted to do in 2023.
Instead of putting pressure on myself to find time to focus on that, I decided to let December be what it was and that I would figure out what 2023 would look like once it arrived.
Or, to put it another way, I’m choosing to have Planuary instead of January.
By labelling next month as Planuary, I have given it a shape. I’m not going in without a plan and hoping things will just happen – that would never work for my ADHD brain. Instead, I’m planning to spend January figuring out what my plans could be.
And I’m inviting you to create space for your future self by doing something similar.
If you WANT to start something new sometime soon, you don’t have to come roaring out of the gate tomorrow. You can decide on your own terms and your own timeline when and how you want to get started.
You can plan to plan in Planuary.
You can write one thing on an index card and do that until you get bored with it.
You can make a giant list and a big chart and have a grand time with it (as long as you aren’t going to be mean to yourself if you have to change your plan – I can’t get behind that)
You can choose to just keep doing what you have been doing all along but add in the plan to be kinder to yourself in the process (THAT I can full endorse.)
Basically, I want to encourage you to give yourself the space to do things in your own way on your own schedule.
Your tomorrow-self doesn’t need to have it all figured out and doesn’t have to have the perfect plan.
Please be kind to yourself as you make space for future you to develop, expand, and think up cool and fun things to do.
NOTE:Have you ever seen DSri Seah’s Groundhog Day Resolutions monthly personal review system? It’s a cool way that they developed to check in with their resolutions and projects all year long. I love how they worked out a system that works for them without getting caught up in when things *should* be done during the year.
Here are our final videos for the Making Space series. At first I was looking for new year/end of year themed videos but there was such a variation in tone from video to video that I didn’t want to choose something that would be irksome. So, instead, I chose videos for calm and for energy/feeling good – I figured those could be most helpful.
I also chose a yoga video AND a cardio video so you could decide if you wanted to see the year out in a low-key way or in a burst of movement.
Whether you do these videos or do your own thing, I wish you ease, energy and lots of space for yourself as 2022 becomes 2023.
See you tomorrow for our first Go Team! post for 2023.
A video from the Yoga with Kassandra YouTube channel entitled ‘10 Min Morning Yoga for Calm. The still image features the instructor in light brown exercise clothing standing with her legs wide apart and her upper body folds forward toward the camera so she can touch her mat with the palms of her hands and her ponytail has flopped forward towards her mat. Text reading ‘10 Min Morning Yoga’ is overlaid on the upper left side of the image.
A PopSugar Fitness 10 Minute Feel-Good Cardio Workout with Deja Riley. The still image features the instructor standing in a white-walled studio with her arms in the air in a joyful sort of celebratory gesture (that is probably just part of an exercise movement but she looks celebratory to me.)
Another 5 Minute Mindful Meditation for Calm from the Great Meditations YouTube channel (I have really become a fan of that channel during this series!) The still age features light brown text reading ‘Calm 5 Minute guided meditation’ and a cartoon image of a person sitting in meditation with their arms, bent at the elbow, outstretched slightly to the sides in a welcoming or accepting gesture. Behind their head is either their long hair streaming upwards or a thought balloon that contains symbols of thoughts – question marks, ellipses, hearts, emojis etc. and behind their body there are symbols of tangible items like a clock, some gears, and the leaves of a plant.
About Making Space 2022
In December 2020, Fit is a Feminist Issue blogger Martha created a tradition – a series of reminder posts to take good care of ourselves during this last month of the year when it is far too easy to get swept up in your to do list, no matter what you are celebrating or not celebrating. Last year, it was my turn and after an introductory Go Team post called Give Yourself Some Space, I created a series of reminders called ‘Making Space‘ that offered a suggested short exercise video and a suggested meditation in case you needed an easy way to find space for yourself in your schedule.
For 2022, I’ll be doing the same thing but I’ll also be including a link to Martha’s post from the same date in 2020 and I’ll offer a few extra ideas for relaxation, creativity, and self-kindness here and there.
These posts are not about insisting that you do more, more, more during this busy season. Instead, I want to encourage you to remember that there IS a *YOU* who is doing all of the things and you are worth taking good care of.
Perhaps the things I suggest aren’t what you need in the moment. That’s totally ok. Perhaps you can use something else to create some space, something that will help you feel more relaxed or more in charge of your day.
Before you read this post, I dare you to make some space in your body by:
Rolling your shoulders back and dropping them away from your ears
Relaxing your jaw – maybe even moving your lower jaw back and forth
Releasing your breath with a sigh and then inhaling slowly
Okay, now that you have a little extra space in your body, let’s get back to making a little extra space in your future for you.
What can you put in place now (or at least soon) that will make it a little easier for future you to take the space that they need?
Could you clear a corner for your yoga mat to stay rolled out?
Could you make sure you are stocked up on your favourite teas?
Could you put your journal and your pens next to the space where you usually write?
Could you put a recurring ‘meeting’ on your calendar that is actually some time for you to spend doing something that refreshes you?
Could you make a playlist of songs you like or exercise videos you want to try so it is waiting for you when you need it?
Could you plan time with a friend?
Could you book an appointment with your counsellor/therapist/social worker/psychologist/chiropractor/physiotherapist/personal trainer? (Only you know which one(s) you may need in the future.)
I know that most of us *need* space in our lives for ourselves but, of course, I can’t know what kind of specific space you need – that’s up to you.
And if you also don’t know what you need, perhaps you can start with a little extra time in your schedule to write/draw/meditate/walk/roll/dance – I’m sure you will be able to figure it out as you go.
No matter what, starting out with a plan – even a very loose one – will help make you feel like making space for yourself is just one of the things you do on a regular basis. And, once you feel that way, it should get easier and easier to make that space – even if it is just a few minutes at a time.
And, of course, when I mention future you, that could be the you of 30 seconds in the future, it doesn’t just have to be the you of next week.
In fact, I hope you can find ways to make space for all of the future yous and I hope you can find ease and joy in the process – even if it gets tricky sometimes.
Here are today’s videos – for now you and future you – have fun with them!
A seated workout from the Improved Health YouTube channel entitled ‘Bee Gees SEATED Workout | Chair Exercises for Seniors | Stayin’ Alive & Night Fever | 1970’s Workout. The still image features the instructor wearing exercise clothes and sitting on a chair in front of a circular wall decoration. She has her left arm extended with her finger pointing at the ceiling and her right arm extended with her finger pointing toward the floor. Her right leg is bent with her toe touching the floor near the chair, her left leg is extended out in front of her with her left toe touching the floor.
A meditation from the Great Meditations YouTube channel entitled ‘Guided Meditation to Enjoy This Life.’ The still image features a cartoon image of a person seated on a dock with water behind them. Their legs are crossed and the backs of their hands resting on their legs (their palms are upward) with each of their thumbs touching the index finger on the same hand.
About Making Space 2022
In December 2020, Fit is a Feminist Issue blogger Martha created a tradition – a series of reminder posts to take good care of ourselves during this last month of the year when it is far too easy to get swept up in your to do list, no matter what you are celebrating or not celebrating. Last year, it was my turn and after an introductory Go Team post called Give Yourself Some Space, I created a series of reminders called ‘Making Space‘ that offered a suggested short exercise video and a suggested meditation in case you needed an easy way to find space for yourself in your schedule.
For 2022, I’ll be doing the same thing but I’ll also be including a link to Martha’s post from the same date in 2020 and I’ll offer a few extra ideas for relaxation, creativity, and self-kindness here and there.
These posts are not about insisting that you do more, more, more during this busy season. Instead, I want to encourage you to remember that there IS a *YOU* who is doing all of the things and you are worth taking good care of.
Perhaps the things I suggest aren’t what you need in the moment. That’s totally ok. Perhaps you can use something else to create some space, something that will help you feel more relaxed or more in charge of your day.
I have to tell you that it made me VERY happy to find a short yoga video about creating space to include today. The video, of course, is about creating a feeling of space in your body and my advice tends to be about creating a feeling of space in your mind but, since we are all very wise and sage people, we know that that distinction is arbitrary, don’t we?
(If we were talking in person right now, I would be giving you an exaggerated wink so you’d know that I, too, know that while the difference is fairly arbitrary it doesn’t always FEEL that way. I do think that we are all wise and sage though, even when we feel foolish.)
ANYWAY!
For these last few days of December, I have been inviting you to consider ways to make space for your future self – even as you use self-kindness to make space for your current self.
NOTE: If you are just here for the videos, please scroll on down. I’m about to get chatty.
Today, I want you to think about how to make some mental space for future you by removing or changing a recurring hassle . That is, figuring out ONE small annoyance or frustration you can remove for your future self.
I’m thinking about things like the basket in the corner that is not *quite* big enough for the things you want to store in it so things keep falling out.
Or about the fact that your measuring cups are on a shelf that’s a bit too high for you to easily reach so you end up either making do with a regular cup or you take down all the measuring cups and then leave them on the counter.
Or the fact that everyone in the office keeps asking *you* for the same piece of information (a phone number/copier code/person’s name) over and over because they can’t seem to remember it.
Or the fact that something needs its batteries charged or that there’s a branch that makes a weird noise against the house when the wind blows a certain way or the fact that there is nowhere to lay your keys down near your front door so you end up misplacing them on the regular.
I don’t know what kind of recurring hassles take up your mental space but these kinds of low-key hassles end up occupying a lot of my mental real-estate – both in the moment and whenever they cross my mind.
But the thing is, those are the kinds of hassles that often don’t get dealt with because they seem like they shouldn’t be a big deal or that they aren’t worth the effort to fix or that they wouldn’t be a problem if we ”just” did…whatever thing that we clearly have trouble doing.
But it IS worth dealing with these things if they free up your mental space.
You have enough things that you *have* to think about without letting this stuff crowd its way in, too.
You don’t have to deal with every hassle at once though.
Today, I’m inviting you to just consider one thing, whatever pops into your mind first, and then make a plan to take care of it.
Get a bigger basket or store some of the things elsewhere. Find a new spot for your measuring cups. Write down the number or the code or the name. Charge the batteries. Cut the branch. Get a hook for your keys.
If you can’t enact your plan right away, schedule a time when you will take care of it.
Knowing that you have a plan and a schedule will immediately create some room in your brain because you will be able to stop asking yourself when you are going to take care of the thing and you will stop admonishing yourself for not having taken care of it yet.
By the way, if this is a thing you have been meaning to get to for a while but you just couldn’t do it, please be EXTRA kind to yourself if it ends up only taking a few minutes. Yes, the task was small but the obstacle was large and hard things are hard – being mean to yourself in the process doesn’t make them any easier.
If you have multiple things to take care of but none of them have a deadline and none of them seem obviously more urgent than the others, pick the one that is first alphabetically or the one that will make the most visible difference. When there is no obvious place to start, it doesn’t really matter WHERE you start, it only matters that you start somewhere.
This is about reclaiming some of your own mental space for your future self. You don’t have to pick big things, you don’t have to pick obvious things, you only have to pick things that matter to your current self and your future self.
And, as always, I wish you ease in the process.
⭐ <<<<This is for your efforts in figuring this out.
A video from the Yoginimelbourne YouTube channel entitled ‘Create Space 7min yoga flow’ and the still image features the instructor from the waist up, leaning their upper body and outstretched arms to her right while looking upwards to the left. They are indoors and the leaves of a houseplant can be seen on the lower left while the video title appears in black on the upper right.
The yoga video about creating space made me happy but so did the fact that this meditation video is specifically about breathing space. SPACE! We all deserve a bit more in the places where we want and need it.
A video from Teik Yen Ko’s YouTube channel entitled ‘Mindfulness Meditation: 3 Minute Breathing Space’ by Professor Mark Williams from the Oxford Mindfulness Centre. The still image features the light green cover of a book by Mark Williams called ‘Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World’ and the image on the cover is the silhouette of a city skyline reflected in a body of water.
About Making Space 2022
In December 2020, Fit is a Feminist Issue blogger Martha created a tradition – a series of reminder posts to take good care of ourselves during this last month of the year when it is far too easy to get swept up in your to do list, no matter what you are celebrating or not celebrating. Last year, it was my turn and after an introductory Go Team post called Give Yourself Some Space, I created a series of reminders called ‘Making Space‘ that offered a suggested short exercise video and a suggested meditation in case you needed an easy way to find space for yourself in your schedule.
For 2022, I’ll be doing the same thing but I’ll also be including a link to Martha’s post from the same date in 2020 and I’ll offer a few extra ideas for relaxation, creativity, and self-kindness here and there.
These posts are not about insisting that you do more, more, more during this busy season. Instead, I want to encourage you to remember that there IS a *YOU* who is doing all of the things and you are worth taking good care of.
Perhaps the things I suggest aren’t what you need in the moment. That’s totally ok. Perhaps you can use something else to create some space, something that will help you feel more relaxed or more in charge of your day.
Today seems like a great day for some restful self care.
Hmm, that’s misleading. I think EVERY day is a good day for restful self-care, and active self-care, and, well, any kind of self-care at all, really.
ANYWAY, on to my point…
We are just a few days from the end of the year, and a few days from the end of a busy month. Instead of thinking in terms of getting more done or cramming more things into our day/week/month/year, I’d like us to be thinking about how to take things slowly, how to ease forward.
And, of course, I’d like us all to be kind to ourselves while we do that. 🌟💚
Here are two videos to help us to be kind and loving towards ourselves as we take things as slowly as we can.
PS – Martha’s delightful 2020 Wellness Calendar posts ended with a round-up post on December 26, 2020. So I am flying solo from here on in.
Jessamine Stanley’s 8-Minute Yoga for Self-Love from the Health Magazine YouTube channel. Still image features the instructor sitting on her left hip and using her left arm to support while herself while the sole of her right foot is on the mat, right knee is bent, and her right elbow rests on her right knee. She is dressed in pink/flowered exercise clothes and is on a pink yoga mat.
Loving Kindness Meditation 5 Minutes with Sharon Salzberg from the FitMind YouTube channel. Still image shows Salzberg (who has shoulder length blond hair and dark-framed glasses and is wearing a purple bottom up shirt) speaking into a microphone. On the left side of the image is text reading ‘Loving Kindness Meditation.’
About Making Space 2022
About Making Space 2022
In December 2020, Fit is a Feminist Issue blogger Martha created a tradition – a series of reminder posts to take good care of ourselves during this last month of the year when it is far too easy to get swept up in your to do list, no matter what you are celebrating or not celebrating. Last year, it was my turn and after an introductory Go Team post called Give Yourself Some Space, I created a series of reminders called ‘Making Space‘ that offered a suggested short exercise video and a suggested meditation in case you needed an easy way to find space for yourself in your schedule.
For 2022, I’ll be doing the same thing but I’ll also be including a link to Martha’s post from the same date in 2020 and I’ll offer a few extra ideas for relaxation, creativity, and self-kindness here and there.
These posts are not about insisting that you do more, more, more during this busy season. Instead, I want to encourage you to remember that there IS a *YOU* who is doing all of the things and you are worth taking good care of.
Perhaps the things I suggest aren’t what you need in the moment. That’s totally ok. Perhaps you can use something else to create some space, something that will help you feel more relaxed or more in charge of your day.
