so that you can shoot for the moon
Hello friends,
I hope your national holiday was well-spent.
I also hope that you have at least some quiet time before you go back to work.
Socializing and spending time with spouses, kids, friends, or relatives,… can be exciting, loving, and fun but can also drain you off emotionally if you don’t allow yourself time to recover from time spent with others. Me-time is not a privilege for singles, lone wolfs, or self-claimed introverts. Me-time is for everyone who wants to learn how to feel and think for themselves in order to feel and think for others. Research has shown that solitude is necessary for our emotional well-being, which in turn helps improve your satisfaction with almost all other areas of life.
This week, let’s talk about some solitude practices that we can all do to take care of emotional wellbeing, that can protect us from burnout, restore our energy, replenish our soul, cultivate our mind, and shoot for the moon.
First is organizing.
We often think of organizing our digital workspace as a boring and mundane task to be done only when it becomes very urgent or when not doing it might bring us into an obvious chaos and a looming crisis (imaging cleaning up your house like a minimalist when you are having guests on the weekend 🙂
However, the truth is organizing is an emotional act.
When you organize your stuffs, either physically or digitally, you are practicing the art of prioritization. You teach your brain what is important to you by making hundreds of decision of whether to keep or to discard something, to keep it in which cabinet, and why so.
This holiday, I have finished up some books that have been on my currently-reading list for a while, with some up to years. While I am doing that, I organized them into either projects that I am actively working on, areas that I care deeply about, or resources that I am interested in knowing more. Some books make their way to archives too, of course. If I keep everything, then I have nothing.
I believe that many of us have been living our life divergently more than we do it convergently. Our proclivity to begin new things is faster than our ability to close them. We take so many more photos on our trips than we could ever organize in meaningful ways. We consume so many more content online than we could ever have enough time to decide how they could make our life better. We start new projects and abandon them. We meet new people and soon forget about them. We make memories with our loved ones and soon outsource them to our digital gadgets or social media because we are busy thinking about a looming deadline at work.
Because we create different artifacts in our daily life, we will end up organizing different stuffs from each other. As an omnivore reader, it makes sense for me to organize my chaotic reading list. But if you are more of a traveller, you might find yourself organizing your photos that you have taken over the year.
Closing the loop is good for your mind because it helps you return to focus. And organizing your life (through whatever you make daily when you live yours) is a good way to close things up. That said, adopting a closure mindset by organizing and closing things up is a habit I want to practice more towards the end of the year.
Second is meditation.
Even just five minutes of meditation each day can help our mind become calmer.
You do not need a full-blown course to start (and re-start) mediation practice. However, at least one hour per mediation session is needed if you do not just want calmness but ultimately reach deep solitude, gain crystal clarity and transcendent growth.
There are three basic steps to begin meditating:
Choose a time;
Sit quietly and observe your breath;
Return to observing the breath (when your mind wanders).
To keep it interesting, I explored many meditation practices and then chose the one that suited me best to start with. Gradually, I learned more theories and methods, reflecting on them and adjusting according to my preferences and schedule. This way, my habit has become more sustainable because I can choose the practice that fits each situation.
While writing this, I am content that my next training which will be a 3-day course is already scheduled near the end of October. The only reason I can’t do a 10-day course this year is because it is impossible to fit it in without upsetting my schedule at the university and at Dong Labs.
Third is exercise.
Exercise is my favorite medicine for stress relief and pain management.
This year, I alternate between running, yoga, and swimming.
I often do my workout in late afternoons as a way to release the stress that has cumulated over the course of the day. This will help me return to my desk for either a live class or a reading session in the evening in a refreshing mind and body.
Especially on days when I feel tired, I tried not to give up on exercise. My body needs me to help it release stress-relieving hormones and reimburses its budget that I have spent through the day. If I skip a day, I return right away the next day so that I won’t live in debt for so long that I have to pay mounting interest later.
Fourth is reading
I love the feeling of getting lost in a book and forgetting about everything else in the world. Some books touch my soul with real stories and characters that I will never meet in my own life. Others make me feel as if I am becoming wiser and more knowledgeable through the author’s insights.
Yet, there was a time when I forgot this beloved friend. I read scientific articles every day and rarely read novels for pleasure. I thought reading for work was enough. But I was wrong. Reading for work and reading for myself are two completely different things. They bring very different feelings and psychological outcomes. Reading for work is instrumental (no matter how much you love it), reading for oneself is selfish (because it prioritizes your own need). When you prioritize something or someone else, you are drained. When you prioritize yourself, you are replenished. You need to make time for both.
The distinction between these two types of reading was a big lesson for me: no matter what, don’t forget to do things for yourself, not just for your work or your close ones, no matter how much you love them.
Fifth is writing
Writing allows me to express myself in the most genuine way.
Writing here doesn’t mean professional writing, nor does it need to be for others to read. Writing for yourself is like a free vitamin for the soul and the mind.
Writing has many benefits: it helps us think clearly, open up creativity, express emotions, and clean the mind. The mind is like a glass of dusked water constantly stirred. If you pause and just observe it for a while, you’ll see that the water gradually becomes calmer and clearer. The sediment sinks to the bottom. Now, you see what lay beneath: What is it? What should I do with it? Most of the time, you do not even need to do something with it.
It is enough to simply observe and accept that they are there. Your thinking and feeling are there. They are neither good nor bad. They just happen.
Final note
If you find any of these practices resonate with you, start (again) today.
Do not afraid to fail. Start again, again. Each time you fail or succeed gives you the insight you need to discover where the difficulties lie, where you get stuck, and how to create new ways to persevere and to enjoy taking care of your emotional wellbeing even more. Once you are well, people and things you care about will also be well.
So, make sure you stay emotionally healthy. I hope this week’s read can serve as either a timely reminder or a dose of inspiration for you to prioritize your own’s well-being.
(Note: Thumbnail Photo by Nick Owuor (astro.nic.portraits) on Unsplash)