Are you crazy busy? Is every moment of your day filled to the max? Do you have any margin of spare time? Do you spend time with yourself, reading, journaling,
thinking, or meditating, or is your day completely filled with friends, work, hobbies, and entertainment?
All activities that bring you joy add value to your life, yet just as in every other area of life, you need to balance entertainment activities with personal growth activities. You can probably spend 95% of your time on entertainment, and just a small amount of time on self, but if you neglect the 5% of time spent on yourself, then it can be very easy to grow imbalanced, disconcerted, and discontented. One of the reasons I write this blog, is to help me gel the thoughts I'm having as part of the time I spend with self. I choose to share them with you in hopes they may resonate with some thoughts you are having too.
It is so easy to focus totally on entertaining ourselves and distract ourselves from our inner voices so that we learn to suppress it and shut it out completely. It's that voice of intuition, the gut feeling, the voice of love, that is our best guide, and we make decisions to quiet it.
There's always a party, a project, an organization to help, a friend to see, etc. There's always something, but you must be sure to take care of self as well.
One day, the part of the Bible in the Book of Matthew that talks about the greatest commandments of God really struck me in a new way. I'd heard them countless times, but for some reason, this day I heard something new. The greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your soul and all your mind. And the second is to love your neighbor as yourself.
I always took number two to mean that you always put your neighbor before you because we are inherently selfish. Then, I listened again. It says to love your neighbor as yourself, which assumes that you love yourself first and then your neighbor. It says to take care of yourself and then take care of others.
Give that 5% of time to care for yourself, and the rest of your time can be dedicated to friends, family, work, and other activities. Spending that time with yourself will help you increase your sensitivity to your inner voice and intuition until you hear it loud and clear. Before you know it, you'll make better decisions, and life will flow more smoothly.
Here are a few ways to spend a little extra time with yourself.
You can exercise by running, biking, swimming, practicing yoga or some other physical exercise where you are alone. You can journal, blog or write. You can meditate or go off to a quiet secluded place. You can pamper yourself with a massage or facial. Take your pick. There are so many ways to care for yourself. Make the commitment because you can!
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