One of the shifts many of my clients make over the course of working with me is they get used to taking more time for their growth journey and just being with themselves. While it might not be something you’re much in the habit of, it’s an important part of being a healthy individual with good self-awareness, and a finger on your own pulse. Being a bit of a long-time seeker, I’ve journalled and read about personal growth and spirituality for 30 years, but around my mid 30’s I began shepherding myself more intentionally, and cultivating more nourishing time with myself. It was in short bursts of half an hour initially, then it grew to taking a whole morning or evening for myself to do self-reflections, meditation and so on.
To do this, most of us have to get used to claiming more time for ourselves, and to also being with our Self, uninterrupted and in service only to Moi.
There is huge value in having space and time to reflect, be still, write, make sense of experiences, identify patterns, reflect on progress made or unfinished business, clarify why or what next, and what steps to take, and even do some self-healing. It can be a time for stepping back from the fray of everyday life to check in with our values and life purpose, get more clarity on something, or visualise and set intentions for how we want to create our life.
It fills your tank. It helps you grow.
Broadening your comfort zone
Taking more time for your own nourishment might feel like a delicious thing to do and perhaps you just haven’t carved out more time for it yet. It may also feel rather daunting. Sitting with yourself for even ten minutes at first can be very uncomfortable if you’re not used to having that much time with yourself. Even simply deciding to spend more time than you usually can press your buttons. It can feel confronting, overwhelming, boring, daunting, pointless and even like pressure. One thing that helps is to make sure it stays out of the category of “I have to do this”. Put it in the category of ‘I get to do this with and for myself”. It is definitely for you!
When I still had a lot of unresolved emotions and trauma going on, it was excruciating at times to just sit with myself. Having my head buried in a book or being swept up by a movie or an outing was preferable. It can also be uncomfortable if you still have a pretty critical internal voice that is constantly nagging at you. As we shift this into a beautiful, loving voice and an inner friend we like being with, being on our own becomes more and more enjoyable. This is all part of our growth journey.
How much time to take?
If this isn’t something you’re used to doing, do it in small chunks to start with, like ten minutes or half an hour at a time and then lengthen it out. These days I often want and need whole days or a week to myself at times, but you might get to a point of having a few hours to yourself on a weekend morning, or a couple of evenings a week, and that’s enough. At the very least, fifteen minutes each evening is a great place to start.
I’m aware that there is naturally more time for this during different seasons of life. For instance, the early years of parenting or setting up a new business can be all-consuming and not periods where there’s a lot of time for solo retreating or big chunks of growth work. However, while I haven’t had kids myself, I have noticed the different ways people do parenthood for instance, and that some make and claim more space for themselves than others. One of my cousins takes a weekend a month for herself and her husband does the same, so they take turns looking after the kids and having time out for themselves. It works well.
No matter what we have going on in our lives, there is always ten minutes. Don’t let your circumstances railroad quality time with yourself – or be a handy excuse!
Time to yourself is not a ‘have to’, it is for you!
What is this time really for? What will you do with it?
There is a whole host of things I do with my nourish-me-time. There are no hard and fast rules around what you can and can’t do of course, but I’d like to give you an idea of what might constitute nourishment and tending to the self, versus what’s just nice to do.
Activities that nourish or provide space for being and growing might include:
- Meditating – which can vary wildly from mindfulness practices or breath awareness, to insight meditation, mantra meditation such as TM (Transcendental Meditation), presence-ing, vipassana, and a vast range of guided meditations.
- Guided practices such as visualisations, sound baths, Yoga Nidra, etc.
- Prayer or contemplation.
- Journalling – which can also vary wildly in its focus and intention. More on this below.
- Self-healing using any techniques you have and know such as EFT tapping, the Sedona Method, NLP, conscious releasing, etc.
- Tuning into your guides, ancestors and/or higher self.
- Using oracle cards for clarity or contemplation. (My faves are Journey of Love from Alana Fairchild, The Rose Oracle from Rebecca Campbell and Earth Mother Oracle from New Zealand artist Lynda Bell.
- Reading or listening to teachings (that are carefully chosen and intentional).
- Yoga, qigong, tai chi, etc.
- Moving meditation or dancing (around the house or out on the lawn – to music or not).
- Mindful walking at the beach, in the forest or a park, in your garden.
I could say a lot more about many of these activities and will do so in future blogs. Meanwhile, I’ve made a note below on what journalling can look like.
What is this time on your own NOT for?
Here are a few things we might consider ‘tank-filling’ and nice to do. They’re things I can really enjoy doing on my own. I can even treat them as a mindfulness practice and be really in the moment as I do them, or perhaps listen to some music or teachings as I do them. However, they’re not what I would consider soul-nourishing, deep, growth-focused time with self.
Listening to a podcast or being online/on social media
Personal grooming like painting your nails
Getting a massage or facial
Housework
Working from home (obviously!)
Writing an article, book
Baking or cooking
Going for a run or a squash game
Gardening or DIY
In saying that, I’ve had experiences of bolts of insight while out running, or washing the dishes, so our evolution is definitely not confined to certain activities!
You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes every day — unless you’re too busy. Then you should sit for an hour.
What does this quality of time on your own give you?
From my own experiences, I notice that taking time for my growth allows me to –
- Meditate or walk or do yoga or qigong with an empty head which gets energy moving through my body properly and me to be more grounded and spiritually connected (both essential), which in turn helps source flow through me and for me to receive messages and guidance.
- Write and visualise things I intend to create in my life. Spend time sitting in the feeling of those future experiences so I can code them in as if they’re already done.
- Journal about a pattern or situation I want to process. Reflect on what I’ve been experiencing, how I’ve been responding mentally/emotionally within myself, where I could have more choice about my responses, what role I’m playing in a certain dynamic/situation.
- Heal any emotional energy or wounding coming to the surface.
- Fill my tank and help me be more whole to then go out into the world self-contained, full, resourceful and not dependent on anyone else to fill my tank or make me feel better.
- Be my native, animal self and not a daughter, aunty, sister, coach, business owner, friend … just my essential self.
- Capture gratitude’s in my journal and therefore stay connected to the abundance around me and the magical nature of life.
- Track progress on certain areas of my life or overall – especially when I’m wanting to up-level in some way.
- Address and deal with challenges as soon as possible and speed up my progress overall.
- Cultivate self-love and self-care (not the same thing) and learn to truly cherish myself.
- Grow and evolve myself in a constant way that strengthens me on all levels and helps me live a more aligned life.
In many ways, it’s about becoming a wise, loving shepherd for your constantly evolving self.
Where to start?
A good place to start with taking more time for yourself is to pick one or two practices you already find nourishing such as meditation or yoga and add some journalling to it.
Journalling could include:
- Reflecting on your day with what went well/what’s progress, what you’re grateful for, and what you can appreciate about yourself (evenings).
- Setting intentions for the day ahead– what you’d like to have happen and how you’d like to be being in your day (mornings).
- Capturing reflections on what happened in a situation today or this week that upset or stretched you, what the emotions were, what the trigger seemed to be, how you reacted and how you want to respond next time. The next step is to then sit with the emotions, give them space so you can acknowledge them, accept them and allow them to move through and out. This is the beginning of self-mastery.
- Capturing questions you’d like answered – sometimes the unconscious mind, higher self or your guides will bring you the answer.
- Writing stream of consciousness for three pages as per the ‘Morning Pages’ ritual from Julia Cameron’s, The Artists Way.
If you don’t have a ‘go-to’ practice for filling your tank, jump over to my free meditations here (or look them up on the Insight Timer app) and find one or two that feel good to you.
If you find it hard to claim time for yourself, take some time to reflect on why. Notice what it feels like in your body when you think about it – does part of you feel resistant or like it will just be too boring? What does your higher mind and higher self want? What feels like it would be in your highest good? It’s easy to let the mind or old patterns of self-neglect get in the way of moving ourselves forward. You can take the steering wheel and decide what you want and need and use your free will to make it happen. Discuss with your spouse if you need to make new agreements about what time you need for yourself, when you don’t want to be disturbed, taking turns to put the kids to bed, etc. There are a hundred ways to make it work, whatever your lifestyle.
Let me know how you go! And I’d love to hear what practices you draw on to nourish and shepherd yourself.
Karen x