Archives for posts with tag: take a break
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Making Room for Myself

March 25, 2025 //
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It’s already afternoon. The busy start to a work day of catching up became a busy morning of meetings and follow-ups, which has become afternoon, and nearing the end of the work day. I pull my head out of my… email… and sit up. Breathe. Exhale. Relax. Drink some icy cold water, some sparkling hipster brand that is more scented than flavored, but it’s cold, and it’s potable, and I was thirsty. It’s good enough.

The sun streams through the office window as if mocking my plans to paint for a few days and ending up “rained out” over and over again. The plan is not the reality. The map is not the world. The intention is not the outcome. Perspective. I enjoyed the time on my own terms, and saw some beautiful places and got the real break “from the the world” that I needed so badly. I even got out into my garden, planted some lavender with hopes of seeing more roses bloom (I’ve heard the deer definitely do not care for the strong scent of the lavender and it is rumored to keep them away). Even if that doesn’t work out, I’ll have the lavender, which I greatly enjoy for it’s own qualities.

I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

I breathe, exhale, relax, and take this short break, looking out the window into the sunshine. I’m smiling. No hard feelings; reality does not care about my plans, my intentions, or my maps. It simply is. I’m okay with it. I take my break with intention, enjoying this moment before I get back to work. I’m not a fucking machine, and there is no reason to behave as though I am, or treat myself as though I should be. I’m a human being, being human. I smile to myself, and think of my Traveling Partner. It’ll be nice to be home again, at the end of the day, to see him and feel his love, to share my thoughts about the garden, to hear his thoughts about what he’s doing in the shop. I rummage in my handbag for a snack bar left behind after my days wandering new trails. I forgot to bring anything for lunch. I began the day completely unprepared for work, but also no longer prepared to be out on the trail somewhere. lol It’s fine. I’m enjoying the day, and that’s enough.

It’s easy to be swept away.

I sigh to myself and drink my water. I take my afternoon pain medication; I’m sore all over from a week of trail walking, but I saw so many beautful places! Worth it. I think about a waterfall and a flowing river, an interesting metaphor for life, lived. It’s time to begin again, isn’t it? The river isn’t going to stop flowing…

It’s a metaphor…
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Categories Allegories, art and the artist, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, joy, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Practices, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being

You (Maybe) Suck At Taking Breaks

December 9, 2024 //
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Maybe. I do. It’s pretty common that people struggle to take healthy breaks. I definitely suck at taking healthy breaks. I often push myself too hard for too long and then just… refuse to do anything for… awhile. This does not tend to be ideally efficient or productive, nor is it the best use of my time and energy. So… I’m taking a break. Right now. I’ve gotten a couple hours of focused work done. I’ve run an errand, then gotten back to the focused work. I’ve got quite a list of things to do, and that I could be doing…I’ve also got a headache, and my posture needs a break, and… well… so do I.

I got up from my desk, stretched without doing anything else besides stretching and feeling my body move, and feeling my muscles begin to relax. I shifted gears from working to being. I went to the kitchen and made myself a cup of tea. (Although I generally prefer coffee, I’ve had quite enough already today.) I stood looking out the window while my tea steeped until the point of preferred “tea-ness”, and walked back to my desk. Not to resume work, not quite yet. I took a moment to just breathe, smell the delicous fragrance of my tea (Smith’s No. 14 Black Lavender). I take a sip – perfect drinking temperature. It’s hot, but not too hot, and the porcelain mug is warm in my hand. Feels like comfort in a cup. I sigh to myself and relax. I needed this.

…Maybe you need a break, too…?

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I’m amused by the many articles I’ve read recently seeking to decry work-from-home and promote “RTO” agendas. I suppose there are people who are less productive working from home. There is certainly some percentage of employed people who prefer to work in an office environment among other people also working. There’s a certain sort of management type that definitely values in-office work, if only to more easily observe downstream employees working. My experience, however, as both an employed person, and also as someone who spent many years in a workforce management role actually monitoring humans working, is that whether I wanted it to be true or not, generally speaking, most people working from home work longer hours, with greater focus, and get more done in the time during which they are working. That it has additional value for people on the human side is a bit of a bonus. Funny that there are businesses trying to force folks back into the office. I find myself wondering who that is really for. Who really benefits from that? Probably not the working employees, themselves, or they’d already be doing it because they want to – and no one is stopping them from doing so. I think about that for a minute or two…

…Then realize those thoughts are, themselves, a form of working, and I’m specifically trying to take a break here!! LOL

(I suck at taking breaks.)

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I sip my tea. I stand up and move around my office, looking at paintings, small objects, things to do with art, and I think about that instead. I enjoy my tea.

…Then I begin again. Working.

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Categories art and the artist, autumn, breathe, Free Will, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Practices, The Art of Being

This Here, This Now

December 5, 2020 //
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I sip my coffee, lukewarm, no longer “fresh”. I find myself in a “work with what you’ve got” sort of place this morning. What I’ve got is a sink full of dirty dishes, and aquarium with an overgrowth of green hair algae, and a massive fucking headache. I mean, just being real; I ate the food that those dishes had supported. The aquarium with the algae? Mine, and I chose the placement in the room when we moved in, which has too much light for the aquarium, and as a result I have a common nuisance that is algal blooms. The headache? Okay, so, sure… it’s “mine”, and obviously I did not choose or created it by intent, but making a big deal out of it when I have had this same fucking headache (worsening somewhat over time, but yeah, same headache) since… 2014, seems pointless.

…Giving credit where it’s due though, this headache has done a first rate job of sticking around, and slowly developing a more precise location and greater likelihood of moment-to-moment continuation without relief… 2014? Fucking hell. 6 years with this fucking headache. Now that’s a fucking headache. I do find myself just a bit impressed by that, in an irritated, resigned way. I mean… if headaches had a culture of their own, surely this headache would be receiving accolades from peers, and doing the talk show circuit about its success? lol

Most moments are just moments. We create the context and significance.

Still. Here is where I am. Now is the moment I’ve got to work with. So. Moving past “it is what it is” (and it is), and reaching for one new beginning after another (and appropriate pain relief steps, however futile seeming)… I’ve either got to yield to this shitty experience, or let it go and do something else… or find a different alternative. Verbs. Choices. My results vary.

I sip my coffee. Now cold. The darkness of the room is mocked by the appearance of the morning sun, through the window shade. The whir and hum of the computer is dimmed by headphones I’m wearing, although I’m not listening to anything that requires them. I mean, besides the whir and hum of the computer, itself. I sigh out loud. One moment of many, and there is an entire day still ahead and things that want to get done. Those dishes for starters. The aquarium maintenance. Ordinary tasks, life to live – headache or not. I’ll work off some of my irritation with some exercise (Beat Saber? A walk?), and by getting some chores done. I’ll have another cup of coffee, and exchange pleasant words with my Traveling Partner.

I find myself wondering, for a moment, how more primitive humans dealt with things like massive chronic headaches? Did they feel cursed? Possessed? Did they lash out at others? What did primitive human beings know about “self-care”? Was that something they were at all concerned with? “Survival” and “good self-care” seem pretty far apart on the spectrum of things people are concerned with…

I smile when I nudge myself to consider recent lovely moments. My Traveling Partner’s birthday was lovely. I’m grateful for the joy we share. I think of a recent busy work day, and a wee dish of unexpected ice cream delivered during a meeting. I reflect on conversations shared with my partner. Goals. Expectations. Thoughts about future projects and quality of life improvements. The routine matters of living and loving. The delight of an unexpected nap, together, side by side on the recliner sofa.

…Fuck this headache! It is too small a part of my experience to get to call the shots on this day.

I finish my cold coffee, and begin again. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Finding the Chill

December 2, 2020 //
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I don’t mean the icy mornings of autumn in my titular reference to “chill” – I mean that fully relaxed state of being in which self-awareness leads observation to a well-spring of contentment in non-attachment to specific outcomes. 🙂 The chill chill. Calm. Still. At ease.

…My coffee is long gone. My most recent break was little more than an excuse to take an Rx pain reliever. Headache. Arthritis. Tennis elbow? (Well, or something unreasonably similar.) The afternoon sunshine sneaks into the studio on an angle, illuminating a tissue box on my desk, beneath and behind my monitor(s), giving it seeming significance of some kind. It has none. It’s a trick of the light. Like this blog post; it has no import, no real gravitas, no significance, just… words. A moment. A break from routine. A few swallows of water, and a mental “reset button” pressed, moving on to another task. I am here, now. I am okay. Nothing to see here. Nothing much to share. Still…

…And I do mean “still”… I think about a friend’s recent observation that she is struggling to “get a minute of peace”. I think about other similar remarks from friends (and readers – I see you!). Me, too. Sometimes busy is far too busy, chaos is too chaotic, and breaks are a challenge to take properly. Have you tried this…? It’s a good starting point on finding that quiet moment, when quiet moments are hard to come by.

…It helps to have a good pair of headphones, too… 🙂

I pause and take my own advice for two minutes. I end up feeling more refreshed than I expect to…but also already looking forward to the end of the actual day, hours from now, when I can flop down onto my bed and just give in to fatigue quite completely. Taking more breaks, more skillfully, would probably really help with the enduring fatigue that has chased me down since daylight savings time ended. Damn I wish we’d get smarter and stop doing that.

…Work interrupts me interrupting work to grab a break. Yeah… this is more complicated than it looks, sometimes. I breathe. Exhale. Relax. I push my mind firmly off the work topic, and back to writing for a couple minutes. I know taking proper breaks results in more efficient (and faster, and more skillful) work… so I also find myself, often, wondering where the hell I got the reluctance to do it…? Strange, isn’t it? It’s such an important self-care detail, too. I wonder, also, if this bit of weirdness is cultural (unique to American workers?) or regional, or universal, or… and then I find that I’ve descended into yet another work “rabbit hole” – my field of endeavor being to do with how people work, and how much time things take, and how many people a task or job will require to do well… LOL Fuuuuuuck. This is hard. Clearly I need more practice…

…Only now it’s already time to begin (work) again. 😉

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being

Crisp & Frosty

October 22, 2020 //
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This morning was definitely an autumn morning. The deck rail was frosty. The air was crisp and cold. Afternoon is approaching. The day is still cool enough to be quite obviously autumn. The sunshine has a friendly welcoming appearance, but lacks real warmth. (I’m not even complaining, just noticing.)

One sunny morning.

I take a slow relaxed approach to my break. I spend some time thinking about far away friends, old friends, distant family, and letters I mean to write. I promise myself I’ll take time for that… I am doubtful of my commitment to it, although I love writing letters. Strange.

I take a deep, relaxing breath of autumn. I taste the fall leaves and hint of forest and creek on the breeze. I marvel at the blue sky overhead. For a moment, this is more than merely “enough” – it is “everything”. 🙂

I take time to soak in the moment. Then, I begin again.

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Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being
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