My yoga teacher says (weekly) that resting is the most important part of yoga. I have yet to internalize that message, either for yoga or life in general. I am a champion sleeper, but a horrible rester. My comprehension of the term “leisure time” is severely lacking. Believe it or not, I have actually gotten better at leisure over the years, but I still have a long way to go.
The evil twin of the flexibility that comes with freelancing is never feeling like one is truly off work. The one exception is the 24 hour work moratorium that I set from Friday to Saturday evening. I feel perpetually “on” and obligated to work the remaining 144 hours (except for those hours when I am sleeping). I am always looking for a professional reason to justify reading my feeds, articles or books. When I need to take a break from one task (e.g. setting up the e-commerce component of my website) I do so my doing something else on my to do list (e.g. write blog posts). I rejoiced on the day I started selling my wrapped headphones and everything crafty automatically became work-related.
I know that creativity requires time away from active stimuli. More than once I have found myself mired in the muck of my mind, seemingly unable to think my way out of a paper bag. That is where my new exercise regimen comes in. I do get that creative processing time I need between my daily yoga practice and my commitment to doing something that is both vigorous and aerobic at least 3 times a week But I have an even better way for me (your mileage may seriously vary one this one) to think and process information and ideas. Prepping meals.
Baking bread used to be my thinking time, but once I mastered slow rises, I stopped interacting with the dough enough to really make a difference. But chopping veggies for dinner? Slicing apples for a cobbler? That’s my time. It is like meditation to me. My mind feels absolutely free to wander. Every once in a while I leave dinner half-prepped because I have solved a problem I have been working on for a while or have an idea I really just need to capture and get so wrapped up in my new task that I forget to go back to the kitchen.
When I used to be a dairy farmer, I would spend hours packing cheese into containers. That was great thinking time. Unfortunately, between milking goats twice daily, making, packing and delivering cheese, I had very little energy left at the end of the day to follow up on those great ideas. My ideal retreat would be me spending several hours a day prepping food in a beautiful setting. Then I would have the rest of the day to play with my ideas and end the day with a delicious meal.