Taking Time For Myself

Sunday 21June09 11:22am

I took the month of April off from people. I went to work of course and was personable but my free time I saved for me only. I didn't make plans with friends and turned down any invitations. It wasn't easy to make people understand. It's funny that we can understand when a girlfriend has a new boyfriend and disappears to go build that new relationship but we can't see the same value when a person needs to disappear to build a relationship with ones self. Needless to say, it was difficult for some people to understand when I said, "I'll see you in May."

I'm a prime candidate to go on a silent retreat and thrive because of it. But that's just me. Most people I tell about it look at me like I'm crazy.

I didn't know what it was that I needed specifically other than time for myself. But as the month of April moved on into May and I was enjoying the time so much that I continued for the month of May, I realized that I needed to find my voice. Not necessarily my writing voice because I'm pretty clear about that but that other inside voice. My own authority. I find that my mind goes a mile a minute and I often hear what others have said to me, what others tell me what they think I should do. After a while it buries your own voice. You get away from what do you want for yourself and waste time fighting against advice that you never asked for.

Recently I said to a girl friend, "It's great that you have all these wonderful ideas for me but it's not your voice that I need to listen to, it's my voice." I know it is something that I will have to repeat.

During my time to myself I discovered that I have an insane amount of journals and letters and poems and dream journals that I have kept over a good 20 year period. I found my mother's journals, letters and poems as well. Sweet Jesus, it's a treasure trove that will take me years to look through. I got back into keeping track of my nightly dreams after reading 'Dreamways of the Iroquois' by Robert Moss. I forgot how much better I feel when I have some contact with my subconscious mind. And I wrote poems, a crazy amount of poems. I wrote 74 poems in April and 41 poems in May, thanks to Robert Lee Brewer at Poetic Asides.

He has a great poetry challenge every April, well this was the 2nd year in a row. He offers daily prompts to write a poem a day for the month of April. I was having so much fun writing a poem a day that I decided to go back to the year before and pick up those prompts as well. So I ended up writing two poems a day and an extra poem on Tuesdays. For May I picked up Robert's daily prompts from November of 2008 when the challenge was focused on writing a book of poems on one theme. I used those prompts to write poems in character.

I treated the poetry writing as a stream of consciousness and was thrilled to see what was in my mind on any given day. For the poems in character, those were more guided in that I had to ask, how would Kali or Rachel answer this prompt.

There are many gifts to be found in taking time out for yourself. It's not easy to commit to because people go crazy, get insulted, become needy... but if you can stick to it, for yourself.

My gifts from that time include: finding my journals and mom's journals; getting back to poetry which is what I started writing at 10 years old; keeping a dream journal which has always made me feel more centred, and over all a peace of mind that I've come out of and through the storm of the last couple years. Everything got so dark and painful and negative and excruciating for a good two years and at the end of all that I feel like I've come back to what truly makes me me and hearing it from within me. Giving myself permission to be me.

It's great that people have all these wonderful ideas for us but it's not their voices that we need to listen to, it's our own voice.

EY