I woke up yesterday morning and my brain and body had conspired to take it real slow.
I mean, everything was taking ages to do. My morning routine was being stretched over a much longer period than usual, it was so frustrating. Saturday is my get-things-done day, the day I do what I can to make the house a little better, to sort paperwork, to attend to the garden. I've got things to do and cannot take it slow because Sunday is my rest day and I am not going back on this
one.Â
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My resolution to return to the universal and ancestral idea of having a day of sabbath
(a day of religious observance and abstinence from work, kept by Muslims on Friday, Jews from Friday evening to Saturday evening, and Christians on Sunday) is turning out to be the best thing I have done in recent times. Brain, body and spirit have embraced it because it is exactly what they need: a day of guilt-free rest, a day that feels long because there is no technology to swallow my time and no chore to be done. What a wonderful feeling it is to sit comfortably with a real book and get
engrossed in the characters' story! I let go of my own daily grind and problems, and it feels like I am the protagonist's confidante. I try to remember that it is also a day for family and friends and not resent having to give up some of that time, but, honestly, I like it better when I have time to myself.
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This means that on Saturday, things need to get done. I haven't got time to take it
slowly! Or do I? I had no choice but to follow the pace because they run the show, yet I thought that if I went along with them, I could still steer them in the right direction. "We'll start and you do it at your own pace, dear body and brain," I assured them.
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With a clear list of things that I 'want' to get done (see how I didn't say 'must' get
done), I started but not before allowing plenty of time in the morning for the machine to do what it usually does in a shorter time. I am done shaming myself for not doing things the way I expect them to be done. Instead, I love myself enough to work with my biorhythms, my circumstances and whatever gets in the way. The intention of the day is to just leave things a bit better than they were before
starting.Â
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Rather than looking at the mountain of things to do as a whole, I set small specific
tasks and let the synergy do the rest. For instance, I wanted to reorganise a bathroom cupboard that holds cleaning products and "backstock" of toiletries, but instead of thinking that I needed to clean the bathroom AND reorganise the cupboard, I told myself, it will be nice to have that cupboard well organised and got to work after spraying some cleaning product on the sink and in the toilet. Once the cupboard was organised, all I needed to do was sponge the sink, swirl the toilet brush and
wipe the mirror. Done! The bathtub got cleaned during the next shower and the floor when I did the floor for the other rooms. I even reorganised the cabinet.
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Setting the small task of reorganising the cupboard, knowing that there would be
hidden tasks being done in the background is how I trick the part of my brain that is resistant to big efforts so that it can save energy and stay in default mode, that part that is responsible for calling ourselves lazy — we're not. That mechanism within all human beings to preserve energy needs to be tricked to get things done. All it wants to know is that we are just going to make things a little
better.
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In the end, synergy did the trick and I got going for four hours with 15 min breaks
every 45 minutes. Afterwards, I enjoyed a leisurely evening, feeling calm and satisfied by the order around me. I just needed to get started and one little task was the ticket.
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Feeling tired and slow was how I started the day and I respected that. I even had a
nap before lunch. However, I was able to change the story for the rest of the day. See if you can change the story your body and brain are telling you next time they want to procrastinate. Be gentle then get going! Use the idea of just making things a little better.
