Showing posts with label solitude.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label solitude.. Show all posts

Monday, August 23, 2010

7 Tips to Create a Space of your Own

Everyone needs to have a room of one’s own, as V. Woolf said. Of course it doesn’t have to be a physical room. It can be a mental, emotional or spiritual room. It can be an apartment and it can be a house.

It can be a cabinet, a shrine, the bathroom, or a deep breath while you stand before the ocean.

In order to succeed at life, in order to find balance, to follow your calling, to step back when the moment so requires and reflect … you need your own space. Only by embracing solitude can we also fully embrace relationships and all their intricacies and nuances. And by relationships I mean professional, intimate, parent-child, love, friendship, family, casual and more …

7 tips to create that space:

- Set time aside daily or weekly at least to be alone with your own thoughts and feelings.

- Take yourself on a date. Nobody else should be with you. Go to a bookstore, a thrift store, a museum, the movies, whatever tickles you.

- Turn off your phone, computer, doorbell, and read a book for a half hour.

- Go for a long walk or a run, alone.

- Tell your children, your significant other and your family members that you need a few minutes of alone time.

- Take up a manual activity – carpentry, beading, knitting, drawing … This frees your mind.

- Write in your journal, or work on a vision board.

Solitude can be nurturing, replenishing, energizing, reflective and many more things. It soothes the soul.

www.lorrainecladish.com

Monday, September 28, 2009

If you want to meet the love of your life ...

A friend shared a quote by Byron Katie with me recently: "If you want to meet the love of your life, look in the mirror". I cannot agree more. It is fair to own that I am the love of my life since it is the only person who is with me 24 hours a day. And if this does not hold true, that means I am disengaged from myself, and that in turn signifies that I am not living fully. I suspect this to be true for everybody.
I have two daughters who are my engines, but yet as Khalil Gibran said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
So, again, I am left - as we all are - with myself.
I am fortunate to enjoy solitude - but it is also important not to isolate from the world, and not to hide from it, no matter what challenges it throws our way.
By cherishing and treating ourselves as the precious being we are, we will be filled enough with love to sustain ourselves and to spill into everything we do and everyone we meet.
Look in the mirror. Who do you see?
Hopefully someone you admire, support and love unconditionally.

www.lorrainecladish.com