As usual every year, last week we escaped to Ria Formosa, in Algarve, to recharge our batteries and relax on our favorite island. 🏝 We like this annual break because it allows us to disconnect from the rhythms of the city, the noise pollution and relax. We feel a bit like Richard Branson, apart from the fact that we don’t actually own the island.
One evening, we went for a walk to the pier and the view we saw was absolutely wonderful: an almost clear starry sky! 💫🪐
Measuring our size, using the scale of the universe, is always a magical moment when we can cultivate our humility. Each bright star is just a tiny dot in the cosmic immensity. So it is with each one of us. And yet, we are part of this totality and this totality is also part of us.
As I lacked the vocabulary to correctly name everything I saw, at that moment I wished I had a paperback edition of Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” so that I could talk about how small we are in the midst of the constellations.
We took this week off because I was slowly approaching burnout. Taking a week off seemed like a luxury, but the dragging fatigue had already robbed me of my ability to concentrate and be productive for a couple of weeks, so I might as well assume that the break was absolutely urgent and a priority!
But it wasn’t until that evening, as I gazed at the Ria sky, that I realized that it doesn’t matter if I stop for one, two or three weeks. The world keeps turning, the universe keeps expanding and I’m not giving up anything.
On the contrary: I’m allowing myself to contemplate, question, recharge and spend quality time with the most important people in my life.
In today’s society, where we are all busy doing things all the time (regardless of their importance), time for rest, self-care and contemplation is highly undervalued and even frowned upon. We base our value on the results of our work and, for many of us, disconnecting is comparable to an anxiety attack, because we always have so much to do and so little time.
The pressure is so great that we convince ourselves that stopping to restore is a huge waste of time. What do we do instead? We go on vacation, yes, but with our laptop, tablet, cell phone and social media behind us, and we stay connected and complete tasks all the time.
What we have to understand, as a society, is that taking time for ourselves is non-negotiable. It’s essential! Otherwise we’ll all fall into exhaustion, burnout and depression sooner or later.
I know that there is often an inherent fear of stopping. If we keep busy and constantly on the move, the truth can’t catch up with us. In other words, we don’t have time to ask ourselves why we’re so busy, exhausted, exhausted. We don’t question our choices, let alone how they make us feel.
And so deciding to consciously cultivate calm and moments of pause can be quite challenging at first. But if we do, we’ll notice that the anxiety will lose its strength and we’ll gain clarity: about what we’re doing, where we want to go and what really matters in our lives.
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What I’ve discovered about myself when I’m overwhelmed is that, in that condition, I’m a worse mother to my children. And it’s not even worth mentioning the impact on productivity and the quality of my thinking, because that’s a given…
My journey in search of these moments of stillness and calm, to manage anxiety and better navigate situations in which I feel overwhelmed, has led me to do meditation in the morning (and sometimes in the evening, before bed), yoga, walks accompanied by my audiobooks and limiting caffeine to breakfast.
Everyone needs to find the right strategies for them.
So my wish for you is that you find what best suits you and your needs, but that you cultivate moments of pause, when you can disconnect from social media, work, computers and cell phones and be REALLY present with yourself and the important people in your life.
And if you have the chance to get away from the city, take the opportunity to gaze at the starry night sky and allow yourself to feel, as Carl Sagan would say, the chills and vertigo, like a distant memory of falling from a great height, because we are facing the greatest mystery ever!