It’s been so long since I’ve been here. I’ve sat down with my laptop, opened up this blog and started writing so many times over the past few months. But then, for whatever reason, decided not to publish my posts. I have been cocooning and feeling very protective of myself, my energy, my thoughts and my feelings. I’m not sure where that is coming from, I just feel it’s important to honor it. Work is keeping me busy these days. The good kind of busy. The kind of busy doing the things that fills my soul. In my downtime, I just want to be home. The world opened up so suddenly that I don’t think my nervous system was ready for it. The island is FULL of tourists and my favorite thing to do is stay away from them. I appreciate seeing them in the studio and in my classes though. I just have zero desire to be in the traffic with them or on the beach with them. I say that knowing full well that I have no idea what REAL traffic is like. I am not a city girl nor will I ever be. I love people, but I love solitude. I crave it. In less than one month, my oldest son is going off to college and my youngest son will start 8th grade. In real school. Not the dining room school of Covid times. And just like that, I am going to have time in my house where I am all alone. I can’t even remember what that feels like. I just know how much I used to enjoy it. Please don’t get me wrong. I have loved the extra time I was given with my boys. I am grateful that we have every resource available to us and it hasn’t been difficult to feed my family, get school work done, or any of the other challenges that so many people have faced. My soul just needs silence and space. It’s a both/and situation.

Last week I got hit with a summer cold. This came on the backside of two insanely busy and full weeks. I am certain the Universe was telling me to stop. To slow down. To be still. I stopped. I had no choice. I picked up a new book I had just bought and went to bed with it. The book was Cultish: The Language of Fanatacism. If you are fascinated by the language of cults like I am, this book is must read. Then I proceeded to go down every cult rabbit hole mentioned in the book. I watched so many documentaries, read so many articles and added so many more books to my online shopping cart. After spending time on the phone with a friend, sharing all of my new cult knowledge, she assured me that watching and reading all that was probably the exact reason I was still sick. She probably wasn’t wrong, and so I switched gears. Kind of. I started watching all of the Netflix shows I could find about the Orthodox Jewish community, After a solid day of this, I came out of the bedroom and declared to my husband that I wanted a Sabbath so I could tell everyone “Good Shabbos.” If you know the man you know the look he gave me. He told me I was ridiculous and 1. I wasn’t jewish and 2. I am not allowed to walk around saying Good Shabbos and 3. I was being ridiculous. Which I probably was. But also, I felt like I was on to something.

After our conversation, I went downstairs to my Fortress of Solitude to find something new to read. I picked a random book off of the shelf of books I own that I haven’t actually read. I figured it was time to switch things up and move on from the cults and the Orthodox Jews. I went with a book on feminine spirituality. I opened it up right to the middle and THIS was the page staring back at me. Well, well, well. I hear you Universe. Loud and clear.

This is how Friday became my Sabbath. It may have come my way in the most ridiculous and hilarious way, but here we are.

Friday is the one day every week that I keep my schedule completely clear from all work activities. My one full day off each week. I fully get the ridiculousness of declaring “I need a Sabbath day” on the backside of an entire week of rest. But also, why not? Why not start now? When I woke up Friday morning, I turned my phone completely off. Maybe that’s no big deal for you, but it is a huge deal for me. Then, because, out of sight, of mind is a real thing, I put the phone in a drawer in my closet. Then I lived my life. The first two hours were weird and honestly it felt like the only thing I was doing, was NOT using my phone. But I quickly got into it and went about my business sans phone. I’ll be honest with you. It was glorious. It felt like freedom. No notifications. No distractions. It seems like an incredibly small thing, but it was an incredibly big thing. For me. This is the key piece to the solitude I crave. The piece that I have been missing. The things I worried about during those first two hours without my phone never happened. Nobody needed me. There was no emergency that only I could fix. My business didn’t suffer from my 24 hour technology hiatus. I answered the emails on Saturday instead of Friday. Brilliant.

I teach a lot about self care. About honoring our own needs. I am always in search of the balance that seems to be just out of my reach. The constant going and doing until it becomes too much followed by the crash and a period of retreat and recovery. This is my norm. It may very well always be my norm. But maybe not. This weekly day of disconnecting from the outside world to reconnect to my soul may just be the beginning. I have no idea. Maybe one day is enough. It’s a good place to start, for sure.