When Life Gets in the Way

It happens to us all: we just get busy, or something specific comes along to take up all our energy. At times like these, it's easy to neglect the very things that nourish us, those things that would help us to keep going and to weather the storm.

Unfortunately, this can so easily set up a vicious circle in which we can't get everything done (or can't concentrate enough to get anything done thanks to the current crisis), and our lack of self-care makes this worse while at the same time we feel we can't afford the time for self-care - as though it's some kind of luxury that we only deserve when everything's perfect. Sound familiar? I think it's true of many of us, and can certainly recognise these tendencies in myself.

Spiritual practices such as meditation and rituals can be - should be - part of this self-care and shouldn't be neglected, no matter how desperately we feel the time should be spent on something 'important'. The truth is, if we're neglecting ourselves, everything else will not be, cannot be done satisfactorily. I'm not saying that we should all spend hours a day in meditation or visualisation - that level of practice definitely sounds like a luxury! But actually, once you've established the habit, a few minutes can lift you out of your hamster wheel enough to give you a recharge.