My shortest post yet -- which I hope is practical and useful for all of us. Unplugging to me is more than checking out and taking a bath (although it's my favorite pastime, especially with gallons of salt and baking soda and essential oils). Unplugging is about releasing myself from the connections I've made to behaviors, habits and people that don't serve me anymore.
To UNPLUG, make a list of three things you do that aren't serving you anymore.
These are my personal examples. For yourself, stick to the first three that come to mind, and write them down on a piece of paper that you will keep somewhere visible:
1. I am too quick to say "no" to my child.
2. My temper flares when I'm tired and/or trying to do more than one thing at a time.
3. I'm still holding a grudge against that person.
Recharging, for me, is about creating new, nourishing, nurturing connections -- within my own body and with others -- and to revive my creative life from the inside out by constructing new pathways toward - and from - my own heart.
To RECHARGE, write down what you can do instead of each of those three things. The key is a new pathway, a new trajectory, a constructive direction for your actions.
Examples, respectively:
1. From now on I will give my child something else to focus on instead of closing the door with an immediate "no."
2. I will not try to do more than one task at a time when I'm tired, and if I notice my temper heating up, I will take one breath and hold myself like a lady until the heat passes. And then I will offer myself some Reiki or Pranic Healing to reboot my system, even if it's just one hand on my own heart to remind myself of where I am.
3. I will spend a few moments each day this week seeing something of myself in the person against whom I'm holding a grudge. Anyone we find troubling or frustrating is just reminding us of something we don't want to see in ourselves. And when we fearlessly place it in the fire of our attention until it burns away, we're left with nothing but compassion for that person, and even more sweetly, for ourselves.
Hopefully the examples I've offered here are enough to spark your creativity. This is not the typical way we look at "unplug" or "recharge" where we remove ourselves from the world and make it easy to release and relax. We are making concrete shifts that require our attention while we're IN the world, fully engaged, mid-interaction, entrenched in any challenge.
This is where we can all truly learn how to "unplug and recharge."
" ... we transform ourselves, in one sense, by transforming every obstacle, large and tiny, into opportunities to practice kindness, generosity, compassion, forbearance, tenacity, discipline, and in essence, skillful means. This is the daily magic ... the blessing force." -Lee Lozowick