Given the pressures and opportunities on us as individuals and as a community of faith, the question arises: How do we take care of ourselves , our families , and the world that is given to us …without damaging ourselves or the work we’re called to do? How do we nurture ourselves, each other and our “beloved community” as we speak truth to power, to each other?…How do we engage in the enormous needs around us and practice kindness toward ourselves.? Especially during the the potential busyness of the holidays?
A friend remarked that sometimes at the end of our meeting for worship during circle announcements, she is both pleased at the range of important activities that members/attenders of our community are involved in, and exhausted by the multiple choices for service and possibility that the announcements lay in front of her. How might we navigate with integrity and love all the demands and opportunities that seem to bombard us every day?
Another friend once remarked that if one is truly called to a task there is a quality of joy at the center of it, even in the midst of the hard work required. So it seems that self care requires careful discernment about what is ours to do. So what questions/queries might assist in our discernment about enlightened self care when the community’s needs are high and the world’s pain and possibility callout to us?.
Consider the following;
1. “What am I grateful for?” Just asking the question can change the dynamic.
2. Can I say “no” and keep searching for what to say “yes” to?
3. What drains my energy and what gives me energy?
4. What would it look like/feel like to be a careful and conscious consumer of news/media/internet?
5. What is the cost of going for “perfection” rather than”good enough”?