One of the joys of being retired is that there are no demands on my time other than those I choose to make.  If I want to stay up all night I can without any worries about having to go do stuff the next day.  I wake up when I wake up, eat when I am hungry, volunteer in my community without any fixed timetable, and socialise on my terms (I’m not a very social person)!

But even with the (Idyllic??) life things can get on top of you and you have to give yourself time to recover.  I’ve recently gone through a period of upheaval and I have been putting my very creaky body through a whole heap of stuff it would prefer not to do and is letting me know in no uncertain terms that I’d better not do that too often!  My creaky stuff keeps me awake at night so there is frequently a lack of sleep added to the complaining joints and muscles, and when you throw in a heap of emotional overwhelm…  well!  It’s time for me to retreat into my shell and do some work on ME!

It’s only now, as I enter my Elder years, that I am truly understanding the need we all have to take ‘me-time’ and to really consider what our fast-paced lives are doing to our bodies, minds, and souls.  For 60 years I have ignored my body when it told me I was overdoing things; I ignored my mental health by hiding behind my autistic mask and showing the world that everything is just hunky-dory.  Religion or spirituality was never a part of my life right up to 2014 when it suddenly became the focal point in my life, and took precedence over every other aspect.  However I look at my life, it is plain to see that I have always been too busy – or crashed out recovering – and that there has never been any form of balance.  It is only now that I am making the time to focus on me. 

We all know nowadays that if you want to maintain the battery in your phone or laptop in the best shape for as long as possible, you need to let it run all the way down every now and then and then charge it all the way up.  The equivalent with my body is that I would run the batteries completely dry and then partially charge them just enough to get through the next task.  I never took the time to fully recharge.  I didn’t know what was needed to do that properly.

Now, as I get older, I find that I need to recharge my batteries very frequently.  I need nanny naps.  I need, many times each day, to just stop and look at the beauty in the world and breathe it in.  I need to escape from people.  And I am discovering that doom-scrolling on You Tube brings about a pin-point focus that manages to exclude the entire world around me.  I suspect that this last ‘need’ is an autistic trait I am, now just recognising for what it is and that although I am sitting in a chair doing very little, I am absolutely not rechargine my batteries! 

What is a good way to recharge those batteries?  It’s actually really simple and I strongly recommend that you start now.  However old or young you are, you can start to replenish your body.  The ancients Chinese knew about the energy that flows through us – they called it Qi.  The Japanese call it Ki, and in India it is known as Prana.  It is a Universal Life Force energy and we can access it in so many ways:

• Take a deep breath and imagine breathing in this life force with the oxygen in the air.  Imagine sending this life force energy around your body – especially to the bits that hurt!
• Walk bare-foot on the earth and draw in the energy up from the ground.  Imagine it rising up through your feet, legs, torso, and right up through the crown of your head. 
• Sit quietly in meditation bringing the energy in to yourself with each breath.  Imagine it moving down to your solar plexus and being stored there, ready to be drawn on when needed.
• Talk to a tree.  Trees can help us be aware of our connection to everything else.
• Talk to yourself.  Tell yourself how amazing you are.

How do you recharge your batteries?  How often do your spend time in self-care?  I’d love to hear in the comments. 

Ashirvad Shanti

Auri’An