Colleen's Blog

Coming home from a day at the office, I find to be a delicious time to indulge.  Here's what the indulgence looks like.....inhale half a bag of potato chips; frenzied look at email/mail/; check to see how many family members to cook dinner for while sorting through the fridge to see what falls out and looks good enough to call dinner.  Then there's the long check list in the mind of "to do's" for the evening along with a conniption fit or two about who used the last trash bag and didn't tell anyone.

Does this resemble kindness to self?  It became apparent to me on my short drive home that I didn't feel relaxed.  Continuing to indulge in multi-tasking after 8 long hours is not the picture of being nice to myself.  

Now that it's summer and I'm indoors all day at the office, what I really want to indulge in is being in my garden; picking daisy petals apart; hoping the toad will come out from under the ligularia and say hi.  And their's nothing quite like  a summer evening in my adirondack chair under the river birch tree with a glass of wine.  

So after recognizing this time of day as "stressful and unhealthy" I chose to stop the damaging behavior and adopt the following practice:
--turn off multitasking
--slow down (really, think about moving in slow motion)
--simply be aware of doing one task at a time and that includes one thought at a time

That's the start of being kind to myself. 
Now take a look at your day......determine the most stressful part; determine how you are not being kind to yourself; find alternative ways of being/thinking.  But mostly, slow down.