DAY 4/10 #embodiment first
All three of us are sick now and everything comes to a halt—no weekend shift for Brad, no karate for me, no swim lesson for River. It amazes me how the impulse to “steal time” overtakes. My boys are sick in bed, I’m sick on the couch in front of the fire, and still…that drive to do-do-do hijacks my brain.
It sounds something like this: You don’t work on weekends so don’t do any reading for work and obviously no email (I sign out of all devices at night and on weekends), but you could finish reading those two magazines you’ve been wanting to pass along for four months. And you could create a holiday card on Shutterfly. And then after that you could probably make some soups to freeze or review your karate kata very slowly so you don’t work up a sweat. And then you could re-read that essay you wrote on deadline yesterday before it gets published in 48 hours, and then…
Who let HER in? Good lord, someone tell her to CHILL OUT! 
But here’s where things get wobbly. How do I even begin to #breakthehabit of hyper-productivity? I think back to DAY 1 and work my way back through the list: listen to your body first, turn on your devices only when you choose consciously, play in the face of change instead of panic.
Ok. That’s easy enough. My body says, “Duh, you’re sick. Be still. Drink tea. Don’t go to karate class.” My phone says…well, it says nothing, because it’s off and I’m keeping it that way. But my laptop does indeed want me to make a holiday card. I give myself a pass—maybe that’s something I can do with River if we both feel a little perkier later today. It would be fun to review photos from this year together. And if I think about playing instead of panicking, I can tell myself something like this: “Use all this lying around and staring at the ceiling and hacking up phlegm as a chance to sing a silly song together, or make silly faces.” I have to admit, that sounds a lot better than practicing karate kata in my unheated basement.
And so DAY 4’s mantra is this: When in doubt, chill out.
Here’s what that looks like this morning, baggy sweatshirt, blood-shot eyes, and all.
#gratitude #takingiteasy #embodiment #authorlife #realitycheck
