Are you tending your body, mind and spirit self? In Denise Linn’s book Unlock the Secret Messages of Your Body (Hay House), she asks readers to make a list or pie chart of their personal categories and to rank them according to time spent on each. These include work, recreation, personal hygiene, meals, friends, shopping, and so on. Then, when it is all on paper in front of you, you can better assess if that’s where you want to be spending your time or if something needs to be tweaked. It’s a wonderful exercise to see where you want to be in your life and to make your way closer towards your goals. It’s also a great way to see how important the health of your body, mind and spirit is to you. If you were to do this exercise, where would you rank your health or your spirit?
I once totalled the amount of time I would need to record my dreams, exercise, journal, and meditate and transition between each activity and concluded that I could use a minimum of 2-3 hours of “me” time every morning just to stay healthy, creative and soulful. Do I take the time to do all that? Not daily but I do a lot, and short of getting up at 5 am, I tend to rotate what I do on any given day. It was overwhelming to see it all added up in front of me, but I chucked it down to what was both reasonable and sincerely desired.
It’s not a selfish act to take care of yourself yet there are still plenty of women who put everyone else’s needs ahead of their own. We can simply lift our gaze to Michelle Obama’s pedestal for a role model in making healthy living a priority, while still being active, caring and accomplished. Yet, she has to get up mighty early to fit it all in! Of course if we all had the staff she does, just imagine what we could accomplish! Nevertheless, before becoming the First Lady she was meeting friends at the gym at 4:30 am! Even in the regular world many forward-thinking companies make exercise time and facilities easily accessible to their employees, yet for those who don’t have a gym as the perk (although that perk isn’t always a “perk”….I personally hate gyms) that comes with our jobs, do we take the time to make our body, mind and spirit a priority when left to our own devices?
By charting your day or your week, as Denise suggests in her book, you can take control of your life in a way that brings health close at hand. But don’t stop with your physical health. Do this for your spiritual health as well. This exercise can be done for any area of one’s life including one’s dreams. You can see how often you actually catch a dream and see how and if you’d like to change the amount of time you give to your dream life. We spend approximately one third of our life sleeping and the fact is, it is not “wasted” time unless we never pay attention to that part. How much time do you give to understanding your inner life? Dreams are the easiest way to access your inner world and understanding them is not just for those in therapy! Without working on your dreams, there will always be a part of you- at least one third of you- that is unknown. Whether you want to make more time for body, mind or spirit, or ALL of you, go and make yourself a priority!
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