Nourishing our souls – that is where we are in this post-Easter period.
Lent is a time for abstaining, reflecting, giving up. And now we feast and enjoy all that this season has. And feasting for our souls allows them to catch up with our over-busy and over-committed bodies and gain some rest and refreshment. Not always is it practical to enjoy a full feast of time and space to ourselves.
But just as we need to eat each day to gain energy and sustenance for our bodies, so too we can carve out little chunks of time daily to meet up again with our souls.
Based tentatively on what I require for my own soul care, here are some smaller morsels of nourishment that might allow a little breathing space for your soul each day or each week:
- Letting go of my mental lists, just for a day
- New and stimulating book to read that feeds and expands my mind (this involved a trip to the local library, in itself a marvellous place of calmness and mind-expansion!)
- A ‘how are you really doing’ conversation with MB with space to properly listen (and re-connect with dreams that were a bit dusty and fusty from lack of use)
- Listening to music that allows me to refocus on what is central to my own soul
- Creating something beautiful and simple to adorn our Easter table – making something new out of something ordinary and old
None of this is rocket science, most of this has been explored here before. But I know I need reminded, and I do this for a living…..so let me gently affirm you in your own work-in-progress of soul catch up.
Take time each day just to stop, breathe, notice what is around you and remember both who you are and what you can do.
Take a little more time each week to do something that invests in you and your soul, and brings nourishment and sustenance.
And take an extended chunk of time whenever it is realistic for you (for me, every three months) to get out of your head completely, get off the conveyor belt entirely and stop stock still until your soul fully reconnects with the rest of you and you become fully whole and fully alive again.
Nourishing our souls – it doesn’t have to take as much time as we think.