The idea of letting our souls catch up with our tired, over-worked and weary bodies seems to have struck a chord with many. Indeed, a dear friend gently challenged me to attend to my own soul care over the Easter holiday weekend, and to her I am very grateful. Because I had to stop and recognise that the tiredness I had been feeling was tiredness of soul more than of body.
Sometimes the idea of letting our souls catch up seems too daunting and time consuming – we surely would need oodles of time, and this is neither realistic nor achievable.
But I believe that just as we nourish our bodies with varying quantities of food depending on the circumstances, so too there are layers of nourishment available for our souls. Sometimes we grab a quick snack on the run as a short term energy top up. Most days we have a sit-down meal which affords greater sustenance but still needs repeated on a daily basis. And at times of celebrating, holiday, expanded spaces – full blown feasts leave us, sated, satisfied and restored.
I recently enjoyed the soul equivalent of the latter – a whole day away to myself, on my favourite beach. Walking, thinking, reading, emptying out my brain of clutter and fog, and gradually re-filling it with re-committed priorities, values and certainties.
The investment that had gone into sharing our story of our Black Dog, and the creating of The 10 Things Challenge had, inevitably, taken its toll on my soul. I had been travelling too fast, and needed some catch up time. So I cleared a day in my diary, attended to family needs in advance and asked MB (My Beloved as he is referred to here) to be available for the children, and disappeared for 12 hours.
A whole day of soul care just for me.
I have never done this before, and I think I rather took my Nearest-and-Dearest a wee bit by surprise. But at that specific point, I had time, opportunity and pressing necessity and thus I made it possible.
Over the holiday weekend, it was neither practical nor necessary to repeat this soul feast. But I did enjoy smaller morsels of nourishment for the soul, and in a more sustainable and repeatable way.
Where is your soul currently? Is it far behind your tired and weary body, and running to catch up?
What form of nourishment would provide soul care to you, and how can you fit a morsel or a feast into this week?