Totally vibing on personalized sabbath practices—with sabbath to mean a rest or a break from… well anything I want a rest from, most importantly from the constraints I place on myself. Sabbath as “…a time to revel in the beauty and delight of simply being.”*
One time I took a sabbath from tech. For a day, 24-hours. Looking back on the experience, it was very cleansing, relaxing even. But I realized that I still used my computer (because I had been writing a lot at the time and was hellbent on keeping up my writing practice) and my Apple Watch (because how could I not use it to track my exercise).
Only in retrospect can I see that this wasn’t a real tech sabbath. It was a partial tech sabbath. Which is still better than staying totally plugged in for-ev-er. But come on, I can do the real deal. I can unplug and get weird for 24-hours. And I fully intend to. And I’d like to do so weekly. There we go, intention set.
What’s next? I need more sabbath from others, mostly Dave. With COVID, we spend much of our time at home: working/sleeping/eating/hanging/all of the things. There’s not really anywhere to go, per se. But we can figure something out.
This is something we’ve been talking about lately—grabbing solo time. I’ve had a few outings recently where I’m out of the house for a good chunk of time, and when I get back he’s so relaxed and has a crazy story about a creative experience he had in solo land. I want this experience too!
Somehow it’s not the same if I go to the coffee shop for my alone time, even if the little outdoor patio space is mostly just me. I’m in public and not getting weird in the way that only happens when I’m truly alone. I specialize in strange dances, laughing at myself, and putzing about as I seriously ponder something that’s eating at me. It’s kind of hard to do that stuff at a coffee shop.
This is an interesting one, getting more solo time with COVID hanging over our heads. I’ll have to work out the particularities with Dave, but let’s go ahead and count this as a second intention set. More solo-me time.
What else? Sabbath from being too serious about work. This is a big one for me. I’m about to close out a big work project, freeing me up for whatever’s next. My options are pretty open, and while I don’t have the instinct to go into a super focused, super serious job search mode, I would like to get more intentional about figuring out next steps.
Honestly, I just want the next project, the next job, whatever it might be—I want it to be obvious. Not suddenly obvious like “here’s a perfect job”, but obvious in the sense that I’ve been open to seeing the path as it opens up before because I’m allowing things to unfold effortlessly. As opposed to manhandling and forcing my way into the work world.
I’m… not so good at effortlessly allowing life to happen. Habituating some kind of work sabbath, so I can play with work-related concepts and skills—that seems like a good place to start. I do want to explore working with my qualitative research and writing skills, so I’ll need to find some ways to get weird and play with those.
Actually, this kind of public journaling helps open me up to more playful approaches to work. Sharing this kind of writing makes me feel less precious about my writing, generally. The approach I take to these writing sessions isn’t quite as playful as I’d like though.
I suppose I need to give myself permission to write in a way that feels totally, completely playful and free. Usually when I go this route, I end up writing fiction, which is curious. Maybe my work sabbath ritual will need to simply be free form writing - whatever comes up, I follow the path… effortlessly.
So, I’d like to start a writing practice: playful writing explorations. Daily. It’s possible that I can use this space and just let this space be more free-form. Or I can start a 2nd journal, perhaps. Boom, third intention, set.
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- Quote from the book “The Power of Ritual” by Casper ter Kuile. This post inspired by the book and the sections on sabbath from tech, others, and work.