There it goes again. The time I thought I had, filled with intention yet lost to the expanse of scrolling, consuming, numbing, perpetuating the distance I feel from God, from my life, from myself. I’ve been running for a long time now, not in the physical let’s get fit kind of way… no, in my soul just keeps finding other things to fill it with. The kind of white bread filling satiating momentarily but doesn’t actually bring nourishing. The kind that fades rather than fills the void. Yet, there is this yearning we all hear from time to time – the thing we know we need but often we push away the still whisper to draw near, to lean in and respond to what our souls already know to be true: We need quiet. We need space. We need to listen. We need solitude.
It was an accidental gift really, the year my hubby had to travel to Hong Kong across our anniversary. The invitation there to join him – though I politely declined: the fear of travelling into an unknown country, language… well unknown every. thing. not to mention leaving our two under two’s behind. So in came this blissful opportunity to go away on my own. To nurture the whisper my soul knew all too well. The permission to have a moment to myself. The permission to self-care on a new level. A few days of blissful, yet terrifying moments alone invited me into what has now become an annual opportunity for the deep filling kind of solitude I need.
I’m an introvert, so I super love my own space to a point. But when you put 72 hours of alone time out there after having not a minute to yourself for the first years of motherhood… it’s like raw, soul scratching, super stretching. It’s like a forced growing, opening you up to something you knew you needed but were too afraid to go there. The mum guilt of leaving life behind for a few days. The “what will I fill it with anyway?” vibes… The longed-for space to escape and find inner connection, was accompanied with the silence, which brings a deafening reality of what was hidden or pushed down. The oneness meant meeting with my heart, my mind and my soul and holding space for what was surfacing. The discomfort was palatable. I remember my first retreat I has it all planned out. Like every. minute. And I could’ve slept for three days straight tbh. But thanks to possums dancing all night on the roof I was more tired when I came home to well. life. and life to the full! One year I lined up all the Christmas movies I would watch on Netflix at night, as I worked on my social media and business strategy, whilst simultaneously reading two books and bushwalking when the sun came up. I know. I have high expectations. I filled every moment of my solitude, because I was going to rock it. And you can get a lot done in 72 hours sans toddlers.
But now, I realise there’s only so much you can do when being is required. These calls into solitude became an end of year survival thing, where I’d café and nature hop, dwelling in my thoughts and plans, reflection tools ready and the doing component of a personal retreat met all the boxes ticked. Work. Strive. Somehow try to get this thing “right”. It was filling but tiring somehow. Then last year in what was a desperate cry for space and down time I booked my annual retreat. Then bushires. Naturally, I cancelled my trip the night before I was to leave and we went into the typical pre-Christmas chaos. So I reluctantly began creating within our rhythm pockets of space for solitude in my week to week. It is here I realised how deprived I was in my day to day. This dawning revelation perhaps the intention of an annual retreat was meant to be more an infilling to overflow than a recovery space. What I needed was to incorporate a slower pace – overall. I need to invite open space into my schedule. I cannot actively pursue longevity without prioritising these practices in my every day, mundane, going about all the things life. I needed to bring this deep restful state into my waking and walking, and I would cause a shift in how I manage time, energy and pace impacting our entire family for the greater.
So I started small. I used practical steps to create space in my day to day. Granted I work for myself, so there is a lot more flexibility, but even then, rhythms have been essential to make our family and business work. Some days it moves – we operate out of a restful flow. In the past, I’d found ‘routine’ too rigid and I would be very hard on myself had I not met the higher than realistic expectations to get it all done, and feel calm and centered. So last year I decided I wanted to become a morning person again, to walk and pray, to clear my head to win the day. Which meant I had to go to bed earlier. So I had to find ways to gear my body down for sleep. Simple steps of reducing tech time and opening space in the evening meant creating a small string of cues in enabling me to fall asleep earlier and more easily. It’s been a slow unwinding, and I’ve found a peace deeper than I can ever describe as I’ve slowed down. Naturally I woke up earlier, ready to start the day, less groggy, I walked my life awake. Those mornings brought such clarity and a sweetness into my soul I never knew I needed until I arrived. I found a flow – one that worked for me and my family.
This is an ongoing discovery, perpetually adding new and small rhythms to our weeks. This year I started Sabbath. Wednesdays you will not hear from me. I switch off – literally. I grew into forgetting my phone and scrolling was part of my old life’s coping strategy. Sabbath has become a haven of connection – to nature, to Jesus, to my heart. It’s my holy and set apart day of the week where Jesus and I hang. It looks different every week and I am still learning, very much so, how to move from doing between school hours and simply be. This setting aside is a finding joy again kind of deal. It’s journaling and journeying. It’s listening and leaning in. It’s embracing the moment and seeing the present – what a gift presence is. I still get too fast somedays, but I don’t need to seek stimulation or permission to slow down again. This restfulness hasn’t come from a doing of solitude. But in having moments of being… without my phone. without noise. without structure. without purpose. without pursuit. just without…
Often we ignore what is best for us in pursuit of what we think will be a short term fix. As leaders, and lovers of life, we know longevity is the answer. We need to get away and run toward the calling of our souls to come and sit a little while. To engage. To tune in His voice, and our own inner voice. What would it look like if we came into life’s everyday moments in just being?